Every parish priest and university chaplain knows the story. The young couple visits their pastor to make arrangements for their wedding. The pastor begins to ask the questions on the prenuptial questionnaire. The young man gives his address and later the young woman. It appears they live at the sam
From Our Archives
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Filling Theological Chairs: It is an affront to a bishop when his recommendation is rejected and the nihil obstat is withheld.
Editor’s note: In Germany, candidates for teaching positions in Catholic theology at universities and seminaries must receive a mandatum (nihil obstat) from a bishop. Since these academic positions are state appointments, this use of the nihil obstat arose over the last century in order to pre
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What If the Pope Became Disabled?
In the late 1980’s, Archbishop Thomas A. Donnellan of Atlanta suffered a seriously debilitating stroke, so severe that he was not able to communicate with anyone around him. Archdiocesan officials consulted the then recently revised Code of Canon Law and followed its directions for what to do
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I Am the Vine: A celebration of Masses in Rome, India and the Amazon
On the first Sunday of the new millennium, I went to my parents’ usual church, Our Lady of Good Voyage in Gloucester, Mass. On the second Sunday I knelt, freezing, below the great dome of the Pantheon in Rome and listened to a Latin Mass sung in purest Gregorian chant. On the third, I sat demu
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Responding to the ‘Gay Agenda’: Three reasons why dialogue might be an appropriate response
How should the Catholic Church in the United States respond to what some have labeled the gay agenda? One way would be simply to restate what has been declared repeatedly. This approach, however, may not meet the challenge. The so-called gay agenda has been in the making roughly since 1969, when the
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The Faces Behind Us: An aging population and diminishing energy reserves will soon require the rationing of scarce resourcesthe problem of saying no.
Driving to the university the other morning during rush hour, I was delayed briefly by the motorist ahead of me, who paused to let traffic enter from a side streeta courteous, helpful gesture, certainly. Moments later, in the elevator on the way up to my office, I was delayed once againthis time by
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Addressing Youth Crime: An Interview With Eugene F. Rivers
Who are the young people most at risk-these days for crime? They tend to be the black and brown fatherless youth who inhabit our inner cities, and who lack mentors, ministers and monitors. The absence of responsible authoritative adults in their lives, in addition to poverty and the lack of educatio
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Disciples and Citizens: Theodore Hesburgh, C.S.C., and Msgr. George Higgins are honored by their country for lifetime service.
Summer is not a good time to have significant events occur; too often they are missed by those who should know about them and would want to know about them. It is likely, for example, that even dedicated readers of the Catholic press did not see two announcements that should not go unacknowledged.Tw
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Estate Tax Repeal: Myths and Misunderstandings: The supporters of estate tax repeal have done a masterful job of obfuscation.
Many members of the current Congress came to Washington with promises to repeal the federal income tax or at least replace it with a flat tax. It hasn’t happened. They and their Congressional leaders discovered that the federal income tax is too deeply rooted to be ripped out or radically chan
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The Church, Condoms and the Spread of AIDS: From September 23, 2000
Pope Benedict XVI’s recent statements on the use of condoms to spread AIDS signals an important shift in the church’s approach to this vexed issue. In 2000, two Jesuits–a doctor and a theologian–wrote an article for America detaling what they perceived to be tolerant signals coming from Rome on the use of condoms. Citing an article in L’Osservatore Romano, they argued that the Roman Curia was more tolerant on the matter than individual bishops:
While many readers may be surprised by the article’s tolerance, we are not. Admittedly, the Vatican has intervened otherwise, as in 1988, when the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith raised questions about the U.S. Catholic Conference’s pastoral letter The Many Faces of AIDS: A Gospel Response (1987), and again in 1995, when the same congregation acted against a resource pack on H.I.V. education published with an imprimatur by the archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh. However, health care workers and moral theologians have encountered an implicit tolerance from the Roman Curia when they have first asserted church teaching on sexuality and subsequently addressed the prophylactic issue. For instance, more than 25 moral theologians have published articles claiming that without undermining church teaching, church leaders do not have to oppose but may support the distribution of prophylactics within an educational program that first underlines church teaching on sexuality. These arguments are made by invoking moral principles like those of “lesser evil,” “cooperation,” “toleration” and “double effect.” By these arguments, moralists around the world now recognize a theological consensus on the legitimacy of various H.I.V. preventive efforts.