January 2019

St. Francis de Sales was born on August 21, 1567, in France, near the present-day Swiss border. He was the firstborn of thirteen children, five of whom died in infancy, and was named after Francis of Assisi. His father, also named Francis, at the age of forty-three married a young girl named Frances, who was fourteen years old at the time.

Mercy is at the heart of the Parable of the Prodigal Son. During Jesus’ time, it would have been scandalous for the son to squander his inheritance—let alone to request it while his father was still alive. For the father to take the first step toward his

There is a particular version of natural moral law theory known as “New Natural Law”: it understands morality as a matter of living in accord with basic human goods and not acting in such a way as to violate those goods. Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae vitae defines and excludes as morally wrong “all acts that attempt to impede procreation, both those chosen as means to an end and those chosen as ends” (Humanae vitae 14).

Everything that exists is a gift from God. Yet oftentimes we look to the things and creatures created by God for a satisfaction and fulfillment that only God Himself can provide. When the soul wraps itself around the things and the people of this world, looking for a satisfaction or fulfillment that only God can give, it produces a distortion in itself, and in others as well.

When you hear the word “commandment,” what first comes to mind? I suspect many of us think of a list of rules or “thou shalt nots.” When you hear the word “morality,” you may think of a code of conduct that limits our freedom and, well, fun. When asked once why he was studying the Commandments, the late comic W. C. Fields replied that he was “looking for loopholes.”

The Catholic Church, precisely on account of what sets her apart from every other community of faith, stands toward them as a foundation, root and source of the supernatural life that is common to them. A basic appreciation of this dynamism demands an etiological analysis. The question to be answered is this: how is the Catholic Church causally related to her separated brothers in Christ?

Singer-songwriter Rich Mullins earned lasting fame with a series of contemporary Christian hits in the 1980s and 1990s. In less than a decade, he won a dozen Dove Awards. His anthem “Awesome God” remains a staple of evangelical praise. Mullins’ early music was influenced by his Quaker upbringing, which was austerely anti-dogmatic, and his “Independent Christian” young adulthood. The Bible college he attended grew out of a movement whose foundational slogans touted “No creed but Christ.”

Though the story begins lightheartedly, there is nothing lighthearted about the kind of suffering that Frodo Baggins is invited to embrace in The Lord of the Rings. Frodo’s initial response is predictable: he is terrified by the news that he possesses the great Ring of the Dark Lord, Sauron, who is seeking him even as they speak. In a show of remarkable courage and wisdom that surprises even Gandalf, Frodo accepts his role and agrees to bear the Ring out of the Shire.

The last forty years have witnessed a remarkable and growing interest in virtue ethics. Moral theologians have rightly celebrated this new interest and encouraged it. Students of Aquinas have especially welcomed this interest, because the return to virtue ethics offers opportunities for the renewal of moral theology along Thomistic lines. At the same time, however, the return to virtue also presents a number of challenges.