Ethics/Morality

Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, other walls still form part of our everyday life. Other walls are perhaps more subtle, though they are still the cause of bloodshed, because they exist within us and take possession of our lives. These are the walls that separate “them” from “us. This booklet will explore the meaning and implications of situations like those, which are both symbolic and real, personal and public, spiritual and political.

As Christians, we have a long road ahead of us, we have a challenge being offered to us, and we have the conviction that we have something valuable to offer. We are called to walk together with other groups in our society, with all those who are struggling on behalf a new world, one that is more human and more just.

In these pages, the author seeks to liberate the utopian potential of the gospel stories from the interpretative restraint of confessional reading.  Concretely, he studies the parable of the Good Samaritan because, in addition to its being known to everyone, it has condensed within itself the essential ethical teaching and pedagogy of the Christian message.

The ethics of care has often been ignored by traditional ethics, which has relegated it to the private or domestic sphere or has assigned it exclusively to women.   In a world wounded by poverty and inequality it becomes necessary to recover a Christian vision of justice that spells out the meaning of caring for others and for the Earth and that impels us toward social transformation.  That is precisely what theologian Lucía Ramón does in this booklet.

Gaudium et Spes is surely the most novel document produced by the Second Vatican Council. In this booklet the author offers a reading which delineates three spheres where the Church can offer her good news to a wounded world: justice, peace, and the integrity of creation. In this day and age we find it impossible to imagine a Church which fails to respond to these great questions that impinge on the lives of millions of human beings.

So thoroughly has capitalism penetrated into our daily existence (work, social relations, entertainment, etc.) that an alternative system can be developed only by drawing on the same everyday elements. The author approaches this challenge by asking what contribution Christian faith can make as a way of life, and how this faith can be enriched in turn by the profound transformations taking place all around us. A serene dialogue characterized by respect and openness may allow us to come upon an unexpected revolution that will help humankind to move beyond the present state of crisis.

Drawing on various biblical, theological, and ecclesiological arguments, four theologians agree on the need to apply the principle of mercy in the case of divorced persons who have remarried. Without slighting the value of the indissolubility of marriage, they grant greater centrality to acceptance and communion.

Hostility and hospitality. We swing back and forth from one to the other with regard to migrants. This booklet reflects on both attitudes, and it warns about the danger of hostility prevailing if we keep erecting external borders and internal borders... borders that kill. In response to that, the author calls for hospitality with biblical roots, based on full citizenship and neighborly relations.