New Wine, New Wineskins

New Wine, New Wineskins: A Next Generation Reflects on Key Issues in Catholic Moral Theology offers a snapshot of how the new generation of Catholic moral theologians understands not only topics in the field, but the effects of their own identity and formation on their treatment of those topics. The distinctive contribution of this volume is the interweaving of three key concerns, all of which arise out of a critical self-reflection on the task of moral theology today: the character and adequacy of training and ongoing formation in the field of Catholic moral theology, the purpose and nature of teaching Catholic moral theology, and the fittingness of methodological debates with regard to the needs of the Christian life. Each essay makes a contribution to its specific area of interest-ranging from economic ethics, to Patristic rhetoric, to the nature and development of practical reasoning-while probing what exactly young Catholic moral theologians are doing, and how they can do what they do better.

The growing shift in Catholic moral theology from reflecting on rules alone to focusing on the identity and formation of persons as moral agents prompts a further question: What impact do recent changes in the identity and formation of Catholic moral theologians themselves have on how that discipline is practiced? Young Catholic moral theologians experience a sharply different professional formation and a changed location of ongoing professional life than prior generations of moral theologians. How do these differences influence the field of moral theology as a whole?

New Wine, New Wineskins: A Next Generation Reflects on Key Issues in Catholic Moral Theology addresses these questions and more by offering a snapshot of how a new generation of Catholic moral theologians understands not only topics in the field, but the effects of their own identity and formation on their treatment of those topics. The distinctive contribution of this volume is the interweaving of three key concerns, all of which arise out of a critical self-reflection on the task of moral theology today: the character and adequacy of training and ongoing formation in the field of Catholic moral theology, the purpose and nature of teaching Catholic moral theology, and the fittingness of methodological debates with regard to the needs of the Christian life. Each essay makes a contribution to its specific area of interest-ranging from economic ethics, to Patristic rhetoric, to the nature and development of practical reasoning-while probing what exactly young Catholic moral theologians are doing, and how they can do what they do better.

Chapter 1 Preface
Chapter 2 Introducing New Wine, New Wineskins
Chapter 3 Saintly Voyeurism: A Methodological Necessity for the Christian Ethicist
Chapter 4 Finding a Place at the Heart of the Church: On the Vocation of a Lay Theologian
Chapter 5 Transparent Mediation: The Vocation of the Theologian as Disciple
Chapter 6 Dare We Hope Our Students Believe? Patristic Rhetoric in the Contemporary Classroom"
Chapter 7 Community Based Learning and Catholic Social Teaching
Chapter 8 Moral Theology for Real People: Agency, Practical Reason, and the Task of the Moral Theologian
Chapter 9 Intimacy with God and Self-Relation in the World: The Fundamental Option and Categorical Activity
Chapter 10 Economic Comedy or, How I Learned to Stop Being Miserable and Love Economic Ethics