More than half of this book is taken up with the complete text of Pope John Paul II’s encyclical letter on ‘certain fundamental questions of the Church’s moral teaching’, Veritatis Splendor, dated 6 August 1993. The rest reprints the set of eleven comments published in The Tablet, together with a brief introduction by the editor, John Wilkins.

According to John Wilkins, ‘people feel that something is wrong’—‘there is a widespread moral unease’—but ‘the task of establishing a pluralist society which yet acknowledges shared values as the condition of that pluralism is proving beyond the capacities at present being brought to it’ (page ix, my italics). In the judgment of many worried people (not only Catholics), that would seem an unduly optimistic statement. It suggests that, while the task is beyond our intellectual powers ‘at present’, we may be better off in days to come. But what if the ‘shared values’ which would be the condition of the moral pluralism of Western culture are already as substantial as they ever could be—and are diminishing all the time? What if a pluralist society is, by definition, irreconcilably divided over deep moral issues? Where there are ex hypothesi radically conflicting conceptions of the good life which are never going to converge, let alone be unified, what content would there be to ‘shared values’ beyond temporary alliances, occasional trade-offs, and the kind of tolerance that has marked Western societies since people wearied of the religious wars?

Liberation theologians, from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and even from North America and Europe, are actively engaged in responding to massive human rights violations in countries where revolution has either been a success or a tragic failure. The inspiration for this commitment is the Church's ‘Option for the poor’, originating in the historic Conferences of the Latin American Bishops at Medellin and Pueblo. But twenty years on, in a changed global context, there is a need for Liberation Theology to develop more than a praxis-oriented focus: there needs to be a further development of that epistemic shift on which Liberation Theology was originally constructed, as well as a new sensitivity as to how knowledge itself is attained. This new sensibility must extend to those who have withstood and suffered the violation of human rights, and include reflection on who has the right to know, and the de-humanisation process on both individual and communal levels. I will briefly explain what I mean by this epistemic shift before exploring the whole notion of ‘dangerous memory* and its bearers.

I consider this to be a theo-political task: theology has always been concerned perhaps over possessively with the location of truth and its formulations. But since the work of Michel Foucault, philosopher and social historian, and his call for the ‘insurrection of the subjugated knowledges’, it is no longer possible to ignore the power factor in theological expressions. The call to listen to oppressed peoples as the ‘bearers of theological truth’ must be woven into the struggle against the dominant ideology.

Opera is currently enjoying a great deal of public interest. In its popular understanding, as the most lavish, the most spectacular, the most luxuriant of art forms, it might not seem an obvious form for religious exploration, or the working out of spiritual problems. That, one might think, is rather the preserve of more private and introspective art forms: to be left to writers, poets, and workers in the plastic arts. Yet, in the operatic works produced by British composers in the last fifty or so years, many do take this apparently private subject-matter into this most public of artistic domains. This article is an attempt to draw together some of the more notable examples of this tendency, to compare them in their diversity, and to draw attention to this phenomenon among the non-opera-going public. (In all that follows, dates after opera titles refer to the year of their first production.)

Bishop Richard Harries has recently remarked, ‘All works of art, whatever their content, have a spiritual dimension’, in that they can be a source of comfort and solace. He goes on to distinguish ‘a distinctive tradition of ostensibly spiritual art’, which ‘seeks to indicate through symbols the eternal reality behind, beyond and within this world’. In this article, the term ‘spirituality’ is used quite loosely, usually to refer to the use by composers and their librettists of material from sources acknowledged to be of spiritual significance. I have also drawn attention to composers’ uses of myths and legends, since these may be said to have a spiritual content in Harries’ sense, insofar as they consciously direct their hearers to levels of understanding beyond the simple level of the story being told.

Early in February, I was privileged to participate in a gathering of forty-five predominantly Catholic philosophers and theologians who met to discuss John Paul II’s encyclical Veritatis Splendor. Most of the discussion at the conference focused on the second of the encyclical’s three chapters, which deals with “some trends of theological thinking and certain philosophical affirmations [that] are incompatible with revealed truth.”(§29) Conspicuously absent was any attention to either the first or especially the third chapters of the encyclical. The first chapter investigates the nature of Christian discipleship through the lens of St Matthew’s account of Jesus’ meeting with the rich young man. (Matt 19) The third chapter treats the issue of Christian martyrdom and other sources for Christian renewal. In the course of the discussion, the notion of discipleship was mentioned rarely, and the subject of martyrdom never came up. By concentrating almost exclusively on the second chapter, the conference failed to locate the encyclical’s critique of particular “trends of theological thinking and certain philosophical affirmations” within the context provided by Veritatis Splendor itself, namely that of Christian discipleship. In doing so this group mirrored much of the general response to Veritatis Splendor, which has centred almost exclusively on the second chapter. It is my goal to shift this focus, and to highlight the primacy of discipleship for a right understanding of Veritatis Splendor.

Veritatis Splendor has a message about a notion central to our lives: freedom. The Pope argues that the common conception of freedom as merely the absence of constraints is misguided. Christian freedom must be connected with the pursuit of truth.