Summaries / Resúmenes - Studia Moralia

REVIEWS / RECENSIONES 477morass, so theologians held, there is only one sure guide to secureknowledge of the truth, and that is the Magisterium alone.However, it is interesting to note that Fuchs did not support theargument that interpretations of the natural law, in particular thatcondemning contraception, must be defended at all costs, since to dootherwise would undermine the credibility of the Church.(51) Henevertheless continued to uphold the thesis that the Magisteriumenjoyed a superior insight into the natural law. The role of the individualCatholicism he believed at this time, was simply to accept andapply this teaching. It is noteworthy that Fuchs adopts the commonly,but uncritically accepted notion of “objectivity” as an entitydetached from the subject.Fuchs developed a theory which distinguished between two actsof conscience, one, called the operatum concerned the act’s conformityto natural law; the other, called the operatio referred to themoral quality of what the person intended to do.(70) The context ofthis distinction was a doctrine of merit: a person who performs anact (operatum) which is not in accord with the natural law, cannotmerit. But when that person performs the act with an intention ofthe good, that person increases her personal formal moral goodness,but does not merit. Behind this seems to be a notion of an ontologicalworld populated by “essences” conceived of as entities with existence.One would be interested in the influence of Suarezian metaphysicson Fuchs’s thinking. But the author does not raise the point.This reviewer suggests that what we see here is a transition in Fuchs’sthinking from the “objectivist” theory of Neo-Thomism, towards anacceptance of the subjective. But the move remains incomplete, andthe result rather incoherent.The author provides an interesting account of the process ofFuchs’s conversion during the discussions of the PontificalCommission. The key issues were the natural law, universality andparticularity, moral epistemology, and the competence of the laity inmoral questions. The author interprets the changes in Fuchs’s viewsas not mere development, but discontinuity. The final section of thebook is dedicated to an analysis of Fuchs’s subsequent developmentof a new moral hermeneutic. The first feature is a Rahnerian turn tothe subject, and the anthropology linked with this. SubsequentlyFuchs developed the epistemological and substantive implications ofthis in a significant re-interpretation of moral theology.Graham provides a thorough analysis of these developments.