Looking back on the controversy that preceded Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical, Humanae Vitae, I get the impression that there was an even deeper issue in play than the question of the morally appropriate means to regulate human fertility. Underneath that debate, another issue was being contested: How should Catholics do moral theology? Continue Reading »
The proposal of Cardinal Walter Kasper about the possibility of remarried Catholics to receive communion has attracted much attention. His main idea, namely to accept Orthodox teaching on divorce, is not as new as some think. Continue Reading »
While Cardinal Kasper has been busy lobbying for his long-sought proposal to change Church disciplines concerning the indissolubility of marriage, Benedict XVI has been, as he promised, cloistered in prayer and study. Continue Reading »
In 1567, the famous reformer Pope Pius V condemned various propositions from the writings of a little known theologian by the name of Michael Baius, a professor at the University of Leuven in Belgium. Concerned with combatting a rising secularism, yet ironically yielding to it, his problems are to a great extent our own. Continue Reading »