Does the Church state that there is an ideal form of government? What Magisterial status does the teaching of the popes on contraception enjoy? Can it be changed? Must we believe it? Plato, St. Thomas Aquinas, and A … [Read more...]
Competing Theories of Christ’s Atonement: Penal Substitution, Economic Transaction, or Obediential Love?
July 26, 2014 by Book Reviews
The Passion is understood as an act of a personal God atoning for the personal offense of sin. The personalist understanding of the atonement is deeply linked to the framework of the relationship between Christ and the members of his … [Read more...]
Teaching the Faith: Contributions from Thomas Aquinas
July 11, 2014 by Br. Michael Weibley, OP
God's love, mediated through the articles of faith, is a communication of God's love speaking to us. Those who hear, and cling to the merciful speech of God, in faith, are the ones who attain this saving knowledge. "But when the Son of M … [Read more...]
The Understanding of Revelation in “Dei Verbum” and the Response of Faith
June 11, 2014 by Thomas Gourlay
While this notion of revelation, understood as the manifestation of ... Christ himself, has been with the Church since the very beginning. There have been many confusions and reductions over time that have altered the very essence of the … [Read more...]
Faith Needs Philosophy: A Primer on the Relationship between Reason and Revelation
April 23, 2014 by Brian Jones
The great philosophers that preceded the Judeo-Christian Revelation demonstrated many of the truths about God and the faith that are affirmed in Scripture, and are what St. Thomas calls the preambles of faith. I recently had a brief … [Read more...]
Preaching the Truth in Love and Wisdom: Pope Francis’ 2013 Apostolic Exhortation “Evangelii Gaudium”
April 10, 2014 by Fr. Athanasius Murphy, O.P.
...conversion occurs when the Gospel speaks to the deepest yearnings of our hearts, and the desires present within us are filled by a supernatural grace that comes from God. “The joy of the Gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who e … [Read more...]
Contemplation, Action, and the Good Life
February 22, 2014 by Dr. Richard Becka, PhD
Everyone is seeking knowledge, but is the knowledge they are seeking really worth the trade-off in terms of the life’s cost? Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas Everyone familiar with the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition will recognize … [Read more...]
An Essay on Natural Family Planning
February 8, 2014 by Dr. Charles W. Norris, M.D.
The Catholic Church has never opposed family planning, but she teaches through her Magisterium, or teaching authority, that man may not, of his own volition, separate the two meanings of the conjugal act, the unitive and the procreative, … [Read more...]
Toward a Theology of Infertility: The Trinity in Richard of St. Victor
January 16, 2014 by Dr. Michael Brummond
Richard of St. Victor explores an understanding of the Trinity based on an understanding of the nature of interpersonal love ... in which God is viewed as a community of persons ... he conceives of the Holy Spirit ... as a third person: the … [Read more...]
Communion, Community, and Communication
January 14, 2014 by Fr. John Navone, SJ
The Gospel summons us to authentic human development in communion, community, and communication under the sovereignty of God’s love. Our Christian conversion is both an event and a lifelong process of ongoing response to the grace and call o … [Read more...]
“It Belongs to the Wise Man to Order”: James Schall on Politics and Revelation
December 11, 2013 by Brian Jones
The wise man not only has the right order in his mind, but in his soul as well; he not only knows how he ought to live, but, more importantly, he does, in fact, live this way, in accord with what he is. Fr. Norris Clarke, the renowned … [Read more...]
The Renewal of Preaching in the Liturgical Homily for the New Evangelization
November 24, 2013 by Fr. Gabriel de Chadarevian, OP
My purpose here is not to detail the content of a good homily, but to delineate the focus and attitudes of heart and mind of the homilist himself. Outstanding Dominican preachers: Blessed Jordan of Saxony, St. Dominic, St. Vincent … [Read more...]
The Dumb Ox on Evolution
November 11, 2013 by Rob Agnelli
Thomism offers a valuable service to mankind by guiding the scientific discussions only in the direction of those theories that have a solid metaphysical foundation. In a 1996 address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Pope John … [Read more...]
Freedom in Our Souls
November 11, 2013 by Dennis Phua
We cannot exercise freedom from inordinate attachments unless we have accepted the purifications which are necessary to be freed from our self-centered instincts. St. Augustine This is salvation: to live in the consolation of the Holy … [Read more...]
The Providence of God and the Cross of Christ
October 9, 2013 by Daniel M. Garland, Jr.
When one examines the mystery of divine providence, and its relation to the cross of Christ from the viewpoint of wisdom, which is knowledge of divine things, he sees God’s wonderful plan of redemption for his creatures. Crucifixion is t … [Read more...]
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