Contemporary Issues

 

Caring for Our Common Home

The Problems with Democratic Socialism

How We Must Approach Healthcare

Forming Responsible Immigration Policies

Abortion is Never Acceptable

We Must Address Today’s Ills

It is our special task to order and throw light upon all the affairs of the world in line with the teachings of Jesus Christ: “let the laity also by their combined efforts remedy the customs and conditions of the world.”

Lumen Gentium, 36

Pope Francis, surrounded by a crowd in St. Peter's square. The Pope must lead our approach to contemporary issues

The Church’s Role vs. My Role

The Church’s role is to guide our consciences. “This is where Catholic social doctrine has its place…its aim is simply to help purify reason and to contribute, here and now, to the acknowledgement and attainment of what is just.” (Pope Benedict XVI, 28)

Our role is to implement Catholic social teaching in the public square. As Pope St. John Paul II said, “To destroy structures and replace them with more authentic forms of living in community is a task which demands courage and patience.” (Centesimus Annus, 38)

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There are structures of society that need to be destroyed. There are structures that need to be built. This “Just ordering of society… is proper to the lay faithful”. (Pope Benedict XVI, 29)

Catholic social teaching is not a theory, it is “above all else a basis and a motivation for action.” (Pope St. John Paul II, 57)

“We, Christians, cannot ‘play Pilate’ and wash our hands…We must participate in politics because politics is one of the highest forms of charity because it seeks the common good. And Christian lay people must work in politics.” (Pope Francis)

Indeed, “Politics is an essential means of building human community and institutions”. (Pope Francis)

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Catholic Social Teaching and Other Issues

It is our special task to order and throw light upon all the affairs of the world in line with the teachings of Jesus Christ: “let the laity also by their combined efforts remedy the customs and conditions of the world.”

Lumen Gentium, 36

Transgenderism

We are facing a crisis in human sexuality caused by a representation of human anthropology that cancels out differences between men and women.

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Abortion

One of the most divisive issues during the past 50 years! Why is the Church so one-sided (and must always be so)?

CLICK to read more.

Racism is contrary to Christ and the teachings of the Gospel

Racism in the United States

The belief humanity can be divided into separate and exclusive biological entities with some races innately superior to others. This leads to personal and societal prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against other people because they are of a different race or ethnicity. What does Catholic social teaching have to say about such an insidious “ism”? CLICK to read more.

The Church has consistently spoken out against socialism in all its forms, most recently, democratic socialism

Democratic Socialism

Candidates for President of the United States and many in congress espouse this as an alternative model for our country. What, exactly, is it? What does the Catholic Church say? CLICK to read more.

Climate Change is a real issue and must be met with dialog, faith, and science, ordered toward the common good.

Climate Change

One political party committed the US to the Paris Agreement and proposes a “Green New Deal”. Another party withdrew from the Paris Agreement and inimically opposes the other’s proposal. What does Catholic social teaching say? CLICK to read more.

national health care

Universal Healthcare

US health care is, in many ways, the envy of the world. Would universal, or national, healthcare improve it? See how Catholic social teaching can inform the discussion! CLICK to read more.

Covid-19 is tearing families, communities, and nations apart. Catholic social teaching can guide us through it.

COVID-19

The Crisis and the Cure: How does Catholic social teaching evaluate governments’ response?

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The Family is the answer to the poisons destroying our society.

The Family

The answer to the dangers to our society.

“The future of humanity passes by way of the family.” (Pope St. John Paul II, 86)​

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The Family is the answer to the poisons destroying our society.

The Common Good

The Common Good is not a principle, but an aspirational result: “the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily”. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1906)

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The Church has identified four dangers to society, pathologies, eating away at our culture.

The Four Dangers to Society

The Church identifies the major ‘risks and problems’ eating away at our cultural, economic and political systems. What are they?

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Consumerism is a terrible affliction of the developed world and an affront to human dignity.

Consumerism

Having and wanting a lot of ‘stuff’ is at the heart of several of society’s ills. Which ones? Why does this limit our freedom?

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Climate Change is a real issue and must be met with dialog, faith, and science, ordered toward the common good.

Dignity of Work

"We were created with a vocation to work."

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Our environments, both our physical and human (moral), are in peril, in more ways than you likely realize

Environmental Degradation

Yes! The environment is in danger. But, it is actually worse (and, more complicated) than you think.

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God has called us to be stewards of this world, our physical environment and common home.

Physical Environment

This is about more than ‘just’ protecting the environment. There are profound spiritual dimensions involved.

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How many talk about the serious destruction of our human environment where we grow, live, and work?

Human Environment

“[W]e must also mention the more serious destruction of the human environment, something which is by no means receiving the attention it deserves.” (Pope St. John Paul II, 38) CLICK to read more.

Physical and human environments are linked and only integral ecology can care or them both.

Integral Ecology

The solution to all our environmental problems!

CLICK to read more.

alienation

Alienation

Society and individuals are alienated! We are “marked by a ‘globalization of indifference’ that makes us…closed in on ourselves.” (Pope Francis, 1)  The consequences are devastating! CLICK to read more.

marriage

Marriage

The foundation of the family.

"[T]ranscends the feelings and momentary needs of the couple”. It is born “from the depth of the obligation assumed by the spouses". (Pope Francis, 66)

CLICK to read more.

Radical Secularism

[COMING SOON]

“The greatest challenge of our time”! (Pope Benedict XVI, 3) Why? Radical secularism holds that there is no such thing as an objective truth. But, “Without truth, without trust and love for what is true...social action ends up serving private interests and the logic of power.” (Pope Benedict XVI, 5) Sound familiar?

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