In response to accusations leveled against the integrity of confirmation as a distinct sacrament, the author searches magisterial documents for a theology of confirmation. Two main theological explanations of the sacrament are explored: the ecclesial significance of the bishop's office as the original minister of confirmation; and the grace of the sacrament – that is, the gifts and Gift of the Holy Spirit. This grace is characterized as both defensive and offensive, from the perspective of defending the faith of the individual and the Church, and sharing in Christ's mission to evangelize the world. In a final section, the author addresses several popular but mistaken or one-sided approaches to explaining confirmation that have had negative pastoral consequences in recent decades.

Newman was formed in the Church of England and all his major theological concerns were developed in an Anglican context. The rebuttal of utilitarian scepticism in the University Sermons; the ecclesial context of Christian faith and life in The Lectures on the Prophetical Office of the Church; the strong sense of mystery in Newman's epistemology and apologetic; the sacramental character of Christian truth are all significantly part of the Anglican inheritance that he took to the Roman Catholic Church. Furthermore Newman's early formation was ‘pre-Victorian’– he was engaged when writing his Essay on Scriptural Miracles with earlier debates with the Deists, as well as sharing in the rediscovery of the imagination that characterised Coleridge and the Romantic Movement. This paper explores these and other issues to show an important part of Newman's enduring Anglican inheritance.

In this article – the first Bishop Kevin Dunn Memorial Lecture ‐ I argue that one of the most important resources available for Catholics seeking to understand or teach Trinitarian doctrine is the liturgy of the Mass. I suggest that the text of the liturgy (novus ordo) offers us three patterns of Trinitarian speech that we should emulate. The first ascribes equal glory to Father, Son and Spirit. The second pattern teaches us that the fundamental story of Christian faith is a Trinitarian one. The creation comes from the Father, through the Son and in the Spirit; salvation is a process of being incorporated into the Son by the Spirit so that we may be led to the Father. This narrative is seen particularly clearly in the new eucharistic prayers of the Roman rite. The third pattern is that of using such theological formulae“as one nature and three persons”. These formulae are used sparingly and in contexts which emphasize that the realities of which they speak remain mysterious ‐ and must be the subject of our worship if our understanding is to grow. In our thought, teaching and prayer we should be attentive to the relative priority that these liturgical patterns suggest.

In his controversial Regensburg Address, Pope Benedict referred to ‘reason's grandeur’.

In this essay I will argue that the best way to engage ‘the whole breadth of reason’ is to remain in close, sympathetic dialogue with the challenges and evidence of what seems to gainsay reason's grandeur without being mired by what Benedict rightfully rebukes as the ‘self-imposed limitation of reason to the empirically verifiable’. Thus, in light of mass atrocities, many perpetrated in the name of reason or ‘God’, one must approach all theological and philosophical investigations with heightened humility and openness to the opposing views of the Other. Such an approach will also seek to flesh out a ‘Biblical faith’, which will not be bereft of elements of rupture, doubt, and loss.

A few questions will form the core of this essay: What is the relationship between admitting a fractured faith and recognising the fragility of reason? Why would such admissions ultimately strengthen one's religious identity and provide fertile grounds for ecumenism and interfaith dialogue? Lastly, as a Catholic theologian, why would I contend that such a stance is more in tune with both the spirit of the gospels and Catholic social teaching?

Happiness and rationality are the same. Philosophy and Religion (and Art) have the same Content. There is no absolute contingency. The world is rational. A philosophy of theology is premised to any theology of philosophy. Revelation of glory, manifestation of manifestation as such, not of anything else, fulfils religion, “interpreting spiritual things spiritually”.

What follows is the text of the 2010 Aquinas Lecture delivered at the church of St Vincent Ferrer, New York. The lecture indicates what makes the so‐called new atheism new. It then offers some defense and critique of three authors: Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens. The chief criticism leveled against them is that their dismissal of theism is based on an ignorance of classical theistic thinking and the mistaken impression that ‘theism’ and ‘creationism’ are equivalent.

John Henry Newman's study of the Church Fathers began during his years as a fellow of Oriel College and continued through his Anglican and Catholic periods almost to the end of his life. Among the various motives that attracted Newman to patristic theology, there are two that I consider especially important: scriptural hermeneutics and ecclesiology. He saw in the Fathers authentic interpreters of scripture, who read the Bible in and with the church in an exemplary way; he also found in them witnesses to the church's understanding of herself and of her offices. Through his ever more extensive reading on the doctrinal controversies in the patristic period, Newman formulated his theory of the development of doctrine, which is one of his major contributions to modern Catholic theology. Newman read the Fathers as contemporaries, as participants in the theological conversations and controversies of his own day. In the writings of the early bishops and theologians, he found a theological method that was congenial to his own.

This paper explores the meal scenes in Mark's gospel and examines the theme of Divine Hospitality in the Old Testament. In doing so, a connection is made between the table fellowship of Jesus and the Kingdom of God. The article concludes by reflecting upon ecclesiological practices of the Eucharist in light of the inclusivity of table fellowship. The argument is that by attending to the meal scenes in the gospel of Mark, an understanding of the Kingdom of God manifests and should shape the way the Church practices hospitality.

There appears to be no serious treatment of the positive role played by the body in Aquinas's account of human happiness. This would seem to be a significant gap in the literature given Aquinas's well known insistence on the human person as a body-soul unity. This paper aims at taking a first step in filling-in the gap by considering Aquinas's discussion of the body's part in human happiness in the Secunda Pars of the Summa theologiae. In particular it considers the place of the body in each of the three different forms of happiness that Aquinas talks about there. It is perhaps the role of the body in the third form of happiness – the perfect happiness of the beatific vision – that is most crucial to understand since this is human happiness simpliciter. Although the body has a part to play here too, Aquinas's understanding of it is not without problems.

The writings of Heloise are examined for their philosophical content, with special reference to the notions of friendship and love. The work of Mews, Dronke, Clanchy and others is cited, and it is concluded that Heloise's gifts as a writer and thinker have been overlooked and merit more careful examination.

Of the two sorts of doubt, interdenominational doubt and fundamental religious doubt, Newman does not seem to have suffered from the latter and did not write a great deal about it. What he did write, especially about conscience, is not convincing for a later secular age. What is more fruitful is how Newman related to other doubters of his age: his younger brother Francis who finished a Unitarian, and Matthew Arnold and his younger brother Tom who (twice) became a Catholic. John Newman first shunned his brother but in the end maintained friendly but distant relations with unbelievers. But Victorian doubt was inherited and the real threat to what Newman stood for came from a later generation.