At the 2003 Annual Convention of the College Theology Society in Milwaukee, Sandra Yocum Mize presented some of her research for a history of the Society. I greatly appreciated her investigation of our Society's origins and its progress. She reminded me of things I had forgotten and told me much that I have never known. Let me add a few reminiscences that may be helpful to those who are new in the profession or relatively so.

The Korean War consumed the last two years of Harry Truman's second term as president, when Dwight Eisenhower was elected to succeed him. After the unsuccessful effort to contain Communism on the entire Korean peninsula at the cost of many lives on both sides, the eight Eisenhower years, 1952–1960 were largely a matter of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Eisenhower was basically a retired general, on the basis of which he had been named president of Columbia University in a kind of travesty of academic life. His brother Milton who might have made a better chief executive rose in academia to become president of the Pennsylvania State University, well before Joe Paterno brought the Nittany Lions to another kind of eminence. The Eisenhower years were a lull of sorts in U.S. life bringing prosperity to the few, Republican style, and a scandal over his chief of staff who had accepted a gift of an alpaca coat. Days of innocence! Catholic college enrollments were still very much on the increase in the mid-1950s as a result of the G.I. Bill granting full tuition and books, not only for undergraduate and graduate study but even for any theological seminary of a veteran's choice. Many a convent motherhouse's instructional situation was being transformed into a bachelor's degree-granting institution in those years, at first for the religious students only but then shortly for adult lay women in the surrounding areas. The teachers of religion in Catholic colleges and in the few universities of the mid-1950s were priests with a seminary education—no religious brothers, sisters or lay persons as yet.

Through the writings of Jean Vanier, this paper encourages Catholic theologians to examine critically their theological sources and their own rhetoric for the context of developmental disabilities. Specifically, this thought experiment is an invitation for the Catholic academy to consider how its theologies of charity can assist the church to reflect on its pastoral ministry to people with developmental disabilities. Some Catholic discourse is built on an assumed one-directional concept of charity that emphasizes the agency and gifts of the giver over the receiver. Such a one-sided model of hospitality tends to emphasize the giver as the person without developmental disabilities, whereas the person with disabilities is described as the receiver of hospitality; their own gifts and agency thereby are either unacknowledged or downplayed. This paper argues, instead, that Catholic theologies of charity, particularly regarding developmental disabilities, should be built on a mutuality that affirms each person's agency to be both a giver and a receiver of charity.

This paper selects three aspects of consumerism (individualism, the chronically reinvented self, and viewing nearly everything as a product or commodity) and assesses how they pose a challenge to liturgical worship, which is properly grounded in a Christian indentity that is fundamentally communal. When consumerism takes the form of shopping for a parish, it threatens to undermine this communal identity. At the same time, parish-shopping may well be an expression of a sincere search for a vital Christian community. This paper thus neither condemns nor condones parish shopping but stresses rather that there is work to be done to build up the sense of community in Roman Catholic parishes. Liturgical worship is an essential element in that process, but liturgy by itself cannot build or sustain community.

Christianity espouses the dignity of all humanity and professes welcome for all to the communion of saints. Yet people with disabilities, especially those with more severe or profound physical or psychological disabilities, are largely invisible inside our houses of worship. This article examines the meaning of dignity and inclusion through the lenses of Christian anthropology, disabilities liberation theology, and the lived experience of persons with disabilities. It concludes with some suggestions on how to begin inclusion.

According to the classic Catholic doctrine of property, owners who have more than they need are obliged to share their surplus with others who have less than they need. From the patristic era to the work of John Paul II, this obligation has been understood to arise most fundamentally from the character of the objects owned: the material world is a gift from the Creator, intended to meet the needs of all humanity. Three centuries ago, John Locke argued that 99 percent of the value of modern wealth is attributable not to natural resources but to human labor and invention, implicitly restricting the classic obligations of property owners to a mere 1 percent of wealth. Catholic moral theology has yet to integrate Locke's insight about human creativity and economic productivity into an adequate doctrine of property. This article surveys the problem and provides an outline of a constructive response.

Theology has a problem Justifying itself to its students as well as to itself. Its proper role is to bring the student to a deeper Christian faith experience. Two methods for doing this are the “general religious experience” approach and the method which concentrates on the uniqueness of Christ and his message and an interpersonal encounter with him. The latter method is preferred, and has proven most useful in rekindling the faith among college students.

There is increasing pressure on religious thinkers and leaders to construct theologies thoroughly grounded in the particularities of a faith tradition but truly appreciative of religious pluralism. This essay argues that a significant contribution towards articulating a Roman Catholic theology of religious diversity can be advanced by explicitly integrating developments in pneumatology and sacramental theology. Pneumatology has obvious pluralistic implications insofar as Catholic theologians and the magisterium itself have emphasized the universal presence of the Holy Spirit. The sacramental tradition is more ambivalent. On the one hand, the sacramental principle and sacramental nature of human existence would seem to endorse the authenticity of religious pluralism. On the other hand, sacramental theology in the West has historically been shaped by a Christomonism which necessarily tends toward exclusivism. This tendency can be overcome by understanding sacraments in light of a Spirit Christology from below.

In the last decade a number of publications have appeared regarding the life and work of the French Dominican Yves Congar. The present essay presents the “young Congar” of the 1930s, in particular his vision of what Catholic theology should be. The author defends the thesis that it is Congar who initiated the “program” of (the first phase of) the so-called nouvelle théologie (“new theology”). After a general survey of the central features of the nouvelle théologie and its development, the author gives an overview of the three ways in which Congar is to be understood its pioneer and representative.

This essay examines the methodological relationship of social doctrines of the Trinity and ecclesiologies of communion. The Theologies of Gisbert Greshake and Leonardo Boff represent theologians arguing that ecclesiology must be based on a doctrine of God which they present from a social (or psychological) perspective. The goal of the essay is to expose some of the methodological assumptions made by ecclesiologists and the value of social approach to the Trinity can have in an ecclesiology of communion.

Dorothy Day's sense of herself as a woman and as a mother feature prominently in her writings. In light of recent inquiries into gender identity and gender ideology, and given Dorothy Day's prominence as editor, social activist, anarchist, pacifist, and religious author, questions about her views regarding woman's role and related feminist concerns invite investigation. The paper argues that although Dorothy Day did not become a vocal advocate nor public ally of the women's movements in twentieth-century American life because of some fundamental differences in viewpoint and loyalty, she did share a number of affinities with feminist perspectives. To investigate her thought on this topic enables us to understand Dorothy Day more fully and to bring a critical eye to selected features of feminism, discerning (from Day's standpoint) both strengths and weaknesses.

As a Catholic lay person Friedrich von Hügel developed a spirituality which sought to integrate scholarship, including the critical study of religion, with a full religious life, one which holds the institutional, the intellectual, and the mystical elements in a creative tension. He did this during and after the period known as “Roman Catholic Modernism,” a difficult time in the history of the Roman Catholic Church as it responded to perceived threats with severe restrictions. This essay explores how von Hiigel's spirituality was one of empowerment by considering him as advocate and networker, writer, and spiritual director. He not only developed a lay approach to spirituality but a spirituality of scholarship which can still inspire contemporary Christians.

This article describes the reasons that a late medieval spiritual classic, The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis, was recently adopted as a textbook for a freshman course in “Christian Formation” at a mid-sized Evangelical Protestant university (Seattle Pacific University in Seattle, WA) and how it is taught there. It enumerates seven objections which contemporary American Evangelicals might raise to Thomas' spirituality, but shows how these very objections reveal a great deal about the religious and cultural ethos of those who make them. Since one of the course objectives is precisely to help students evaluate and critique their own culture and spirituality theologically, The Imitation proves to be singularly useful as a textbook. Excerpts from student writing assignments are analyzed to demonstrate the effectiveness of this way of using a classic from the Devotio Moderna with “postmodern” collegians.

The promise of Christian ethics is its contribution to the forging of covenants of mutual assistance among human creatures in the variety of human activities. Such covenants bear witness to the work of the covenanting God. The pathos of Christian ethics, however, concerns the difficulty of making the language and reality of covenant intelligible in a culture bound to an ideal of autonomy. Christian ethical reflection concerning abortion and the value of unborn human life must attend to both features if it is to remain fully concrete in its faithfulness.