In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS El Primer Principia del Obrar Moral y las Normas Especificas en el Pensamiento de G. Grisez y!. Finnis. By AURELIO A.NSALDO. Roma: Pontificia Universita Lateranense, 1990. Pp. xiii+ 255. This unusually excellent and important doctoral dissertation was written in Rome at the Istituto Giovanni Paolo II per Studi su Matrimonio e Famiglia, a component of the Lateran University. The author currently teaches at the Ateneo Romano della (...) Santa Croce in Rome. The volume is of special importance for three reasons: (1) it provides a comprehensive, detailed, and accurate account of the moral theory developed by Germain Grisez and John Finnis over the past quarter century (Joseph Boyle has also made important contributions to this theory, and Ansaldo has noted these); (2) it defends Grisez and Finnis against many of the criticisms which have been unjustly leveled against their thought; and (3) it raises some critically import· ant issues by way of constructive criticism. In what follows I will briefly comment on the first and second features of Ansaldo's work and discuss more fully the third important component of his scholarly study. In the first part of his work (pp. 3-100), Ansaldo offers readers a splendid synthesis of the thought of Grisez and Finnis. He has carefully studied everything written by these authors from 1964 to 1988. He has included important material from Finnis that had escaped even my attention, and I have tried to study everything these authors have written. He has also succeeded in presenting their thought comprehensively and faithfully. He understands what they think, appreciates it, and presents it accurately. In short, he does justice to their thought. In this respect his study is quite superior to another doctoral dissertation, Russell Hittinger's A Critique of the New Natural Law Theory. Hittinger's work has been severely criticized, and rightly so, not only by Grisez but by others (e.g., Robert George and William Marshner) ; it seriously misrepresents the work of Grisez and Finnis. A criticism of this sort cannot be levelled against Ansaldo's work; it provides an accurate and very scholarly account of their thought. In the second part of his study (pp. 103-229) Ansaldo offers a critical assessment of the work of Grisez and Finnis. Here he first shows that many of the criticisms leveled against their thought are unjust and unfounded, particularly those offered by such writers as Veatch, Rittinger, Flicken, Bourke, et al. These writers charge that Grisez and Finnis fail to show how moral principles are rooted in metaphysics and anthropology, that they completely separate ethics from metaphysics, natural law from human nature, etc. Ansaldo, by a patient and thorough BOOK REVIEWS 888 examination of their thought and the thought of St. Thomas, defends Grisez and Finnis from these misguided criticisms. He shows, first of all,,that Grisez and Finnis are correct (and fully in accord with St. Thomas) in holding that our krwwledge of the primary principles of natural law is not derived from our knowledge of metaphysics or of human nature. By referring to appropriate texts of Grisez and Finnis, Ansaldo shows conclusively that these authors explicitly recognize the intimate rela· tionship between ethics and metaphysics, between natural law and human nature. They fully and explicitly recognize that, were our na· ture other than it is, namely, the nature of human beings, the goods pedective of us would be other than what they actually are. When these goods are grasped by practical reason, they serve as starting points or principles of purposeful human action. Nonetheless, our practical krwwledge of these goods, is not epistemologically derived from or dependent upon prior knowledge, speculative in character, of human nature. In short, in contrast to their critics and in conformity with St. Thomas, Grisez and Finnis are correct in holding that our practical understanding of the primary principles of natural law is not dependent upon our prior understanding of metaphysics or human nature. At the same time they explicitly acknowledge and defend the truth that onto· logically ethics is grounded in metaphysics and anthropology. "Our authors," Ansaldo writes, " have always sought not only to respect but even more to defend and explain the fact that the basis... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 155 Humanae Vitae: A Generation Later. By JANET SMITH. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1991. Pp. xvi + 425. $42.95 hardcover; $17.95 paper. This is an ambitious and important study. I will first offer an overview of the volume to indicate its scope and note some of its major features. I will then respond briefly to some of the major criticisms Smith makes of (...) the argument against contraception advanced by Germain Grisez, Joseph Boyle, John Finnis, and myself. The work contains 8 chapters and 4 appendices. Chapters 3 and 4, as Smith says, "provide an analysis of Humanae Vitae itself and thus constitute the heart of the hook" (p. xi). Since this is so I will first summarize briefly Chapters 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, and 8 and then center atten· tion on the two central chapters and the four appendices. Chapters 1 and 2 provide the context for Humanae Vitae. The first chapter is devoted largely to an account of the so-called " Minority " and "Majority" documents of the Papal Commission for the Study of Problems of the Family, Population, and Birth Rate, while the second seeks to summarize Catholic teaching on Christian marriage prior to the encyclical. This summary draws principally from Pius XI's Casti Connubii and from nn. 47-52 of Vatican II's Gaudium et Spes. Smith takes up in some detail the issue of the" primacy" of procreation, concluding that Gaudium et Spes " seems to sidestep " this issue which, in her judgment, is irrelevant to the question of contraception. She thinks that this central document of Vatican II sent " mixed signals " on the question of contraception, although she believes that several passages " can very plausibly he read to support the position that contraception is portrayed as a violation not only of the procreative good of marriage hut also of the values of conjugal love" (p. 66). Chapter 5 deals with a wide range of theological issues: the biblical foundations for the teaching found in Humanae Vitae, the relevance of the concept of munus for this teaching, the possibility of acting " in good conscience " in a way contrary to its teaching, and the infallibility of the teaching. Of special value is the extended discussion of the con· cept expressed by the Latin term munus. Smith examines the rich meaning of this term in several magisterial documents, including Gaudium et Spes as well as Humanae Vitae. While a munus implies duties, it is essentially a noble, honor-bringing "gift" or "reward," signifying a vocation and sublime honor. Paul VI, in developing the integral vision of marriage in his encyclical, uses this concept to show that God, in giving to spouses the munus of handing on new life, has conferred on them the honor of sharing with him in the work of bring· 156 BOOK REVIEWS ing new life into the world. Smith shows beautifully how the rich theological meaning of this term helps " illuminate and enrich " the teaching of the encyclical. Chapters 6 and 7 investigate the arguments presented by dissenting theologians after Humanae Vitae to justify their repudiation of its teaching. In Chapter 6 Smith considers the views of Charles Curran and Bernard Haering, while in Chapter 7 she examines the proportionalist approach to moral issues developed by Joseph Fuchs, Richard McCormick and others. She provides intelligent criticism both of Curran and Haering and of proportionalist thought, focusing on the repudiation of specific moral absolutes. In Chapter 8 Smith provides a very helpful summary of Pope John Paul II's understanding of the human person, human sexuality and marriage. In particular, she takes up his notion that in marriage and in the act proper rto it man and woman make a " gift " of themselves to one another. Simultaneously to choose to give themselves to each other in the marital act and to contracept is then seen to involve an inner contradiction, a falsification of the " language of the body " (pp. 230258 ). Smith also takes up some of the major criticisms levelled against John Paul II's thought, in particular Lisa Sowle Cahill's, which charges him with an overromantic view of love and a failure to recognize that... (shrink)

What the Church teaches and why on issues of euthanasia, invitro fertilization, genetic counseling, assisted suicide, living wills, persistent vegetative state, organ transplants, and more.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THE SPLENDOR OF ACCURACY.· HOW ACCURATE? WILLIAM E. MAY Pope John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family Washington, D.C. I N THE introduction to the collection of essays published under the title The Splendor ofAccuracy: An Examination of the Assertions made by Veritatis Splendor,1 Joseph Selling and Jan Jans write that the "central question that needs to be posed to the text of Veritatis Splendor" (...) concerns the audience and situation its author has in mind (p. 9). They maintain that it appears to be addressed to "universal pastors (priests trained in seminaries) who (should) have one set of universal solutions to every conceivable pastoral problem one might face, anywhere, anytime" (p. 9). Assuming that this is indeed the case, they then say that the "best way to interpret what Veritatis Splendor says" is "from the point of view of the pastors and their educators" and that the Encyclical finds serious problems here (p. 9). Notwithstanding the unmistakable implication of the book's title, the subtitle, and, as we shall see, several of its main essays, the editors claim that neither they nor the contributors to the volume "wish or intend that this study be understood as a challenge or a rebuke to the teaching of the magisterium in the encyclical" (p. 10). Rather, they wish to "respond to the assertions made in the encyclical that give the impression of pointing to serious problem areas in contemporary Roman Catholic moral 1 Joseph Selling and Jan Jans, eds., The Splendor of Accuracy : An Examination of the Assertions made by Veritatis Splendor (Kampen: Kok Pharos Publishing House; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1994). 465 466 WILLIAM E. MAY theology as it is being researched and taught in any number of seminaries, universities and institutions of higher learning" (p. 10). I believe that Selling and Jans seriously misconstrue the purpose of Veritatis Splendor. It is surely not intended to equip priests trained in seminaries with "one set of universal solutions to every conceivable pastoral problem one might face, anywhere, anytime." Rather its stated purpose is to set forth clearly "certain aspects of doctrine which are of a crucial importance in facing what is certainly a genuine crisis" (VS, n. 4) and to address this crisis by presenting "the principles of a moral teaching based upon Sacred Scripture and the living apostolic Tradition, and at the same time to shed light on the presuppositions and consequences of the dissent which that teaching has met" (n. S). In particular, the "central theme" of the Encyclical, as identified by John Paul II himself, is to reaffirm the Church's teaching that there are "intrinsically evil acts" prohibited "always and without exception" by universally valid and immutable moral prohibitions (n. 115). John Paul II likewise emphasizes that the "morality of the human act depends primarily and fundamentally on the 'object' rationally chosen by the deliberate will" (n. 78) and that "reason attests that there are objects of the human act which are by their nature 'incapable of being.ordered' to God because they radically contradict the good of the person made in his image" (n. 80). Human acts specified by objects of this kind are the intrinsically evil acts prohibited by absolute moral norms, the teaching which constitutes, as has been noted, the "central theme" of the Encyclical. Thus the pope repudiates, as incompatible with Catholic teaching, those moral theories which deny that one can judge an act immoral because of the kind of "object" freely chosen and consequently deny that there are intrinsically evil acts of this sort and, corresponding to them, absolute moral norms (cf. nn. 74-77, 79). While repudiating these theories, John Paul II does not name any contemporary Catholic theologians who espouse them. Some contemporary moral theologians who advocate the proportionalist method of making moral judgments are among the THE SPLENDOR OF ACCURACY 467 contributors to this volume, namely, Joseph Selling himself, Louis Janssens, and Bernard Hoose. In their contributions, Selling and Hoose name other theologians known for their advocacy of this moral theory, e.g., Joseph Fuchs and Richard A. McCormick. The purpose of the essays by Selling, Janssens, and Hoose seems to be, as shall be seen... (shrink)