Catholic Intellectual Tradition Research Articles

Becoming and Being a Person through Others: African Philosophy’s Ubuntu and Aquinas’ mutual Indwelling in Comparative Discourse

African Philosophy and St Thomas Aquinas have both been taught in African universities, but the engagement between the continent’s indigenous philosophical tradition and the Catholic intellectual tradition’s preeminent strand, has not been thorough. Presupposing that plural philosophical traditions contribute to the search to better understand, this research embarks upon a comparative analysis of the perspectives of the African ubuntu philosophy and Thomist philosophical conceptualisations of human becoming and being. Through analysis of dimensions of both traditions, it is contended that human fulness arises through relationality. It is argued that in centring on the interpersonal encounter and the consequent recognition of another’s being through mutual engagement, these philosophical traditions open to each other. Further, both traditions contribute toward the ontology of personhood in ubuntu and the good of mutual indwelling, respectively.

Translator’s Introduction: Homily 16 on “In the beginning was the Word” by St. Basil of Caesarea

Translator’s IntroductionHomily 16 on “In the beginning was the Word” by St. Basil of Caesarea Fr. Austin Dominic Litke, OP (bio) Key Words Basil of Caesarea, 4th century Christology, Gospel of John, Patristics Historical (and often neglected) texts in the Catholic intellectual tradition with contemporary comment and reflection In polite society, one is not supposed to discuss politics or religion. In fourth-century Cappadocia, however, it seems there were moments when people discussed little else. This is the lament of St. Gregory of Nyssa, the brother and fellow-bishop of St. Basil of Caesarea, in a passage from a work on the divinity of the Son and Holy Spirit, where he writes: “If you ask for change [at the market, the vendor] philosophizes about the Begotten and Unbegotten. If you ask about the price of bread, you get in response: ‘the Father is greater and the Son is subordinate.’ If you ask whether the bath is ready, [the attendant] defines that the Son exists from what is not.”1 St. Gregory takes this as a negative thing, since it means that many laypeople were on [End Page 148] the opposite side of the Arian controversy, espousing what historians call the “Anomoian” position concerning the Son, a radical version of the Arian heresy which held that the Son was a “totally different” kind of thing from the Father. In the late-fourth century, St. Gregory, along with St. Basil of Caesarea and St. Gregory of Nazianzen, was a staunch defender of the position defined at the Council of Nicaea in 325, which states that the Son is “consubstantial with the Father,” that is, the Son is the same kind of thing that the Father is. Even though this had been defined dogmatically a generation before, the three “Cappadocians” spent much of their time defending that teaching against those who would deny it. All of this is important for understanding the context of the homily of St. Basil, called “the Great” by the tradition, which we present for the first time here in a complete English translation. Historians have specified that the homily was composed and preached sometime between 363–78, but most likely in 372, the same year he preached a widely disseminated homily “On the Faith,” placing it among the sermons he gave in the first years of his episcopate at Caesarea.2 In it, St. Basil presents the first lines of the Gospel according to St. John as the remedy to the Arian doctrines that were still gaining support among Christians of the time. The continual affirmation that “the Word was God” is meant to combat the Arian assertion to the contrary. These inspired words of the Beloved Disciple are offered to give confidence to the faithful that what the Church taught at Nicaea comes directly from the experience of the one who reclined on Jesus’s chest at the Last Supper, such that one need not despair at their truth in the face of those who think otherwise. Even though St. Basil’s homily is primarily a pastoral writing, intended to form and edify the people under his care, he does not shy away from using philosophical examples and theological vocabulary. In order to explain how God the Word is the same being as God the Father, he presents the example of how human language is produced. We first have an idea that resides in our souls. That idea is then expressed in a word or series of words that are brought outside [End Page 149] of us. Even though the idea and the word are distinct, they are not separate. In fact, they are the same thing in different modes of expression. This distinction between an “inner word” and an “exterior word” was commonplace among the philosophers of the fourth century, and St. Basil has no problem using it to demonstrate the unity in being of the Father and the Son, of God and his Word. The bishop also has no problem using technical theological vocabulary. He speaks of the Word as a distinct prosopon, the Greek word for “Person.” He makes use of the technical theological term hypostasis to describe the unique being...

St. Catherine of Siena’s Dialogue: Enacting Semioethics-Responsive Communication

St. Catherine of Siena’s life and writings illustrate the ways a person’s communication can provide guidance to others. Catherine exemplifies a dialogic responsiveness and commitment to semioethics by embodying her narrative tradition with an attentiveness toward charity and love toward others. Through an exploration of Catherine’s participation in society, giving specific attention to her effort to communicate with other people, this essay tells the story of St. Catherineof Siena; discusses her semioethics responsiveness through uncovering her dialogic approach grounded in the Catholic intellectual tradition; and addresses her responsiveness to others, using her letters to demonstrate her semioethics.

What Does the Law Have to Do with Virtue?

In light of truths expressed by Thomas Aquinas and in lawyers’ oaths, lawyers sworn to uphold the civil law must work toward the goal of teaching and gradually encouraging citizens to have the inner virtues that would make civil law itself irrelevant. This follows from claims central to the civic and the Catholic intellectual traditions: the civil law is a teacher, its effect ought to be the promotion of virtue, and virtuous living is constitutive of the common good. Natural law undergirds and gives substance to the civil law, which nonetheless should only demand under fear of punishment what is followable for the majority of men, given the needs of good public order and the habits and customs of their country.

Welcome to Integratus

Welcome to Integratus, the Journal of the Catholic Psychotherapy Association . The aim of Integratus is to draw on the rich resources that the Catholic intellectual and spiritual traditions can offer to the mental health fields—to make innovative contributions to psychological theory, research, and practice.

Faith and the Sacraments: A Commentary on the International Theological Commission's The Reciprocity between Faith and the Sacraments in the Sacramental Economy ed. by Thomas G. Weinandy, O.F.M.

Reviewed by: Faith and the Sacraments: A Commentary on the International Theological Commission's The Reciprocity between Faith and the Sacraments in the Sacramental Economy ed. by Thomas G. Weinandy, O.F.M. Michael Brummond Thomas G. Weinandy, O.F.M., Cap., ed. Faith and the Sacraments: A Commentary on the International Theological Commission's The Reciprocity between Faith and the Sacraments in the Sacramental Economy Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2022 187 pages. Paperback. $34.95. Anyone engaged in pastoral ministry is aware of the frequent disconnect experienced between faith and the sacraments. In some cases, people participate in the sacraments with little evidence of faith; a kind of ritualism or sacramental automatism. Alternatively, the sacraments are viewed as superfluous to a meaningfully lived faith. This pastoral crisis is at the heart of the volume edited by Fr. Thomas Weinandy. Weinandy was appointed by Pope Francis to the International Theological Commission (ITC) in 2014 and was part of the group that worked on the topic of faith and sacraments, ultimately leading to the document which is the subject of this book. The ITC document (hereafter Reciprocity) articulates the theological relationship between faith and the sacraments and addresses related pastoral concerns. The present volume is a collection of essays summarizing and offering commentary on each section of Reciprocity, as well as a translation of the document itself. While robustly theological, the telos of the work is ultimately pastoral, "aimed at aiding priests and seminarians as they address or prepare to address the pastoral and theological concerns they encounter or will encounter on a daily basis" (ix). The opening chapter by John P. Yocum summarizes the contemporary relevance of the problem, tracing the philosophical roots of the crisis, the cultural phenomena antagonistic to Catholic faith, common attitudes among faithful and clergy, and pastoral failures that undermine the reciprocity between faith and sacraments. To demonstrate that the situation may rightly be called a crisis, the chapter marshals several recent surveys indicating lack of practice or doctrinal adherence among Catholics. The author also emphasizes the link between philosophical-theological errors and pastoral practice: "The questions addressed in a systematic way by professional [End Page 137] philosophers are, or are derived from, the basic questions that every human being asks," (4) questions related to the human desire to know objective reality, and the possibility of divinization. In the second chapter, Christopher Ruddy offers a summary of the main themes from Reciprocity on the dialogical nature of the sacramental economy. He briefly notes the strengths and weaknesses of this section of the document, points that are valid though somewhat anemic given the robust quality of Reciprocity at this stage. The real strength of this chapter lies in drawing attention to "more original, primary crises of faith and sacramentality" (24). The author notes that various scandals—sexual, financial, etc.—make belief difficult. Faith is also complicated by sociocultural conditions, including the growth of phenomena such as secularism and "moralistic therapeutic deism" (25). Sacramentality itself is absurd to a materialistic, scientistic worldview. He also notes that the response to Covid has unmasked this crisis, making explicit in many Catholics the attitude that sacraments are truly superfluous. In response, the author appeals to a more transcendent, eschatologically oriented liturgy as an avenue into the sacramental worldview. In the next essay, Jennifer Newsome Martin turns to the reciprocity of faith and the sacraments of Christian initiation. The author advocates for a theologically charged pastoral vision which should "prioritize rigor and beauty over accessibility in order to communicate the sophistication, complexity, mystery, and metaphysical seriousness of the Catholic intellectual tradition" (30). The sections on the individual sacraments of initiation highlight the need for mystagogical catechesis and offer concrete, challenging, and realistic suggestions for sacramental formation for these sacraments, oriented to genuine personal discipleship. The author suggests, for instance, formation in contemplative prayer, lectio, Bible reading, service, close friendships within the community, as well as the establishment of a framework of flexible curriculum so that "sacramental preparation would be more uniform, consistent, and theologically responsible" (41). In chapter four, John S. Grabowski discusses Reciprocity's treatment of faith and marriage. Of particular interest in this chapter are...

Transatlantic Catholic Gap: Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde and John Courtney Murray on State and Society - Discussed: Religion, Law, and Democracy: Selected Writings. By Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde. Edited by Mirjam Künkler and Tine Stein. Translated by Thomas Dunlap. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. Pp. 480. $65.00 (cloth); Oxford Scholarship Online by subscription (digital). ISBN: 9780198818632. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198818632.001.0001.

AbstractIn comparing the works of two major Catholic thinkers, John Courtney Murray (1904–1967) and Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde (1930–2019), one finds an example of the divergences between European-continental Catholic and US Catholic concepts of the state and society. This divergence has become more evident in the context of the rise of American Catholics in politics and in the context of the crisis of the post–World War II liberal political order, but they have been at the heart of different Catholic intellectual traditions for quite some time. A comparative analysis of Murray and Böckenförde helps to explain the role of US Catholicism in the crisis of American democracy and the complexity of the reception of Vatican II in political theology in different Catholic Churches around the world.

Diversity: A Catholic Understanding

DiversityA Catholic Understanding Justin M. Anderson (bio) Key Words Diversity, DEI, Creator-centered diversity, Aquinas and diversity Much of our society remains aflame with concerns regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion [DEI]. Taking only diversity, one can point to several conversations in which it looms large today: access to education, especially higher education, school curricula, racial/ethnic diversity, intellectual diversity in higher education, cultural diversity, religious diversity, biodiversity, and national discussions regarding immigration. Few people argue against diversity as a fact of modern occidental liberal societies, though more become wary of embracing diversity as a normative ideal, as something to be pursued. Diversity as an ideal is typically where the debate rages and how scholars working on diversity and associated concepts (e.g., multiculturalism, affirmative action, etc.) engage the issue today. Typically, these debates are the province of socio-political studies, and thereby often focus on policies within a particular social body. In today’s modern liberal democracies, social bodies each of which are predicated on an identification and ranking of preferences in a utilitarian calculus, diversity as an ideal can promote a great deal of good.1 However, because it is based primarily on a calculus of group preference rankings, the same ideal-slogan can potentially promote [End Page 27] a number of policies and practices any one group would find wrong or even morally wicked. A quick survey of the discussions into which diversity is brought today reveals that institutions of higher education in some ways are at the forefront of these considerations. Many of these institutions are Catholic and, accordingly, seek to base their DEI approach on their Catholic intellectual tradition. While the world today embraces slogans—like diversity as an ideal to be pursued—at an ever-quickening pace, one wishing to be guided by a particular intellectual tradition must understand these terms and movements within that tradition. Understanding diversity in relation to a Catholic (or even more general Christian) tradition is a first crucial step towards being fruitfully connected and guided in an approach to DEI. Unearthing the deeper roots of a notion such as diversity renders it more fruitful, leads to greater institutional integrity, and provides greater indefatigability for all the good authentic diversity can bring with it. The aim of this essay is to present a Catholic account of diversity, a positive presentation of a Catholic understanding of diversity. The aim is not to juxtapose and judge a Catholic versus rival ways of approaching diversity. So, the essay will not occupy itself with critiquing errant aspects of modern theories or applications performed in the name of a diversity-ideal. Instead, its intention is to articulate a rational grounding for an account of diversity from within the Catholic intellectual tradition. As will become apparent, I think its grounds so foundational that it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to acknowledge the doctrine of the Creator and creation as a Christian classically would and simultaneously reject its conclusions for how one thinks about diversity. I call this particular Catholic understanding of diversity “a Creator-centered account.” I do this because—while it is based in the thought of a bright light of the Catholic intellectual tradition, Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274)—many of its central tenets are not only available to the Catholic or even Christian. Indeed, the basic rationale Aquinas presents for diversity is likely something that can perhaps be embraced by any of the great [End Page 28] Abrahamic religions. Consequently, I take Aquinas not only as a persuasive proponent of the specifically Catholic intellectual tradition, but of a larger canon of religious and philosophical thinkers capable of giving a well-reasoned justificatory account for the value of diversity and thereby greater inclusion. Still, ultimate judgment regarding how this sort of Creator-based account can enrich non-Christian perspectives is left to others to determine. I will contend that Aquinas’s fundamental rationale can help us both to view diversity not merely as a fact, but even as a good to be pursued, that is as an ideal. Precisely because diversity is worthy of pursuit, it will involve deliberate human acts. As such, diversity-as-an-ideal necessarily lies open to moral analysis. A...

The Challenge of God: Continental Philosophy and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition. Edited by Colby Dickinson, Hugh Miller, and Kathleen McNutt. London and New York: T & T Clark, 2020. ix + 173 pages. $39.95 (paper).

The Challenge of God: Continental Philosophy and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition. Edited by Colby Dickinson, Hugh Miller, and Kathleen McNutt. London and New York: T & T Clark, 2020. ix + 173 pages. $39.95 (paper). - Volume 48 Issue 1

Preface: The Catholic Intellectual Tradition

Preface: The Catholic Intellectual Tradition

Monumental Jesus: Landscapes of Faith and Doubt in Modern America by Margaret M. Grubiak

Reviewed by: Monumental Jesus: Landscapes of Faith and Doubt in Modern America by Margaret M. Grubiak Karen E. Park Monumental Jesus: Landscapes of Faith and Doubt in Modern America. By Margaret M. Grubiak. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2020 Monumental Jesus: Landscapes of Faith and Doubt in Modern America is a fascinating exploration of some of the most iconic American Christian landmarks of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries including Notre Dame's famous, "Touchdown Jesus," Answers in Genesis's Creation Museum and Ark Experience, and Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker's now defunct Christian amusement park, Heritage USA. Grubiak's approach to these sites and the others treated in the book, complements the work of scholars of sacred space and material religion including Colleen McDannell, David Morgan, James Bielo, and others who seek to understand the ways in which believers inscribe meaning onto buildings, landscapes, and other material objects and spaces. In Monumental Jesus, landscapes of faith (murals, statues, Christian amusement parks) are interpreted alongside landscapes of doubt—a category which includes all manner of outsider reactions to the religious buildings and sites—reactions which range from good-natured nicknames to outright ridicule, scorn, and derision. This approach recognizes that meaning is not only made or controlled by those insiders and believers who build and then worship at or frequent these sites, but by outsiders who are "involuntarily confronted by religious buildings in the course of daily life." Where do silly nicknames, derisive graffiti, satirical comic strips, and scathing Architectural Digest reviews fit into [End Page 108] the landscape of religious meaning? This is the question Grubiak sets out to address. The book is divided into five chapters of varying lengths ranging from approximately 40 pages to as few as ten. The first chapter explores the phenomenon of "Touchdown Jesus," the enormous Word of Life mural on the Theodore M. Hesburgh Library visible from the football stadium. While this mural and its meaning has been addressed by other scholars, here Grubiak deftly explores the tension between the intended meaning of the mural—a bold assertion of the seriousness and authority of the Catholic intellectual tradition—and the silliness and even blasphemy of the simultaneous assertion that Jesus cares about and exerts an influence over his favorite football team. Catholic insiders can simultaneously believe and doubt when it comes to "Touchdown Jesus'' and this "landscape of doubt" provides Grubiak with a fruitful site for the exploration of religious meaning. The first chapter is the only one which deals with a Catholic setting. The other examples, with the exception of the Mormon Temple outside of Washington, DC, come from various corners of evangelical Protestantism. The lengthy chapter on Heritage USA and Oral Roberts University is particularly strong, as is the chapter on the Creation Museum and Ark Experience. Grubiak's reading of these sites demonstrates her deep knowledge and familiarity with architectural history—her description of the various architectural styles used at Heritage USA and their meanings made me wish the place had survived so I could visit it. Similarly, the chapter on the Creation Museum and Ark Experience could stand alone as an architectural and material exploration of those sites and the controversy surrounding them, and would be useful in an undergraduate class on Religion in America, Religion in Popular Culture, or Religion and Sacred Space. The book is notable for its many illustrations and photographs, and where permission was not granted (for example in the case of MAD Magazine's satirical response to the Creation Museum) Grubiak encourages her readers to look the images up online in order to follow her interpretation, which I did and found very helpful. The bibliography and notes are also particularly strong. The final chapter, on the giant Jesus "Christ of the Ozarks" is quite short and while it raises important questions about the anti-Semitism and racist hatred of the statue's originator, it is unable to adequately engage with these questions, asking whether visitors are "unwillingly complicit in the perversion of Christian beliefs in their consumption of this evangelical theme park" without fully dealing with that important question. Racist and anti-semitic Christian beliefs are, sadly, Christian beliefs nonetheless...

Catholic Dogma vs. Social Science Dogmatism

This article explores how social science literature views dogmatism and how the documents of the Catholic Church and her teachings are seldom regarded in the conceptualization of the human person, specifically focusing on the helping professions. This article examines dogmatism from a Catholic anthropological perspective and with a full appreciation for the Catholic intellectual tradition. It will be shown how through basic clinical skills, one can believe the teachings of the Church's Magisterium and still be an effective and ethical counselor. A distinction between beliefs and actions will be made, showing how relativism is not the only acceptable belief system for helping professionals.

The affectivity of good teaching: towards the transformative practice of possessing a ‘thinking heart’

The aim of the article is to develop a phenomenological and theological approach to the affectivity of good teaching to foster a transformative practice of student engagement and awareness of the life of the soul as much as the mind and the heart. Drawing on the Catholic Intellectual Tradition’s search for truth in the context of the theological virtues of faith, hope and love, the article sets out to articulate what it means to possess a thinking heart of education by way of engaging seven transcendental imperatives: be spontaneous, be imaginative, be hopeful, be faithful, be pastoral, be not afraid, and be vigilant. Together, these imperatives signify the transformative value of the search for truth evidencing a tradition of hopeful intelligence resonating with the affectivity of otherness, the turbulence and surprise of self-discovery, and a humble awareness of the wisdom of love at the service of love.

The Bioethics of Translation: Latinos and the Healthcare Challenges of COVID-19

The Bioethics of Translation: Latinos and the Healthcare Challenges of COVID-19 Bryan Pilkington16 and Ana Campoverde17 COVID-19 has changed the way many people go about their daily lives and the manner in which they interact with each other. Many of the bioethical issues raised by the crisis, such as medical resource rationing and the responsibility to protect the vulnerable, have not arisen anew. Rather, they have merely been intensified by the pandemic’s magnitude. In bioethical discussions about the pandemic, a significant focus has been devoted to addressing medical equipment shortages such as the lack of personal protective equipment and ventilators and the ethical responsibility to protect others through mask-wearing. This focus suggests that reflection on two common bioethical themes—respect for justice in distribution and the sharing of full information—whether related to principles of justice and autonomy or located within discussion of human dignity, would be valuable. Recognizing how COVID-19 has disproportionally affected people by race or ethnicity is critical—and taking seriously the aforementioned paths of bioethics reflection, this essay departs from the usual discussions of resource allocation to concentrate on the Latino population and the importance of translation in two senses. It calls attention to the very practical need for translation resources in situations where language barriers exist between healthcare practitioners and patients. COVID-19 has intensified these challenges, as patients who are not proficient in the English language may experience delayed medical care or face other challenges.18 It points to the need to increase health literacy within a polarized cultural context where divergent claims on critical healthcare matters are offered by social and political authorities who lack the relevant scientific and [End Page 11] medical expertise. The dual need for translation resources and for the translation of broad information is felt heavily within the Latino community. The essay will first discuss the impact that COVID-19 has had on the Latino community. Second, given the deep importance of Catholicism within Latino communities, we turn attention to conceptual resources from within bioethics and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition that bear on resource allocation and information dissemination. Third, with sensitivity to Latino cultural practices, we offer grassroots recommendations, focusing on increased church-healthcare community partnerships. These partnerships would allow for greater information exchange, including more accurate information sharing, and the possibility of shifting some of the bioethical conversation from the allocation of resources that benefit a few to the allocation of resources that benefit the many. Impact of COVID-19 on the U.S. Latino Community Healthcare studies have long revealed that minority groups face health inequalities, sometimes with devastating results.19 The infection pattern of COVID-19 was not entirely surprising for health experts who work among the country’s most vulnerable populations. Research collected by the COVID Tracking Project, led by the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research, reports that Latinos have been disproportionately affected by the disease, with 58 per 100,000 deaths due to COVID-19 compared to 38 per 100,000 white people.20 This may be due to the fact that members of the Latino community are more likely to have occupations in the service industry and live in multigenerational households, two factors that increase the risk of COVID-19 exposure. Early reports paint a picture of the Latino population being one of the hardest hit communities by COVID-19, aggravating pre-existing disparities in healthcare access and health literacy. In 2015, the National Hispanic Council on Aging found that 41 [End Page 12] percent of Latino adults lack basic health literacy, a challenge further compounded by linguistic and cultural barriers.21 Research has found that across the United States, minority patients who are not proficient in English are left without adequate language resources, potentially reducing their access to quality healthcare and resulting in higher rates of adverse health outcomes compared to English speakers. Of the 67.3 million people in the United States who speak a foreign language at home, 41.5 million speak Spanish and 25.6 million speak English “less than very well.”22 To alleviate language barriers, the Affordable Care Act mandates that healthcare facilities provide qualified interpreters to patients...

Beyond reception: understanding Theodor Haecker’s Kierkegaardian authorship in the Third Reich

ABSTRACTTheodor Haecker’s translation and reception of Kierkegaard exerted a strong influence on interwar German readings of Kierkegaard. Recent scholarship has drawn renewed attention to Haecker’s World War I Kierkegaardian polemics and the dampening of his enthusiasm for Kierkegaard after his conversion to Catholicism in 1921. This article offers a twofold refinement of current accounts of Haecker’s Kierkegaard reception. First, it shows that Haecker’s attempt to describe a Catholic theological anthropology after 1931 was less a turn away from Kierkegaard and more a turning of Kierkegaard toward the Catholic intellectual tradition. Second, the article shows how this anthropological project collided with the ideology and censorship of the Third Reich, where Haecker became a key voice in the Catholic ‘inner emigration.’ Revisionist methodologies in German studies have modelled how to retrieve the resonance of inner-emigration texts – literary, philosophical, theological, etc. – that were written against the grain of dictatorship. As inner emigrant, Haecker draws instinctively on Kierkegaard’s authorship, life, and thought as a paradigm for his own regime-critical writing and existence. With the claim that Haecker’s inner-emigration writings depend on his ongoing encounter with Kierkegaard, this article offers new access to Haecker’s late thought for philosophers, theologians, and literary scholars alike.

Balancing Value Bracketing with the Integration of Moral Values in Psychotherapy: Evaluation of a Clinical Practice from the Perspective of Catholic Moral Theology.

Value bracketing is a clinical practice proposed by graduate-level mental health counseling educators to help therapists-in-training learn how to avoid imposing their private values on clients as well as how to manage value conflicts with clients that emerge during the course of therapy. With value bracketing during professional work, a therapist does not refer to his or her private values so as not to influence a client's decision-making process. When some academic writers describe this practice, however, they risk overemphasizing the distinction made between a therapist's private values and the professional values that regulate his or her clinical work. This overemphasis is especially apparent in the assertion that a therapist's religious morality must be entirely separated from the ethics of professional practice. In contrast with this viewpoint, I maintain that a Catholic therapist can both avoid imposing values on clients while at the same time balance value bracketing with the integration of religious morality into professional work. I approach this integration in two ways. First, I approach therapy from the perspective of the intellectual tradition from which value bracketing originates (the tradition of qualitative research involving phenomenological interviewing). From this perspective, I agree that bracketing is methodologically necessary during the stage of clinical interviewing but not necessarily during the stage of treatment planning (when both therapist and client consent to seek particular treatment goals). Second, I outline moral criteria derived from the Catholic intellectual tradition that can help therapists exercise practical wisdom when discerning their professional involvement in how clients will apply treatment outcomes outside of the therapy. Summary: The goal of the foregoing discussion has been to explore how therapists might balance the clinical practice of value bracketing with a supplemental practice of value integration. Ways were sought for Catholic therapists to adopt the practice of value bracketing without it requiring the professional affirmation (in thought, word, or deed) of client decisions and behaviors that contradict the therapist's private value system. An integration strategy to professional acculturation was explored where students and professionals seek to balance value bracketing with value integration. This balance is primarily to be located in the collaborative work of the therapist and the client when formulating a treatment plan together. At this stage of clinical work, a Catholic therapist consents to seek goals not only as a professional but also as a follower of Christ.

The Mind’s Dynamism in Chinese Catholic Theology: A Comparative Study of Metaphysics and Knowledge in the Thought of Wang Yangming and Joseph Maréchal

ABSTRACT As a particular case study of “world Christianity,” this article seeks to develop a Chinese Catholic epistemological foundation for the Church’s theological quest to know God. It is a comparative study of the thought of Neo-Confucian philosopher Wang Yangming (1472–1529) and the Belgian Jesuit Joseph Maréchal. I demonstrate how both thinkers affirm the subjective contribution of the human mind in any act of knowing while still maintaining that any accurate or moral knowledge participates in a higher order of ontological being. The agreements between Wang’s Neo-Confucian and Maréchal’s Transcendental Thomist theories of mind make for a fruitful convergence of the Chinese and Catholic intellectual traditions, from which Chinese theology can contribute to the worldwide Church’s understanding of God.

The Cardijn Canon

The author situates the question of praxis in theological methodology and Catholic Social Teaching in relation to teaching ethics courses in Catholic higher education. The author uses a genealogical strategy to show that Cardinal Joseph Cardijn’s See-Judge-Act methodology of theological praxis has become canonical in Catholic Social Teaching. The author shows that advocates of Cardijn’s methodology include Pope Pius XI, Pope Pius XII, Saint Pope John XXIII, Pope Paul VI, and Pope Francis. In addition, the author shows that Cardijn’s methodology is used by the committee that drafts Schema XIII, the Conciliar document that becomes Gaudium et Spes. Besides its use in a Western European Catholic Context the author explains that Cardijn’s methodology of theological praxis is appropriated at the Consejo Episcopal Latinoamericano in Medellin, Colombia (1968); Puebla, Mexico (1979); and Aparecida, Brazil (2007). The author also explains how Cardijn’s methodology of theological praxis is integrated in ethics courses in order to develop students’ ability to discern whether a current business, healthcare, or environmental practice is a sign of the kingdom of God or the anti-kingdom. For the author, Cardijn’s methodology of theological praxis leads students to new insight about realities they are unaware and introduces them to the countercultural wisdom of the Catholic intellectual tradition, as well as the importance of moving beyond critical theological reflection and into the realm of social action.

Revelation and Convergence: Flannery O’Connor and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition ed. by Mark Bosco, SJ and Brent Little

Revelation and Convergence: Flannery O’Connor and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition ed. by Mark Bosco, SJ and Brent Little

The Challenge to Catholic Social Thought Posed by Pope Francis: His Strong Moral Messages to Business

The Challenge to Catholic Social Thought Posed by Pope FrancisHis Strong Moral Messages to Business Martin Schlag (bio) The Catholic intellectual tradition is broader than the Catholic social tradition because the latter strives to enact the social dimension and implications of the gospel, whereas the Catholic intellectual tradition consists in an ongoing conversation between faith and reason in all fields of life.1 Certainly, on a practical level, every Christian intellectual also has to be social-minded in the sense of finding the means to live out charity in a real and tangible way. There is thus no true Catholic intellectual tradition if separated from the corresponding social tradition.2 However, it is just as true that every good deed originates in good ideas: orthopraxis requires orthodoxy and vice versa.3 The Catholic social tradition thus needs the Catholic intellectual tradition in general, and Catholic social thought and Catholic social teaching in particular as theoretical foundations.4 Catholic social thought should make visible that Christian Revelation and the Church's magisterium are compatible with personal, intelligent, serious—and thus attractive—reasoning that is capable of participating in contemporary political, cultural, and social discourses. In this endeavor a Catholic intellectual must not strive to create a segregated and parallel "Christian" world, into which he or [End Page 40] she can withdraw from the evils of this world. Such a refuge would be an illusory castle in the clouds made out of dreams, or worse, a ghetto. A Catholic intellectual interested and engaged in the service of society seeks a dialogue between faith and reason that renders the Christian version of natural social ethics plausible in the really existing world, especially for his or her contemporaries who perhaps are not believers. Many of our fellow citizens have no access to the sources of Christian wisdom—the self-communication of God in his Word—and could rediscover them through an attractive explanation of the consequences of charity for practical application in everyday life.5 Both Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis have contributed to this aim, in different ways and styles. Even though he manifestly is no professor of economics, Pope Francis is making an important cultural impact on the world, and also on that of business. He has frequently addressed G7 and other summits, as well as the World Economic Forum through envoys and messages. In them he has praised business as a noble vocation, while simultaneously scourging exclusion, inequity, and other negative aspects of our present economic system. His main stress is on the common good, and in particular the creation of jobs and employment. In his economic messages, generally speaking, he has been hailed as a supporter of the left. Conservatives are disappointed, even though they may love and appreciate his person and gestures of mercy and compassion. At the very least, they find his teachings difficult, and many turn away, especially from those concerning business and the economy. Francis has spoken of building not walls but bridges as part of what it is to be Christian, but aspects of his message seem to be constructing only a wall between the Holy Father and groups of the faithful. In this article, I hope to break through this wall, showing that the pope's writings contain moral messages that are important for the role of business in society in particular, and for Catholic social thought in general.6 The pope raises his voice as a prophet in order to denounce injustice and the suffering of the poor. When pointing at [End Page 41] an evil he does not offer an exhaustive analysis but wishes to provoke public awareness, debate, and action. I will analyze his message by making three general considerations that characterize Francis's social teachings as a whole and three special challenges for business. The three general considerations explain the novelty of Francis's contributions to Catholic social teaching, and also some of its provocative nature. I would like to interpret him from his own spiritual and cultural experiences and traditions. 1. Francis the Jesuit—The Social Dimension of Faith As a young Jesuit Fr. Jorge Mario Bergoglio was shaped by the renewal of the Society of...