La morale alfonsiana: una risposta alle sfide di ieri ... - Studia Moralia

THE ALPHONSIAN TRADITION IN THE LIGHT OF CONSUEVERUNT 313
conscience’ which would make the subjective intuition the basis
of an objective moral judgment. 47 What I infer from
Consueverunt omni tempore is this: the intentionality of the
alphonsian spirit of moral theology is best captured in the
phrase ‘pastoral’, used hermeneutically. It is not co-incidental, I
believe, how the question is phrased in the Introduction to the
Constitutions and Statutes that govern the Redemptorist way of
life:
Urged on by the same missionary spirit, it fosters, too, the
scientific study of pastoral practice, thus following in the steps
of St. Alphonsus who, in 1871, was declared a Doctor of the
Church, and in 1950 the patron of all confessors and moralists. 48
The choice of the words ‘scientific study of pastoral practice’
is significant: we are not encouraged, for instance, to study
moral theology in se or the spiritual life in se, master of both
though St. Alphonsus was. I have referred a number of times to
the alphonsian tradition. The genius of the founding-father of
that tradition was to resolve the theological war of the 18 th
century reflex principles: the contemporary challenge to that
tradition, posed by Consueverunt omni tempore, is to find an
hermeneutical convergence between the insights of
contemporary pastoral (or practical) theology and
contemporary moral theology, in its various legitimate
expressions. 49 I am not trying to claim that moral theology is the
same as pastoral theology. Pastoral theology, it is now clear, can
claim to have its own formal object as a theological discipline as,
for instance, proposed by Midali when he describes this as
rilevare, valutare e orientare, alla luce della fede, e con l’ausilio
di principi unificatori, di teorie, di modelli e di categorie
47 See note 45.
48 Constitutions and Statutes. Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer
(Rome: General Curia C.Ss.R. 1988), 18.
49 An ecumenical dimension is most helpful here, such as the excellent
study of D. S. BROWNING, A Fundamental Practical Theology, ( Minneapolis:
Fortress Press, 1991).