YSM-Systematic Moral Theology

In the world in which cultural flux seems more rapid & sometimes more violent than the human person can tolerate, it is more essential than ever to clarify our sense of the meaning of life. This course will seek a deeper understanding of life's meaning as it is related to the nature of the human person, the world & the living God of the Christian. In doing so, we will focus on the common dimensions of the lived experience of these relationships in light of the great spiritual tradition of the Church. We will deal with the Trinitarian origins of our life in the Spirit, the reality of grace, the virtues & the gifts of the Holy Spirit, freedom, sin, conversion, growth in holiness & prayer.

Independent Study

Catholic Moral Theology and Bioethics : Introductory course acquaints student with basic principles and topics in Catholic morality and bioethics and their application in specific issues: beginning and ending of life, genetics, transplantation, experimentation, and the ministry of pastoral care in the hospital. The course teaches the role of natural law, the nature of the human person as a moral person, freedom and knowledge, and the formation of the conscience.

This course offers an introduction to the basic principles and topics in Bioethics. The subjects covered will be selected from the following: suffering; Catholic identity in health care; issues at the beginning of life; genetics; transplantation; experimentation; distribution of health care; issues at the end of life.

Central to issues in contemporary justice are specific problems and cases that required the application of Catholic social justice teaching. To explore the application of social justice principles to issues common to the laity in the 21st century, this course will explore and analyze cases, applying social justice teaching to their resolution, and investigate the complexities of solutions in the modern world.

This course bases the ethics of sex and marriage on a Christian understanding of the human person, discusses marriage as institution and as sacrament, and deals with issues such as marriage permanence, marital fidelity, contraception, the virtue of chastity, homosexuality, and vowed celibacy from a moral and pastoral point of view.

An advanced course that establishes the fundamental teaching in the Church’s social doctrine and its development from the early church to the modern period. Key modern encyclicals in social justice are studied with special attention given to documents of the papacy, the Holy See, the USCCB and Catholic bioethical theologians, covering topics and scenarios relevant to the priestly vocation.

This course will examine the dynamic and transformative relationship between the human person and God in Christ through the Holy Spirit. The Trinitarian origins and goal of spirituality will be emphasized as well as the concepts of grace uncreated and created, the gifts of the Spirit, freedom, sin, conversion, growth in holiness, prayer, and prayer practices.

Spiritual Theology explores the truths of divine revelation and religious experience, those aspects of the supernatural life which pertain to its development and practice, as well as the progression through which souls move toward the transformation which brings the spiritual life to its perfection. This course also considers the characteristics of spiritual direction and focuses on key texts that have shaped Christian spirituality from late antiquity to the twenty-first century. The course consists of lectures, case studies, and class presentations with discussion.

Besides its status as the greatest poetic work of Western culture, Dante’s Divine Comedy is a storehouse of theological insights. The Divine Comedy is an imaginative tour of the afterlife in which Dante as a pilgrim observes the nature of evil (Inferno), the regeneration of fallen humanity (Purgatory) and the joy of the beatific vision and how to prepare for it (Paradise). The course tracks a number of key themes in the Comedy: the nature of sin, the promise of human natality, friendship, the relation of aesthetics to the moral life, and Dante’s insight into a theologia ludens (a theology of God’s playfulness), which embraces an ethic of risk and the joyful essence of the divinity.

This course offers an introduction to the relationship between theological anthropology and maorality within Roman Catholic theology. The course will also consider contemporary secular understandings of the human person and their ramifications upon current morality in the United States of America. The course's emphasis will be upon pastoral application and ministry.