Catholic Social Teaching in Global Perspective

Posted on: 4th February 2011  |
Author: David McDonald SJ (ed.)
Publication details: Orbis Books , 2010 218 + xxii pages
ISBN: 978-1-57075-896-6

The editor of this book, a Jesuit priest teaching in the Faculty of Social Science at the Gregorian University in Rome, was asked by one of his African students: ‘When I return to my homeland next month, how best can I apply the social teaching of the Catholic Church to my culture?’ The editor openly admits that he felt unable to give a proper answer to this question and realised that a much deeper reflection on culture, the Catholic Church and the role of Catholic Social Teaching (CST) in addressing varying cultural and geographical contexts was required. Hence this book, which attempts to do precisely this for six different cultures.

The six authors (four men and two women) were each asked to reply to the question: ‘How can you reflect on your particular continent and its “culture” in order to best apply – including strategies and methodologies if appropriate – CST in your area of the world? Part of this challenge might be how your culture can best understand CST and what might be the best approach to apply CST in your particular cultural understandings.’ Their replies produce unexpected insights about how CST has a decidedly global appeal as well as responding to specific local situations.

In an introductory chapter, Thomas Hughson SJ, director of graduate studies in the Department of Theology at Marquette University, challenges us to think ‘in more comprehensive categories and with greater precision about the nature and meaning of social justice and the common good in relation to culture.’ The following chapters deal with the reception of CST in Africa, Australia, Western Europe, India and North America. Hopefully a later volume will deal with Eastern Europe and Latin America, the latter of crucial importance owing to the documents issued by the General Conference of Latin American Bishops (CELAM) in Medellín and Puebla.

Each author focuses his presentation in different ways and this gives the book an extra value in its illustration of a variety of approaches to the same problem. Most of them are or have been involved in teaching CST and thus speak from personal experience. This is the first publication in English of what will hopefully become a new series on the enduring challenge and relevance of CST. It fills an important gap. Most of CST was developed in a Western European context, and it urgently needs to be inculturated in other traditions before it can become really meaningful in different parts of the world. The authors show how this can and should be done.


The reviewer,Fr Michael Campbell-Johnston SJ, is former Provincial of the British Jesuits. He is now a member of the Jesuit community at Farm Street, Central London.



 Find this book on the Orbis Books web site


 

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