Seeds for an Encounter Ethics: The Fruit of Reading Veritatis Splendor Beyond a Post-Conciliar Binary Narrative

Two of the more recent methodological narratives about twentieth-century moral theology, written by James Keenan and Matthew Levering, argue that an intractable methodological division over law and conscience emerges in the wake of Vatican II. Within these narratives, Veritatis Splendor is situated as authoritatively taking sides amidst this division, leaving Veritatis Splendor ’s key methodological insights out of view. While (re)turning to a more spiritual approach to moral theology, the Second Vatican Council does not set out a clear method for the discipline but instead leaves post-conciliar moral theology with the task of figuring out how to do moral theology according to this new paradigm. Veritatis Splendor ought to be read as a continuation and deepening of this post-conciliar moral methodological project set in motion by Vatican II. Through the concept of “encounter with Christ” and its emphasis on the lives of the saints, Veritatis Splendor plants seeds for the development of a post-conciliar moral theological method consistent with the methodological task set out by the Second Vatican Council, a foundational point of methodological continuity between “revisionists” and “traditionalists,” and responsive to unresolved methodological concerns from the Council.