Is there such a thing as "Christian morality", as in, a morality that is shaped by the Christian faith? If morality is universal, how can any religion or sect or belief claim to have a morality all to themselves, or claim that their morality is morality as such? As Catholics we have a strong belief in what is known as the moral law, or the natural law, or, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it, the "natural moral law", that is written on the hearts of every human person and is echoed in each conscience. Is Christian morality, then, an extra superimposed or added on to the already existing super-structure of natural law morality?

These are questions that have bothered me over the years. I think this is what drove the Enlightenment project of Immanuel Kant. He sought to remove from morality any supernatural basis and ground everything in the individual's practical reason, that is, in the capacity for rational thought about human action.