In a series of recent articles and books, the Catholic theologian William T. Cavanaugh has leveled a profound challenge to the modern state. He critiques its pretentions to be a savior and to provide social cohesion. He proposes that the church should provide resistance to, and even be an alternative to, the modern state. While Cavanaugh draws creative insights from Augustine's political thought, he misuses that thought in ways that dismiss the positive goods provided by the government. Cavanaugh also makes a positive contribution to Catholic social ethics by employing “the social imaginary” to describe the modern state, but overemphasizes the states historical distinctiveness, downplaying what it has in common with earlier forms of political community, namely the pursuit of bodily well-being and social organization.

Despite Pope John Paul II's call for “intense dialogue” between theology and science that excludes “unreasonable interpretations” of Scripture, ecclesial statements on gender and sexuality—including John Paul II's own works—deploy an interpretation of the literal meaning of Genesis to perpetuate a complementarian anthropology that contradicts scientific insights about the human body. After illustrating the implications of this hermeneutical inconsistency, this article presents Jesuit astronomer William Stoeger's theological method and hermeneutics of the full flourishing of life as an alternative approach, which fulfills John Paul II's vision for dialogue and paves a way toward reimagining church teachings on gender and sexuality.

This article posits that the hermeneutical approach of Peter Hünermann toward the “text” of the Second Vatican Council possesses the capacity to dissolve disputes that have arisen from a fissure among Catholics about the meaning of the council. At the heart of Hünermann's approach is a bold attempt to read the council's genre in light of “constitutional texts” that have played an important role in founding and reconciling different types of communities in the modern world.

In his recent works Michael Novak offers an affirmation of “democratic capitalism” based on a Christian personalist perspective. Novak's scholarship has received increasing attention since the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, and particularly since the recent encyclical Centesimus Annus. In that encyclical John Paul II offered a qualified affirmation of market economies. This article addresses an important question: to what extent can a Christian personalist social theory be used to offer an affirmation of a market economy, and how might it offer vision and constructive critique? I initiate a creative dialogue between the personalism of Emmanuel Mounier and Michael Novak's presentation of democratic capitalism. I argue that Novak has shed important light on the positive moral aspects of a market system, but I identify and emphasize the important remaining areas for moral concern.

The revelations Julian of Norwich received in 1373 provided her with unique insight that transformed her understanding of the Christian faith and prompted her to re-imagine traditional notions of sin, God's love, and salvation in new ways. Her re-interpretation of these doctrines causes great anxiety for Julian inasmuch as what she learned from her showings was at odds with church teachings, particularly her new understanding of God's plan of salvation for all humanity. I argue that Julian develops a theology of universal salvation characterized by an open understanding of who will participate in the salvation of Christ, and this openness places Julian in tenuous relationship with the church of her day. Ultimately, Julian's trust that “all will be well” allows her to push beyond the tension between her insight and church teachings, in effect challenging the official teaching of no salvation for those outside the church.

The sweeping movement of student protest over racial discord on university campuses reflects intractable divisions in the public square. Catholic higher education is obligated by its mission to address this interpersonal situation with practices of healing as integral to its formational end. This article approaches Thomas Groome's shared Christian praxis as a “pedagogy of caritas” in light of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. The focusing activity and five movements of shared Christian praxis enact the dynamic structure of Bernard Lonergan's cognitional and existential interiority. Friendship praxis sets the conditions for the possibility of self-transcendence and healing for a commodified and increasingly diverse community of learners. A pedagogy of friendship is a promising integrative teaching strategy for a Catholic university in our divided time.

The Catholic Worker Movement, widely known for its critique of violence and capitalism in American culture, has largely neglected racism. This seems surprising because its urban houses of hospitality, staffed mostly by middle-class whites, provide material resources disproportionately to impoverished African Americans. The movement's embodiment as a white movement and the failure of its founders (Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin) to prioritize racial justice has impeded its ability to adequately confront racism. This article contrasts the ways in which racism was addressed by the founders with the way it was addressed by two prominent African American Catholic Workers. The article includes a new Catholic Worker narrative to explain the movement's relationship with racial justice and offer suggestions for ways the movement can mine its own rich resources to become an authentically anti-racist movement.

The debate about salvation history brings to the surface a variety of issues, problems, and proposals that can be designated with some justice postmodern. In an effort to explore these contested issues, I offer a composite portrait of the meaning and uses of the concept of salvation history, drawing attention to its importance for recent Roman Catholic theology. I then review the various kinds of criticism leveled against salvation history models in an attempt to show that Peter Hodgson's contention is warranted: that is, the concept salvation history is problematic both as a category for interpreting the scriptural witness and as a pivotal category for fundamental and systematic theology. Thus, postmodernity, understood in broad terms, should mean the end of salvation history. The final section will explore how the legitimate concerns that generated interest in salvation history models can be recast in light of these broader postmodern approaches.

This essay is an exercise in practical theology, the theological reflection arising out of and in response to the church's actual situation. Practical theology insists that it is not enough to analyze the church's actual situation with deductive, ahistorical theological principles, but that it is necessary, first, to uncover and, then, reflect critically on the actual situation to test it for the presence of the Spirit, relevance, and significance in light of the gospel. Practical theology grows out of the relationship between theoria and praxis which, for the church, is the relationship between faith and praxis. The essay argues that to recognize scientifically the church's actual situation and to perform the required theological reflection practical theology requires sociology.

The essay explores, therefore, the relationship between practical theology and the data of sociological research. It also examines the theological realities, sensus fidei and reception, and explores their relationship to that data. The exploration is concretized theologically by a consideration of the sociological data and theology about two Catholic moral doctrines, divorce and remarriage without prior annulment and artificial contraception. A theological reflection on the actual situation of both doctrines and a sociological consideration of the data suggest the conclusion that a dramatic development and re-reception of both doctrines, in line with previous dramatic developments of doctrine in the church, is under way.

The article is divided into two parts. The first deals with the subject of spiritual discernment in Christian tradition: its nature, importance in the spiritual life, and the aspects of the spiritual life on which it bears. The second part deals with Catherine of Siena's particular approach to the subject of discernment: an explanation of the three images she uses to illuminate the meaning and operation of discernment and an exploration of the theological sources of her teaching on this subject.

This article calls for closer conversation between two growing academic fields: the scholarly study of spirituality and practical theology. Practical theology investigates the contemporary situation as it relates to questions of faith, ministry, and public religious leadership. Practical theology loses its center when it neglects the critical study of spirituality. Practical theological study of spirituality can help to integrate the three dominant methods in spirituality scholarship: the anthropological, the historical-contextual, and the theological approaches. The integration of these three approaches promotes a mutually critical correlation between the Christian tradition and the contemporary situation. Reflection on the practices of ministry students and teachers further reveals the importance of practical theological study of spirituality, which should inform the practice of teaching, the conception of theological education, and the formation of ministry students.