Neoconservative interpreters of the social ethics of Pope John Paul II have made the claim that John Paul shifted the tradition of Catholic Social Teaching in the direction of an embrace of “democratic capitalism” and other neoconservative ideals. This article challenges those claims. Major differences between the social ethics of Pope John Paul II and those of neoconservatives such as Michael Novak, George Weigel, and Richard John Neuhaus are highlighted. These differences include contrasting assessments of current forms of capitalism and of economic globalization, as well as differing views concerning economic democracy, economic rights, consumerism, the significance of structural injustice as a cause of poverty, the proper economic role of the state, the value of the United Nations, the importance of lifestyle simplification, and the urgency of ecological issues. An understanding of these major differences is essential in enabling Catholic Social Teaching to play a truly prophetic and constructive role in responding to current global crises.

In Method in Theology Bernard Lonergan acknowledged the reality of intersubjectivity in human life and sought to incorporate it in various ways into his understanding of theological method. Building upon Lonergan's insights, this essay indicates how his three stages of meaning and different realms of meaning can be expanded in terms of the author's Neo-Whiteheadian metaphysics of universal intersubjectivity so as to justify a communal and processive approach to truth and objectivity in human affairs. In this way, Lonergan's transcendental method is clearly vindicated in a Neo-Whiteheadian as well as a Thomistic context and the resulting synthesis of metaphysical perspectives notably strengthens the position of those who advocate discussion and dialogue over the use of force for the resolution of persistent controversial issues.

The author considers how Christians are called to bear witness to difference specifically in a global context where boundaries are becoming increasingly ambiguous. After arguing that it is particularly important for Christians to embrace the responsibility associated with ambiguous borders and hybrid existence, the author explains how American culture works against being open to others at borders because of the emotional conflict they bring. An attitude of entitlement embedded in a narcissistic mentality prevents some from inviting otherness into their lives. By developing empathy and through mourning privilege, human beings can overcome a posture of entitlement. Christ's ministry, incarnation, and death are highlighted, finally, as resources for dealing with the loss of privilege that emerges at the borders of self and other.

Vatican II's announcement of the Catholic Church's acceptance of religious freedom in its Declaration on Religious Freedom (Dignitatis Humanae) ought to have ushered in a period of ecumenical agreement on the topic of religious disestablishment. Instead, forty years after this most controversial document was promulgated, we find that public, academic, and even ecclesial discussions of the role of religion in public life are confused and in fact deeply contentious. The problem, however, is not that Dignitatis Humanae was incoherent or naïve in its understanding of religious freedom, but that we have failed to grasp its nuanced and coherent manner of reconciling a robust religious freedom with a profound view of the political significance of religious beliefs. Careful attention to this Declaration provides a solid foundation for continuing political theology and a public presence of religion without infringing the important value of religious “disestablishment.”

In the light of what appears to be a growing consensus that historicist and postmodern thought undermines the credibility of appeals to women's experience as a source of theological and moral knowledge, I assess whether these criticisms do indeed discredit appeals to experience as a legitimate source of knowledge and norm for feminist theology. While such critiques pose insightful challenges to assumptions underlying the appeal to experience, I argue that they do not definitively discredit the appeal to experience itself. Drawing on trauma theory and the work of Margaret Farley and Martha Nussbaum, I seek to show how women's experiences can be defended as a credible source of knowledge and a norm for feminist theology.

This essay examines the methodological relationship of social doctrines of the Trinity and ecclesiologies of communion. The Theologies of Gisbert Greshake and Leonardo Boff represent theologians arguing that ecclesiology must be based on a doctrine of God which they present from a social (or psychological) perspective. The goal of the essay is to expose some of the methodological assumptions made by ecclesiologists and the value of social approach to the Trinity can have in an ecclesiology of communion.

This article examines the life and work of Bernard Häring, C.SS.R., especially his valuable contributions to the Second Vatican Council and his dedication to the council's vision of renewal. It begins with an overview of Häring's preconciliar religious and theological formation in his family, seminary and university, during World War II, and during his teaching in Rome. The next section deals with Häring's work at the council, especially his efforts on the original Theological Commission to resist the rigidity of the first drafts, and his contributions to Lumen Gentium (“The Constitution on the Church”), Unitatis Redintegratio (“The Decree on Ecumenism”), Dignitatis Humana (“The Declaration on Religious Freedom”), Gaudium et Spes (“The Constitution on the Church and the Modern World”), and Optatam Totius (“Decree on Priestly Formation”). The final section considers Häring's mission to spread the council's message of renewal to the world, his conflicts with the forces attempting to repress the progressive agenda, and his courageous visioning of what a renewed church might look like in the future.

“Religious experience” is an ambiguous theological term. American philosophers William James and John Dewey contribute to an understanding of religious experience as private and strictly affective, which reinforces belief in a denuminized communal sphere. Another American philosopher, Josiah Royce, accounts for religious experience in ways that resonate with Catholic experience and that counteract current American tendencies to privacy and insularity. Royce envisions an alternative to both William James' individualism and John Dewey's naturalism that illumines two typically Catholic experiences: encountering God sacramentally in the community called “church,” and discovering God's gracious power within human knowledge and freedom. His description of the sources of religious insight affirm the intellectual and actional elements of religious experience as well as its affective dimensions. His description of the act of interpretation explains how many selves can take part in a single experience, and thereby create a shared life together.

Karl Rahner's notion of primordial words and Leonard Bernstein's conception of music as intrinsically metaphorical are engaged to suggest that there is a fundamental affinity between artistic and religious imagination. The affinity is grounded, in part at least, in metaphoric process—an elemental cognitive act in which the human spirit is stretched so that its expressions can address what lies beyond them.

This essay discusses the use of Dorothy L. Sayers' essay “Why Work?” (1942) in a Freshman Seminar that inaugurates a four-year structured core curriculum in a Catholic liberal arts university. After a synopsis of Sayers' argument, it enumerates some contributions that her essay can make to a Catholic liberal arts education in (1) directing students' attention to the goods intrinsic to work, (2) situating work in a theological perspective, (3) introducing the idea that the worker's relationship to God is internal to the work, and (4) addressing work in terms of vocation. It concludes by considering some difficulties encountered in teaching Sayers' essay.

There was a time when theological discourse occurred generally in either of two modes, as a professor-to-students lecture/dialogue or as a theologian-to-other-theologians scholarly communication of books, journals and professional meetings. This twofold role of teacher and professional colleague defined essentially what a theologian does. Although the theologian's work is still thought of in this way by some, this is no longer an adequate model. Contemporary theologians, to be sure, still bear the responsibilities of professors and professional colleagues, but because of changes in Church and society they now have a new responsibility as well.

The most important change in the Catholic Church effected by the Second Vatican Council was arguably the emergence in recent decades of a new kind of laity, a laity empowered to exercise a more active and participatory role in the life and works of the Church. During the same period, moreover, a well-educated laity has grown up in many countries, including the United States.

These changes in the Catholic laity—the great majority of whom, of course, are lay persons in relation to the theological profession as well—have had direct repercussions on the vocation of theologians. As the catalogues and sales of religious publishing houses readily show, contemporary theological works are being read by many lay persons who are not theologians. With their more active and participatory role in the Church's life and mission, lay persons now experience a vested interest in theology and its development.

I dedicate this essay to a ten year old Afghan boy, Mohammed Noor. He was having his Sunday dinner when an American bomb struck. He lost both eyes and both hands. Who, with this child in mind, would dare sing “God bless America,” the hymn that would make God a co-conspirator with American war-makers? The sightless eyes of this child should haunt us to the end of our days and sear on our souls the absolute need to not just pray for peace, but to do something to make it happen.