Progressive Catholicism in the United States

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew A. Shadle
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
The United States ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Ethical Framework ◽  
Social Teaching ◽  
American Catholicism ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Common ◽  
American Society

American Catholicism has long adapted to US liberal institutions. Progressive Catholicism has taken the liberal values of democratic participation and human rights and made them central to its interpretation of Catholic social teaching. This chapter explores in detail the thought of David Hollenbach, S.J., a leading representative of progressive Catholicism. Hollenbach has proposed an ethical framework for an economy aimed at the common good, ensuring that the basic needs of all are met and that all are able to participate in economic life. The chapter also looks at the US Catholic bishops’ 1986 pastoral letter Economic Justice for All, which emphasizes similar themes while also promoting collaboration between the different sectors of American society for the sake of the common good.

scholarly journals Care of the Common Good as a Responsibility of Business Leaders. Catholic Social Teaching Perspective

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 125
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Marek ◽  
Arkadiusz Jabłoński
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Catholic Social Teaching ◽  
Business Leaders ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Social Teaching ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Universal Approach ◽  
External Stakeholders ◽  
The Common ◽  
Micro Level

The aim of this article is to propose the adoption of a Catholic social teaching (CST) perspective as a universal approach to business ethics. We assume that the common good, as understood in CST, is an extension of the Aristotelian and Thomistic concepts of the organic relations between economics and ethics, which, prior to the Enlightment, was a basic rational way of management (oikonomia). We aim to show both the influence of religious ethics on the shape of economic life and the influence of the Catholic understanding of the common good on leadership. CST encourages business leaders to focus not only on the material, but also the transcendental aims of human work and life. From this perspective, the responsibility of a business leader can be understood as a practical realisation of the Commandment of Love and divided into three levels, each of which contributes to the common good. On the micro level, leaders are responsible for their own actions; on the mezzo level, they are responsible for the organisations they lead—especially for their employees—and on the macro level, they should be responsible for actions towards external stakeholders, which might ultimately be extended to the world as a whole. In this way, leaders can cooperate with God and contribute to the common good of their organisations, society, and humanity.

Theology as Work: The Mandatum and the Rights of Labor

Horizons ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 128-134
Author(s):  
Patrick T. McCormick
Keyword(s):  
Academic Freedom ◽  
Working Conditions ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Catholic Social Teaching ◽  
Social Teaching ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Church ◽  
Safe Working

ABSTRACTMany oppose the mandatum as a threat to the academic freedom of Catholic scholars and the autonomy and credibility of Catholic universities. But the imposition of this juridical bond on working theologians is also in tension with Catholic Social Teaching on the rights and dignity of labor. Work is the labor necessary to earn our daily bread. But it is also the vocation by which we realize ourselves as persons and the profession through which we contribute to the common good. Thus, along with the right to a just wage and safe working conditions, Catholic Social Teaching defends workers' rights to a full partnership in the enterprise, and calls upon the church to be a model of participation and cooperation. The imposition of the mandatum fails to live up to this standard and threatens the jobs and vocations of theologians while undermining this profession's contribution to the church.

Saeculum–Ecclesia–Caliphate: An Eternal Golden Braid

2019 ◽  
pp. 94-107
Author(s):  
Paul J. Griffiths
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Common Good ◽  
The United States ◽  
Catholic Theology ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Church ◽  
Catholic Perspective ◽  
Secular State

The secular state, the church, and the caliphate are associations that each hold universal aspirations, at least implicitly. While the universal aspirations of the church and caliphate may be obvious enough, every state seeks dominion over the whole world. (“Secular” describes states that limit their vision to this world, as opposed to the transcendence to which both the church and caliphate appeal.) As an essay in Catholic speculative theology, Griffiths asks two questions: Whether Catholic theology supports or discourages the variety of political orders, and whether these orders could be ranked in terms of goodness from a Catholic perspective? In response to these questions, Griffiths appeals to two aspects of St. Augustine’s political thought: Political rivalries serve the common good; and the principal indicator of the degree to which a state serves the common good is its explicit service to the god of Abraham. The United States (a secular state) is compared with ISIS (an attempted caliphate).

scholarly journals Catholic Social Teaching as an Explanation of Firm Environmental Impact

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 161-179
Author(s):  
Anne Hetson ◽  
Brian M. Saxton ◽  
Mariah Webinger ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Environmental Performance ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Catholic Social Teaching ◽  
Social Teaching ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Common ◽  
Economic Needs

Environmental sustainability in business has become a highly debated topic as societies decide how best to meet their economic needs and care for the earth. Catholic social teaching (CST) may add theoretical richness to the discussion. We examine solidarity, subsidiarity, and pursuit of the common good as dimensions of a heavy manufacturing, U.S.-based firm’s CST orientation. We find that measures of subsidiarity and common good predict a firm’s environmental performance consistent with CST principles. Results are of interest to academics, policymakers, and citizens who wish to advance the implementation of CST, environmental sustainability, or both.

Is the Common Good Obsolete?

2018 ◽  
Vol 92 ◽  
pp. 261-270
Author(s):  
V. Bradley Lewis ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Catholic Social Teaching ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
Social Teaching ◽  
Intermediate Goods ◽  
The West ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The Common ◽  
Christian Society

The idea of the common good has been a signature feature of Catholic social teaching and so of modern Catholic engagement in public affairs. It has recently been suggested that the notion is now obsolete due to changes in the culture and politics of the West. In keeping with this suggestion, some argue that Catholics should abandon it in favor of an appeal based on lower intermediate goods in a manner more related to Augustine’s engagement with the largely pagan culture of his time than to Aquinas’s categories tailored to an integrally Christian society. I argue that such a solution misreads aspects of the tradition and of the present political and cultural situation and I suggest some alternative grounds on which Catholic engagement with contemporary public life should proceed and that thinking again about the common good is a necessary part of such engagement.

Civic Disengagement in Contemporary America

2001 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert D. Putnam
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Information Technology ◽  
Common Good ◽  
The United States ◽  
Equal Rights ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
The Past ◽  
Life Saving ◽  
Two Generations ◽  
The Common

Over The Past Two Generations The United States Has Undergone a series of remarkable transformations. It has helped to defeat global communism, led a revolution in information technology that is fuelling unprecedented prosperity, invented life-saving treatments for diseases from AIDS to cancer, and made great strides in reversing discriminatory practices and promoting equal rights for all citizens. But during these same decades the United States also has undergone a less sanguine transformation: its citizens have become remarkably less civic, less politically engaged, less socially connected, less trusting, and less committed to the common good. At the dawn of the millennium Americans are fast becoming a loose aggregation of disengaged observers, rather than a community of connected participants.

Religious Freedom, Modern Democracy, and the Common Good: Conference Papers

1995 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 565-566
Author(s):  
Philip E. Devenish
Keyword(s):  
John Rawls ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Modern Democracy ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Political Principle ◽  
The Common ◽  
Conference Papers

The papers that follow were presented on April 27, 1996, at a conference entitled “Religious Freedom, Modern Democracy, and the Common Good” and devoted to Franklin I. Gamwell's The Meaning of Religious Freedom: Modern Politics and the Democratic Resolution (Albany: SUNY, 1995). The conference was sponsored by the Lilly Endowment and held at Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis.Gamwell's constructive proposal is significant not as a further nuance on settled ways of understanding the relation of religion and politics in the United States, but rather as an explicit attempt to unsettle the current consensus in approaching this issue itself. As Gamwell shows, the contemporary discussion is dominated by so-called separationist and religionist understandings that alike assume, rather than argue, that religion is “nonrational.” He engages positions representing the entire spectrum of such understandings, including the “privatist” view of John Rawls, the “partisan” view of John Courtney Murray, and the “pluralist” view of Kent Greenawalt, in order to demonstrate that such a nonrational approach makes it impossible democratically not only to assert, but also to give coherent meaning to the political principle of religious freedom.

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