Summaries / Resúmenes - Studia Moralia

THE 50 TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE LAW OF CHRIST 249integrated into this discipline. The poverty of subsequentefforts to construct a moral theology, particularly in ‘specialmoral’, which is genuinely christocentric suggests that Häringmay well have underestimated the thorny hermeneutical problemsinvolved in such an undertaking.6. A more complex line of reflection concerns the idea ofan Alphonsian tradition. This question is only briefly treated inthe volume, principally in the pieces by Arntz and Vidal, whopresuppose the existence of such a tradition rather than establishit. It seems to me that a number of facets of this issuedeserve much closer consideration – they can only be mentionedin what follows. An obvious place to begin is with St.Alphonsus. Did Alphonsus found a new moral-theological tradition?The answer to this question will depend on what oneunderstands by ‘tradition’ and on how one understands ‘moraltheology’. If a moral theological tradition is a shared pattern ofopinions and practices which persists over time and which distinguishesitself from other such patterns then it is probablypossible to speak of a Redemptorist tradition (vis-à-vis, forexample, ‘a Jansenist tradition’) along the lines suggested byVidal and Arntz. If, however, a moral-theological ‘tradition’ issomething deeper than such a pattern, something whichinvolves one’s entire vision of christian life and which definesitself over against other such comprehensive visions, then thereare major doubts as to whether it makes sense to speak of anAlphonsian tradition. A major problem here, as Gallagher intimatedin his preliminary considerations, is that while ‘moraltheology’ may be understood as a discipline which has emergedin the last 400 years or so, theological reflection on moralityhas of course been going on for many centuries. Within thisexisting moral reflection, the main-line Thomistic theologicaltradition (which includes so much on christian moral life)proved to be dominant. The choice of Alphonsus to take his distancefrom certain theological trends of his time can surely notbe understood as a break with this tradition. So it would seemto me to make more sense to interpret Alphonsus as continuingin the main-line Thomistic theological tradition and attemptingto modify that tradition in order to respond to the theologicaland pastoral circumstances of his day. All of this is extremelyimportant if we consider for a moment Bernhard Häring as a