The work of writing and grading papers for Dominican students and professors will soon earn a summer's reprieve. But the commitment to the intellectual and academic apostolate ought never to flag. Appropriately, as one browses the periodicals in the library of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception (Washington, DC), signs of this province's springing forward abound, especially in the area of moral theology. Notwithstanding various other indications of lifelong commitment to study and preaching from around the province, here is a selection of publications that today's seminarian, student, professor, and simple aficionado of theology will likely encounter.

Fr. Basil Cole, O.P., has an article in the current issue of The Priest (May 2010). Published by Our Sunday Visitor, The Priest magazine offers theoretical and practical insights into ordained ministry. Fr. Cole is a regular contributor to The Priest: its two previous issues ran a pair of articles titled, "Moral Violence: Cursing and Vengeance." Fr. Cole's most recent article gives "Points on How to Preach a Very Bad Homily." Of course, seminarians and priests don't need to be trained in the craft of lame homiletics. But in order to show what constitutes a good homily, Fr. Cole proceeds by considering what a good homily clearly is not. To this end, Fr. Cole composes a sickly homily that he then diagnoses and treats. He concludes by giving a "Preacher's Examination of Conscience," encouraging preachers to ask themselves questions like, "Do I read my written homily from intellect to intellect rather than preach from the heart?" "Do I conceive my role as a homilist as that of a teacher or as that of a sanctifier?" and of course, "Do I preach too long...?"

Fr. Cole publishes regularly in the academic field as well, and it's no surprise that two prominent journals of Catholic theology bear his work. This quarter's Nova et Vetera (English edition) publishes "Aquinas on the Spiritual Life" (8, no. 1 [2010]: 89-106). In that article, Fr. Cole presents important insights of St. Thomas into the dynamic exigency of the spiritual life - for growth in charity and holiness. Crucial to spiritual progress is the preparatio animi: the "preparation of mind and heart" or "readiness of soul." There are various obstacles and aids to cultivating this preparatio, but "the best teacher for the preparation of mind and heart is mediation done over a period of time. It is here in the quiet of one's intellect that resolutions are made, difficult virtuous deeds are born and nourished, and one's relationship with Christ is intensified..." (104).

The most recent issue of The Thomist, (published by our province), also runs a book review by Fr. Cole on The Perspective of the Acting Person: Essays in the Renewal of Thomistic Moral Philosophy, by Martin Rhonheimer (CUA Press, 2008). As anyone versed in moral theology can attest, Fr. Rhonheimer's work is very influential, and so, Fr. Cole's précis and assessment of his collection of essays will be much appreciated.

Another moral theologian of the province, recently doctored Fr. Thomas Petri, O.P., who teaches at Providence College, also has a book review in The Thomist, on The Disfigured Face: Traditional Natural Law and its Encounter with Morality, by Luis Cortest (Fordham Univ. Press, 2008). As moral theologians continue to fight the good fight against relativism and the increasingly powerful and technological culture of death, historical and philosophical studies of the natural law are essential. Fr. Petri reviews a book that explains how St. Thomas's vision of the natural law is rooted in the very being of reality and men. Importantly, the book also emphasizes certain understudied strains of the natural-law tradition, which altered Thomas's doctrine in its conflict with modernity, and which have proven influential to modern notions of human rights.

Also teaching at Providence College, Fr. Nicanor Pier Giorgio Austriaco, O.P., publishes in The Thomist as well: "In Defense of the Loss of Bodily Integrity as a Criterion for Death: A Response to the Radical Capacity Argument" (647-59). In this article, the scientist and theologian challenges an argument by a prominent colleague (William May), which would determine human death based upon the absence of the "radical capacity for sentience," which results from total loss of brain function. However, as Fr. Austriaco notes, to accept the logic of this argument implies the acceptance of other putative definitions of death that would "[put] the lives of the most disabled of neurologically disabled patients at risk." Moreover, the argument itself "is flawed" since it wrongly limits the criterion of death to a mere part of the nervous system. Instead of this argument, Fr. Austriaco proffers the traditional criterion of bodily integrity, which would defend the human life so-called "brain dead" patients.

Indeed, the work of Dominicans at Providence College in Rhode Island and the Pontifical Faculty in DC reaches many souls outside of our own classrooms. Equally significant, a number of our Friars teach in important institutions that we nevertheless do not administrate. Fr. Romanus Cessario, O.P., teaches at the Boston archdiocese's seminary, (which trains students from around the nation and world), St. John's Seminary (Brighton, MA). Fr. Cessario has two articles in Nova et Vetera. One has appeared on this website, "The Vocation of the Priest." The other is part of a symposium on Steven A. Long's widely discussed book, The Teleological Grammar of the Moral Act: "Human Action and the Foundations of the Natural Law" (185-89). Fr. Cessario itemizes the main reasons why Long's book "carries forth the hoped-for renewal of moral theology that was first expressed as a desideratum at the Second Vatican Council and later sketched out (in John Paul II's 1993 encyclical, Veritatis Splendor)." To be sure, Fr. Cessario is himself widely recognized as a bearer of the same noble and traditional program of renewal in Catholic moral theology.

Hopes for commitment to the intellectual and academic spheres continue to emerge, and these commitments, while often abstract in subject matter, are not so in terms of relevance for the Christian life. The present issue of Antiphon, (published by the Society for Catholic Liturgy, of which our own Fr. Paul Keller, O.P., is the president), publishes an article by first-year student brother, Bro. Innocent Smith, O.P., "The ‘Hermeneutic of Continuity' and Twentieth-century Legislation on Sacred Music" (13, no. 3 [2009]: 247-63). The subject of liturgical renewal and reform is especially relevant to the life of the Church, and as positions about the subject continue to proliferate, informed and sensitive contributions to the discussion are important. Bro. Smith writes, "Despite the explicit mandate [from Vatican Council II] that the Church's musical tradition be preserved and promoted, the current state of Roman Catholic sacred music, and in particular the near abandonment of Gregorian chant and sacred polyphony, indicates that many have interpreted the constitution on the liturgy [i.e., Sacrosanctum concilium, 4 December 1963] through the hermeneutic of discontinuity or simply chosen to ignore its contents" (248). Bro. Smith works toward applying Pope Benedict's interpretive key of continuity in rehearsing the Church's twentieth-century legislation on sacred music, and in suggesting paths of renewal.

May our entire province continue to lead the faithful we serve to sing a new song to the Lord - a song that is both ancient and ever new.