Catholic moral theology is a major category of

doctrine Doctrine (from , meaning 'teaching, instruction') is a codification (law), codification of beliefs or a body of teacher, teachings or instructions, taught principles or positions, as the essence of teachings in a given branch of knowledge or in a ...

in the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

, equivalent to a

religious ethics Ethics involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior.''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy''"Ethics" A central aspect of ethics is "the good life", the life worth living or life that is simply satisfyin ...

. Moral theology encompasses

Catholic social teaching Catholic social teaching (CST) is an area of Catholic doctrine which is concerned with human dignity and the common good in society. It addresses oppression, the role of the state, subsidiarity, social organization, social justice, and w ...

, Catholic

medical ethics Medical ethics is an applied branch of ethics which analyzes the practice of clinical medicine and related scientific research. Medical ethics is based on a set of values that professionals can refer to in the case of any confusion or conflict. T ...

sexual ethics Sexual ethics (also known as sex ethics or sexual morality) is a branch of philosophy that considers the ethics or morality of Human sexual behaviour, sexual behavior. Sexual ethics seeks to understand, evaluate and critique interpersonal relatio ...

, and various doctrines on individual moral

virtue A virtue () is a trait of excellence, including traits that may be morality, moral, social, or intellectual. The cultivation and refinement of virtue is held to be the "good of humanity" and thus is Value (ethics), valued as an Telos, end purpos ...

and moral theory. It can be distinguished as dealing with "how one is to act", in contrast to dogmatic theology which proposes "what one is to believe".

Overview

Sources of Catholic moral theology include both the

Old Testament The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...

and the

New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

, and philosophical

ethics Ethics is the philosophy, philosophical study of Morality, moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates Normativity, normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches inclu ...

such as

natural law Natural law (, ) is a Philosophy, philosophical and legal theory that posits the existence of a set of inherent laws derived from nature and universal moral principles, which are discoverable through reason. In ethics, natural law theory asserts ...

that are seen as compatible with Catholic doctrine. Moral theology was mostly undifferentiated from theology in general during the patristic era, and is found in the

homilies A homily (from Greek ὁμιλία, ''homilía'') is a commentary that follows a reading of scripture, giving the "public explanation of a sacred doctrine" or text. The works of Origen and John Chrysostom (known as Paschal Homily) are considered e ...

, letters and commentaries on

Scripture Religious texts, including scripture, are texts which various religions consider to be of central importance to their religious tradition. They often feature a compilation or discussion of beliefs, ritual practices, moral commandments and ...

of the early Church fathers. Examples of Catholic moral theologians include St. Alphonsus Liguori (author of '' Theologia Moralis''), Bartolomé Medina (originator of Probabilism), Dominic Prümmer ( Compensationism), Bernhard Häring (Dialogical Ethics), Servais Pinckaers (

Nouvelle théologie The ( English: ''New Theology'') is an intellectual movement in Catholic theology that arose in the mid-20th century. It is best known for Pope John XXIII's endorsement of its closely-associated ''ressourcement'' (French for ''return to the ...

), Germain Grisez and John Finnis (

New Natural Law New Natural Law (NNL) theory or New Classical Natural Law theory is an approach to natural law ethics and jurisprudence based on a reinterpretation of the writings of Thomas Aquinas. The approach began in the 1960s with the work of Germain Grisez ...

). Moral theology tends to be advanced most authoritatively through official statements of doctrine, such as papal

encyclicals An encyclical was originally a circular letter sent to all the churches of a particular area in the ancient Roman Church. At that time, the word could be used for a letter sent out by any bishop. The word comes from the Late Latin (originally fr ...

, which are based on the dogmatic pronouncements of

Ecumenical Councils An ecumenical council, also called general council, is a meeting of bishops and other church authorities to consider and rule on questions of Christian doctrine, administration, discipline, and other matters in which those entitled to vote are ...

(e.g.,

Vatican II The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, commonly known as the or , was the 21st and most recent Catholic ecumenical councils, ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. The council met each autumn from 1962 to 1965 in St. Peter's Basilic ...

), Sacred Scriptures, and

Sacred Tradition Sacred tradition, also called holy tradition, Anno Domini tradition or apostolic tradition, is a theological term used in Christian theology. According to this theological position, sacred Tradition and Scripture form one ''deposit'', so sacred T ...

. In addition, moral theologians publish their own works and write in a variety of journals devoted in whole, or in part to moral theology. These scholarly journals are helpful in making the theology of the Church more clear and accessible to others, and serve as a forum in which scholarly discussion of understanding and application of issues occurs. However, these journals ''per se'' do not add or remove anything from Catholic teaching. The

curriculum In education, a curriculum (; : curriculums or curricula ) is the totality of student experiences that occur in an educational process. The term often refers specifically to a planned sequence of instruction, or to a view of the student's experi ...

for formation of

priests A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, ...

commonly includes required and elective courses in Catholic moral theology.

History

Middle Ages

During the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

, moral theology developed in precision and scope through

scholasticism Scholasticism was a medieval European philosophical movement or methodology that was the predominant education in Europe from about 1100 to 1700. It is known for employing logically precise analyses and reconciling classical philosophy and Ca ...

. Much of the Catholic Church's current moral theology, especially regarding natural law, is based in the ''

Summa Theologica The ''Summa Theologiae'' or ''Summa Theologica'' (), often referred to simply as the ''Summa'', is the best-known work of Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), a scholastic theologian and Doctor of the Church. It is a compendium of all of the main t ...

'' by St. Thomas Aquinas, which is regarded as one of the best treatises of Catholic moral theology.

Baroque period and Reformation

Although many theologians found inspiration in Aquinas from his death onwards, moral theology did not become its own separate field of scholarship until after the council of Trent at the dawn of the baroque period and the

reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...

, one of the wishes of the council fathers was to set out the more rigorous training of priests which would lead to the genesis of

seminaries A seminary, school of theology, theological college, or divinity school is an educational institution for educating students (sometimes called seminarians) in scripture and theology, generally to prepare them for ordination to serve as clerg ...

. Through the renewal of learning in the Church specialisation would begin to take root in the

, with theology becoming fragmented into different 'fields' such as

dogmatic Dogma, in its broadest sense, is any belief held definitively and without the possibility of reform. It may be in the form of an official system of principles or doctrines of a religion, such as Judaism, Catholic Church, Roman Catholicism, Protes ...

, moral, spiritual theology and so on. This would lead to the birth of the genre of the 'Manual'.

Birth of manualism

Manualism designates an approach to

Christian ethics Christian ethics, also known as moral theology, is a multi-faceted ethical system. It is a Virtue ethics, virtue ethic, which focuses on building moral character, and a Deontological ethics, deontological ethic which emphasizes duty according ...

, especially in Catholic moral theology, associated with Alphonsus Liguori and the tradition of "moral manuals" (instruction manuals teaching explicitly right and wrong) which came from him. Kloster St Josef Neumarkt - Innenraum 32

Kloster St Josef Neumarkt - Innenraum 32

The manualist tradition has an ambivalent relationship with

David Bentley Hart David Bentley Hart (born February 20, 1965) is an American philosopher, theologian, essayist, cultural commentator, fiction author, and religious studies scholar. Reviewers have commented on Hart's baroque prose and provocative rhetoric in over on ...

among others state that much of contemporary

Thomism Thomism is the philosophical and theological school which arose as a legacy of the work and thought of Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), the Dominican philosopher, theologian, and Doctor of the Church. In philosophy, Thomas's disputed ques ...

has more manualism than

Aquinas Thomas Aquinas ( ; ; – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican Order, Dominican friar and Catholic priest, priest, the foremost Scholasticism, Scholastic thinker, as well as one of the most influential philosophers and theologians in the W ...

himself. The manualist tradition is related to . Manualism is associated with the theology surrounding artificial birth control. The first manual of moral theology was written by the

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

, Juan Azor in three volumes, his ''Institutionum Moralium'' published in the 17th century''.'' Although claiming patrimony to Aquinas,

nominalism In metaphysics, nominalism is the view that universals and abstract objects do not actually exist other than being merely names or labels. There are two main versions of nominalism. One denies the existence of universals—that which can be inst ...

was most prolific at the time among the

intellectual An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and Human self-reflection, reflection about the nature of reality, especially the nature of society and proposed solutions for its normative problems. Coming from the wor ...

elite which seems to have influenced Azor's outlook in his work, instead of focusing on the

beatitudes The Beatitudes () are blessings recounted by Jesus in Matthew 5:3–10 within the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew, and four in the Sermon on the Plain in the Gospel of Luke, followed by four woes which mirror the blessings. In ...

and

s in the moral life as Aquinas in his ''Summa'', nominalism emphasises the obligatory and legal nature of God's commands as a result of the arbitrary will of God and a person's

conscience A conscience is a Cognition, cognitive process that elicits emotion and rational associations based on an individual's ethics, moral philosophy or value system. Conscience is not an elicited emotion or thought produced by associations based on i ...

before the law, many would follow Azor's model with few modifications and this outlook would influence the whole manualist tradition of moral theology which would become less dominant after

, during this period it became more common for alternative approaches or attempts to return to a biblical, patristic or scholastic approach before the influence of nominalism and outgrowth of

casuistry Casuistry ( ) is a process of reasoning that seeks to resolve moral problems by extracting or extending abstract rules from a particular case, and reapplying those rules to new instances. This method occurs in applied ethics and jurisprudence. ...

which was characteristic of the tridentine period.

Contemporary

Contemporary Catholic moral theology is developed by acts of the

Magisterium The magisterium of the Catholic Church is the church's authority or office to give authentic interpretation of the word of God, "whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition". According to the 1992 ''Catechism of the Catholic Church'' ...

, by the

Pope The pope is the bishop of Rome and the Head of the Church#Catholic Church, visible head of the worldwide Catholic Church. He is also known as the supreme pontiff, Roman pontiff, or sovereign pontiff. From the 8th century until 1870, the po ...

, other

bishops A bishop is an ordained member of the clergy who is entrusted with a position of Episcopal polity, authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance and administration of di ...

, and by the works of lay Catholic moral theologians, which include magisterial teachings, as well as (in some matters) theological opinions.

Approaches

*In a

deontological In moral philosophy, deontological ethics or deontology (from Greek language, Greek: and ) is the normative ethics, normative ethical theory that the morality of an action should be based on whether that action itself is right or wrong under a ...

approach, morality takes the form of a studying of "how one is to act" in relation to the laws established by the faith. See also

Casuistry Casuistry ( ) is a process of reasoning that seeks to resolve moral problems by extracting or extending abstract rules from a particular case, and reapplying those rules to new instances. This method occurs in applied ethics and jurisprudence. ...

. *In a

teleological Teleology (from , and )Partridge, Eric. 1977''Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English'' London: Routledge, p. 4187. or finalityDubray, Charles. 2020 912Teleology. In ''The Catholic Encyclopedia'' 14. New York: Robert Applet ...

approach, "how one is to act" is related to the ultimate end which is again established by the faith. See also

Virtue Ethics Virtue ethics (also aretaic ethics, from Greek []) is a philosophical approach that treats virtue and moral character, character as the primary subjects of ethics, in contrast to other ethical systems that put consequences of voluntary acts, pri ...

*In a dialogical approach, morality follows the pattern of faith directly, the "how one is to act" is related to an encounter with God through faith. Moral living is response to the Logos or Word of God. "Faith in the

Logos ''Logos'' (, ; ) is a term used in Western philosophy, psychology and rhetoric, as well as religion (notably Logos (Christianity), Christianity); among its connotations is that of a rationality, rational form of discourse that relies on inducti ...

...understands moral values as responsibility, as a response to the Word, and thus gives them their intelligibility as well as their essential orientation."Ratzinger, Joseph Cardinal (

Pope Benedict XVI Pope BenedictXVI (born Joseph Alois Ratzinger; 16 April 1927 – 31 December 2022) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 19 April 2005 until his resignation on 28 February 2013. Benedict's election as p ...

). Introduction To Christianity, 2nd Edition (Communio Books) (Kindle Locations 304-306). Ignatius Press.

Overview

History

Middle Ages

Baroque period and Reformation

Birth of manualism

Contemporary

Approaches

See also

References

Further reading

Manualism