Finding the Catholic Thing : Catholic Studies Should be catholic

Catholic studies programs seem to be springing up like mushrooms all over the country\u27. Typically, these programs involve the awarding of a certificate or a minor, and in some cases bachelor\u27s and master\u27s degrees. They range from well-funded and highly developed enterprises such as the program at the University of Saint Thomas in Saint Paul, Minnesota, to modest interdisciplinary programs such as the one at Santa Clara University in California. Not only Catholic universities, but some secular ones as well, are in the process of establishing some kind of Catholic studies program or chair. Some of these programs signal a healthy reinvigoration of Catholicism and interest in the Catholic faith tradition at a time when many people inside and outside the church question some of the directions taken by the Catholic church in the past few years. In many places, these programs are attracting students who are eager to learn more about their faith and to delve into it more deeply, even in places where there already seem to be many excellent existing resources for the study of Catholicism. The existence of these programs is already generating a cottage industry involving conferences, publications, research grants, and academic working groups at national academic meetings of theologians and religious scholars

Music of the Invisible: Messiaen’s Saint Francis

Saint Francois d\u27Assise, Olivier Messiaen\u27s only operatic work, received its world premiere in Paris in 1983. It has rarely been performed since, partly because of the sheer scope and audacity of the project, but also because of its subject matter--faith itself. This fall, the San Francisco Opera, newly directed by Pamela Rosenberg, gave the opera its U.S. premiere in its namesake city. It was a brilliant gamble, possibly opening a new operatic door in America. This is an opera unlike any other--an unabashed paean to music, to nature, and to the mystical path to joy seen in the figure of Francis (sung movingly by baritone Willard White)

Between Earth and Heaven: The Dialectical Structure of Ignatian Imagination

The theology of liberation has by now entered the common lexicon not only of theologians, but of many people who have until recently expressed little interest in theology.1 It is a theological genre or, better, a movement issuing out of and responsive to the experience of the poor and suffering of history, based upon a conviction that the Gospel has direct pertinence to the concrete human condition. It calls for a liberating practice as the way salvation is to be realized in history. A theology of liberation understands the Gospel as a divine challenge to any exercise of political and economic power that would threaten the very survival of human beings. The Gospel itself calls for a transfiguration of the earthly city and human history into an image of the kingdom of God. Thus, a theology of liberation moves in two directions: toward the fulfillment of human history in the absolute freedom of eternal life, and the working out of salvation within history itself

Theology in the Light of Human Suffering: A Note on “Taking the Crucified Down from the Cross

The writings of Jon Sobrino on suffering are so extensive, the theme so pervasively represented in virtually all of his works, that it is difficult to know where to start delineating a theology of suffering in his works . Sobrino himself does not identify any one part of his work as a theology of suffering per se. Still, there are certain fundamental motifs that recur throughout his writings and that lend to them a coherence and consistency that allow us to take the measure of his contribution to theological reflection on suffering. This project is probably best undertaken in retrospect, as we survey Sobrino \u27s vast corpus, and as we reflect with gratitude on all that this great theologian has given us to consider on the topic of suffering. I will demonstrate here that the attempt to articulate Sobrino\u27s theology of suffering will take us directly into his theology of the cross and resurrection-his theology of the paschal mystery - for this is where his fundamental reflections on suffering are to be found. I wish to consider Sobrino\u27s approach to suffering in three stages. First, I will examine Ellacuria\u27s metaphor of the crucified people:\u27 I will then show how Sobrino develops this metaphor in his own work, particularly in his theology of the paschal mystery. Finally, I will suggest that the praxis of resurrection gives concrete form to the summons to remove the suffering poor from their crosses. The whole of Sobrino\u27s theological treatment of suffering, I will argue, can only be seen within the framework of the paschal mystery, both cross and resurrection. Eschewing a theodicy removed from Christology, Sobrino\u27s theology from suffering is an integral moment of his Christology and leads to a central insight into suffering: that the power of God\u27s love wants to bring it to an end

Irish Tax Law and the Foreign Investor

For over twenty-five years, successive Irish Governments have actively sought and encouraged foreign investment in Ireland. With the exception of the insurance industry, Irish statutes grant foreigners the same rights as citizens of Ireland to establish whatever type of business they desire. A minimum native Irish interest in any business is required only for the issue or transfer of shares to, or the establishment of, a business branch operation by nonresidents. Although these transactions require Exchange Control approval, that approval is usually a formality for investments expected to bring an economic benefit to Ireland

Introduction: Improbable Encounters?

In this essay, the theological response to the question is an ecclesiological one: there are degrees of membership in the Church, from the explicitness of baptism to a nonofficial or anonymous form of Christianity. Rahner arrives at this position by starting with what can be said of the human being as spirit, that is, unlimited openness to the being of God, a capacity for God, an innate tendency toward God. In turn, the Incarnation, where God enters into human reality and becomes human being, reveals the fundamental ordering of God toward the human person (a subject in an interpersonal, intersubjective historical situation). Explicit Christian faith, which is expressed within the interpersonal communion of the Church, expresses what is always and already an implicit experience among human beings qua human. So, if a human being who does not explicitly profess Christian faith nevertheless says yes to her life in relation to the horizon of grace that we call God, then that person could be called a Christian, albeit anonymously, even though that person is not an explicit member of the Church. Such was the state of the question when Rahner was looking at it in the late 1950s and mid -1960s: a matter of ecclesiology, membership in the Church through the radical acceptance of God\u27s grace in a human life in a mode that is intrinsically Christian