The Sensus Fidelium and Moral Theology, edited by Charles E. Curran and Lisa A. Fullam, Readings in Moral Theology 18 (New York and Mahwah: Paulist Press, 2017).
First, a disclosure: It has been a privilege and my pleasure to have worked editorially with Fr. Curran on his Moral Theology volumes since 2004.
In The Sensus Fidelium and Moral Theology Charles Curran and Lisa Fullam have given us the eighteenth volume in the invaluable series Readings in Moral Theology, which Fr. Curran inaugurated thirty-eight years ago with coeditor Richard McCormick.
John Henry Newman was the theologian best noted in the nineteenth century for his views on the sensus fidelium, which he explored in his seminal work on the topic, On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine. On being asked by his bishop, William Ullathorne of Birmingham, “Who are the laity?” Newman, by his own account, “answered … that the Church would look foolish without them.” The concept of sensus fidelium did not start with Newman, however; its roots go back to the biblical tradition, and the process is traced in the book’s first chapter, “Sensus Fidei in the Life of the Church,” prepared by the International Theological Commission and published by the Vatican in 2014.
The rest of Part One is taken up with historical and theological interpretations and features a multinational group of expert authors ranging from the USA (such as Paul Crowley, who expands on Newman) to Europe (including Myriam Wijlens of Germany on the ecclesiology of Vatican II) and beyond (including the Australian Ormond Rush’s finely nuanced account of “Sensus Fidei: Faith ‘Making Sense’ of Revelation”).
Part Two sets out “Moral and Practical Issues in Light of the Sensus Fidelium” and, in the wake of Pope Francis’s revival of the synod process and its consultation of the Catholic laity in preparation for the 2015 Synod on the Family, stamps this volume as especially timely. In presenting viewpoints on the sensus fidelium from a wide range of theologians and pastors, it makes an outstanding contribution by widening its application to ethical and not only doctrinal issues. Chapter 14, “Experience and Moral Theology: Reflections on Humanae Vitae Forty Years Later” by Todd A. Salzman and Michael G. Lawler, is only one of the gems to be found in this section of the book.
The Sensus Fidelium and Moral Theology is an invaluable resource not only for students and professors but also for all educated and involved laypersons who want to see how the concept of the sensus fidelium, championed by one of the greatest minds of the nineteenth century, is experiencing a deserved revival after years of being consigned to limbo by those who would prefer to equate authentic Catholic teaching with the hierarchical magisterium.
