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Vatican I and Vatican II represent two of the three ecumenical councils in modern times, yet relatively few studies have sought to understand their relation to one another. In fact, the councils are often positioned as mutually exclusive so that one must choose either Vatican I’s or Vatican II’s presentations of church and ecclesial authority. Failing to understand the relationship between these councils inhibits the church’s self-understanding and risks misinterpreting key aspects of its own tradition; further, it limits the church’s ability to teach effectively on topics of concern to modern women and men, such as authority, freedom, and ecclesiology. Vatican I and Vatican II: Councils in the Living Tradition uses the questions of what, why,and how the councils taught to frame and demonstrate significant points of continuity, complementarity, and difference between them. It argues that only by seeing both Vatican I and Vatican II as communicating vital dimensions of the Christian faith can the church’s living tradition be fully appreciated and speak meaningfully to modern Christian women and men.?
Explore the historical and theological roots of a synodal church and where the path of a new, inclusive listening church leads. How can the church continue to grow in a more synodal--more participative, open-minded, inclusive, and spiritual--ecclesial style? Now that the Synod on Synodality (2021-2024) has ended, Kristin Colberg and Jos Moons begin to answer this key question in essential ways. In The Future of Synodality, they present key aspects of the origins of synodality, its theological foundations, its recent expressions, and the important takeaways from the Synod in the context of looking toward the future, exploring the concrete transformations of a church marked by inclusive listening. Embracing the style of synodality as the church's usual practice, the authors outline the three types of transformation required: a renewal of attitudes and behavior, a reform of ecclesial structures and procedures, and the adoption of synodal practices. The Synod on Synodality has changed the church. This book helps us understand this historic moment and learn how to walk on the synodal path toward a new beginning.
The Wayfarer’s End follows the human person’s journey to union with God in the theologies of Saint Bonaventure and Saint Thomas Aquinas. It argues that these seminal thinkers of the 13th Century emphasize scriptural notions of divine rewards as ordering principles for the graced movement of human viators to eternal life. Divine rewards emerge as a fundamental category through the study’s emphasis on Thomas and Bonaventure as scriptural commentators and preachers whose work in sacra pagina structures the content of their sacra doctrina. Shawn Colberg places Bonaventure’s and Aquinas’s scriptural, dogmatic, and polemical works into conversation and illumines their mutually edifying d...
The Earth needs our attention—the best of our intellectual, ethical, and spiritual wisdom and action. In this collection, written in honor of Elizabeth A. Johnson, scholars from the United States and around the world contribute their insights on how theology today can and must turn to the world in new ways in light of contemporary science and our ecological crisis. The essays in this collection advance theological visions for the human task of healing our destructive relationship with the earth and envision hope for our planet’s future. Contributors: Kevin Glauber Ahern, Erin Lothes Biviano, Lisa Sowle Cahill, Colleen Mary Carpenter, David Cloutier, Kathy Coffey, Carol J. Dempsey, OP, Denis Edwards, William French, Ivone Gebara, John F. Haught, Mary Catherine Hilkert, OP, Sallie McFague, Eric Daryl Meyer, Richard W. Miller, Jürgen Moltmann, Jeannette Rodriguez, Michele Saracino
The Pope and the Professor tells the captivating story of the German Catholic theologian and historian Ignaz von Döllinger (1799-1890), who fiercely opposed the teaching of Papal Infallibility at the time of the First Vatican Council (1869-70), convened by Pope Pius IX (r. 1846-1878), among the most controversial popes in the history of the papacy. Döllinger's thought, his opposition to the Council, his high-profile excommunication in 1871, and the international sensation that this action caused offer a fascinating window into the intellectual and religious history of the nineteenth century. Thomas Albert Howard examines Döllinger's post-conciliar activities, including pioneering work in ...
Some are calling the synod on synodality “the greatest consultation effort in human history” and for good reason. It is no small task to listen to the world’s 1.36 billion Catholics, especially when many Catholics have felt marginalized or unwelcome. Taking a cue from this ongoing synodal process, the experts gathered for Reforming the Church: Global Perspectives place the broader issues relating to church reform in their historical context, while exploring themes that have ongoing relevance to the universal church. Topics include ecclesial transfiguration and the episcopacy, clerical sex abuse, globalization of the church, and the theology of synodality. A number of chapters address i...
What does it mean to say that God offers salvation to humanity? What is this salvation, and how can we become more conscious of it in our lives? These are the questions that Robert Krieg faces in Treasure in the Field. While his intent is certainly to impart information and ideas found in Scripture, church teaching, and theology, it is also to illumine our own experiences. Krieg retrieves the Bible's teaching on salvation and expresses it in contemporary terms. Drawing deeply from Scripture, he defines salvation as God's gift of personal identity, of wholeness. In this perspective, God calls us not to invent ourselves but to discover ourselves as God intends us to be. Those who gradually mak...
You want insights for living? Look to people whose understandings have been practiced for fifteen hundred years. Saint Benedict and Saint Scholastica, his twin sister, established a flexible pattern that has adopted, adapted, challenged—and outlived—myriad cultures. Their sons and daughters today, who devote their time and talents to the “school for the Lord’s service” launched by the Rule of Benedict, demonstrate a whole range of options that are accessible to anyone. It is a mistake to think that “forsaking the world” is the Benedictine option. Options (plural) are, instead, “for the sake of the world.”
This book widens the understanding of salvation from a narrow focus on the crucifixion of Jesus Christ to one which is inseparable from creation theology. In this analysis of the Thomist and Irenaean sources of Edward Schillebeeckx's creation faith, God's absolute saving presence to humanity is found to be intrinsic to his creative action. This becomes most explicit in God's humanity in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Lewis argues that Jesus is both God's invitation to humanity and is himself the perfect human response to God. Because of this, Jesus' followers are called to be engaged in God's saving action, by working to remove suffering from people and to build a better w...