Linda Hogan

Clerical and Religious Child Abuse: Ireland and Beyond

The note considers recent theological commentary on the clerical sexual abuse crisis in Ireland and beyond. It examines the nature and extent of the crisis within the Catholic Church through the lens of the Murphy and Ryan Reports. These two reports together provide an invaluable resource for understanding the theological, ethical, and ecclesiological dimensions of this scandal. The note also considers “the shape of the reform” that is urgently needed within the Church under the headings of (1) the body and sexuality, (2) patriarchy and the abuse of power, and (3) church, ministry, and leadership.

Book Review: Redeeming GenderRedeeming Gender. By ThatcherAdrian. Oxford: Oxford University, 2016. Pp. 225. Price £25.00 (hbk). ISBN 978-0-19-874475-7.

Section three sits somewhat uneasily with the rest of the collection. Nevertheless, there is a very good treatment of the history of the observation of St Patrick’s Day in 20th-century Ireland by Brian Walker. John Wolffe providences some fascinating insights into the impact that events in Irish history have on a representative sample of religious and community activists in Northern Ireland. The findings are somewhat surprising. The sample, surveyed between 2010 and 2013, shows that people were deeply affected by the Troubles, but knowledge of the remote past was clearly lacking among many, and some claimed that major episodes such as the Plantation of Ulster were not relevant to them. On the whole, these essays repay careful reading and they are a fitting tribute to the memory of Patrick Corish, Finlay Holmes, and George Simms to whom the book is dedicated.

Social ethics in western Europe

The article highlights the distinctiveness of European social ethics by beginning with an analysis of how theological ethicists have engaged with “Europe” as both idea and political project. Themes discussed include the role of religion in the public square, pluralism, and the limits of tolerance and intercultural ethics. Also considered are ethical questions arising from Europes power as a significant economic bloc, as well as ethical responses to war and other forms of political violence. The article concludes with a comment on method.

Ethical relations - agency, autonomy, care

This volume of papers is the second collection to emerge from the ‘Gendering Ethics/the Ethics of Gender’ conference, which was organized by the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Studies at the University of Leeds in June 2000.1 Since the conference, interest in questions of ethics has continued to blossom within interdisciplinary feminist scholarship and, in the post 9/11 world, ethical matters seem likely to continue to preoccupy politically engaged scholarly communities across the globe. The essays gathered here share a concern with theorizing ethical relations in the contemporary world. Through a range of disciplinary lenses, their authors examine feminism’s complex and contested relationships to the concepts and practices of autonomy and care, with especial focus on the exercise of ethical agency within relational contexts. Assuming that feminist theory has at its core a desire to engage ethical agency, in the first paper, Joan Tronto articulates a challenge to attend to the temporal. Attention to the temporal aspect of our ethical relations suggests both an uncertain legacy and an ambiguous promise. As she notes at the beginning of her essay, ‘Time’s place’, the dominant discourse of feminist theory follows the pattern of more general political and philosophical thought in its concern with place. Thus spatial metaphors abound, while meditations on the impact and significance of the temporal dimensions of subjectivity have been curiously neglected. However, a number of the essays in Ethical Relations run counter to this trend by drawing attention to the interplay of past and future in the emergence of new feminist understandings of subjectivity and agency. Concern for the temporal also emerges in different ways and with varying degrees of urgency for the other contributors to this volume. For Tronto the problematization of time and its impact on feminist politics is a central concern, while for Lois McNay and Pamela Sue Anderson it surfaces as a factor in the processes of subject formation and the quest for autonomy. And while the idiom of temporality remains marginal in Lara Merlin’s essay, ‘Perverse ethics: the body, gender and intersubjectivity’, she articulates a desire for a different economy wherein exchange is not dominated 115

Book Review: Conscience and other Virtues: From Bonaventure to MacIntyreConscience and Other Virtues: From Bonaventure To MacIntyre. By LangstonDouglas C.. University Park: Pennsylvania State University, 2001. Pp. viii + 191.

of the keys to the extent that this is necessary on the basis of their link to Christ; hence in certain circumstances those who are not office-bearers may have this power, in order to impart spiritual consolation” (207). The article “Papacy, Pope” is a brief history of the papacy written by three church historians: Klaus Schatz (“Concept and Origin,” “Ancient Church”), Bernard Schimmelpfennig (“Middle Ages”), and Georg Schwaiger (“Modern Period”). Another volume of this series will have the articles of the Lexikon that treat specific phases of this history. The article on the primacy consists of four parts: “History of Theology” and “Systematic Theology” both by Beinert; “Canon Law” by Peter Krämer, and “Ecumenical Perspectives” by representatives of four other churches: Peter Plank (Orthodox), Harding Meyer (Lutheran), Alan Falconer (Reformed), and Christopher Hill (Anglican). In his treatment of the systematic theology of primacy, Beinert builds on the notion of the Petrine ministry, on which he also contributed the article in this volume. Here he accents the structural identity between the Petrine ministry and its realization in the historical primacy, seeing the former as the criterion against which the exercise of the latter is to be judged. He also insists that the primacy must promote not only unity but also catholicity, which means the principles of collegiality, subsidiarity, and the plurality of forms of theological thought. The volume contains one article that is not in the Lexikon but was written for the English version of this Dictionary: “Vatican-U.S. Relations” by Gerald P. Fogarty. I have found one misprint: on p. 258 “his in sacris Pastor” should read “his in terris Pastor.” In general, the articles in this part of the Dictionary are of the quality that scholars have come to expect from the Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche. Some readers may still prefer to consult the second edition of the Lexikon, where one can read the articles on the same topics mentioned here, written by H. Jedin, A. Lang, H. Vorgrimler, K. Rahner, and J. Ratzinger. However, the second edition does not reflect the developments that took place at Vatican II or in its aftermath, nor does it have the up-to-date bibliographies that contribute so much to the value of this Dictionary. The new Encyclopedia of Theology and Church should prove very useful.

40.

This special issue of Feminist Theory reflects the growing interest in ethics that has emerged in recent years within feminist scholarship. As faith in the grand narratives and political projects of modernity has faltered, there has been a turn towards situated contingent ethical frameworks. Both the philosophical basis and political contours of these emerging ethical frameworks are the subject of intense debate among feminists. The articles collected in this special issue were originally presented at the Gendering Ethics/The Ethics of Gender conference organized by the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Studies at the University of Leeds in June 2000. The conference was conceived as an occasion on which to bring together feminist scholars from a wide range of disciplines, and from around the world, who were working on issues relating to gender and ethics. More than 130 papers were presented at the conference and scholars from 27 countries participated in three days of lively discussions. The selection of only six papers for this special issue was a difficult task, and we would like to extend our thanks to all who contributed to the conference but whose work is not represented here.1 The papers from the conference are complemented by Margrit Shildrick’s review article, which offers a critical assessment of the state of the art in feminist ethics, focusing on six recently published books.

Editorial Gendering ethics/the ethics of gender

God is to be God? Surely she cannot mean a mutuality of equality? And surely in this, as in her other talk about the necessity of a relational paradigm for reality, the Christian notion of God as Trinity might have been used to more profit? The book is accompanied by a useful bibliography for further reading and a biblical (though not general) index. It is well written and very readable. It challenges those who like S61le believe in a contextual theology which favours the oppressed to begin to move beyond rhetorical denunciation to ways of drawing in all sections of society towards a solidarity which will effect real change. GERRY O’HANLON

Book Review: Beyond Patching. Faith and Feminism in the Catholic Church. By Sandra M. Schneiders, IHM. New York: Paulist Press, 1991

’For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change Critique and reinterpretation then will only effect limited transformation. It is only in the redefinition of our resources that feminist ethics will move towards a new paradigm for theology. Instead of trying to reinterpret traditional theological categories so as to include women’s experience, feminist theologians have moved beyond the realm of patriarchal theories towards starting points which will affirm the dignity of