This article studies the spiritual theology of the cross in the writings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. In Teilhard's books and articles the accent falls on the cross as a symbol of progress. The cross stands for Jesus' positive act of saving the world through his death; it represents, too, Christian life as a sharing in the cross of Jesus through the labor and pain of human progress. In his spiritual notes, however, Teilhard takes a different perspective. His own meditations on the cross center not on the cross as a positive symbol of personal and collective progress through struggle, but rather on death as the ultimate fragmentation, and as an apparent dead end that is the final passage to Jesus Christ.

The major reason why ethics seeks to determine the rightness or wrongness of human acts is that it is principally concerned with the question of our identity as human beings, an identity that we shape for ourselves by our willingness to choose to do specific kinds of deeds or acts. Questions of morality, in other words, are at root questions of human identity. We make or break our lives as human beings by the deeds we choose to do.

With this underlying theme the essay seeks to assess the adequacy of diverse moral methodologies insofar as these have been employed in an effort to confront the challenges posed by the new biology. Three types of approaches are examined: the consequentialist type exemplified by Joseph Fletcher, the “mediating” approach discernible in many contemporary writers and given its most systematic articulation by Richard McCormick, and the deontological type so ably presented by Paul Ramsey and Germain Grisez. The author argues that the Ramsey-Grisez type of approach is the most adequate, contending that the other two types of approaches are more concerned with what our deeds get done than they are with what our deeds have to tell us about the meaning of our existence as moral beings.

By studying the parish mission under the rubric of revivalism the author claims that revival religion enjoyed widespread popularity in the American Catholic community in the second half of the nineteenth century. This conservative tradition had a wider appeal and exerted a greater influence among the bulk of Catholics than the liberal progressive gospel of Americanization.

The parish mission had its roots in Europe and was introduced to the U. S. by various religious orders, the Redemptorists and Jesuits in particular. By comparing the parish mission with Protestant revivals the term Catholic revivalism emerges as the most apt description for the religion fostered at the mission.

To illustrate the meaning of revival religion among Catholics the author studies handbooks for Catholic revivals, sermons of mission preachers and newspaper accounts of the mission. In particular he concentrates on the sermons of Redemptorist and Paulist preachers. From these sources the article argues that Catholics were being nurtured in an evangelical piety that stressed individual conversion; the preachers proclaimed a theology of individualism that was rooted in the theme of repentance and pressed upon the people in an urgent, emotion-filled manner. The moral qualities of right behavior were also stressed and chief among these was the spirit of temperance. A notable difference from Protestant revivalism was the Catholic emphasis on the sacrament of penance in the personal experience of conversion. Catholic revivals encouraged a sacramental evangelicalism that emerged as a major motivating force in the religion of American Catholics in the nineteenth century.

A considerable complexity surrounds the preparation of teachers and administrators for the field of religious education. If it's teachers you are thinking of, then you must determine which level of teaching you will be preparing them for: Primary, Intermediate, Junior High, High School, College, Adult. (6 levels)

As for administrators there are five constituencies out there: Chairpersons of religion departments in elementary schools, high schools, colleges, Parish Directors or Coordinators, Diocesan Directors.

Certain essentials will be necessary for everyone. Religious content such as Bible, theology, liturgy. Humanistic content such as behavioral science (counseling, developmental, behaviorist psychology and religious sociology), educational theory, some poetry and film study, administrative theory (Barnard and Brucker)—this last, of course, only for administrators—and lastly, method.

Most teachers and administrators are receiving plenty of religious content, a fair amount of behavioral science, not too much educational theory, practically no management skills, and virtually no method.

From what I can see, the weakest parts of college and graduate school preparation programs are in the area of management theory and practical educational method. It is to this question of method I wish to direct my remarks.

Prior to launching directly into the topic I want to note that a consciousness of Parish Community should be uppermost in these varying preparations. The territorial parish, for the foreseeable future, will be the basic unit of Catholic Church life. It is the fundamental structure wherein most religious teaching and administrating will go on.

Over the past decade I have periodically taught an undergraduate course entitled “Studies in Religious Ethics: Taking Human Life.” Three traditions are studied: Judaism, Catholicism and Protestantism. “Studies in Religious Ethics” has precedence in the title in order to convey the intention that the readings would be in the ethics of religious traditions, and that the principal purpose of the course is to come to a better knowledge and understanding of ethics in the context of religious thought and communal life. I intend, thereby, to deflect the interest of persons who are interested only in the moral questions of taking human life. “Taking Human Life” was chosen for two reasons. First, the moral teachings on these questions and the ethical and theological justifications for them provide specific points of reference around which particular comparisons between Judaism, Catholicism, and Protestantism can be made. One can, for example, look at the questions of capital punishment, and by following the arguments of a standard Catholic source, an article that assesses the classic Jewish tradition, and a Protestant theologian like Karl Barth, begin to indicate both the methods and the contents of each tradition. The practical moral questions become avenues which one can take into the history of each tradition, into the ethical theories of each tradition, and into the patterns of moral authority of each tradition. A second reason for “Taking Human Life” is that the questions used are those to which contemporary students frequently have affective responses of considerable depth, and also opinions which have not been thoroughly considered. While it is not a major purpose of the course to bring students’ opinions under critical scrutiny, their interest in the questions motivates their participation in the class, and a latent consequence of their reading and the discussions is a critical examination of the reasons they hold their frequently outspoken opinions.

In the course Architecture in Worship, the interior functional design of churches is taken as a point of departure for the study of the theological beliefs and liturgical practices of various periods of church history and of different denominations. Using an inductive approach, the course provides a unique approach to the study of church history and sacramental theology, and thus is useful as an alternative among the varied departmental offerings.