Crossref Citations
This article has been cited by the following publications. This list is generated based on data provided by Crossref.
Daly, Daniel J.
2011.
Structures of Virtue and Vice.
New Blackfriars,
Vol. 92,
Issue. 1039,
p.
341.
Article contents
After the Council: Transformations in the Shape of Moral Theology and ‘the Church to Come’
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
Abstract
This paper seeks to explore the impact that the Council had upon moral theology, and vice versa, along with some of the main debates and methodological questions that have preoccupied Catholic ethicists since. Seeking to chart both that, as well as how, moral theology was transformed, four key points arise. First, the emergence, even prior to the council of a more participatory approach to moral theology. Second, the retrieval of an understanding of the provisionality of much moral teaching. Third, an appreciation of the circular relationship between ethics and ecclesiology. Fourth, the ‘work to be done’ in relation to continuing disagreements over method and the ‘yearning for continuity’ that emerged in reaction to the transformations in moral theology and indeed the Council in general. We close with consideration of constructive proposals for the future concerning whether and how Catholics might live with difference and indeed with less certitude, reminding ourselves that morality is not a precise and exact science, as if any such thing exists.
- Type
- Original Articles
- Information
- Copyright
- © The author 2009. Journal compilation © The Dominican Council/Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2009
References
1 Rahner, Karl, The Shape of the Church to Come, translated and introduced by Quinn, Edward (London, SPCK, 1974) p. 93Google Scholar.
2 Of course, some theologians may have “jumped on the progressive bandwagon”, at least for a time, only once the Council began and the progressive conservatives as opposed to the more obstinate and retrogressive conservatives began to hold sway [Adrian Hastings famously reminded us that everyone at Vatican II was a conservative of one sort of another!, see Adrian Hastings (ed.), Modern Catholicism: Vatican II and After (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1991)]. However, in terms of moral theology, the changes that took place could not have been ushered in overnight. And while some have either lauded or regretted how skilfully some peritii and Council Fathers sought to persuade others that these “innovations” were actually more in tune with much of the older tradition in the Church, they were sincere and I believe correct in so doing.
3 Kelly, Kevin, ‘The Role of Personal Story in the Teaching of Moral Theology’ in Clague, Julie, Hoose, Bernard and Mannion, Gerard (eds.), Moral Theology for the 21st Century: Essays in Celebration of Kevin Kelly (London and New York, T&T Clark, 2008) pp. 279–80Google Scholar.
4 As recounted by Richard McBrien, New York Times, July 11th 1998.
5 But we should equally note that even some of the so-called “dogmatic” theologians helped usher in new ways of considering moral and social questions and of exercising moral discernment. Karl Rahner, himself, of course, looms large here, not least of all his contribution to the theory of “fundamental freedom” which moves moral reflection away from acts towards considerations of being.
6 As, indeed, was Catholic ecclesiology.
7 Julie Clague, ‘Moral Theology and Doctrinal Change’ in Moral Theology for the 21st Century, p. 68. Clague is author also of a forthcoming full-length study of this topic, Catholic Tradition and Moral Change. Indeed, in the UK, alone, in addition to Julie Clague's recent work, groundbreaking studies from people such as Jack Mahoney, Kevin Kelly and Bernard Hoose have covered much of the pre- and post-conciliar ground, and recent and ongoing researches by Jayne Hoose amongst others promise to chart further the nature of how Catholic moral theology has not simply developed but also changed and why that is no bad thing. Jack Mahoney's The Making of Moral Theology: A Study of the Roman Catholic Tradition, (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1987) has attained the status of a classic in the field.
8 Baum, Gregory, Amazing Church: A Catholic Theologian Remembers a Half Century of Change (Maryknoll, Orbis, 2005) p. 135Google Scholar.
9 Charles E. Curran, Loyal Dissent (Washington DC, Georgetown University Press, 2006). As James Keenan writes “Curran has always defined the church itself as the starting point of moral theology, and reminds us that it is largely the work of systematic theologians that has brought theological ethics to where it is today”, James F. Keenan, ‘Moral Notes: Crises and Other Developments’, Keenan, James F. S.J., ‘Moral Notes: Crises and Other Developments’, Theological Studies, 69 (March 2008) p. 139CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
10 Delivered in 1968 and published in pamphlet form in 1969.
11 Enda MacDonagh, ‘The Christian Ethic: a Community Ethic’, in L. K. Shook (ed.), Renewal of Religious Structures, Introduction by Leon-Joseph Cardinal Suenens, vol. 2 of Theology of Renewal, Proceedings of the Congress on the Theology of the Renewal of the Church, (New York, Herder & Herder, 1968) pp. 307–27, at p. 310Google Scholar.
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid., p. 320.
15 Ibid., p. 321.
16 Ibid., pp. 321–22.
17 Dulles, Avery, Models of the Church, first published in New York by Doubleday in 1974, with a second edition following (Dublin, Gill & Macmillan) in 1998.Google Scholar
18 MacDonagh, ‘The Christian Ethic’, p. 311.
19 Ibid., p. 313.
20 Ibid., p. 319.
21 McCormick, Richard A, ‘Moral Theology 1940–1989: An Overview’ in Theological Studies, 50 (1989), pp. 3–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
22 Proportionalism refers to an appropriate response to moral issues that involves considering the full circumstances and ‘proportionate reason’ (a good) for acting in a given way (focusing on the end of a moral act, although proportionalism is not a consequentialist theory in the main, but rather is more nuanced in its approach than many such theories and than many deontological approaches). Any good achieved through an action must be proportionate to any ‘evil’ involved in achieving it. So to ignore or breach a moral rule or principle, one would need ‘proportionate reasons’ to justify such an action.
23 Personalism places the emphasis in moral discernment upon the value and dignity of each individual person. In such an approach there is an emphasis upon dialogue and solidarity.
24 Salzmann and Lawler do so from a particularly critical perspective, whilst other Thomists such as Ralph McInerney do so primarily to critique the novelty of the use of the thought of Aquinas here.
25 E.g. Hogan's, Linda Conscience in the Catholic Tradition (London, DLT, 2000)Google Scholar.
26 McCormick, ‘Moral Theology 1940–1989: An Overview’ (my italics) p. 7.
27 Given to a gathering of Moral Theologians at the University of Notre Dame in June, 1988.
28 McCormick, Richard A.: ‘Moral Theology 1940–1989: An Overview’ p. 8.
29 In recent times, some often seem to treat Catholic social teaching as somehow separate from other concerns of moral theology, but the Church's contributions to social and political ethics are, of course, an inseparable part of its moral tradition.
30 The moral necessity of Vatican II has recently been further underlined by scholars such as James F. Keenan and Stephen Schloesser, c.f. James F. Keenan, ‘Moral Notes: Crises and Other Developments’, Theological Studies 69 (2008), pp. 125–43, who cites, approvingly (at p. 125), Schloesser, Stephen, ‘Against Forgetting: Memory, History, Vatican II’, Theological Studies 67 (2006) pp. 275–314CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
31 O'Malley, John, ‘Vatican II: Did Anything Happen?’, Theological Studies 67 (2006) pp. 3–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar. There followed a collection of the same title with various responses by John W O'Malley, Joseph A. Komonchak, Stephen Schloesser, Neil J. Ormerod, and David G. Schultenover (New York and London, Continuum, 2007). O'Malley, himself, has just published an expanded treatment of his own essay, What Happened at Vatican II?, (Cambridge, MS, Harvard University Press, 2008)Google Scholar.
32 Baum, Amazing Church, p. 140.
33 Ibid., p. 139.
34 Ibid., p. 140.
35 E.g., c.f. Jan Grootaers, ‘The Drama Continues Between the Acts: the ‘“Second Preparation” and its Opponents', in Giuseppe Alberigo and Joseph A. Komonchak (eds.), History of Vatican II, vol. II, 1997, pp. 482–3.
36 As reported by Henri Feswuet in Le Monde, – see Norman Tanner, ‘The Church in the World (Ecclesia ad Extra), in Giuseppe Alberigo and Joseph A. Komonchak (eds.), History of Vatican II, vol. IV, 2003, p. 308.
37 Cf., here, David Lodge's novel, The British Museum is Falling Down (published in 1965) for a grassroots depiction of the range of attitudes towards the subject.
38 Bernard Häring, Meine Erfahrung mit der Kirche: Einleitung und Fragen von Gianni Liecheri (Freiberg-Nasel-Vienna, 1989) p. 58, cited in Wittstadt, ‘On the Eve of the Second Vatican Council’, p. 453. Note a link, here with similar themes and sentiments later expressed in various writings by not only Joseph Ratzinger, in the early chapters of his Called to Communion. Understanding the Church Today (San Francisco, Ignatius Press, 1996) and even his teaching since his elevation to the papacy. There he points out that the call to be Church, to Christian community, mirrors the call to love and communion of married couples and bears testimony to the being of the God who is love, as testified to in the New Testament.
39 A. A. MacArthur, cited in ‘The Church in the World’, p. 312.
40 Lucas Vischer, cited in ‘The Church in the World’, p. 312.
41 Farley, Margaret, ‘Ethics, Ecclesiology and the Grace of Self-Doubt’, in Walter, James J., O'Connell, Timoth E. and Shannon, Thomas A. (eds), A Call to Fidelity: On the Moral Theology of Charles E. Curran, (Georgetown, Washington: Georgetown University Press, 2002), 66Google Scholar.
42 Cf. Charles Curran, “Ecclesiologically, the total teaching function of the church is not exhausted by the hierarchical teaching office and function. Theologically, these specific moral questions are not core and central to the faith, so that in disagreeing with them one is not denying faith. Epistemologically, on such complex specific questions one can never achieve a certitude that excludes the possibility of error”, Toward an American Catholic Moral Theology ( Notre Dame, Indiana, University of Notre Dame Press, 1987) pp. 18–19Google Scholar.
43 Farley, ‘Ethics, Ecclesiology and the Grace of Self-Doubt’, p. 60.
44 Ibid., p. 69.
45 Ibid.
46 Kelly, Kevin T., From a Parish Base: Essays in Moral and Pastoral Theology, (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1999), ch. 7, pp. 97–110Google Scholar.
47 The parable of the wheat and darnel forms the basis for his reflection here, “Sometimes what might look like a puny and undeveloped plant might, in fact, be a miracle of growth, given the adverse conditions under which it has had to struggle”. Ibid., p. 109.
48 Chapter 6 ‘Co-responsibility and Accountability within a Sinful Church’, p. 90.
49 As reported in Barbara Stewart, ‘Bernard Häring, 85, is Dead’New York Times, July 11 1998.
- 1
- Cited by