In response to the crisis regarding the role of authoritative teaching within the Catholic faith, this book develops an understanding of dogma that not only provides for its essential function of unifying the church but also acknowledges and affirms the plurality of the church in today's world, a church that is a communion of local churches. Drawing on the insights of Newman, Rahner, and Gadamer, the author offers a way of reconceiving the role of dogma in a manner appropriate to the pluralistic contemporary church.