The present volume, the first in the new Catholic Moral Thought series, responds to the need for a new introduction to the basic and central elements of Catholic moral theology written in the light of Veritatis splendor. The five chapters of the book consider the principal methodological issues and substantive questions that must shape any adequate moral theology in the period after the first encyclical to address fundamental questions of the Church's moral teaching.
The issues discussed include: moral theology and the good of the human person created in God’s image; natural law; principles of human action; determination of the moral good through objects, ends, and circumstances; and the virtues, gifts of the Holy Spirit, and the Beatitudes. The scope is on the one hand comprehensive and on the other sufficiently differentiated so that the reader can make the necessary connections between the foundational principles and the themes treated in subsequent volumes of the series. Important cross-references to this volume will be made explicit by other authors.
The author assembles a marvelous text, rich in erudition, clear in pedagogy, and complete in doctrine. The composition of this text is mainly systematic, but with frequent references to those issues in historical theology that serve to amplify the context and significance of Catholic moral teaching. Inasmuch as the tradition throws light on what emerges thematically in the encyclical, this book introduces the basic elements of Christian moral theology by appeal to what has gone before, especially the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas.
