Living the Truth

How is moral theology related to pastoral theology? In this first English translation of Living the Truth, Klaus Demmer answers this question by offering a complete theory of action. Its crucial element is truthfulness, which Demmer claims is a basic attitude that must be translated concretely into our individual decisions. Demmer demonstrates that the demand for truthfulness offers a critical corrective to the usual praxis whereby ethical norms are formulated. This has significant consequences for every area of ethical directives, including questions about celibacy and partnerships.

Demmer moves away from the act-centered morality that dominates the neo-Scholastic manuals of moral theology. His concern is to show how our actions embody and carry out a more original anthropological project. Not only does this anthropological project condition our insights into goods and values, it provides the criteria by which our actions are judged morally. This book will be welcomed by all who are looking for ethical norms, and by all whose task it is to formulate such norms.

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Klaus Demmer, MSC is a member of the Order of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart. From 1970 to 2003 he was a professor of moral theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. He has published over twenty-five books on moral theology and is considered the foremost European moral theologian of his generation.

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James F. Keenan, SJ, Series Editor

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