Touched by Christ: The Sacramental Economy. By Lawrence Feingold. Reviewed by Mark McCann. (skip to review) Transubstantiation: Theology, History, and Christian Unity. By Brett Salkeld. Reviewed by Dan Sherven. (skip to … [Read more...]
Prejudices Against Mercy: Is Mercy a Relaxation of Justice?
An Inquiry Guided by St. Thomas Aquinas
July 28, 2022 by Dr. Vincent DeMeo
Contemporary Concerns about Mercy The fact that the Jubilee Year of Mercy called for by Pope Francis in 2016–17 coincided with mass encounters of Middle Eastern refugees in Europe, challenging immigration policy disputes in the United S … [Read more...]
The Terminal State of Unbaptized Infants
June 24, 2022 by Nate Guyear
Since the earliest centuries of the Church, Christians have debated the terminal state of unbaptized babies. (This paper will use the term “unbaptized babies/infants” to represent all who die without baptism and without the cognitive abi … [Read more...]
How Metaphysical Certitudes Anchor Proofs for God
September 24, 2021 by Dennis Bonnette, PhD
This brief essay is not intended to be a complete presentation of the classical proofs for God’s existence as proposed by St. Thomas Aquinas and his disciples. Even partially full treatment of these arguments would require book-length a … [Read more...]
The Difference Between Imperfect and Perfect Hope
Contrasting Aquinas and Luther
September 9, 2021 by Tyler Pellegrin
In this short essay, I ultimately seek to lay out a brief explanation of the mechanics of hope as a theological virtue, which must include its synergy with charity. First, I will emphasize that the Thomistic or Scholastic theology of hope … [Read more...]
Dante and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition on Faith and Reason
July 15, 2021 by Darrell Falconburg
The topic of the relatedness between reason and faith is important. As people leave the faith in high numbers, one of the reasons given is that faith and reason — more specifically, scientific reason — are viewed as incompatible. The Cath … [Read more...]
Newman, Aquinas, and the Development of Doctrine
June 30, 2021 by Dr. Joshua Madden
The question of the development of doctrine, and his investigation of its implications, was crucial to John Henry Newman’s conversion to the Catholic Church. The question with which he struggled was this: how can it be that the Christian f … [Read more...]
The Mass that Always Was There
April 22, 2021 by Gerard T. Mundy
As a result of the 2020-2021 coronavirus pandemic, Catholic bishops in dioceses around the world restricted public access to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. In the United States, every Latin Rite diocese reportedly canceled public Masses at … [Read more...]
Deferring Absolution in Clerical Abuse Cases
March 12, 2021 by Fr. Matthew P. Schneider, LC
Deferring absolution is the key moment of decision on several key moral issues like contraception and relations with legal but not legitimate spouses, so it ends up being somewhat controversial. However, regarding clerical abuse, I think … [Read more...]
Conception: A Contradiction?
December 11, 2020 by Francis Etheredge
[Cf. Francis Etheredge: Conception: An Icon of the Beginning, St. Louis: En Route Books and Media, 2019: https://enroutebooksandmedia.com/conception/ (the publisher’s page includes interviews, reviews, endorsements, Contents and connections … [Read more...]
Lord, Liar, or Lunatic?
Aquinas on the Divinity of the Johannine Christ
September 22, 2020 by Daniel M. Garland, Jr.
In his Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus, the noted Jewish historian of the first century, described Jesus of Nazareth as a “wise man [sophos anēr] . . . a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure.”[1. “sophos anēr . . . didask … [Read more...]
On the Problem of Mental Reservation
September 7, 2020 by Dr. Sean Collins
Should we lie when the Nazi stands at the door and asks us his infamous evil question? Traditional proposals about how to solve this problem by means of what is called “mental reservation” tend to be unsatisfying, because they are based on t … [Read more...]
Questions Answered – February 2020
February 10, 2020 by Fr. Brian Mullady, OP
Purgatory and Filthy Lucre Question: I teach RCIA and a catechumen in my class said he was taught that Catholics dreamed up Purgatory as a way to get money from people. I know Purgatory is referred to in Maccabees and responded that … [Read more...]
The Eucharist as Source and Summit of Evangelization in the Recent Magisterium
December 28, 2019 by Fr. Charles Fox
“Yes, if only I am lifted up from the earth, I will attract all men to myself.”[1. Jn 12:32. All Scriptural quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from the Knox Translation of the Bible.] In recent decades, the Church’s Magisterium has rep … [Read more...]
The Theological Anthropology of Karol Wojtyla (Pope St. John Paul II)
October 30, 2019 by Dr. William R. Luckey, PhD
Every so often, there appears in history a person who has an effect on the world, that the whole world is changed for the better as a result of their being there. A person of recent memory is Father Karol Wojtyla, who became Pope St. John … [Read more...]
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