Abstract: What makes a biblical hermeneutic Catholic? This article, crafted from my Presidential Address to the Catholic Biblical Association of America that I delivered August 3, 2025, answers this question in three sections. The first section examines four Roman Catholic Church documents, Providentissimus Deus, Divino Afflante Spiritu , Dei Verbum , and The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church , which seek to define the purpose, goals, and parameters of Catholic biblical research. These church documents, as important as they are, have led to text-fetishism and analyses of biblical texts divorced from issues and concerns of the global world. The second section explores hermeneutical ideas of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Fernando Segovia, Susanne Scholz, and Vincent Wimbush, who read biblical texts differently. The third section demonstrates how the ideas of Schüssler Fiorenza, Segovia, Scholz, and Wimbush inform my reading of Isaiah 1. A conclusion revisions a Catholic biblical hermeneutic and invites scholars to become scholars of conscience and to interpret the Bible in ways that address systemic and structural injustices endemic to our world. Grounding the article’s final comments is the apostolic letter “Ad Theologiam Promovendam” by Pope Francis and the Vatican II document Gaudium et Spes : Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World.
Carol J. Dempsey (Thu,) studied this question.