This book discusses fundamental morals, that branch of theology that studies human acts and the sources and motivations of these deliberate acts. This can help the disciple of Jesus Christ to direct these acts to the loving vision of God, understood as his/her true, complete happiness and final end. This study principally examines the foundations of fundamental moral theology, the ideas underpinning this major category of doctrine in the Christian Church, the equivalent to an ethics of religions. While this theology derives its basic moral teaching from the Bible, it adds other distinctive emphases, namely, the concept of the ius naturale (the Natural Law), a tradition drawn from hierarchical ecclesial teaching and from human reason. This encompasses social teaching, medical ethics, sexual ethics, and various doctrines on individual moral virtue and moral theory. The exposition explores how the advent of Jesus Christ, his life and teaching, is central to this theology. A bridge between faith and reason is needed to grasp principles and moral imperatives, and to perceive the positive in human law. The discussion explains why it is necessary further to understand the implication of the individual moral conscience, and the freedom to make moral decisions.

Sketches the development of fundamental moral theology in the U.S. and then uses original sources to document the significant changes that have occurred in the discipline, as well as the primary issues in Catholic moral theology today.

In the fifteen years since the Second Vatican Council, no aspect of theology has undergone such thorough scrutiny as that of moral theology. Furthermore, the discussions have not been the exclusive concern of churchmen. Theologians have entered into dialogue with everyone who is in any way preoccupied with the need to improve social order. Thus the insights of all the human and social sciences have been brought to bear in the task of reassessment and restructuring. This book presents a comprehensive scheme of moral theology which is relevant to the moral and intellectual climate of the latter decades of the twentieth century.

The comprehensive introduction to Catholic moral theology by the leading theologian and author of The Moral Virtues and Theological Ethics. In Introduction to Moral Theology, Father Romanus Cessario, O.P. presents and expounds on the basic and central elements of Catholic moral theology written in the light of Veritatis splendor. Since its publication in 2001, this first book in the Catholic Moral Thought series has been widely recognized as an authoritative resource on such topics as moral theology and the good of the human person created in God’s image; natural law; principles of human action; determination of the moral good through objects, ends, and circumstances; and the virtues, gifts of the Holy Spirit, and the Beatitudes. The Catholic Moral Thought series is designed to provide students with a comprehensive presentation of both the principles of Christian conduct and the specific teachings and precepts for fulfilling the requirements of the Christian life. Soundly based in the teaching of the Church, the volumes set out the basic principles of Catholic moral thought and the application of those principles within areas of ethical concern that are of paramount importance today.

Faith Comes from What Is Heard: An Introduction to Fundamental Theology informs both the heart and mind as it brings together dogmatic and biblical theology, the Thomistic tradition, the teachings of the Fathers of the Church, and the contemporary Magisterium. Drawing heavily upon the works of St. Thomas Aquinas, Bl. John Henry Newman, Joseph Ratzinger, and St. John Paul II, the author examines the foundations of Catholic theology, or Fundamental Theology, “which is theology’s reflection on itself as a discipline, its method, and its foundation in God’s Revelation transmitted to us through Scripture and Tradition.” Although Faith Comes from What Is Heard is useful for all Catholics who want to understand the foundations of their faith, it is specifically designed to serve as a textbook for courses in Fundamental Theology in seminaries and in graduate and undergraduate programs in theology. It can also serve as a textbook for introductory theology and Scripture courses. The topics covered in Faith Comes from What Is Heard include: Revelation and FaithTheologyTradition and the MagisteriumBiblical Hermeneuticsthe Historicity of the Gospelsand Biblical Typology

In this magisterial volume Charles E. Curran surveys the historical development of Catholic moral theology in the United States from its 19th century roots to the present day. He begins by tracing the development of pre-Vatican II moral theology that, with the exception of social ethics, had the limited purpose of training future confessors to know what actions are sinful and the degree of sinfulness. Curran then explores and illuminates the post-Vatican II era with chapters on the effect of the Council on the scope and substance of moral theology, the impact of Humanae vitae, Pope Paul VI's encyclical condemning artificial contraception, fundamental moral theology, sexuality and marriage, bioethics, and social ethics. Curran's perspective is unique: For nearly 50 years, he has been a major influence on the development of the field and has witnessed first-hand the dramatic increase in the number and diversity of moral theologians in the academy and the Church. No one is more qualified to write this first and only comprehensive history of Catholic moral theology in the United States.

This is an historical survey of 20th Century Roman Catholic Theological Ethics (also known as moral theology). The thesis is that only through historical investigation can we really understand how the most conservative and negative field in Catholic theology at the beginning of the 20th could become by the end of the 20th century the most innovative one. The 20th century begins with moral manuals being translated into the vernacular. After examining the manuals of Thomas Slater and Henry Davis, Keenan then turns to three works and a crowning synthesis of innovation all developed before, during and soon after the Second World War. The first by Odon Lottin asks whether moral theology is adequately historical; Fritz Tillmann asks whether it's adequately biblical; and Gerard Gilleman, whether it's adequately spiritual. Bernard Haering integrates these contributions into his Law of Christ. Of course, people like Gerald Kelly and John Ford in the US are like a few moralists elsewhere, classical gate keepers, censoring innovation. But with Humanae vitae, and successive encyclicals, bishops and popes reject the direction of moral theologians. At the same time, moral theologians, like Josef Fuchs, ask whether the locus of moral truth is in continuous, universal teachings of the magisterium or in the moral judgment of the informed conscience. In their move toward a deeper appreciation of their field as forming consciences, they turn more deeply to local experience where they continue their work of innovation. Each continent subsequently gives rise to their own respondents: In Europe they speak of autonomy and personalism; in Latin America, liberation theology; in North America, Feminism and Black Catholic theology; and, in Asia and Africa a deep post-colonial interculturatism. At the end I assert that in its nature, theological ethics is historical and innovative, seeking moral truth for the conscience by looking to speak crossculturally.

Formative Figures of Contemporary American Catholic Moral Theology Volume 1, Number 1, January 2012 Edited by David Cloutier and William C. Mattison III Moral Theology in the Ruins: Introducing the Journal of Moral Theology David Matzko McCarthy Bernard Häring’s Influence on American Catholic Moral Theology James F. Keenan, S.J. Servais Pinckaers and the Renewal of Catholic Moral Theology Craig Steven Titus Religious Freedom, Morality and Law: John Courtney Murray Today David Hollenbach, S.J. James M. Gustafson and Catholic Theological Ethics Lisa Sowle Cahill The Luminous Excess of the Acting Person: Assessing the Impact of Pope John Paul II on American Catholic Moral Theology John Grabowski Stanley Hauerwas’s Influence on Catholic Moral Theologians Jana Marguerite Bennett Review Essay: Method in American Catholic Moral Theology After Veritatis Splendor David Cloutier and William C. Mattison III

The growing shift in Catholic moral theology from reflecting on rules alone to focusing on the identity and formation of persons as moral agents prompts a further question: What impact do recent changes in the identity and formation of Catholic moral theologians themselves have on how that discipline is practiced? Young Catholic moral theologians experience a sharply different professional formation and a changed location of ongoing professional life than prior generations of moral theologians. How do these differences influence the field of moral theology as a whole? New Wine, New Wineskins: A Next Generation Reflects on Key Issues in Catholic Moral Theology addresses these questions and more by offering a snapshot of how a new generation of Catholic moral theologians understands not only topics in the field, but the effects of their own identity and formation on their treatment of those topics. The distinctive contribution of this volume is the interweaving of three key concerns, all of which arise out of a critical self-reflection on the task of moral theology today: the character and adequacy of training and ongoing formation in the field of Catholic moral theology, the purpose and nature of teaching Catholic moral theology, and the fittingness of methodological debates with regard to the needs of the Christian life. Each essay makes a contribution to its specific area of interest-ranging from economic ethics, to Patristic rhetoric, to the nature and development of practical reasoning-while probing what exactly young Catholic moral theologians are doing, and how they can do what they do better.

A profound inquiry into what prompts human beings to act morally Most foundational texts on theological ethics address either the person or society. In The Moral Life, James F. Keenan, SJ, posits that these two are inextricably linked. He presents eight stages of preparing for the moral life, describing vulnerability as the foundation for contemporary ethics. He understands vulnerability to be what establishes the human capacity for recognizing and responding to others rather than a compromised state of being. Mutual recognition emerges as the first moral act of the vulnerable human. He shows how conscience guides the activity of one who has first vulnerably recognized others. The Moral Life offers scholars and students of Christian ethics a novel perspective on what we need to know not only to be and live morally but also to teach and share with others what they need to know.