The Development of Moral Theology: Five Strands

CONCLUSION: Where Do We Stand Today?

CONCLUSION Where Do We Stand Today? AFTER AN IN-DEPTH STUDY of the five strands in the historical development of moral theology, the question naturally arises: where do we stand today and in the immediate future? This conclusion will first consider the historical development that has occurred in the first four strands. History shows that each of these four strands has been understood quite differently in the course of history. The point was explicitly made in the long discussion of natural law, but it applies to the other strands as well. The understanding of moral theology throughout history is not the understanding of moral theology that exists today. The term ‘‘moral theology’’ has been used to describe the Secunda pars of Thomas Aquinas, the Summae confessorum, the Institutiones morales, the seminary manuals of moral theology, and the contemporary post– Vatican II approaches. There is no monolithic moral theology that has existed throughout history. Different understandings of Thomas Aquinas’s role and work have occurred in the course of history. Some Catholic scholars throughout the time after Scholasticism have continued to follow the approach of John Duns Scotus rather than Aquinas in developing Catholic theology. Even with regard to Aquinas, various interpretations have appeared. The Second Thomism beginning in the sixteenth century differed considerably from the third Thomism championed by Pope Leo XIII. In the twentieth century some scholars charged that the neo-Scholasticism of the Third Thomism was not an adequate and accurate understanding of Aquinas. Other twentieth-century Thomists have developed a transcendental understanding of Aquinas. In the first part of the twentieth century, Aquinas was understood primarily as a philosopher, but more recent Thomists insist on the theological nature of his work. 253 254 CONCLUSION Tremendous change has occurred in the understanding of the central teaching authority in the Church. The primacy of the papal role is a relatively recent development in history. The papacy played a comparatively insignificant role in moral teaching until the post-Tridentine period. The early interventions of the papal teaching office with regard to specific moral issues in the seventeenth century tended to condemn the extreme positions and leave the rest to theological discussion. By the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the papacy was frequently giving authoritative teaching on specific moral issues and claiming great certitude for such positions. The emphasis in contemporary times on papal centralization has reduced considerably the teaching role of bishops and theologians that existed in earlier historical periods. The obvious conclusion from the historical analysis is that the meanings of moral theology, Thomism, natural law, and the primary teaching authority in the Church in moral matters are not monolithic concepts. Significantly different understandings of these have appeared in different historical circumstances. In addition, one must conclude on the basis of the historical evidence that development in these areas is not seamlessly progressive. There has been continuity but also considerable discontinuity in all these areas. What exists in any historical moment including the present is not necessarily something that is better than what went before. At any stage of the historical development there is a need to analyze and criticize the present reality. The remainder of this conclusion will attempt such an analysis and criticism with regard to the strands in the development of moral theology. The first strand considered—the relationship of moral theology to sin and penance—has changed dramatically after Vatican II. The purpose of moral theology can no longer be to train priests for their role as confessors in the sacrament of penance with the primary responsibility of judging what is sinful and the degree of sinfulness. Moral theology must develop the whole of the Christian moral life including the call to holiness and perfection. In practice today, the sacrament of penance no longer plays a notable role in the life of Catholics as it did in the pre–Vatican II Church. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, before Vatican II, the sacrament of penance, called confession, was a significant part of Catholic life. Today there has been a dramatic falloff in the number of Catholics going to confession. There is a crisis in the Church today concerning the sacrament of penance or reconciliation.1 However, sin and reconciliation Where Do We Stand Today? 255 remain most important aspects of Christian life despite the fact that the sacrament of penance no longer has a place in the...