This essay aims to show that baseball's time-honored emphases on physical and spiritual discipline follow from its metaphysical imaginary. In turn, it will reason that Christian life and thought are capable of illuminating baseball—and vice versa. The argument will proceed as follows: First, both Christianity and baseball frame their worlds in terms of emanation (exitus) and return (reditus): “players” leave home and aim to return home; second, though players belong to a team or community (ecclesia), the task of returning home is ultimately a solitary one; it has to be done by the individual player, even if the team, too, benefits from the individual's undertaking; and third, the spiritual or attitudinal development of the individual is thus crucial: players have to attend to how they approach the “game,” particularly in terms of their internal comportment. This last point will receive special attention: it will be reasoned that Søren Kierkegaard's spiritual writings, tendered for the existential “upbuilding” (Opbyggelse) of “the single individual” (den Enkelte), might likewise offer upbuilding insights for the individuals who play baseball—a sport that John Updike once called “an essentially lonely game.”

After the initial contextualization of the topic, by following Nancy's juxtaposition strategy, this article points to two senses of the body that, according to him, have defined the Western culture. The first one, logos (principle precedes the body and gives it meaning); the second, sarx (the meaning of the body comes from the body itself, so that the body comes out of itself, alienates itself, and deconstructs its own representative activities). Next, I give a more precise depiction of Nancy's deconstruction of the body through an analysis of Corpus because it is precisely with this work (in the chapter On the Soul, which is also the title of Aristotle's well-known treatise dealing first and foremost with the body, and in the chapter The Extension of the Soul) that Nancy most explicitly deconstructs hylomorphic somatology, which largely influenced the Christian theology of the body. Furthermore, I interpret Genesis 2:18–25 (in constant dialogue with Nancy) as a theological reaction on Nancy's deconstruction of the body. In other words, on the basis of biblical texts, the “mystery of the body” is depicted. Finally, the article ends with a comparison of Nancy's “inoperative community” (communauté désoeuvrée) and the Body of Christ (church).

Through the writings of Jean Vanier, this paper encourages Catholic theologians to examine critically their theological sources and their own rhetoric for the context of developmental disabilities. Specifically, this thought experiment is an invitation for the Catholic academy to consider how its theologies of charity can assist the church to reflect on its pastoral ministry to people with developmental disabilities. Some Catholic discourse is built on an assumed one-directional concept of charity that emphasizes the agency and gifts of the giver over the receiver. Such a one-sided model of hospitality tends to emphasize the giver as the person without developmental disabilities, whereas the person with disabilities is described as the receiver of hospitality; their own gifts and agency thereby are either unacknowledged or downplayed. This paper argues, instead, that Catholic theologies of charity, particularly regarding developmental disabilities, should be built on a mutuality that affirms each person's agency to be both a giver and a receiver of charity.

A quarter of a century has passed since the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda and the 1995 genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The anniversaries of these tragedies beckon us to reflect on the responsibility of theologians, scholars of religion, and religious educators to confront genocide. How should scholars use the tools of these disciplines to educate about genocide responsibly and promote peace and respect for human dignity and rights in the wake of such tragedy? How might they utilize their intellectual, spiritual, and material resources to help prevent violent extremism and genocide? Four scholars who have profoundly engaged these questions in their academic work generously agreed to contribute to this roundtable. One of them writes directly from his context of Rwanda, while another writes from her homeland in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The two scholars based in the United States have also systematically confronted the problem of ethnic and religious hatred and genocide, focusing on the Holocaust and the Bosnian genocide, respectively. All four contributors serve as remarkable examples of theologians and scholars of religion who have used their training and skills to promote a world where “never again” is not merely a slogan.

When the world came to its senses after the Second World War and reports of the horrors of the Holocaust began to spread, the international community reacted with disbelief. And when reality proved much worse than even the worst nightmare, the world community reacted unanimously with a general outcry: crimes of this magnitude must never happen again. It appeared quite clear that, in the future, the international community would never again remain inactive in the face of such appalling tragedy. Yet, the firm imperative “never again” has become “again and again,” and the same dreadful crimes have been repeated in many parts of the world.

Twenty-five years after the end of the war, the political and social scene of Bosnia and Herzegovina is still characterized by the mentality of the 1990s. In recent months, we have witnessed political rhetoric that is very much reminiscent of the time before, at the beginning, and during the war. In the first part of this essay, I will try to present some of the reasons for this situation. In the second part, I will point out the responsibility of intellectuals for such a condition. In this concluding section, I will discuss how we have used our academic resources in an attempt to change the situation and strengthen social responsibility.

I am thankful to be invited to share some reflections on the genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina and on the actions of scholars in Bosnia-Herzegovina and around the world in resisting genocide and in promoting peace, justice, and respect for human dignity in the face of such a tragedy.

How has Pastor Aeternus stood the test of time in the face of Vatican II, the great social leveling brought about by democracy and the mass media, and the severe erosion of confidence in hierarchical institutions, including the Catholic Church?

In the ongoing aggiornamento of the aggiornamento of Vatican II by Pope Francis, it would be easy to forget or dismiss the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Vatican I (1869–1870). The council planned (since at least the Syllabus of Errors of 1864), shaped, and influenced by Pius IX was the most important ecclesial event in the lives of those who made Vatican II: almost a thousand of the council fathers of Vatican II were born between 1871 and 1900. Vatican I was in itself also a kind of ultramontanist “modernization” of the Roman Catholic Church, which paved the way for the aggiornamento of Vatican II and still shapes the post–Vatican II church especially for what concerns the Petrine ministry.

Two dogmatic constitutions from the First Vatican Council, Dei Filius and Pastor Aeternus, are worth revisiting today. These documents were in part a response to the challenge of liberalism. Although such a retrieval of the wisdom of Dei Filius and Pastor Aeternus is necessary as a means of protecting Christ's revelation, this is not sufficient. The doctrine of Pastor Aeternus should also be developed to make more clear the limits of papal authority.

Kristin Colberg's fine essay in the December 2019 issue of Horizons clearly lays out the social, historical, and theological context for Pastor Aeternus. The year 1870 was a tumultuous, difficult, even dangerous, time for the Roman Catholic Church as it dealt with rationalism, challenges to secular as well as religious authority, new scientific ideas, and the loss of its own political power. When I have taught historical survey courses, I always stress the significance of context, and Pastor Aeternus is no exception. I also ask my students, when reading about controversial issues, to ask the question: “What is each position trying to protect?” Clearly, Pastor Aeternus is trying to protect the church's independence from secular powers, from perceived errors, and from forces of disunity both in society and in the church itself.

Toward the end of his magisterial study of Catholic ecclesiological struggles spanning 1300 to 1870 CE, Francis Oakley employed a striking image to illustrate the victory of papalism over conciliarism. After Vatican I, the “solitary horseman” left on a desolate “ecclesiological battlefield” many centuries in the making was “none other than the resilient ghost of Bellarmine.” By this image, Oakley meant that Pastor Aeternus’ twin definitions of papal infallibility and jurisdictional supremacy represented the definitive triumph of the ultramontane school, as typified by the counter-reformation Jesuit Cardinal Robert Bellarmine. For Oakley—and in this point he echoed a common interpretation—Vatican I consigned conciliar and constitutionalist Catholic ecclesiologies to “oblivion.”