Theology and Power: The Question of Truth

November 24, 2025

In theological literature and ecclesial debate, it has become increasingly common to speak about "doctrinal policy." This is a curious development, since the term "policy" naturally belongs to the realm of politics. Those in power implement policies to achieve particular results for the common good entrusted to them. The Oxford English Dictionary defines "policy" as "a course of action adopted and pursued by a government, party, ruler, statesman, etc.; any course of action adopted as advantageous or expedient." Policies can be more or less appropriate for achieving more or less desirable ends. A person implements a policy to advance a practical goal. 

In what follows, I will ask what notion of doctrine is necessary to allow us meaningfully to speak of doctrine as something at the service of a policy. Next, I will consider the repercussions of this notion of doctrine for our understanding of theology and its relationship to truth.

The Body and Society: Toward a Eucharistic Transformation

February 3, 2025

“This is my body which is given for you” (Lk 22:19). Here is the transformation that the Eucharist can work in society: The Eucharist gives a language to the body, the language of the gift. The body is a body given and received. As given and received, it is originally embedded in a community. To accept the gift, to accept one’s body in its sexual difference, is to accept one’s origin and destiny in the context of the Church and society. 

The Eucharist offers a hermeneutics that reads the body in the light of the gift, and inasmuch as it is the sacrament of the new and everlasting covenant, it reads the gift in the light of the covenant. The covenant, in turn, is the foundation of every society, human, ecclesial, or divine: in fact, the Latin societas literally refers to the community of those who are allies: socii.