Creeping Infallibility

Any sort of “creeping infallibility” that would attach the same level of authority to every papal utterance or document must be avoided. To fail to draw appropriate distinctions—whether between binding and non-binding documents of the ordinary magisterium, or between the development and the evolution of doctrine—is to dim the light of the Petrine ministry and impoverish the faithful. Continue Reading »

God's Strangeness

Skimming through a stack of books recently, I found myself reading a testimonial of sorts from James D. G. Dunn, the great New Testament scholar who coined the phrase “the new perspective on Paul.” Having logged decades of ministry in various Methodist contexts, Dunn tries to explain what it . . . . Continue Reading »

New Norms for Marriage Nullity

I recently attended a conference in Rome, “La riforma operata dal m.p. ‘Mitis Iudex,’”sponsored by the Consociatio Internationalis Studio Iuris Canonici Promovendo—the international association of canon lawyers of which I am a board member—which dealt with the fiercely relevant topic of . . . . Continue Reading »

Reckoning with Modernity

In the late summer of 1977, I made my way to New Haven, Connecticut, not yet twenty-two years old and afire to study theology at Yale Divinity School. At that innocent dawn of my theological life, I was surprised to discover that not everybody at YDS shared my passion for theology. People had other . . . . Continue Reading »