Author: Emily Reimer-Barry

In November, CMT contributor Charles Camosy wrote a piece for Church Life Journal entitled “The Crisis of Catholic Moral Theology.”  His arguments have been given new life this week in an America piece in which Camosy is interviewed by Tom Elitz, S.J., “Has Moral Theology Left Catholic Tradition Behind?” In both places, Camosy argues that the field of moral theology is in crisis. But I think it is too early to plan the Requiem Mass for our field. It is true that huge demographic and institutional shifts are underway. But this is not a field in crisis. This is a field responding to urgent and complex questions all over the world, drawing on the wisdom of the past and the data of the present, including data from a variety of fields in the social sciences and hard sciences. In these pieces, Camosy argues that scholars of Catholic moral theology are not doing theology the way he thinks it should be done. And sometimes they even have the nerve to call themselves social ethicists instead of moral theologians. But I think we need to step back and think about some very basic questions that his critique of the field raises. What do I need to have to demonstrate to someone that I “belong” in the guild of Catholic moral theology? What exactly has been lost by expanding our field’s methodological...