Catholic Thought Research Articles

Introduction to the Special Issue: Just War or Just Peace? The Future of Catholic Thinking on War and Peace

Introduction to the Special Issue: Just War or Just Peace? The Future of Catholic Thinking on War and Peace

Inhabiting the Kingdom: Theologies of Nonviolence in the Catholic Worker Movement

This article considers understandings of nonviolence within the Catholic Worker movement and their embodiment. The aim is to make the Worker's position theologically understandable, demonstrating how this drives their methods for action. The article argues that a particular ethic of nonviolence can be found within the movement, grounded within the aims of its founders and the current practices of the movement today, drawing on the example of the Jubilee Ploughshares 2000 from which the London Catholic Worker was founded to illustrate this. By exploring the movement's theological foundations for the practice of grassroots, active nonviolence, it will seek to present an important example of Catholic nonviolent practice questioning how this may challenge contemporary Catholic thinking on war and peace.

The Rise of Catholic Thought on Social Communication in the Pontificate of Paul VI

Abstract In a period of mass media emergence and renewal of Catholicism after Vatican II, the church initiated into a profound approach to its Social Doctrine on the media. With a theology of communication as a cornerstone, numerous ecclesial documents published during the Papacy of Paul VI explored the implications of the media for society and the internal life of the church. This study aims to analyse the contents on the media addressed in official documents of the Catholic Church during the Pontificate of Paul VI. The conclusions of the research show to what extent communication is a significant issue for public theology and delve into the meaning of the right to information and public opinion, the place of the media in education, the training of communicators and recipients, the importance of the media for the church, and the involvement of Catholics in the media.

Christian Higher Education at Secular Universities: A Multiple-Case Study of Christian Study Centers and Institutes for Catholic Thought

For over 50 years, a group of Christians has cultivated a movement to revitalize Christian education at secular universities. These leaders formed centers for Christian thought (CCT) to reengage the Christian faith with the intellectual life (and vice-versa) and work with students, staff, and faculty within American universities. At present, there are at least 41 CCT in the USA, but little empirical work has been done to explore this type of Christian education. In this paper, we used a collective case study of five established CCT to answer the following research question: What are the distinctive features of Christian study centers and institutes for Catholic thought, and what is the nature of Christian education they offer? Each center we studied exhibited characteristics unique to its institutional context and yet shared some key educational elements with other centers. In sum, CCT used hospitality and intellectual fellowship to engage the riches of the Christian intellectual tradition to satiate the human appetite to live an integrated life. The center staff believed that living the integrated life would strengthen the global church and thereby benefit the university and society. Although CCT are distinct from Christian colleges and universities, opportunities exist for mutual learning between them that could help perpetuate the Christian intellectual tradition. For example, CCT could benefit from the faith integration conversations happening on Christian campuses, who could, in turn, learn from the holistic approaches of CCT and benefit from hiring faculty who were involved with a center as graduate students.

Catholic Thought and Catholic Action: Scenes from Australian Catholic Life by James Franklin (review)

Catholic Thought and Catholic Action: Scenes from Australian Catholic Life by James Franklin (review)

Promoting the Value of Life in the Face of Legal Challenges

The tragic cases of Charlie Gard and, more recently, Indi Gregory in the United Kingdom have brought into question the rights of parents in cases where civil authorities consider prolonged medical intervention to be inappropriate. In both cases, accommodations were offered to the parents by medical systems outside the country, but the government of the United Kingdom refused to release the patients. This article discusses the disagreements over the use of what Catholic thinkers would call ordinary vs. extraordinary means balanced with the rights of parents to make health care decisions for their minor children.

‘The most original and significant effort of political invention of Modern Times’. The reception of fascist corporatism in Britain in the 1930s

A contribution to recent historiographical debates concerning the transnational circulation of corporatist projects and ideas, the article aims to determine to what extent, and with what theoretical outlooks, the principles of the fascist corporatist State circulated in Great Britain during the 1930s. The reception of fascist corporatism will be analysed by examining the influences that the model of the corporatist State, developed in Italy in the interwar period by the fascist regime, exerted on those British political groups that showed an interest in the Italian corporatist experiment. The article will focus on three British political groups: catholic, conservative, and fascist. Observing how advocates of these three political groups incorporated and re-interpreted the fascist corporatist model will help to highlight those key elements that led to the adoption of fascist corporatism as a reference model by different political figures such as the Catholic thinkers Gilbert K. Chesterton and Douglas F. Jerrold; the Conservatives Harold Macmillan, Eustace Percy and Leopold Amery; and finally, the most important representatives of the British Union of Fascists, Oswald Mosley and Alexander R. Thomson.

The overview of Michael Novak’s economic and political theory in the context of his relations with Poland

Abstract Michael Novak’s concept of democratic capitalism in Poland aroused great interest for several reasons. The most important of them consisted in its close relation to the teaching of the Polish Pope John Paul II. The second was its temporal coincidence with the start of a political transformation in Poland, when a model of development consistent with Polish tradition and social expectations was sought. The third was related to its Slavic roots and origin, which gained in importance given a perceived civilizational backwardness of the countries belonging to the former socialist bloc. For Polish Catholic thinkers, the concept of democratic capitalism initially seemed to promise a smooth transition to a market economy, protecting society from the shock of a possible collision with predatory capitalism. But the discussions of Michael Novak’s conception which took place in Poland at that time were unfortunately burdened with fears of cultural pluralism and with leaving individuals too much freedom in implementing their own ways of achieving happiness. Polish conservatives, who were in power at that time, did not seem to understand the important need for a dynamic moral and cultural system in a society that was just starting its modernization processes. It is paradoxical, but in these discussions what was most feared was the weakening of religious traditions in Polish society. According to the author, this fear caused distrust of the democratic conception, and especially its moral foundations, which continues to this day. This paper, therefore, also contributes to reflection on to what extent the teachings of John Paul II have been absorbed in Polish conservative circles.

Community and People in Catholic Thought, 1830–1870

AbstractFar from being limited to denunciations of modernity, nineteenth-century Catholic thought had a programmatic and visionary side. This article deals with the models of community put forward by Lamennais in L'Avenir, Antonio Rosmini, Luigi Taparelli d'Azeglio, and Wilhelm Ketteler. These writers reimagined the foundations of public life against the claims of self-interested individualism and state omnipotence. Three theses in particular capture their vision of the future polity: 1) societies, which were not “mechanisms,” needed Catholicism as animating spirit; 2) political representation should be “organic”; and 3) whereas the liberal elites imposed their vested interests on the common people, the Catholic polity reflected their needs and beliefs. The four writers envisaged a community of the gentle and caring, which, like the family, was hierarchical, self-governed, local, and supportive. In contrast, it was argued that the people had no voice under liberalism because the elite's values were not the people's and because the political system was a mere arena for the clash of special interests. This was a communitarian and populist Catholicism, prizing self-government, denouncing parliamentary politics, and siding with “the people.”

War, Peace and Military Chaplaincy: Lessons Learned from Ukraine

Roman Zaviyskyy is a philosopher and theologian and president of the Ukrainian branch of the European Society of Catholic Theology. In June, he spent two weeks in the Netherlands at the invitation of Tilburg School of Catholic Theology to get in touch with colleagues and to conduct research into Catholic thinking about peace and war (supported by the Ladies of Bethany Research Fellowship, established by the Tilburg University Fund). In this interview, I asked him to reflect on the position and tasks of military chaplains in Ukraine, his wartime experiences, questions about peace and war, and Catholic responses to the war.

Pope Benedict XVI & the French Ressourcement. “Lumen gentium cum sit Christus”

What unites Joseph Ratzinger / Benedict XVI to the French is ressourcement, a controversial movement that initiated a brilliant reorientation of Catholic thought and teaching in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In the light of the significant work that has already been done on Ratzinger’s original contribution to Vatican II, the objectives of the present paper are, first, to situate him as theologian and Christian humanist at the heart of the ressourcement movement and to evaluate his work for peace and harmony in the confines between past and present. It attempts to illuminate a way forward for the Church, based on the anthropological, philosophical, and spiritual foundations of the new Christian humanism of the ressourcement project, championed by the French and their German allies. Secondly, the paper seeks to document the influence of notable, twentieth-century, French Catholic thinkers, theologians and philosophers, on Ratzinger’s thought and future contribution to Church and culture on a global stage, with particular attention to Yves Congar, Henri de Lubac, Jean Daniélou (1905-74), and Jacques Maritain (1882-1973). Thirdly, it presents a fresh consideration of his vision of the Church, his contribution to the ecclesiology of the Second Vatican Council, and of the turbulent post-conciliar period. The key goals in this domain are, therefore, to articulate Ratzinger’s spirituality and his preponderant contribution to theological anthropology, using the lens of Vatican II. This is a point of some considerable importance and fills a critical lacuna in Catholic theology. As a pertinent comment of Congar’s makes clear. “For there is little awareness of the values of anthropology; we have created an ecclesiology without any anthropology”. Like Congar, Ratzinger sought to construct a theological anthropology concerned to serve the pastoral needs of the Church but without neglecting its cultural and social elements. Spirituality and anthropology are then, unsurprisingly, as luminous, intricately interwoven threads that permeate and fortify his entire theological edifice.

Imagination in Catholic Thought and Peacebuilding

Some authors argue that current Western cultures suffer from a closed imagination, i.e., one caught up in itself, incapable of conceiving the world differently; but what would an exploration of the imaginative structure of Catholic thought reveal? How can contemporary approaches to the imagination improve our understanding of Catholic peacebuilding and the Social Teaching from which it develops? I begin by offering a general sketch of peacebuilding and Catholic social teaching, highlighting their efforts as transformative procedures and fundamentally imaginative endeavors, i.e., processes strongly relying on the imagination. Considering this, I then revisit contemporary understandings of the imagination and the cultural role of social imaginaries. I end by suggesting that an awareness of these presents Catholic social teaching with opportunities to grow and adapt, whilst enriching our approach to Catholic peacebuilding.

Meritocracy in focus of scientific controversy: catholic church and italian intellectuals

The article deals with the analysis of the arguments used by Italian intellectuals, Church hierarchies, clergy representatives, professors of Catholic universities to explain their attitude to the idea of meritocracy, its prospects and restrictions. The fight against corruption and undeserved privileges is particularly relevant in today's Italy with its traditions of clientelism, nepotism and family ties. At the center of the scientific dispute there are two "sites": the Catholic University of Milan "Sacro Cuore" and the newspaper of the Italian episcopate "Avvenire." During the public discussions, views in defense and against the "merit society" were expressed and argued. Advocates of meritocracy believe that this model will make Italy more modern and competitive, will allow to build a fairer society. Opponents, on the contrary, consider this concept an ideological justification for inequality and a "direct antithesis of democracy." In the future, this situation can cause increased social tension, frustration and deep social pessimism. Catholic thinkers presented the theological examination of "meritocracy". They explained that the Church's moral teaching considers the principle of "retributive" or rewarding justice as unjust and dangerous. The author comes to the conclusion that the polarity of opinions is explained by the conflict of ideological, religious and worldview attitudes of Italian intellectuals, who are not ready to hear the arguments of the opposing side. The stance of the clergy on meritocracy can be explained in the light of the Church's magisterium on the common good, rights and dignity of the person.

Patriarchal Religion in U.S. Constitutional Law (Dobbs v. Jackson): Originalism as “Political Religion” (Burke) Unmasked1

1 . The Supreme Court’s recent overruling of Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson reflects the influence of a group of conservative Catholic thinkers, the “new natural lawyers,” 2 whose views, if made explicit, would be inconsistent with the constitutional requirement that basic rights can only be abridged on a secular basis. This inconsistency has been masked by an appeal to originalism, requiring that constitutional interpretation must be limited by the things in the world to which the founding generation would have applied the text, and nothing beyond that. This approach to constitutional interpretation does not fit much of the interpretation of basic rights to date, and is thus demonstrably inadequate. How psychologically can we understand the appeal of such an indefensible method of interpretation to recently Trump appointed justices to the Supreme Court and other justices, and to the President and Senate that appointed them? Using the framework of Edmund Burke’s (1790/2014) psychological analysis of the violence of the utopian idealization of “political religions,” this article offers a psychoanalytic account of how the conservative justices, appealing to new natural law, have developed originalism as a way of masking a sectarian patriarchal misogyny inconsistent with constitutional values, in effect, a “political religion” in Burke’s sense.

Developing Animal Theology: An Engagement with Leonardo Boff

Developing Animal Theology: An Engagement with Leonardo Boff

Pope Francis’s Contribution to Catholic Thinking and Acting on War and Peace

In modern times, the papacy has consistently advocated peace, disarmament, and peaceful resolution of conflicts, limiting the scope of traditional just war theory, particularly in the era of weapons of mass destruction. However, no pope has gone as far as Pope Francis, who has stated that there is no such thing as just war and that “Only Peace is Just.” This contribution examines how Francis expressed and developed his thought in the context of his humanitarian diplomacy and theological thinking during the first ten years of his pontificate. In the last part, I argue that the Ukraine war is a test for Pope Francis, who has repeatedly called for peace negotiations and condemned arms supply, while recognizing the moral right for Ukrainian self-defense. While this may seem contradictory, his policy shows Francis’s deeper conviction that “war is always a defeat for humanity.” More interested in peace-making and assisting victims than in doctrinal issues, Francis has not jettisoned the just war concept in theory, but has done so in his witness and actions.

This Earthly Frame: The Making of American Secularism by David Sehat

Reviewed by: This Earthly Frame: The Making of American Secularism by David Sehat Mark Mattes This Earthly Frame: The Making of American Secularism. By David Sehat. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2022. x + 330 pp. Cultural and intellectual historian David Sehat argues that American secularism developed as a way to honor religious pluralism. Secularism is a product of inter-religious conflict in public life. Over decades such disputes helped to carve out a secular public square. While the Bill of Rights allowed no "establishment of religion" some states retained an established church in some cases for decades after the ratification of the Bill of Rights. Sehat distinguishes "negative secularism" in which the state holds no hostility toward a religion but the authority of the religion has no standing outside of its own community, from a "positive secularism" that actively establishes unbelief (4). For Sehat, negative secularism is no abandonment of belief but instead a commitment to the privatization of religious ideas (4). Conservative Roman Catholic thinkers see such a perspective as inherently Protestant, and not acceptable. Sehat responds that this criticism would fail to account for its support by many Jews and its opposition by many conservative Protestants (5). Sehat's work describes how the Supreme Court from the 1880s until today mostly undermined the hegemony of Evangelicalism's influence on public life, an influence due to the Second Great Awakening. Evangelicalism's influence was weakened due to Jehovah's Witnesses securing their right to proselytize and not salute the flag, the overturning of Prohibition, the debate over public subsidies for Catholic schools, the expulsion of religious devotions from public schools, and the legalization of abortion and same-sex marriage. Sehat presents a detailed history of each case and how the courts handled them. Even so, the story is mostly one of calling [End Page 122] out Evangelical privilege, overturning it, relegating Evangelical or other religious perspectives to a private realm, thereby creating a pluralistic society. That said, there is no doubt that those committed to creating a secular ethos saw their work in virtually eschatological terms in which the progressive, liberating forces of good triumph over the regressive, repressive forces of religion. For John Dewey, unless the world is governed by a non-religious secularism we have a "systematic stultification of the human mind" (117). Unfortunately, Sehat fails to take up the work of a thinker like Robert H. Nelson in Economics as Religion (2001) who documents that democratic capitalism is thoroughly saturated with postmillennial utopian mythology, indebted to, even an avatar of, a religious perspective. The case can be made that no public space exists that is devoid of myth. A blip in the secularist advance is the challenge by Catholic hospitals to the Affordable Care Act over a requirement that would force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions, a worrisome development for Sehat since it permits private religious sensibilities to gain currency in public life (260). Interestingly, up through the 1960s and 1970s, most court decisions favoring secularism were based on the "right to privacy," arguing for individual freedom in private lives without interference from the government. However, since the 1970s, a different, contradictory focus has advanced: the personal is the political, which believes that only by forcing the question of recognition will certain disenfranchised groups, such as gays and lesbians, gain acceptance (221). Surprisingly, religious conservatives increasingly claim disenfranchisement and entitlement. This reviewer questions whether Sehat's perspective undercuts the value of civil associations. Sehat criticizes groups like the American Bible Society as fronts of Protestant imperialism. The implication is that civil associations, especially ones with a religious flavor, threaten individual autonomy; only the state then can protect individuals from such coercive power. But is this true? For example, would congregations of any confession threaten individual autonomy? Sehat's valorization of "autonomy" ignores the idea that humans find meaning and friendship precisely in associations centered on common goals that promote give and take among their members. Overall, such associations enhance civil behavior. The [End Page 123] quest for autonomy or individual liberty assumes that such civic associations are robust and vital. Sehat's vision of America seems to be one where such civil associations potentially jeopardize individual...

Hazony, Traditional Conservatism, and the Problem of History

Yoram Hazony’s recent book, Conservatism: A Rediscovery, is the closest one gets to a political theory of national conservatism. Hazony recognizes many of the same political goods that traditional conservatives and Catholic thinkers do. However, Hazony’s particular understanding of nationalism undermines these goods by advocating for a centralized state at the expense of healthy regionalism. Hazony overlooks the contribution made by the Catholic Church to restraining modern executive power.

From the Editor

From the Editor Uwe Michael Lang Lord, I love you"—these were reported to be the last words of Pope Benedict XVI before he died on December 31, 2022.1 The words echo the threefold profession of faith the Apostle Peter made to the Risen Christ in John 21. Both Joseph Ratzinger's warm personal faith, which he had treasured since his childhood in Catholic Bavaria, and his profound theological work were animated by his friendship with Christ. It is no easy task to render justice to the immense legacy of Benedict XVI, whose lifework stands out in so many ways. In the first place, we must be truly grateful for his loving service to God and the Church, as a theologian and pastor. Having had the grace of knowing Joseph Ratzinger personally, I have always found it painful to see how a man of such gentleness, humility, and openness in listening to others was often met with anticipated hostility from the wider public, and with thinly veiled obstruction from some even inside the Catholic Church. So many assaults on him were personal, manifestly unjust, full of verbal abuse and intended to distract from the real reasons why the opinion makers of our time intensely disliked him. Joseph Ratzinger was a Catholic thinker who explained the faith in a luminous and attractive way and intelligently questioned the assumptions of the relativism that has dominated the public square in the Western world for some time and is now showing increasingly totalitarian features. Throughout his long life and ministry that led him to the See of Peter, he strove to put God first and ensure that Christ was at the [End Page 1] center of the Church's mission. Since his early years of formation, he found in the New Testament "the soul of all theology."2 As cardinal and pope, he challenged the hubris of historical-critical exegesis and called for a rediscovery of what it means to read the Bible in the tradition of the Church. In the three volumes of his work Jesus of Nazareth, written during his pontificate, Benedict XVI invited us to join his search for the face of Christ, which he has now completed. Even though his university career focused on fundamental and dogmatic theology, Joseph Ratzinger considered the liturgy central to his academic and pastoral work and hailed it as the "living element" of theology, "without which it would necessarily shrivel up."3 Divine worship brings us into the right relationship with God and with one another, and its true meaning and relevance far exceed the actual liturgical celebration. As Joseph Ratzinger concludes from his reading of the Exodus narrative: the worship to which the people of Israel—and, by extension, all the nations—are called "embraces the ordering of the whole of human life."4 Joseph Ratzinger lived and worked at a time when the form and expression of the Church's faith in the sacred liturgy had become a highly controversial topic. As a theologian and bishop, he did not shrink from entering this contested arena with admirable lucidity. He was convinced that infelicitous choices have been made in the actual implementation of the sound principles of the Second Vatican Council's Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. With his election to the See of Peter, Benedict XVI found himself in a position to shape the future of the Catholic liturgy, a position he could only approach with misgivings, because he strongly held that genuine liturgical renewal does not happen by decrees and instructions. Instead, he [End Page 2] intended to create favorable conditions and open perspectives for an "organic" development of the liturgy that would avoid the discontinuity that had done so much damage to Catholic ritual in the post-conciliar period. The Society for Catholic Liturgy is indebted in a particular way to the liturgical vision of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. Authentic liturgical renewal needs to be grounded in scholarship that is academically rigorous, faithful to the Church's perennial teaching, and guided by charity. The various activities of the Society, above all its annual conference and its journal Antiphon, promote such scholarship in the service of liturgical formation. It is rewarding...

Jesuits and Race: A Global History of Continuity and Change ed. by Charles H. Parker and Nathaniel Millett

Reviewed by: Jesuits and Race: A Global History of Continuity and Change ed. by Charles H. Parker and Nathaniel Millett Thomas M. Cohen Jesuits and Race: A Global History of Continuity and Change. Edited by Charles H. Parker and Nathaniel Millett. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. 2022. Pp. xi, 286. $65.00. ISBN 978-0-826-36367-1.) Jesuits and Race is an important and timely book. Catholic thinking about race has become a central concern of historians of the early modern and modern church in recent years. As leaders of the global missionary enterprise, members of the Society of Jesus developed close ties to racial and religious minorities in Europe, the Americas, and Asia from the time of the founding of the order in 1540. In the process, they produced a distinguished body of work on race and the global church. Six of the book’s nine chapters focus on the early modern Society. These include strong contributions by Liam Matthew Brockey, Emanuele Colombo, Susan Deeds, J. Michelle Molina, Andrew Redden, and Erin Kathleen Rowe. A common theme is the rejection, by some important Jesuit writers and missionaries, of the racism and anti-Semitism that pervaded the early modern Church and that caused deep and lasting divisions within the Society. Emanuele Colombo’s essay about Antonio Possevino (1533–1610) provides a perceptive analysis of these divisions, especially those surrounding the decision by the Fifth General Congregation in 1593 to prohibit the admission to the Society of men of Jewish or Muslim descent. In practice, this decision affected mainly New Christians, as men of Jewish descent were known (few men of Muslim descent sought admission to the Society). Many of the most distinguished Jesuits of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—including Pedro de Ribadeneira, Juan de Polanco, José de Acosta, and Francisco Suárez—were New Christians. The campaign to exclude New Christians nearly provoked a schism in the Society. The prohibition was not rescinded until 1946, in the wake of the Holocaust. Discrimination against Jews and New Christians was inextricably linked to discrimination against Africans and people of African descent. Erin Rowe cites the seventeenth-century historian and bishop Prudencio de Sandoval, who asked, “Who can deny that the descendants of Jews . . . persist in the evil tendencies stemming from their ancient ingratitude and poor understanding, just as Black people are inseparable from the accident of their blackness?” Rowe analyzes a widely-circulated treatise by the Jesuit historian Martín de Roa, who rejected his contemporaries’ denigration of blackness and affirmed, in what Rowe notes is an “extraordinary passage,” that “Black Christians were as endowed with heavenly light as white ones.” Liam Brockey writes that although Jesuits throughout the Portuguese empire benefitted from unfree labor, they rarely referred to this labor in their writings, an [End Page 170] absence that he suggests is likely due to the pervasiveness of slavery in colonial societies, and to “the unquestioned assumption that owning slaves or indentured servants was permissible, even for members of religious communities.” Like the New Christian question, the question of unfree labor divided Jesuits in Asia. Alessandro Valignano, the Visitor who played a decisive role in shaping the Asia missions, tried to steer a middle course, insisting on the need for unfree labor but cautioning the Jesuits against the excessive use of such labor: “moderation was essential if the Jesuits were to avoid the appearance of pomp while still projecting autoridad y reputación.” Sean Dempsey, Nathaniel Millett, and James M. O’Toole contribute chapters on the restored Society. In “A Challenge to Our Sincerity: American Jesuits Discover ‘The Negro,’” O’Toole takes as his point of departure a circular letter that the Jesuit General Pedro Arrupe sent in 1967 to all American Jesuits. Arrupe acknowledged the Jesuits’ ownership of slaves before the Civil War, which is the subject of Millett’s chapter, “The Memory of Slavery at St. Louis University.” Arrupe then “laid out the political and religious case against any form of racism” and called on the Jesuits to expand their ministries to include not only the white Catholics whom they had traditionally served but also African Americans. Arrupe’s letter produced far-reaching changes. O’Toole...