John Thiel's development of the category of “dramatic development” in his stimulating and influential Senses of Tradition offers a valuable entry point into the current discussion of the continuity or discontinuity between Vatican II and traditional Roman Catholic thought. This article extends and modifies Thiel's arguments in light of criticisms by Kathryn Tanner and Alasdair MacIntyre's description of the different ways in which traditions make or fail to make progress. It tests this revised theory against an application to Dignitatis Humanae and its contested relation to traditional Roman Catholic thought.

Charles Taylor's exploration of modern social imaginaries sheds light on the differing ways that university faculty and leaders today reflect and help shape the world. This article examines Taylor's work as a point of departure for suggesting two contrasting models of social imaginary abroad in university education—namely, cosmopolis and new Jerusalem. It explores what a robust Catholic imagination represented by the latter model might mean for the contemporary Catholic university, especially as regards the desire for integration of knowledge that is truly reflective of the term “university.” It pays particular attention to Bernard Lonergan's notion of cosmopolis as a way of imagining anew the ways that Catholic universities form students and contribute to research and scholarship, and emphasizes the task of faculty formation as central to Catholic mission in the academy.

In light of the problem of the postmodern “de-centered” subject for Christianity, I address the loss of a common expectation horizon of the eschatological future. This loss is situated within the wider collapse of modern metanarratives and the dispersal of the primacy and critical power of the future, leading to an incomplete and even shattered process of identity formation for Christians. By recovering elements of Edward Schillebeeckx's eschatology, I suggest a way forward by drawing on the wider Christian tradition and hope for salvation as an essential element for the ongoing process of identity formation, while using his thought to critique the fractured postmodern “self” and contemporary trends in culture, religion, and economics.

The 2014 extraordinary meeting of the Synod of Bishops explicitly referenced gradualism three times in the Relatio post Disceptationem. Is this moral theology concept helpful for analyzing relationships? This question is more difficult than it first seems. One needs to first ask “which gradualism,” as the three references imply three different understandings: Gradualism as Growth in Holiness, Gradualism as Pastoral Practice, and Gradualism as Inclusivism. Second, one must ask “whose relationship” it can help. I turn to hookup culture as it is a ubiquitous phenomenon on college campuses. As only Gradualism as Inclusivism proves helpful in hookup culture, it has the best potential to help those pursuing good relationships that might not readily align with church teaching.

In his important 2005 analysis of the Catholic Church in America, Peter Steinfels observed that