Challenges to theology

“Justice is not just an economic question. It must also consider the equal dignity of each human being, and that means respect for the different cultures, the poor and the disabled. For moral theologians, however, there are more complex problems”: first, “the fundamental choice of how to place the other person in his own project of the good life, considering it as help (or hindrance) or, alternatively, as an essential part of the project itself”, said ENRICO CHIAVACCI, (Theological Faculty of Florence), in his address to the first international congress of Catholic moral theologians, held in the Italian city of Padua in recent days on “Catholic theological ethics in the universal Church”. Promoted by a committee of theologians coordinated by Jesuit Father James Keenan from Boston, the congress was attended by over 400 theologians from five continents. It is planned to repeat the congress every four years, each time in a different country. Below, a few ideas, referring more specifically to the European situation. GLOBALIZATION. Since “each human being” – continued Chiavacci – is culturally conditioned by a series of elements that he/she receives from childhood on and remain embedded in his/her subconscious”, and these consist not just of “different languages, but also different relational schemes”, these “different cultures inevitably produce different ways of cooperation with others and show in practice our degree of love and service to them”. According to Chiavacci, “the intersection between a basic moral choice common to each, and the various ways of practising it, represents a crucial theme for fundamental ethics and moral theology. Applied ethics ought to study the practical applications of moral choices in the various areas of social life”. MORAL CHALLENGES . There are various moral challenges for the Catholic Church in Europe today; they include “the Resolution adopted by the European Parliament on homophobia in January this year, that on the growth in racist and homophobic violence (June 2006) and the recent vote on the Seventh framework Programme to fund research of embryonal stem cells”. The common objective of these initiatives is, according to Polish theologian PIOTR MAZURKIEWICZ, that of “spreading the conviction” that the opinion of opponents is “a shameful relic of the past, completely out of place in the current political debate”, and “utterly insupportable for civil society”. This poses “a very delicate problem – warns Mazurkiewicz -: the use of the EP to exert pressure on member states so that they modify their national legislation” in the field of research on human embryos and of relations between same-sex couples. How does the Church intervene on these issues? First, by specifying her own teaching on the matter. Second, the Church “exerts pressure in favour of solutions compatible with reason and, third, disseminates her own word among the faithful”. ECONOMY . Faced by the “stalemate of the economy as an activity in which businesses, policies and citizens are involved” in relation to efforts to reduce poverty in the world (790 million underdeveloped people, over 880 million deprived of access to basic healthcare and clean drinking water), a new approach to economic activity is needed: it should be “linked to objectives that confer social legitimacy and meaning on it”, said ADELA CORTINA , professor of ethics and political philosophy at the University of Valencia (Spain). “The great challenge”, she continued, “is to transform the economy from within, reformulating and reconstituting it”. In this sense, “moral theology, as a critical hermeneutic of economic activity”, can make an important contribution. The moral theologian cannot solve economic problems, but can help to ‘think out’ the economy, working with economists and experts” to give it an ethical character: i.e. a character equal to the tasks that it ought, by its very nature, to perform”. “ SENSUS FIDELIUM”. Though arousing some “mistrust” and after experiencing a long eclipse, explicable due to difficulties in its use, especially in the ethical field, “the concept of sensus fidelium (the feeling of the faithful) says much about the faith of the Catholic Church” and is of “extraordinary importance for a thriving and evangelical ecclesial life”, remarked PAUL VALADIER , of the Jesuit Faculty in Paris. “Its discrediting – he continued – has weakened the moral positions of the Church”; isolated “the teaching of the Church and impeded its understanding”. But the sensus fidelium , Valadier insisted, “is not the descent from on high of imperative propositions on an inert crowd”; it presupposes, rather, “a circular movement between the various components of the life of the Church; an exchange that permits mutual understanding”. “Time is needed for teachings to be understood; possible objections need to be taken on board to be able to spell out the Church’s own positions and make them more acceptable to the listener, though without watering them down”.