Biographical note

Philomena Cullen is the Social Policy Co-ordinator of Caritas-Social Action in England and Wales, UK. Trained in theology, philosophy and social studies, she is also a qualified social worker. She was educated at New College, Oxford University and at Durham University, UK. Bernard Hoose lectures in Christian Ethics at Heythrop College, University of London, UK. His publications include Proportionalism: The American Debate and its European Roots, (Georgetown University Press) 1987, Received Wisdom? Reviewing the Role of Tradition in Christian Ethics (Geoffrey Chapman, 1994). He is editor of Christian Ethics: An Introduction (Cassell, 1998), Authority in the Roman Catholic Church (Ashgate, 2002) and Authority in Roman Catholicism (Matthew James, 2002). He presently serves on the Theology Commission of Caritas-Social Action. Gerard Mannion is Associate Professor in Theology and Religious Studies at Liverpool Hope University, UK. Previously, he was Senior Lecturer in Systematic Theology, Ecclesiology and Ethics at Trinity & All Saints College, University of Leeds, UK, and also taught Philosophy, Doctrine and Ethics at Westminster College, Oxford, UK. He is presently a committee member of the Catholic Theological Association of Great Britain, member of the American Academy of Religion and was a 2004 Coolidge Fellow at Union Theological Seminary, Columbia University, USA.