According to Charles E. Curran, all contemporary theology is marked by historical consciousness. The ongoing quest of moral theology does not jettison the past but tries to build creatively on the past in light of the present. The essays in this book delineate that view of moral theology as a continuing journey. Father Curran addresses the topic through four major concerns of moral theology ' the ecclesial and academic contexts of moral theology, methodology, personal ethics, and social ethics. Ln Part I he asserts that theology must continually search for better understandings of God and of the Christian response in the light of the changing realities of our existence. However, he reaffirms that theology must also always remain faithful to the Word of God as revealed in the scriptures and proclaimed through tradition by the official teachers of the church.
Part ll discusses methodological questions such as the nature. of theology itself, anthropology, and the matter of a distinctively Christian morality and ethics. Part III considers three questions in personal ethics - aging, in vitro fertilization, and the contraceptive revolution. Part IV first traces the historical development of Catholic social education from the late nineteenth century of Pope Leo XIII to the present. The second study, entitled "Religion, Law and Public Policy in America," explores such important issues as abortion and the New Christian Right. Recognizing the complex relationship between the political order and the religious and moral orders, Father Curran proposes a criterion of political purpose which safeguards the integrity of the political order and governs the ways in which faith and religion can try to affect it.