One of the most enduring criticisms of papal infallibility is that it seems to set the pope apart from the Church. Much has already been done to correct this impression, but the current ‘synodal moment’ offers a unique opportunity to substantially further this ecclesiological integration. Along such lines, the present article first proposes that the teachings on infallibility in Lumen gentium be read through the chapter on the People of God (LG25 through LG12), thereby treating the pope as a member of the faithful and drawing out the charismatic dimension of infallibility. The article then pivots to exploring the widely overlooked Eastern Catholic reception of Vatican I. Specifically, it details the dogmatic importance of a clause added to Pastor aeternus by two patriarchs as part of their conditional acceptance – something drawing from a deeper tradition of synodal examination of papal teaching. These two sections converge to reveal a more synodal infallibility at the level of initial discernment and reception. More so, these genuinely synodal elements of papal infallibility are discovered as existing within the previous tradition. Elements that, going forward, can fruitfully be given a new hermeneutical priority.

The once-popular thesis that non-Christians who are inculpably ignorant of the gospel can be saved through ‘implicit faith’ in Christ has fallen on hard times. In this paper, we consider objections raised against this position by a range of Catholic critics, including Thomas Crean, Augustine DiNoia, Gavin D’Costa, and Stephen Bullivant. In our judgement, criticisms of ‘implicit faith’ often suffer from a lack of clarity about the nature of such faith, although admittedly this ambiguity was present even in original Scholastic uses of the term. However, in the past few decades, analytic philosophers have explored many forms of belief, which one might call ‘implicit’. Accordingly, we draw on both Scholastic and analytic epistemology to arrive at a more attractive characterisation of implicit faith. We argue that once implicit faith is understood in this way, recent objections to the claim that non-Christians can be saved soluble.

The paper considers three possible definitions of what it is for an action to be ‘morally’ good: (1) that it is overall important to do; (2) that it is overall important to do in virtue of a universalisable principle; and (3) that it is overall important to do in virtue of a universalisable principle, belonging to a system of such principles, which includes almost all of certain moral fixed points. I defend (3) and show how we can reach such a system, starting from the basic beliefs with which we find ourselves, through the process of reflective equilibrium. Moral realism is then the doctrine that there is such a system of true moral beliefs. My optimistic view is that all human communities could eventually reach the same such system. But, if they cannot, then there will be two (or more) different such systems, and so two (or more) different senses of ‘moral realism’.

This paper introduces Phenomenological Thomism by accomplishing the three tasks Thomas Aquinas sets for every prooemium. First, to promote goodwill (beniuolus), it shows how fruitful Phenomenological Thomism promises to be by arguing that it unites the strengths of two complementary alternatives to the modern starting point. Second, to make teachable (docilis), it delineates the principal vectors of phenomenological engagement, including philosophy of nature, philosophical anthropology, ethics, epistemology, metaphysics, philosophical theology, and revealed theology. Third, to arouse attention (attentus), it focuses on the theme of manifestation to highlight the challenge of bringing the two traditions together. In this way, the prooemium encourages the further development of Phenomenological Thomism as a research program involving countless scholars and an infinity of tasks.

Catholic education faces a number of serious challenges including cultural and political disrespect for, and hostility towards religion in general and Catholicism in particular, and lack of knowledge of, and commitment to, Catholic beliefs and values among Catholic educational administrators, school managers, teachers, and other staff, as well as the diminishing percentage of even nominally Catholic staff. I set these matters within the context of broader challenges surrounding Catholic education, deriving from three cultural movements: the reformation, the emergence of liberalism, and the scientific revolution, which undermined the synthesis of scripture, theology, and speculative and practical philosophy achieved in the high middle-ages. I propose in response a creative critique showing that what is of authentic value in modernity can be accommodated within the traditional synthesis. I also connect that tradition with strands of eastern philosophy suggesting that the movement of people, ideas, and traditions from Eastern cultures into historically Western societies provides an opportunity for further synthesis of a wisdom-based approach to education.

It has been a teaching of the Catholic Church for many centuries that the fact that an act is immoral is not itself a sufficient reason for acts of that kind to be punishable under the law. Therefore, before American Catholics or their bishops actively support laws making abortion illegal and punishable, they must carefully examine such laws to determine whether they are consistent with the common good and thus morally justifiable. This article first turns to the three conditions that Thomas Aquinas offers in the Treatise on Law (Summa Theologica, I-II, QQ. 90-105) that a law must fulfill in order for it to be consistent with the common good. Serious reasons are identified for doubting that laws prohibiting and punishing abortion can fulfill Aquinas’s three conditions. There are also serious reasons based on Catholic teaching, i.e., that we are always obliged to follow our conscience, for concluding that, contrary to the common good, many conscientious persons would be mistakenly punished by such laws. For these reasons, the article proposes that American Catholics and their bishops should reexamine their support for laws punishing abortion and should consider instead actively opposing such laws.

While ‘the meaning of life’ has grown in prominence as a topic of philosophical inquiry, few Thomists have addressed it. Joshua Hochschild has recently offered a plausible explanation, arguing that ‘the meaning of life’ is a late modern ‘invention’, at home in a conceptual framework both philosophically problematic and incompatible with the principles of St. Thomas’ thought. He, therefore, counsels Catholic intellectuals to avoid the question of life’s meaning. I argue in contrast that St. Thomas offers the kind of metaphysical perspective that originally made ‘the meaning of life’ intelligible. First, I show that closer attention to the context in which the phrase emerges (that of German Romanticism) can clarify why much of the modern discourse on ‘the meaning of life’ succumbs to Hochschild’s critique. I then show that, even in the writings of its earliest modern proponents, we find compelling reasons to hold that ‘the meaning of life’ was always more at home within a Christian conceptual framework. Finally, I argue that St. Thomas’ account of providence and divine art in particular explain the purposefulness and significance of the world, such that Thomists who appeal to these notions are well positioned to address the question of life’s meaning in contemporary philosophical debates.

In a number of texts throughout his career, Thomas Aquinas identifies different senses of the term ‘esse’. Most notably, he notes that according to one sense, the term signifies the act of existence (actus essendi), which he famously holds is really distinct from essence in all beings other than God. Perhaps surprisingly, he also notes on a number of occasions that according to another sense, the term ‘esse’ can signify that very principle that he says is distinct from the act of existence, namely, essence. In light of Aquinas's semantic theory, this paper investigates how he coherently holds within his metaphysical system that this term ‘esse’ can signify in different ways both essence and the act of existence. More broadly, what it shows is how, for Aquinas, the metaphysician can look to the modes of signification (modi significandi) of terms and as well as their modes of predication (modi praedicandi) to draw careful conclusions about the modes of existence (modi essendi) of real beings. These considerations reveal that in Aquinas's view, although the grammarian and logician in their way are also concerned with these semantic modes, it is not their job to employ them to discern the various senses of the term ‘being’ or the fundamental modes of being. In the end, this is a task for the metaphysician.

Significant attention has been devoted to the problem of ‘divine hiddenness’ proposed by JL Schellenberg. I propose a novel response that involves denying part of the empirical premise in divine hiddenness arguments, which holds that nonresistant nonbelievers are capable of relationship with God. While Plantinga and others in ‘reformed’ epistemology have at times appealed to original sin as an explanation for divine hiddenness, such responses might seem outlandish to many, given the way that many find nonbelievers to be no more or less epistemically or morally blameworthy than believers. Further, such appeals to original sin seem to give a ‘just-so’ story that at least leaves the situation dialectically balanced. I show that a classically Augustinian notion of original sin can provide a sufficient response to those objections, and that appeal to original sin can form an empirically grounded response to the divine hiddenness problem, beyond a simple defense. If the possibility of original sin-type scenarios is compatible with God’s perfect love, then the phenomenon of apparently nonresistant nonbelievers would push us toward considering the possibility that humans have lost those capacities for relationship with God by a Fall-like event in the past.

Top Gun: Maverick is a film about the American Empire: its ethos and hopes, its illusions and contradictions. This essay considers the propaganda content of the movie, and reflects on what it reveals and conceals about the wider political and social context of America's imperial project. The film provides insights on the shifting expectations, and troubles facing the American Empire in 2022. In reflecting upon the sequel and comparing it with the original, it is possible to notice changes and new prerogatives in the self-perception of the United States, as well as an overall imperial fatigue and tension. In particular, this essay evaluates the use of missionary language and metaphors in the film, and considers that empires have a chronic incapacity, or maybe impossibility, in abdicating their power. Top Gun: Maverick shows that an empire, any empire, would simply cease to be such if it would not believe in its own myth of perennial youth. Ultimately, this essay considers the burden of the American Empire: its damnation is its immortality, its illusion of eternity.