I distinguish temptation to do what we think we shouldn't, temptation not to do what we think we should, and the difficulties we experience in customary religious practices like prayer. I ask whether temptation requires a tempter, also whether the phenomena we call ‘weakness of will’ can be explained without postulating a non‐cognitive faculty of will. I look at Plato's claim that training the emotions is the main function of education. Finally I consider how obstacles to prayer can be understood consistently with seeing a continuous development from the natural to the supernatural.

In this paper I discuss the role of non‐humans in Aquinas’ account of moral learning. I intend to show that the entire created order can play an important role in demonstrating to us the life of virtue, and argue that non‐human exemplars offer important advantages to the moral learner. I begin by addressing apparent problems with this approach, founded on the observation that human virtue, for Aquinas, is unique to humans. I resolve these by showing that Aquinas’ approach to exemplars is fundamentally analogical, meaning that exemplars point beyond themselves and need not necessarily live the good life to which they direct learners. I show that this means that Aquinas can use non‐humans as moral exemplars and offer examples of him doing just that. Finally, I offer an assessment of the benefits of this approach. Among other things, it offers ethicists new ways to focus on particular virtues and provides a plausible way to include non‐humans in the moral realm.

The purpose of this essay is to illustrate the concept of analogy in the late works of St. Thomas Aquinas, i.e., in his two Summas, and to go on to compare this with Ludwig Wittgenstein's concept of “family resemblance” (“Familienähnlichkeit”), in order to reveal some interesting similarities between the named linguistic‐philosophical concepts of these two very different thinkers.

With the celebration of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy indulgences have once again moved to the fore of Catholic imagination, with many pilgrims availing themselves of the opportunity to pass through a Door of Mercy or ‘Holy Door’ and thereby receive the jubilee indulgence. While the practice of indulgences has experienced something of a revival in popularity during recent papacies, the precise doctrine remains largely unrehearsed and unfamiliar, simultaneously evoking strong reactions of distaste and disquiet among many as memories of medieval abuse linger on. This article sets out the precepts of the most recent authoritative teaching on indulgences, itself almost fifty years old, before exploring the theological interpretation offered by Karl Rahner and tracing its gradual and largely anonymous appropriation in papal teaching through the post‐conciliar period. With Pope Francis promoting mercy as a central theme for his papacy and ecclesial vision, the paper closes by considering how he may be proposing a further re‐appropriation of indulgences which shifts attention from their post‐mortem efficacy to their capacity to establish a Franciscan reflexivity of mercy in the contemporary church.

This article examines Teresa of Avila's understanding of the relationship between spiritual dryness, intellectual frustration, and shame. It argues that Teresa presents these experiences as interconnected, as well as spiritually and intellectually valuable. This aspect of Teresa's thought provides important resources for theologians in the contemporary age in its insistence on the necessarily dynamic relationship between the spiritual and the intellectual in the life of the theologian. The article concludes with an examination of shame and its impact on theological developments in our time, as well as the possibilities for integrating shame productively.