An Introduction to Catholic Ethics since Vatican II

Description

This introduction provides a comprehensive overview of the development of Catholic ethics in the wake of the Second Vatican Council (1962-5), an event widely considered crucial to the reconciliation of the Catholic Church and the modern world. Andrew Kim investigates Catholic responses to questions of moral theology in all four principal areas: Catholic social teaching, natural law, virtue ethics, and bioethics. In addition to discussing contemporary controversies surrounding abortion, contraception, labor rights, exploitation of the poor, and just war theory, he explores the historical sources of the Catholic worldview. Beginning with the moral vision revealed through the person of Jesus Christ and continuing with elaborations on this vision from figures such as Augustine and Aquinas, this volume elucidates the continuity of the Catholic moral tradition. Its balance of complexity and accessibility makes it an ideal resource for both students of theology and general readers.

Andrew Kim is Assistant Professor of Theology at Walsh University. His articles have appeared in Studies in Christian Ethics and the Journal of Moral Theology.

'In this book he presents an engaging and lucid exposition of the central themes in Catholic ethics: natural law, virtue, Catholic social teaching and bioethics. There are fine sections on the acquisition of the virtues and their unity in the Christian moral life, and on the dignity of the human person ... He systematically and effectively demolishes various types of moral relativism, demonstrating how Christian theology transcends the culture wars and the current polarisation of left and right that are apparently spreading from the United States to the whole of western society.' Edward Dowler, Studies in Christian Ethics