Evolution of Church Doctrine: Four Case Studies

In today’s NY Times, Peter Steinfels, co-director of the Fordham Center on Religion and Culture, offers a review of the book A Church That Can and Cannot Change:  The Development of Catholic Moral Teaching, by John T. Noonan Jr.  The book's author, a law professor and federal appellate judge, examines four issues on which church doctrine has evolved over time:  Slavery, usury, religious freedom, and marriage. 

Some excerpts:

… Noonan drives home the point that some Catholic moral doctrines have changed radically. History, he concludes, does not support the comforting notion that the church simply elaborates on or expands previous teachings without contradicting them.

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NOONAN'S four case studies demonstrate beyond question the fact and the extent of change. But do they offer insights that might aid Catholics in distinguishing legitimate from illegitimate developments in doctrine? In a negative sense, yes. … 

He insists that genuine development arises from experience deepened by empathy. ''That your love abound more and more in knowledge and in insight of every kind so that you test what is vital,'' St. Paul wrote, and Noonan repeatedly refers to this linking of love, knowledge and insight. He closes with St. Augustine's rule of faith: a true understanding of divine revelation is one that will ''build up that double love of God and of neighbor.''

But are experience, empathy and love sufficient to unlock the puzzle of well-founded change? Too bad Noonan didn't test them against cases in which people might feel ''development'' went awry, like the mutation of ancient restrictive conditions for a just war into the medieval embrace of crusades, or cases in which Catholics hold very different ideas about what might be legitimate development, like the church's opposition to abortion. …

… What Noonan brings to [the development of doctrine] in this invaluable book is unblinking honesty about the record of the church to which he is deeply devoted. That is a standard for anyone wishing to pursue the conversation.