The Future of Catholic Theological Ethics

Dear Colleagues,

If the past is said to be a foreign country then the future must be even less native. This is something many Catholic theological ethicists feel when they look back into the history of moral theological reflection and attempt to relate it to practical issues of today. What should be the starting point for discussing the future of Catholic Theological Ethics at the time of unprecedented change in which political upheavals, migration of people, all kinds of inequalities, climate change, changes in how we view gender, sexuality, human relationality (including the relationality of the human to the non-human species) are amongst many urgent issues? This is in no way to imply that what went on before in Catholic ethics is no longer relevant. Arguably, the moral wisdom of the tradition is an important resource. However, we need new approaches, both theoretical and practical. The ten contributors to this special issue of Religions search for new ways of making Catholic theological ethics pertinent. For each of them the starting point of discussion is the groundbreaking publication Reframing Catholic Theological Ethics (Oxford University Press, 2016) by Joseph Selling, Emeritus Professor of Moral Theology, Catholic University Leuven.

The papers presented here cover several major themes that, traditionally, Catholic theological ethics have considered but, according to the authors of the papers, need revisiting. Amongst these themes are: conscience, virtue, natural law, authority, ecumenism, the human person and the theology of theological ethics. The writers represent a variety of approaches, geographical locations (Western and Eastern Europe, USA, and India) and while most of them are Roman Catholic, there is an imbedded ecumenism in several discussions and there is a direct and indirect interreligious and inter-cultural slant in some of the papers.

Dr. Anna Abram
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.