Waters, Ian; McGuckin, Robert The following document has been produced to assist priests and deacons of the Latin Catholic Church in their parish pastoral ministry. It does not attempt to be a scholarly or technical treatment. Often, as regards questions about marriage, a canonist will need to be consulted.

Waters, Ian The Australian hierarchy was established by Pope Gregory XVI in 1842. Since then, there have been six national Catholic councils held in Australia. The first two, celebrated in 1844 and 1869, are known as the First Provincial Council of Australia and the Second Provincial Council of Australia, as until 1874 the Australian dioceses were all in the one ecclesiastical province with Sydney being the sole metropolitan see. In 1874, a second province - Melbourne - was established, and the (...) national councils since then - four of them, celebrated in 1885, 1895, 1905 and 1937 - have been called plenary councils, the term used in the Catholic Church in recent centuries for councils whose participants are from more than one ecclesiastical province; in the past, terms such as regional councils or national councils have been used. As we all know, another plenary council for Australia is planned to commence in 2020. (shrink)

Waters, Ian One of the most universally acclaimed films of 2014 was Calvary, a parable of the betrayal of the Irish people by the Irish Catholic Church. The context for the film was the Irish Catholic Church, which had previously defined Ireland's soul, and had recently been revealed to have consciously and methodically covered up atrocities perpetrated in church institutions.

The findings of the Archbishop's Council in their 2004 report, to the effect that traditional forms of church in Britain are under threat because of changing cultural patterns, emphasise the need to re-think church for our contemporary contexts. The 'Fresh Expressions of church' movement is one such initiative identified and approved of by the Archbishop's Council. This article reports on research undertaken in a practical theological interpretation of The Filling Station, a Christian ministry that has grown significantly in its 10-year (...) history and was formed as a missional endeavour in recognition of declining church attendance in traditional churches in Britain. This work explores whether The Filling Station is a Fresh Expression of church and whether it meets the values of authentic missional churches. In examining whether The Filling Station ought to be considered for import into appropriate local congregational contexts, it enquires whether it satisfactorily addresses prevailing social trends affecting churches, including consumerism and the need for identity. (shrink)

Since the end of apartheid and the advent of democratic elections, South Africa has made great strides, but we still continue, at times, to be unable to practise sawubona. On one level, this is not surprising given our history of separateness. The article asks whether fresh expressions of church, such as the community supper at St Peters in Mowbray, Cape Town, indeed create a space for genuinely ‘seeing’ each other and practicing being human together. The article also explores some of (...) the problems inherent in ethnographic work amongst the poor and the vulnerable by asking whether some types of ethnographic work actually practice a form of epistemic violence and muses upon the idea of the postcolonial gaze and ‘othering’ in ethnography in contexts of poverty in the global South. Can ethnography, in some cases, be a form of academic pornography? (shrink)

As a young bachelor of theology William of Ockham found himself under attack for—among other things—views he had expressed regarding the Aristotelian accident of quantity and the related question of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist. This essay focuses on Ockham’s conception of academic freedom as it was articulated in defense of his own position. Against fellow schoolmen who mistake their own magisterial opinions for settled Catholic dogma, Ockham insists on the latitude that is afforded scholars in matters that have not (...) yet been definitively determined by the Roman Church. Hence when it comes to the precise alignment of the eucharistic accidents, until such time as the Roman Pontiff hands down an official determination, Ockham contends that he is under no obligation to yield to the pressures of envious academics. The younger Ockham, who pointedly refrains from accusing his opponents of heresy, simply asks that they would exhibit the same restraint. (shrink)

John Locke (1632-1704) is a central figure in the history of thought, and in liberal doctrine especially. This major study brings a range of his wider views to bear upon his political theory. Every political theorist has a vision, a view about the basic features of life and society, as well as technique which mediates this into propositions about politics. Locke's vision spanned questions concerning Christian worship, ethics, political economy, medicine, the human understanding, revealed theology and education. This study shows (...) how the character of these wider concerns informed Two Treatises of Government, especially in respect of a view of divine teleology, and situated a distinctive view of politics which treated the state and the church in parallel terms. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:In his influential study, The Harvest of Medieval Theology, Heiko Oberman had drawn two broad categories by which to classify the late medieval conception of Holy Scripture and the Catholic Tradition. The first, Tradition I, held Scripture to be the sole source of Catholic doctrine such that Tradition was equated with the exegetical contribution of the holy doctors. What Oberman deemed Tradition II maintained that Holy Scripture is not (...) sufficient for the determination of Catholic doctrine such that it needed to be supplemented by a separate extra-scriptural source of revelation. And it is within Tradition II that Oberman placed William of Ockham. That is to say Ockham was deemed a proponent of a so-called ‘two-sources’ principle of divine revelation. In fact, Oberman went on to say that, “we may conclude that Occam is not just playing with the two-sources theory but that he indeed believes in the solidity of the argument in its totality.”1 Influential as Oberman’s theory has been over the past forty years, however, the strict categorization of ‘one source’ over and against ‘two-sources’ may indeed be detrimental to an assessment of Ockham’s views on the authoritative determination of Catholic doctrine.This essay will focus primarily on Ockham’s conception of biblical authority relative to that of extra-scriptural sources, most notably papal authority. We will also look at two other fourteenth-century Franciscans, his predecessor John Duns Scotus and his successor William Woodford. This will provide us with an opportunity to assess the ways in which different Franciscan theologians handled the nuances of doctrinal authority in light of the specific concerns they faced. In the case of Scotus such questions were less polemically charged than they were for Ockham and Woodford. They usually came up within the confines of his Ordinatio and pertained to doctrines that Scotus willingly embraced even as he tried to make sense of their formulation. Ockham and Woodford, on the other hand, faced flesh and blood opponents in fierce debates: Ockham against the papacy and Woodford against the English Wycliffites. In an era when the precise relationship between authoritative sources was not very well defined, we will see these latter two Franciscans take different tacks as they addressed the exigencies of the moment, thereby highlighting the flexibility of Franciscan views of scriptural and extra-scriptural authority in the fourteenth century.First, though, we can offer some perspective on Oberman’s one source/two sources dichotomy. Oberman was one among many scholars—Protestant and Catholic—charting a grand history of Scripture and Tradition in the run-up to the Second Vatican Council. Much scholarly interest was specifically focused on what the Council of Trent had meant in its formal statement of April 8, 1546 when referring to “the truth and discipline [of the Gospel] contained in the written books and in the unwritten traditions.”2 In an effort to draw out the full intention of this statement scholars turned to an earlier draft to see if it could further illuminate what the Tridentine fathers meant. The earlier draft spoke of the truth and discipline of the Gospel being contained partly in the written books and partly in the unwritten traditions. In light of this fact scholars asked whether the final edition’s use of ‘and’ meant that all Catholic doctrine comes down fully in Scripture and fully in the traditions of the Church, such that either form of transmission sufficiently communicates this doctrine; or does the ‘and’ carry the weight of the earlier ‘partly’ such that Scripture contains only a portion of the truth and thus must be supplemented by unwritten traditions?Did the change from ‘partly … partly’ to ‘and’ signify a change in meaning? Not according to Oberman who was sure that the Council intended to affirm that Scripture does not contain all doctrinal truths.3 Whereas George Tavard concluded just the.. (shrink)

In the discipline of practical theology, one finds a long history of linking the name of the field to diaconiology, in which you find the Greek word diaconia, directly translated as 'service'. For good and scientific reasons, the field changed its name to practical theology in some Faculties of Theology but that does not take away the fact that this field of research is still very much engaged in the broad area of 'service of all kinds'. The purpose of this (...) article was to do a descriptive investigation into the problems and challenges of service delivery in the suburb of Belhar (Cape Town), specifically looking at the role of leadership during a (new) time of struggle. As part of the normative task, the researcher took a closer look at the Belhar Confession as a prophetic stance in this regard. In an ironic twist, we see in these events the struggle between the real and the ideal that is typical of many places in the country facing problems with service delivery. The Church often thinks it knows what the world wants from it - inspiration, 'leadership,' clear teaching. But surely what the world is most hungry for is the simple knowledge that healing is possible - not by forgetting or minimizing outrages and sufferings but by sheer, obstinate, costly commitment to work with the grain of grace. (Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, in Lapsley 2012:i). (shrink)

With all the jumble of human disagreements, how can we know? Can the Christian church think coherently about knowledge? Can it regain confidence in teaching what it knows? In an increasingly divided and pessimistic postmodern world this book offers a theology for epistemology and for pedagogy that aims to be faithful and fruitful. Building on Karl Barth, it argues that God's knowing guides how humans know. We should imitate God's epistemic stance--his love--for that is the best model for knowing anything. (...) The Trinitarian theme in Barth identifies three key concepts: committedness, openness, and relationality. These mean being committed and open towards what we wish to know. Relational open committedness also profoundly clarifies and shapes what love means in knowing and in teaching. This book unpacks an epistemology and pedagogy of love. Wouldn't you love to know? (shrink)

Discussing questions concerning quantum physics and spirituality together is particularly valuable in order to see the connection between them from a New Church standpoint. An urgent reason for discussing this link is that some people want to identify these things. The feeling is widespread that somehow they are connected, but some “new age” people want to say that quantum physics tells us about spirituality. We know from Swedenborg that the connection is not quite so simple, so we need to understand (...) in more detail what is going on. (shrink)

This collection of essays shifts the focus of scholarly debate away from the themes that have traditionally dominated the study of Edmund Burke. In the past, largely ideology-based or highly textual studies have tended to paint Burke as a “prophet” or “precursor” of movements as diverse as conservatism, political pragmatism, and romanticism. In contrast, these essays address prominent issues in contemporary society—multiculturalism, the impact of postmodern and relativist methodologies, the boundaries of state-church relationships, and religious tolerance in modern societies—by emphasizing (...) Burke’s earlier career and writings and focusing on his position on historiography, moral philosophy, jurisprudence, aesthetics, and philosophical skepticism. The essays in this collection, written by some of today’s most renowned Burke scholars, will radically challenge our deeply rooted assumptions about Burke, his thought, and his place in the history of Western political philosophy. (shrink)

By apologetics one generally means the kind of intellectual apologetics that we find in Newman’s Development of Christian Doctrine, Apologia, and Grammar of Assent. But Newman was also the persuasive apologist of the imagination, particularly in his two novels and Difficulties of Anglicans and Present Position of Catholics. In Loss and Gain Newman takes his readers into a Catholic church to experience the reality of Catholic worship, an imaginative experience designed to impress upon their imagination the difference between a real (...) and an unreal religion. In Difficulties of Anglicans he warns Anglo-Catholics against the misuse of the imagination when unguided by the reason. But the misuse does not take away the use, and he explains how important a part imagination had played in his own conversion to Rome. The analogies he presses on the imaginations of his Anglo-Catholic readers are nothing to the analogies he piles up in Present Position of Catholics, where the most vivid imagery in all his writings is to be found, as he employs shock tactics in his attempt to delete the anti-Catholic stain on the English Protestant imagination. And finally in Callista, Newman practically abandons his most famous apologetic argument from conscience for the existence of God in favour of a direct appeal to the imagination of the heroine, to her need for liberation from self-imprisonment, a liberation that she can only find in the image of an incarnate God. (shrink)

John Henry Newman was a major figure in nineteenth-century religious history. He was one of the major protagonists of the Oxford or Tractarian Movement within the Church of England whose influence continues to be felt within Anglicanism. A high-profile convert to Catholicism, he was an important commentator on Vatican I and is often called 'the Father' of the Second Vatican Council. Newman's thinking highlights and anticipates the central themes of modern theology including hermeneutics, the importance of historical-critical research, the relationship (...) between theology and literature, and the reinterpretation of the nature of faith. His work is characterised by two elements that have come especially to the fore in post-modern theology, namely, the importance of the religious imagination and the fiduciary character of all knowledge. This Companion fills a need for an accessible, comprehensive and systematic presentation of the major themes in Newman's work. (shrink)

As a young bachelor of theology William of Ockham found himself under attack for—among other things—views he had expressed regarding the Aristotelian accident of quantity and the related question of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist. This essay focuses on Ockham’s conception of academic freedom as it was articulated in defense of his own position. Against fellow schoolmen who mistake their own magisterial opinions for settled Catholic dogma, Ockham insists on the latitude that is afforded scholars in matters that have not (...) yet been definitively determined by the Roman Church. Hence when it comes to the precise alignment of the eucharistic accidents, until such time as the Roman Pontiff hands down an official determination, Ockham contends that he is under no obligation to yield to the pressures of envious academics. The younger Ockham, who pointedly refrains from accusing his opponents of heresy, simply asks that they would exhibit the same restraint. (shrink)

A sentence of first-order logic is satisfiable if it is true in some structure, and finitely satisfiable if it is true in some finite structure. The question arises as to whether there exists an algorithm for determining whether a given formula of first-order logic is satisfiable, or indeed finitely satisfiable. This question was answered negatively in 1936 by Church and Turing (for satisfiability) and in 1950 by Trakhtenbrot (for finite satisfiability).In contrast, the satisfiability and finite satisfiability problems are algorithmically solvable (...) for restricted subsets---or, as we say, fragments---of first-order logic, a fact which is today of considerable interest in Computer Science. This book provides an up-to-date survey of the principal axes of research, charting the limits of decision in first-order logic and exploring the trade-off between expressive power and complexity of reasoning. Divided into three parts, the book considers for which fragments of first-order logic there is an effective method for determining satisfiability or finite satisfiability. Furthermore, if these problems are decidable for some fragment, what is their computational complexity? Part I focusses on fragments defined by restricting the set of available formulas. Topics covered include the Aristotelian syllogistic and its relatives, the two-variable fragment, the guarded fragment, the quantifier-prefix fragments and the fluted fragment. Part II investigates logics with counting quantifiers. Starting with De Morgan's numerical generalization of the Aristotelian syllogistic, we proceed to the two-variable fragment with counting quantifiers and its guarded subfragment, explaining the applications of the latter to the problem of query answering in structured data. Part III concerns logics characterized by semantic constraints, limiting the available interpretations of certain predicates. Taking propositional modal logic and graded modal logic as our cue, we return to the satisfiability problem for two-variable first-order logic and its relatives, but this time with certain distinguished binary predicates constrained to be interpreted as equivalence relations or transitive relations. The work finishes, slightly breaching the bounds of first-order logic proper, with a chapter on logics interpreted over trees. (shrink)

The English writers of Dr Coulson’s ‘Common Tradition’ all subscribe to a ‘fiduciary’ as opposed to ‘analytic’ use of language. For Coleridge, unlike Bentham, ‘a language is for action as well as reflection: it must be responded to in all its richness and diversity before we can know what some of its words mean’. A fiduciary language ‘reveals not only the traditions and living principles of a people, but the world of ideas by which all men live’. Coulson argues that (...) the key Coleridgean word ‘idea’ is ‘most clearly understood when it is seen as originating in an understanding of the Church as sacramentally…the presence of Christ in the world’. ‘Such a sacramental conception of the Church is at the heart not only of the Oxford Movement and of Newman’s idea of the Church, but also of that other movement which derives even more directly from Coleridge and is associated with F D Maurice’. But unlike Coleridge and Maurice, for Newman the idea of the Church Catholic must correspond to ‘a tangible, visible, and identifiable empirical entity’, which is not its particular manifestation in the National Church. On the other hand, Coleridge’s ideal of a ‘clerisy’ corresponds to Newman’s insistence on the importance of an educated laity to represent the Church in society; and if Newman could not accept that the idea of the Church is ‘regulated’ by the Nation, nevertheless it is the laity which is the ‘measure’ of his ‘regulating principles’—theology. Where Newman differed so sharply from both Coleridge and Maurice was in his insistence on first asking the Benthamite question, ‘how do we know that Christianity is true?’ before exploring the meaning or relevance of Christian doctrines and institutions. Coulson concludes by claiming that Newman’s final vision of a Church which ‘cannot be conceived sacramentally, and in its idea, in isolation from society’ both supplements Vatican I and anticipates Vatican II, as well as summing up the essential insight of Coleridge and Maurice. (shrink)

The English writers of Dr Coulson’s ‘Common Tradition’ all subscribe to a ‘fiduciary’ as opposed to ‘analytic’ use of language. For Coleridge, unlike Bentham, ‘a language is for action as well as reflection: it must be responded to in all its richness and diversity before we can know what some of its words mean’. A fiduciary language ‘reveals not only the traditions and living principles of a people, but the world of ideas by which all men live’. Coulson argues that (...) the key Coleridgean word ‘idea’ is ‘most clearly understood when it is seen as originating in an understanding of the Church as sacramentally…the presence of Christ in the world’. ‘Such a sacramental conception of the Church is at the heart not only of the Oxford Movement and of Newman’s idea of the Church, but also of that other movement which derives even more directly from Coleridge and is associated with F D Maurice’. But unlike Coleridge and Maurice, for Newman the idea of the Church Catholic must correspond to ‘a tangible, visible, and identifiable empirical entity’, which is not its particular manifestation in the National Church. On the other hand, Coleridge’s ideal of a ‘clerisy’ corresponds to Newman’s insistence on the importance of an educated laity to represent the Church in society; and if Newman could not accept that the idea of the Church is ‘regulated’ by the Nation, nevertheless it is the laity which is the ‘measure’ of his ‘regulating principles’—theology. Where Newman differed so sharply from both Coleridge and Maurice was in his insistence on first asking the Benthamite question, ‘how do we know that Christianity is true?’ before exploring the meaning or relevance of Christian doctrines and institutions. Coulson concludes by claiming that Newman’s final vision of a Church which ‘cannot be conceived sacramentally, and in its idea, in isolation from society’ both supplements Vatican I and anticipates Vatican II, as well as summing up the essential insight of Coleridge and Maurice. (shrink)

Corruption is a word used loosely to describe many kinds of action that people find distasteful. We prefer to reserve it for the intentional misuse of the good offices of an established social entity for private benefit, posing as fair trading. The currency of corruption is not always material or financial. Moral corruption is all too familiar within churches and other ostensibly beneficent institutions, and it happens within medicine and the pharmaceutical industries. Corrupt behavior reduces trust, costs money, causes injustice, (...) and arouses anger. Yet it persists, despite all efforts since the beginnings of societies. People who act corruptly may lack conscience and empathy in the same way as those with some personality disorders. Finding ways to prevent corruption from contaminating beneficent organizations is therefore likely to be frustratingly difficult. Transparency and accountability may go some way, but the determined corruptor is unlikely to feel constrained by moral and reporting requirements of this kind. Punishment and redress are complicated issues, unlikely to satisfy victims and society at large. Both perhaps should deal in the same currency—material or social—in which the corrupt dealing took place. (shrink)

In European culture the sacred and the secular have existed in a dialectical relationship. Prodi sees the fifteenth-century crisis of Christianity as opening up three paths that eroded this dualism and tended towards modernity: civic-republican religion, sacred monarchy, and the territorial churches. Important counter-forces, which sought to maintain dualism, included the Roman-Tridentine Compromise, and those forms of Radical Christianity which rejected confessionalisation outright. During the Eighteenth Century, all these phenomena tended to contribute to one of two tendencies: towards civic religion, (...) or towards political religion. The former preserved a distinction between conscience and law; the latter comprised a state religion which sought to perfect all of human nature. It was civic religion which become embodied in the early USA, alienating God from worldly power, but leaving him as the guarantor of agreements between humans. Back in Europe, Prodi tracks the relationship between the Catholic Church and the new national states. He then turns to the political religions of the Twentieth Century. Prodi concludes by emphasising that this dualism of sacred and secular power lay at the centre of Western modernity, and expresses his fears about the collapse of civic religion into political religion, especially in the USA. (shrink)

The life of medieval peasants was dominated by the Church and local society. Both institutions were hierarchical and dependent upon inequality. The Church sought to teach the laity about Christian...

An intro. to Didaktic (the heart of thinking about teaching/teacher educ in Germany) for English-speaking readers, drawing on a range of writings assoc. w/ this tradition. Throws light on assumptions, characteristics, & weaknesses of curriculum thought.

An expanded & revised version of Religion in an Age of Science. Three new chapters on physics & metaphysics in the 18th century and biology & theology in the 19th century. Other new sections included.

Religion and Science is a comprehensive examination of the major issues between science and religion in today's world. With the addition of three new historical chapters to the nine chapters (freshly revised and updated) of Religion in an Age of Science, winner of the Academy of Religion Award for Excellence in 1991, Religion and Science is the most authoritative and readable book on the subject, sure to be used by science and religion courses and discussion groups and to become the (...) introduction of choice for general readers. (shrink)

The moment when a person’s actual relationships fall short of desired relationships is commonly identified as the etiological moment of chronic loneliness, which can lead to physical and psychological effects like depression, worse recovery from illness and increased mortality. But, this etiology fails to explain the nature and severe impact of loneliness. Here, we use philosophical analysis and neuroscience to show that human beings develop and maintain our world-picture (our sense of what is true, important, and good) through joint attention (...) and action, motivated by friendship, in the Aristotelian sense of “other selves” who share a sense of the true and the good, and desire the good for each other as much as for themselves. The true etiological event of loneliness is the moment one’s world-picture becomes unshared. The pathogenesis is a resultant decay of our world-picture, with brain and behavior changes following as sequelae. (shrink)

Introduction -- Evidence from children -- Evidence form infants and non-human animals -- Evidence from neuroimaging and neuropsychology -- Evidence from adults -- The cognitive basis of mindreading -- Elaborating and applying the theory.

First published 1966 Includes index Includes bibliographical references Campion Collection.

Philosophers have lately seized upon Sperling's partial report technique and subsequent work on iconic memory in support of controversial claims about perceptual experience, in particular that phenomenology overflows cognitive access. Drawing on mounting evidence concerning postdictive perception, I offer an interpretation of Sperling's data in terms of cue-sensitive experience which fails to support any such claims. Arguments for overflow based on change-detection paradigms (e.g. Landman et al., 2003; Sligte et al., 2008) cannot be blocked in this way. However, such paradigms (...) are fundamentally different from Sperling's and, for rather different reasons, equally fail to establish controversial claims about perceptual experience. (shrink)

It is often said that one person or society is `freer' than another, or that people have a right to equal freedom, or that freedom should be increased or even maximized. Such quantitative claims about freedom are of great importance to us, forming an essential part of our political discourse and theorizing. Yet their meaning has been surprisingly neglected by political philosophers until now. Ian Carter provides the first systematic account of the nature and importance of our judgements about degrees (...) of freedom. He begins with an analysis of the normative assumptions behind the claim that individuals are entitled to a measure of freedom, and then goes on to ask whether it is indeed conceptually possible to measure freedom. Adopting a coherentist approach, the author argues for a conception of freedom that not only reflects commonly held intuitions about who is freer than who but is also compatible with a liberal or freedom-based theory of justice. (shrink)

CHAPTER ONE IDEOLOGY AND CONFUSION Among political concepts none is more muddled or more fraught than ideology. This is not for the want of theories to ...

Many epistemologists have recently defended views on which all evidence is true or perceptual reasons are facts. On such views a common account of basic perceptual reasons is that the fact that one sees that p is one’s reason for believing that p. I argue that that account is wrong; rather, in the basic case the fact that p itself is one’s reason for believing that p. I show that my proposal is better motivated, solves a fundamental objection that the (...) received view faces, and illuminates the nature of reasons for belief. (shrink)

How do we know when one person or society is 'freer' than another? Can freedom be measured? Is more freedom better than less? This book provides the first full-length treatment of these fundamental yet neglected issues, throwing new light both on the notion of freedom and on contemporary liberalism.