In the second half of the twentieth century Josef Fuchs put forward a major re-visioning of the natural law, but this re-visioning did not include a robust social ethic. In this paper the author first undertakes an explication of the development, context, and major features of Fuchs’ theory. Next, in order to locate it within other twentieth century developments in natural law theory, Fuchs’ theory is related to Jacques Maritain's re-visioning of natural law, with its clear social-ethical implications. Finally, the author draws out some of the potential implications and applications of Fuchs’ revised natural law for social ethics.

Joseph Ratzinger and Alexander Schmemann, representing West and East respectively, share similar views of personhood and freedom. This similarity is evidenced both in their constructive construal of Christian freedom, and their destructive dismantling of secular freedom. According to both theologians, Christian freedom is grounded in a relational anthropology in which the human person images God's relational freedom as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In contrast, secular understandings of freedom place freedom in antinomic relationship with authority. In other words, Christian freedom is ontological, and secular freedom is ‘external’. There are differences between Ratzinger and Schmemann, yet the differences do not divide. This essay concludes that their various emphases are brought together via the three-fold office of Christ—prophet, priest, and king—to provide a robust and ecumenical expression of Christian freedom.

The commemoration of the half-centenary of the Second Vatican Council has garnered enormous interest in the protagonists, circumstances and, interpretations that evolved in the period leading up to and following the council. Beyond the dialectics of hermeneutics of (dis)continuity of the council which has gained currency in recent post-conciliar discourse, however, attention has equally been drawn to the grand leitmotif that birthed the Council, namely, the clichéd aggiornamento and the pentecostal renewal envisioned by Blessed Pope John XXIII. Despite its determining importance, Cardinal Walter Kasper opines that the Church is still certainly a long way from being able to speak of a new Pentecost. One of the architects of such ecclesial reforms and pneumatological renewal in the Council was the erudite French ecclesiologist and ecumenist Yves Marie Congar (1904–1995). This article seeks to demonstrate that Congar was not only a celebrated pneumatologist but also a visionary of charismatic ecclesiology, deemed as a resourceful tool for re-evangelization.