Catholic Social Thought in an Age of Austerity

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew A. Shadle
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Liberation Theology ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Thought ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Social Teaching ◽  
Catholic Social Thought ◽  
Free Markets

This chapter looks at recent Catholic social thought in the United States in the age of globalization and after the financial crisis of 2007–08, drawn from four schools of thought: progressive, neoconservative, liberationist, and communitarian. As an exponent of progressive Catholicism, Meghan J. Clark has promoted an interpretation of Catholic social teaching focused on human rights and solidarity, whereas Samuel Gregg has furthered the neoconservative perspective by promoting free markets and commerce. Illustrating the varieties of liberation theology in the United States, Christine Firer Hinze has reflected on economic life from a feminist perspective, while Mária Teresa Dávila draws on Latino/a theology. William T. Cavanaugh has offered a communitarian critique of globalization. The chapter concludes with a proposal for an organicist communitarian vision of economic life, guided by a theology of interruption rooted in the proclamation of the Gospel and open to dialogue with others.

Interrupting Capitalism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew A. Shadle
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Financial Crisis ◽  
Economic System ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
The United States ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Social Teaching ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Catholic Church

Although the anxieties caused by globalization and the turmoil of the financial crisis have left people looking for alternatives to our present economic system, the Catholic Church in the United States has not adequately drawn upon its own tradition of social teaching to help the faithful contribute to this search. This chapter argues that the church has failed to adapt to the contemporary condition of postmodernity, characterized by postsecularism, pluralization, and individualization. It traces how capitalism emerged as part of the modernization and secularization process, but that now we have entered a postmodern era to which the church must adapt its social teaching on economic life.

Reagan and the White House’s Maryknoll Nun

2020 ◽  
pp. 131-160
Author(s):  
Theresa Keeley
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Latin America ◽  
El Salvador ◽  
Liberation Theology ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Public Diplomacy ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Public

This chapter explains how Ronald Reagan's public diplomacy campaign reflected conservative Nicaraguan and U.S. Catholic viewpoints and language. It talks about the officials who worked with Catholic allies, including a former Maryknoll sister, that critique the Maryknoll and liberation theology in the United States, Latin America, and Europe. It also recounts Reagan's promotion as defender of the Nicaraguan Catholic Church to win support among conservative Catholics for U.S. policy and his reelection bid. The chapter discusses the White House's attempt to move the public focus from human rights in El Salvador to Nicaragua by alleging that the Sandinista government persecuted religion and was trying to create a fake church. It describes the public diplomacy campaign that involved cooperation with religious conservatives, including its design and execution that reflected conservative Catholic viewpoints and language.

Introduction: Viewing Paul Hanly Furfey’s Contribution against a Wide Horizon

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas K. Rademacher
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Current Literature ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Thought ◽  
Catholic Social Thought ◽  
Wide Horizon ◽  
Three Phases

As he neared retirement, Furfey presented himself as moving through three phases: liberal, radical and revolutionary. Scholars of Furfey’s work subsequently present Furfey as the theorist of Catholic radicalism. This chapter suggests that he was not only the theorist of Catholic radicalism but also a scholar who abided liberal and revolutionary impulses in scholarship and activism across his lifetime. Furfey’s contribution to the tradition of Catholic social thought and practice in the United States was more nuanced than the view that prevails in the current literature.

The Early Teaching of John Paul II

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew A. Shadle
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Intellectual Development ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Catholic Social Teaching ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Teaching ◽  
Philosophical Work ◽  
Catholic Social Thought ◽  
New Framework

The future Pope John Paul II’s intellectual development was shaped by his experience in communist Poland, a context very different from Western Europe, Latin America, and the United States, where the main strands of Catholic social thought had emerged. As archbishop of Krakow, Karol Wojtyła developed a philosophy centered on the concepts of praxis and participation, which laid the groundwork for his later social teaching as pope. This chapter looks at this early philosophical work, as well as his first two social encyclicals, Laborem Exercens and Sollicitudo Rei Socialis. In particular, it looks at the issues of human work, structures of sin, and liberation. John Paul II’s early teachings represent the beginning of a new framework for Catholic social teaching, the communio framework, which emphasizes the distinctiveness of Christian revelation in the midst of the contradictions of modernity.

American Social Catholicism and the US Economy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew A. Shadle
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Thought ◽  
Catholic Social Thought ◽  
Catholic Worker ◽  
Us Economy ◽  
Vatican Council ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Catholic

After the Second Vatican Council, Catholics in the United States played an increasingly important role in shaping Catholic social thought on the economy. This chapter looks at the history of American Catholic social thought, including that of John A. Ryan, the Catholic Worker movement, and the Association of Catholic Trade Unionists. It also examines the major institutions of the United States, comparing them to the economic systems in Western Europe. The chapter examines the economic crisis of the 1970s, which brought the economic order of the postwar decades to an end and ushered in the era of Reaganomics, which demanded new responses from Catholics.

scholarly journals The labor issue in the USA in the first half of the 20th century. The contribution of the Catholic Church to its solution

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (7) ◽  
pp. 131-148
Author(s):  
Marcin Graban
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
United States Of America ◽  
The United States ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Catholic Social Thought ◽  
Rerum Novarum ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Catholic Church

The stance of the Catholic Church in the United States of America on the problems related to workers’ wages is an interesting issue from the point of view of the ethics of economic life and the development of Catholic social thought. The interpretation of the main Catholic social ideas contained in Leo XIII’s encyclical letter Rerum novarum was made by Father John Augustine Ryan (1896–1945), who soon became a major proponent of the idea that a good economic policy can only result from good ethics. In the history of the United States of America, the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries was a time of the development of labor unions, associations and workers’ organizations as well as the consolidation of efforts to achieve equitable remuneration (a living wage) and regulate working conditions. It was also a time of struggling with the ideas of socialism and nationalism. The Catholic Church played a significant role in the discourse on these issues, including the influence of John A. Ryan. His efforts led to one of the most important interpretations of economic life: The Program of Social Reconstruction (1919), and some of its postulates can be found in the New Deal legislation.

Palestine Unbound

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 130-134
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Task Force ◽  
The United States ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Tel Aviv ◽  
The Us ◽  
Intention To Move ◽  
Arab Israeli Conflict ◽  
The U.S

This section, updated regularly on the blog Palestine Square, covers popular conversations related to the Palestinians and the Arab-Israeli conflict during the quarter 16 November 2017 to 15 February 2018: #JerusalemIstheCapitalofPalestine went viral after U.S. president Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and announced his intention to move the U.S. embassy there from Tel Aviv. The arrest of Palestinian teenager Ahed Tamimi for slapping an Israeli soldier also prompted a viral campaign under the hashtag #FreeAhed. A smaller campaign protested the exclusion of Palestinian human rights from the agenda of the annual Creating Change conference organized by the US-based National LGBTQ Task Force in Washington. And, UNRWA publicized its emergency funding appeal, following the decision of the United States to slash funding to the organization, with the hashtag #DignityIsPriceless.

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