In Benedict XVI's God is Love §1 humanity's relationship with God is described as an encounter with an ‘event’, the Christ‐event. I argue that this shift in Catholic theology towards language of act and event signalled a relationship to existentialism, which, taken broadly, entailed an emphasis upon subjectivity and freedom uncharacteristic of the focus upon objectivity common to neo‐Scholastic thought. As we shall see with Karl Rahner and Hans Urs von Balthasar, however, this newfound emphasis on subjectivity and freedom did not necessitate an abandonment of all the elements of the more ‘objective’ perspective. Rather, the task during the ascendancy of existentialist thought became the integration of human subjectivity with the objective and independent reality of the world and God. I suggest that Rahner and von Balthasar use notions such as act and event as a way of being mindful of the role of the subject's creativity and freedom in its encounter with the world, God, and other persons, without thereby undermining the freedom and creativity of that which is other than the subject.

Biblical Inspiration has long been considered an important concept for Catholic theology, but the difficulties experienced in trying to give an adequate and convincing explanation of how divine and the human authors could collaborate in producing Biblical texts has discouraged many writers from pursuing the topic. Some have considered that the difficulties are so great that the task of exploring a theology of Inspiration is too great to make the effort worthwhile.

This article, in attempting to sketch a model for Biblical Inspiration, begins by trying to identify exactly what is required for the theology of Inspiration, and then discarding what is not; it also sets out to distinguish clearly between Revelation and Inspiration, while recognising that the two are closely related, and using a model of symbolic mediation for Revelation. The article goes on to propose a model of Inspiration which satisfies not only the demands of contemporary Biblical scholarship and philosophical hermeneutics, but also the requirements of the doctrine of Inspiration as found in the Magisterial documents of the Catholic Church.

Bind Us Together argues that in naming both the Anglican and Catholic Ugandans killed in the mid 1880s as “martyrs” a visible unity is implied that is useful in contemporary ecumenical theology. By recounting the story of the Ugandan martyrs told through both Catholic and Protestant sources, I am able to perform the Christian unity that I am arguing for. I also engage historical and theological obstacles to my argument. The historical obstacle is brought about by the mutual condemnation of both Catholic and Protestant martytrs by each side during the 16th century. The theological obstacle is the work of Ephraim Radner. Being indebted to Radner's understanding of repentance, I use John Paul II to overcome both of these obstacles. I conclude by discussing more explicitly the connections between the Ugandan martyrs and church unity showing that these martyrs provide Christians with language to speak intelligibly about Christian unity today.

Henri de Lubac argues that Christians today lack an appreciation of the centrality of the Gospel to human meaning. This apologetically disastrous deficiency is related, for him, to Cajetan's “corruption” of Thomas's understanding of nature and grace. After presenting this issue, this article examines the reception of ideas akin to Cajetan's conception by Christians and popular culture, which latter has accordingly adopted an indifferentist mentality toward religion. Other impediments to thinking through the Gottesproblem today are taken up next, specifically the legacy of critical atheism and the distraction that shields persons from this problem's relevance. Distraction, although aimed at saving persons from the thought of death and from anxiety, actually produces a deadening and banalization of human hope. The hope of Gaudium et spes, which is addressed last, is not the eviscerated hope of contemporary persons. The language barrier centering on “hope” between the Council fathers and contemporary persons can only be bridged by addressing the formative causes of the hope of those indifferent to the Gospel.

The concept of cultural identity is illustrated by the example of Latin America. At the same time Latin America is shown to be a true part of the Western world and understandable only as such, and the reasons for other cultural identifications of Latin America are examined. Then the cultural development and identity of the West as a whole is considered, with special reference to two competing accounts of Western cultural development, both of which focus chiefly on the econonmic development of Europe and North America, in contrast to its cultural or spiritual roots. Finally the special case of the United States is looked at, and it is asked how her peculiar self‐understanding affects her cultural identity as part of the Western world.

The origin of self as subject can be sought neither in astrology, genetics nor in arbitrary divine will. These answers depend upon a realist belief in a world of objects, governed by the sufficient reason principle, as if the divine ideas were a necessary set of the possibles! The alternative is the unity of self and God, i.e. personal contingency is impossible. Otherness, rather, is in any thinkable God (any non‐abstract infinity is differentiated). The world too, as other, is inseparable from God, therefore, willing to be what he then is, though not temporally. Transcendence, as infinite, demands immanence. Why God has no real relation to creatures (Aquinas) is because they are not as God is, or as God transcends such being. Human actuality requires inversion of the common‐sense world. The idea of a privileged access to truth is arbitrary. Truth, rather, must be intrinsically human. We live in God. Only so are we, images, in ourselves. Emergent knowledge is natural to the universe. It constructs it.

The experience of human suffering presents an ongoing challenge to believers who seek to sustain their relationship with God in the face of the tragedies of human history. Edward Schillebeeckx, O.P. is a seminal Christian thinker who has made a conscious attempt to take into account the harsh reality of suffering in his systematic theology. Rejecting theoretical attempts to reconcile belief in a good, all‐powerful God with the reality of evil and suffering, Schillebeeckx employs the categories of narrative and memory in his articulation of a Christian response to evil and suffering. He tells the story of Jesus as the story of God. The God who is disclosed in the ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus is the God who is “pure positivity”– the source of life and the opponent of evil and suffering. God's action in and through Jesus provides clues to the way in which God is present and active in the lives of suffering human beings. This revelation summons Christians to become people of memory and of praxis.