Review of “The Heirs of St. Teresa of Avila: Defenders and Disseminators of the Founding Mother\u27s Legacy,” ed. Christopher Wilson

A review of book published ICS Publications, 2006

Review of Tracey Rowland’s “Culture and the Thomist Tradition: After Vatican II”

A review of book published by Routledge Press, 2003

Review of John R. Allen Jr.’s “Pope Benedict XVI: A Biography of Joseph Ratzinger”

A review of book published by Continuum, 2005

Carmelites and Miracles

Introduction: The Brothers of Our Lady of Mount Carmel were a religious order of Roman Catholic hermits that gathered together in the early 1200s to live a semi-monastic lifestyle in the mountain range of Carmel, near Haifa in present-day Israel. The Carmelites, as they came to be called, followed a rule of life written by Saint Albert, the Latin-rite patriarch of Jerusalem, and approved by Pope Honorius III in 1226. Due to military conquests in the region by Muslims, the Carmelites soon migrated to various parts of Europe and were transformed into a mendicant order, although their rule specified a preference for the contemplative life. Initially they had difficulty justifying their status as a mendicant order, since their origins were shrouded in mystery without a clear founder

Balthasar\u27s Theodramatic Hermeneutics: Trinitarian and Ecclesial Dimensions of Scriptural Interpretation

Hans Urs von Balthasar developed a unique style of biblical interpretation. This paper discusses four elements of his scriptural hermeneutics, a topic that offers glimpses of his fundamental theology and his ecclesiology as well. The first element of Balthasar’s hermeneutics is aesthetics. Balthasar’s aesthetic approach to scriptural interpretation stands in contrast with the commonly employed historical-critical method, which he found to be potentially limiting. The second element is theodrama. In Balthasar’s notion of theodramatic hermeneutics, the interpreter is already participating in the very salvation history that is being interpreted. The third and fourth elements of Balthasar’s hermeneutics involve the Trinitarian and ecclesial dimensions of interpretation; that is, he focuses especially on the role of the Holy Spirit and the church in the life of the interpreter

Review of Eric Marcelo O. Genilo, S.J.’s “John Cuthbert Ford, SJ: Moral Theologian at the End of the Manualist Era”

A review of book published by Georgetown University Press, 2007

A Comparison of the Aesthetic Approach of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Hans-Urs von Balthasar

Hans-Georg Gadamer (1901-2002), the German philosopher of hermeneutics, has exercised a powerful influence on post-Vatican II Roman Catholic fundamental theology, especially regarding questions of the development of doctrine and the appropriation of tradition. There is a tension in interpreting Gadamer\u27s thought between his concept of fusion of horizons, in which the horizon of the past is fused with the horizon of the present to yield new interpretations of past texts, and his defense of prejudice, authority, classics, and tradition, in which Gadamer upholds the enduring truth-value of received wisdom from the past. … This article will broadly point out the remarkable similarities between Gadamer\u27s aesthetics and the theology of Swiss Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-1988)

Review of Stephen Finlan’s “Problems with Atonement: The Origins of, and Controversy about, the Atonement Doctrine”

A review of book published by Liturgical Press, 2005

Review of “Saint Mary’s Press College Study Bible”

A review of book published by Saint Mary’s Press, 2007

Our Lady of Mount Carmel

Introduction: The Brothers of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, a Roman Catholic religious order commonly called the Carmelites, began in the early 1200s as a collection of hermits gathered together in a semi-monastic lifestyle on Mount Carmel in present-day Israel. They requested a rule of life from Saint Albert, the Latin-rite patriarch of Jerusalem, not long before his death in 1214. This original Carmelite foundation was under the patronage of Mary from the beginning. However, after the purported apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary to Saint Simon Stock in the 1250s, in which she told him that those who died wearing the scapular (q.v.) of the Carmelite Order worthily would not suffer eternal fire, the Carmelites began to stress Marian devotion as a defining characteristic of their order and identity