Tagged: Development of Doctrine
How does the Church’s understanding of Revelation grow? How does doctrine develop, and who develops it? Dei Verbum is the key text for engaging with these questions. It affirms that Tradition develops with and through the whole Church: from the prayers...
Note: This essay, which I originally wrote in 2018 and did not publish at that time, has been resurrected and refurbished to reflect the current state of play around Fiducia supplicans and its reception. Much of the forthcoming is theologically...
Editor’s note: In recent years, the Church’s teaching on the death penalty has been a topic of much debate among Catholics, especially in the United States where the practice is still legal. In this essay, “Capital Punishment and Magisterial Authority,”...
I first came across Shaun Blanchard a couple of years ago when I read his excellent article, “Traditionis Custodes Was Never Merely About the Liturgy” in Church Life Journal. That article provoked my interest in how doctrine develops and the relationship between...
A few years ago, author and philosophy professor Edward Feser wrote an essay criticizing Catholic teaching on the death penalty. His piece centers on the following question: Does Pope Francis’s teaching on capital punishment amount to a doctrinal change or...
Dominic and I had a conversation a couple of weeks ago about living out the evangelical counsels (poverty, chastity, and obedience) in marriage that unexpectedly blew up on Catholic Twitter…and not in a good way, haha. There were many folks...
Earlier this week, Dustin Quick invited me onto his podcast, “Holy Smokes: Cigars, Catholicism, and Conversation” to talk about the Magisterium and the development of doctrine. I encounter a lot of hesitancy in the Church with the idea that Church...
Recently, two prominent churchmen called for a change in the Church’s teachings on sexuality. Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg said in an interview with a German Catholic news agency that the Church’s teachings on homosexuality were no longer correct and...
There is a tendency among some Catholics to suggest that Catholic teaching has not developed or changed over time. If they studied history, they would know differently. Indeed, if they studied the saints and major thinkers throughout the centuries, they...
Shortly after Traditionis Custodes was promulgated last summer, Shaun Blanchard wrote an excellent analysis of the motu proprio for Church Life Journal. In that article, Blanchard claimed that “we should see Traditionis Custodes as a decisive contribution by Pope Francis...
In the previous installment of my analysis of Dei Verbum (DV)’s second chapter, I explained how the Church defines Sacred Tradition, and how we are to understand its development and growth. In this article, I will explore how Tradition grows...
Vatican City — In his latest apostolic exhortation, Querida Amazonia, Pope Francis calls for “authentic” inculturation in the Amazon, so as to allow for the creation of a Church which truly bears the features of the region and the culture of...
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