Assessment

Continuous Assessment (presentations, participation, short papers) 40% and Major Essay (5000 words) 60%

Module Aims

This module introduces learners to key shifts in Catholic dogmatic, moral, biblical, and liturgical theology in the 20th Century by providing a context for, and overview of, theological developments in the period and comparing and analysing key primary texts. The module aims to assist learners in deepening their understanding of the Second Vatican Council and the theological developments that led to it and informed it.

Indicative Syllabus:

• General background: modernity, the rise of Neo-Scholasticism, and the theological status quo at the turn of the 20th c.
• Renewal in Dogmatic Theology
• Renewal in Moral Theology
• Renewal in Biblical Theology
• Renewal in Liturgy (and liturgical theology)
• Vatican II as watershed: point of theological culmination and departure

Learning Outcomes

• — LO 1 Identify both continuities and shifts in twentieth-century texts in dogmatic, moral, biblical, and liturgical theology in the twentieth century.
• — LO 2 Investigate and evaluate identifiable shifts as philosophical, theological, methodological, or pastoral.
• — LO 3 Critically assess the degree to which particular theologians exemplify these developments.
• — LO 4 Develop a credible, nuanced, and evidence-based narrative of twentieth-century Catholic theology.
• — LO5 Scrutinise the contemporary theological landscape in relation to theological developments in the twentieth century.

Bibliography

• — Gabriel Flynn and Paul D Murray (ed.), Ressourcement: A Movement for Renewal in Twentieth-Century Catholic Theology, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).
• — James F. Keenan, A History of Moral Theology in the Twentieth Century, (New York: Continuum, 2010).
• — Fergus Kerr, Twentieth-Century Catholic Theologians. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2006.
• — James C. Livingston et al. (ed.), Modern Christian Thought, 2 volumes (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2006).