Bernard of Clairvaux observed that some goals can corrupt the activity of learning. Bernard’s claim is not only correct and important, but can be applied more widely to purposive activity in general. The exploration of his claim makes possible a consideration of the question, ‘How might different motivations affect, and indeed corrupt, the way in which we teach and learn?’ Although, pace Bernard, learning for learning’s sake does not corrupt the activity of learning, it may, however, as Aquinas’s account of (...) curiositas is used to show, corrupt the character of the scholar. In order to protect scholarship against such corruption we need to be wary in particular of the temptation to excessive specialisation. Finally, the question is raised of what it might mean to ‘refer’ or ‘order’ study to God, and in particular in what way one might characterise the relation between attending to study and attending to God. (shrink)

Economics was invented to deal with material scarcityScarcity, and is therefore biased towards increasing materially production. Many of the world’s current problems, however, are caused by excessive use of the resources of the natural world, often driven by an excessive desireDesire to accumulate the moneyMoney that stands proxy for them. In order to respond to these, then, we need to return the concept of ‘enoughEnough’ to the centre of moral and social, and therefore political and economic, thinking. ‘Enough’ for an (...) individual turns out to be concretely contextual and intrinsically relational. At the same time, it has objective boundaries, set not least by ecological limits combined with justice, both local and global. Therefore we need both good judgement and healthy societies to be truly satisfied, as individuals, with enoughEnough. One of the factors that exacerbates our weakness for excessExcess is the monetarisation of goodsGoods. Economists, I suggest, might need to be attentive to the importance, the specific complexities, and the risks of quantifying ‘enoughEnough’. (shrink)

St Augustine himself recognised in Retractationes that De Mendacio is a difficult text to understand, because its argument is both complex and dialectical. Understanding the treatise has been further complicated by St Thomas Aquinas’ reading of it in the light of Aristotle, and under the influence of a possibly flawed textual tradition. This article clarifies Augustine’s well known eight categories of lies to resituate them in the social experience of Augustine and his contemporaries. It shows that Augustine’s argument and exegesis (...) are strikingly exploratory and undogmatic. His hard-won conclusion is driven by a demanding understanding of sanctity. A synopsis of the argument of De Mendacio is appended. (shrink)

This paper explores Augustine’s use of the twin images of Christ the physician and sin as sickness, especially in his sermons and Confessions. It shows how distinctive features of this image enable Augustine to illuminate a scriptural moral theology that is egalitarian and developmental. It is founded upon repentance, humility and a powerful awareness of dependence upon God’s grace, and demands communal responsibility for morality. Augustine’s moral theory fully integrates his personal and pastoral experience; the relevant similarities between his own (...) society and ours suggest that his theory, in its broad outlines, has not lost its validity. (shrink)

This modest volume provides an abridgement of the City of God and a small selection of other passages relating to political affairs, broadly conceived. It has a twenty-page introduction by Ernest L. Fortin; and there are brief introductions to specific sections. The bulk is taken up with the City of God. By including chapters from each book, the editors avoid the danger of distorting the theological shape of the work by over-concentrating on the overtly political passages of book 19 in (...) particular. That is important. This very comprehensiveness, however, leads one to ask whether it would not be better to let students loose on the whole text; for any selection will entail some significant omissions. (shrink)

New Blackfriars, Volume 103, Issue 1103, Page 149-151, January 2022.

Scotland is usually portrayed as being a country that had weak and terrible queens, like Margaret Tudor and Mary Queen of Scots. Saint Margaret is the only queen who is constantly portrayed positively. However, that is not because of her actions as queen consort, but because she was a devote Christian. Scotland is also portrayed for not producing well known or strong female rulers. This essay will examine two contemporary female rulers from the mid-fifteenth century, one from Scotland, (...) Eleanor of Scotland, and one imported to Scotland, Mary of Gueldres. Using these case studies it will be demonstrated that Scotland did produce strong female rulers along with acquiring them. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Scandal of White Complicity in US Hyper-Incarceration: A Nonviolent Spirituality of White Resistance by Alex Mikulich, Laurie Cassidy, and Margaret PfeilNancy M. RourkeThe Scandal of White Complicity in US Hyper-Incarceration: A Nonviolent Spirituality of White Resistance Alex Mikulich, Laurie Cassidy, and Margaret Pfeil new york: palgrave macmillan, 2013. 203 pp. $90.00As a white American Catholic ethicist, I often envy my Protestant counterparts’ legacy of acknowledging (...) and fighting racism. Catholic moral theology lacks Protestantism’s bodies of literature, activism, and bold ecclesial statements addressing racism in the United States. (For more on this, see Bryan Massingale’s Racial Justice and the Catholic Church.) The Scandal of White Complicity in US Hyper-Incarceration demonstrates how Catholicism might approach American racism using several elements of Catholic theology.The book opens with series editor Mary Jo Iozzo’s introduction to the Content and Context in Theological Ethics series, of which this is the fifth book. A personal and reflective foreword by Sr. Helen Prejean follows. Then the book’s argument begins with a description of the United States’ practice of mass incarceration and brief discussions of what is meant by “whiteness” and “complicity.” This book employs a phenomenological understanding of race and of whiteness, taking whiteness as habitus. The literature about this approach to race and to identity is enormous, but familiarity with that literature is not necessary to follow this book’s presentation, argument, or use of the idea.Each of the book’s three authors has written a two-chapter section. Alex Mikulich’s explanation of white habitus speaks on levels of social thought and of the individual’s experience. Laurie Cassidy’s section looks at the culture of hyperincarceration and the development of the “dangerous black man” myth, and Margaret Pfeil’s section on spirituality works from the beatitudes, John of the Cross, and a wide array of other sources to describe a political spirituality of resistance for white Christians.This book would be most useful to masters-level graduate students in theological ethics or anyone preparing to begin teaching in areas of ethics related to racism or criminal justice (particularly in Catholic institutional settings). Rather than drawing exclusively on Catholic social teaching to talk about white participation in racism, these authors more satisfyingly put many Catholic traditions into action. For example, the book demonstrates careful use of the concepts of complicity, responsibility, participation, and intention; it considers specific [End Page 195] actions while maintaining focus on systems’ structures; and it uses a wide range of Catholic thinkers, including Metz, Copeland, Soelle, Gutiérrez, Carmelite Sr. Constance FitzGerald, Lonergan, Day, and John of the Cross.This book assumes and asserts that racism still exists, that whiteness exists and aims to make itself invisible, and that racism is kept alive through social structures that flow from white habitus. However, the book does not assume the reader’s agreement with any of these. Instead, the book first makes the case that these things are true and then takes next steps toward responsive practices of resistance. Rhetorically tinged homiletic shortcuts are not used to bolster this argument. For example, in similar works, the question of moral culpability for racist social structures is sometimes managed only with a discussion of how such structures distribute benefits and harms unequally. In this book, that argument is not used alone but in tandem with a careful look at the intention of one’s participation in such structures.Minor problems exist. The book would have benefited from one more round of editing to eliminate minor punctuation and writing problems, and the Catholic moral concept of “scandal” receives little systematic attention despite its presence in the title. Otherwise, the book demonstrates well what Catholic moral theology could do if applied to American white racism. Here’s hoping that this is just the beginning of more such scholarship.Nancy M. RourkeCanisius CollegeCopyright © 2015 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Thomas Williams Note: This is a preprint of my introduction to the forthcoming translation by Margaret Atkins of Thomas Aquinas’s Disputed Questions on the Virtues (Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy). The basic procedure was simple. The topic would be announced in advance so that everyone could prepare an arsenal of clever arguments. When the faculty and students had gathered, the professor would offer a brief introduction and state his thesis. All morning long an appointed graduate student (...) would take objections from the audience and defend the professor’s thesis against those objections. (And if the graduate student began to flounder, the professor was allowed to help him out.) A secretary would take shorthand notes. The next day the group would reassemble. This time it would be the professor’s job to summarise the arguments on both sides and give his own response to the question at issue. The whole thing would be written up, either in a rough-and-tumble version deriving from the secretary’s notes or in a more carefully crafted and edited version prepared by the professor himself. Records of such academic exercises have come down to us under the title ‘disputed questions’. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:7 Franciscan Studies 62 (2004) THE FRANCISCAN INSTITUTE HONORS GIOVANNI MICCOLI On July 16, 2004 Professor Giovanni Miccoli, a respected scholar of medieval, Church and Franciscan history, received the Franciscan Institute Medal from St. Bonaventure University during its celebration of the Feast of St. Bonaventure. University president Sr. Margaret Carney, O.S.F., and Fr. Michael Cusato, O.F.M., director of The Franciscan Institute and dean of the School of Franciscan (...) Studies, presented the medal during an Academic Convocation at 7 p.m. in The Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts. A reception followed in the Dresser-Rand Atrium. During the Convocation, Giovanni Miccoli gave a presentation, “A Reading of the Christian Proposal of Francis According to His First Biographers,” continuing a longtime focus on the study of Francis of Assisi and his contributions to the Church. Professor Miccoli, who was born in Trieste, Italy, in 1933, studied in Pisa at the Scuola Normale Superiore and the Università, in Munich at the Monumenta Germaniae Historica, and London at the Warburg Institute. He has taught in Pisa, Venice and his native Trieste, where he is now a professor emeritus at the Università di Trieste. A historian of the Middle Ages and of the Roman Catholic Church, he has combined those loves to specialize first in the Gregorian Reformation, reforms undertaken within the Church under Pope Gregory VII at the end of the 11th century. Turning his eyes to more modern times, he is also an expert on the relationship between the Catholic Church and Fascism in Italy, including the questions related to Pius XII’s pontificate during World War II. His study of the Church in Italy during the Middle Ages led to a focus on Francis of Assisi and his impact on the Church, which led to his becoming one of foremost Franciscan scholars of modern times. Miccoli is particularly known for his contribution to 1974’s “La Storia Religiosa” (Religious History of Italy), which is the second volume of “Storia d’Italia” (History of Italy). In “La Storia Religiosa” he examined how Francis and his movement influenced the history and development of the Church in Italy. 8 GIOVANNI MICCOLI Since that time, he has published several major articles on Franciscan issues, largely drawing from early Franciscan documents and sources, which have been translated from Italian to English and published in Greyfriars Review, a publication of the Franciscan Institute. One essay, “Francis of Assisi’s Christian Proposal,” was published in Italian in 1983 and in Greyfriars Review in 1989; another, “A Christian Experience Between Gospel and Institution,” appeared in Italian in 1992 and in Greyfriars Review in 1997; while a third, “The Writings of Francis,” was published in Italian in 1997 and in Greyfriars Review in 2001. The Franciscan Institute established the medal in 1987 to honor scholars who have made outstanding contributions to Franciscan studies in the areas of philosophy, theology, history and spirituality. Giovanni Miccoli was the 16th recipient of the medal. Recent honorees have included Fr. Clément Schmitt, O.F.M., Sr. Ingrid Peterson, O.S.F., Fr. Kenan Osborne, O.F.M., and Fr. Zachary Hayes, O.F.M. THE FRANCISCAN PROPOSAL OF GIOVANNI MICCOLI Giovanni Miccoli was born a little more than seventy years ago in the city of Trieste in northern Italy. He studied at the Scuola normale superiore of Pisa, the most prestigious school in Italy, where he was taught by renowned professors, particularly Arsenio Frugoni. He also received scholarships to study in Munich, Germany, and in London, England. Although he was offered a wide variety of important research and teaching positions in the major cities of Italy, he chose scholarly authority over academic power, and decided to return to his home town and join the university of Trieste, where he taught until his recent appointment as professor emeritus. Trieste is a city at the crossroads of the Latin, Germanic and Slavic worlds. Although largely ignored nowadays, in the past it was the harbor of Austria and, more recently during the Cold War, the last city of Western Europe facing the communist world. It is an enigmatic, fascinating city. This evening we honor Giovanni Miccoli as one of the greatest... (shrink)

O'Brien, Roderick When we held the Woods Centenary Seminar in 1989, the local Naracoorte Herald gave us excellent publicity. I recall sitting with the editor, Richard Peake, as he was briefed by the great Sr Margaret Press, assisted by Fr Kevin Horsell, the parish priest of Bordertown who brought his scientific background, and by me. The editor asked the question: 'If Mary MacKillop is to be canonised, why not Woods?'.

First published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

An essential work for anyone interested in the creativity of the human mind, "The Creative Mind" has been updated to include recent developments in artificial ...

The central problem of social theory is 'structure and agency'. How do the objective features of society influence human agents? Determinism is not the answer, nor is conditioning as currently conceptualised. It accentuates the way structure and culture shape the social context in which individuals operate, but it neglects our personal capacity to define what we care about most and to establish a modus vivendi expressive of our concerns. Through inner dialogue, 'the internal conversation', individuals reflect upon their social situation (...) in the light of current concerns and projects. On the basis of a series of unique, in-depth interviews, Archer identifies three distinctive forms of internal conversation. These govern agents' responses to social conditioning, their individual patterns of social mobility and whether or not they contribute to social stability or change. Thus the internal conversation is seen as being the missing link between society and the individual, structure and agency. (shrink)