Moral Theology and the Problem of Modernity

Our next monthly meeting will be held on Friday, December 11th from 3:00pm to 4:30pm. We will be discussing “Moral Theology and the Problem of Modernity” by David L. Schindler from the Summer 2019 (Volume 46.2) issue of Communio entitled Mary, Motherhood, and the Church. The PDF can be downloaded here.

The following is taken from the Introduction to the issue: In addition to our on-theme articles, we are pleased to present David L. Schindler’s “Conscience and the Relation between Truth and Pastoral Practice: Moral Theology and the Problem of Modernity.” Here Schindler examines the meaning of conscience in light of the false opposition between objective law and subjective freedom that is typical of modern thought and culture. Engaging the theological reception of Amoris laetitia, Schindler argues that certain interpreters of the document have presupposed just such a view of moral truth as extraneous to conscience in a self-defeating attempt to secure the subject’s responsible agency. Drawing widely upon the tradition, and especially on John Paul II’s encyclical Veritatis splendor, Schindler recovers an understanding of the good as intimately eliciting and empowering the human actor’s participation in the divine love that initiates his very being. On this understanding, addressing another’s conscience and accompanying him pastorally “means (re-)awakening in him the memory of a desire that he himself naturally bears in his interior depths and whose realization alone can bring true meaning and joy into his life.”

We will be holding a hybrid meeting, that is, in person and online.

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