The theology of "the last things" has long been, and still is, a source of confusion and contention among Christians. Indeed, the century just past could be called the century of eschatology. In that century, theologians such as Albert Schweitzer, C. H. Dodd, Rudolf Bultmann, Oscar Cullmann, and Karl Barth loom large. On a popular level, the end of the second millennium was replete with predictions of the "end," or the "rapture," or the "great tribulation," and such predictions have not ce...

Since Vatican II, the key question that has developed in Catholic theology, often unstated or unrecognized, is, what is theology? The thesis presented here is that contemporary theologizing is "fractured" in many places and to varying degrees. These fractures can vary in seriousness between theologians, and a particular theologian may suffer from some fractures but not others. The fractures addressed here are between -theology and spirituality -theology and philosophy -theology and liturgy...

Theological Anthropology at the Beginning of the Third Millennium is the third volume of the Theology at the Beginning of the Third Millennium series. Bringing together Catholic and Orthodox scholars of diverse disciplines, this work sheds new light on the question "what does it mean to be a human person?" Beginning with an overview on the state of the discipline in our time, the book brings theological anthropology into dialogue with epistemology, Christology, science, spiritual theology,...

In Behold the Pierced One, Joseph Ratzinger recounts how the composition of a 1981 paper on the Sacred Heart of Jesus had led him to "consider Christology more from the aspect of its spiritual appropriation" than he had done previously. Upon realizing that this same year was the 1300th anniversary of the Third Council of Constantinople, he decided to study the pronouncements of this Council, and came to believe "that the achievement of a spiritual Christology had also been the Council's ul...

Since the Second Vatican Council the place of Mary in theology and generally in the life of the Church has been at times muted. This is perhaps understandable given the debates concerning Mary's "place" in the documents of Vatican II. In an ecumenical age, it was argued, the church needed a less triumphalist Mariology and piety with a greater focus on Mary as model disciple. In certain respects this has led to a dichotomy between the continued Marian piety of many faithful (and, truth be t...