Pope Francis and Joseph Selling: A New Approach to Mercy in Catholic Sexual Ethics
Journal Title: Religions - Year 2017, Vol 8, Issue 12
Abstract
Since the Apostolic Exhortation of Amoris Laetitia in May 2016 and Apostolic Letter Misericordia et Misera in November 2016, Pope Francis has stirred a new discussion on mercy and the role of mercy in certain matters of sexual ethics including divorced, remarried, and cohabiting couples. During the same year, moral theologian Joseph A. Selling published a revolutionary book which provides a new vision of virtues and examines how people consider and arrive at ethical judgements. This article examines Pope Francis’s understanding of mercy using Selling’s method of the “virtuous trapezium” as a way to actively illustrate Pope Francis’s new approach to matters concerning Catholic sexuality. In matters of human sexuality, the Catholic moral tradition has focused for years on an act-centered morality, but Selling’s method instead considers the goals of ethical living before making an ethical judgment. This article contributes to the current discussion in theological ethics concerning Pope Francis’s recent pronouncements on mercy and Catholic sexual ethics, as well as brings into conversation Selling’s new method and approach to understanding virtue.
Authors and Affiliations
Mary Catherine O’Reilly-Gindhart
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP25855
- DOI https://doi.org/10.3390/rel8120264
- Views 315
- Downloads 10
Ethnography of Religious Instants: Multi-Sited Ethnography and the Idea of “Third Spaces”
Attempts to understand contemporary religious practice, and its associated communities and identities, must take into consideration the way that these phenomena exist in both virtual and physical spaces, as well as the...
The Catholic Bishops and the Rise of Evangelical Catholics
White Catholics are increasingly trending toward the Republican Party, both as voters and candidates. Many of these Republican-leaning Catholics are displaying a more outspoken, culture-war oriented form of Catholicism...
Between Buddhism and Science, Between Mind and Body
Buddhism has been seen, at least since the Theravāda reform movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as particularly compatible with Western science. The recent explosion of Mindfulness therapies...
The Effect of Prayer on Patients’ Health: Systematic Literature Review
There is increasing interest regarding prayer in healthcare. Prayer is an activity related to spirituality and religion. Positive outcomes have been identified regarding spirituality in health. This study aims to inves...
Elvis’ Gospel Music: Between the Secular and the Spiritual?
Do fans sanctify their heroes? In the past, I have argued that Elvis fandom is not a neo-religious practice but that attention to a modified version of Durkheim’s theory of religion can, nevertheless, help to explain i...