Catholic Social Teaching (2)

The original thread "Seven Core Values of Catholic Social Teaching" is now close to 200 posts so it's probably a good time to start a new one.

If you don't know much about Catholic Social Teaching, which would not be surprising since it was often referred to as "the Catholic Church's best kept secret", it's well worth looking at the original thread, which contains a lot of information and quite an interesting conversation.

Modern CST is generally considered to have begun with Pope Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical Rerum novarum, or Rights and Duties of Capital and Labour. It has grown into a collection of teachings based on scripture and Church tradition. A useful reference book is Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, which is also available online here.

CST contains a number of key elements which are sometimes presented under different and overlapping headings so it's difficult to say exactly how many, but they include:

- Dignity of Each Person: Every person possesses inherent dignity, and has the right to be treated with respect.

- Participation: Every person has the right to participate in the political, economic, and cultural life of their society. Everyone has something to contribute.

- Rights and Responsibilities: Human dignity can be protected and a healthy community can be achieved only if human rights are protected and responsibilities are met. Corresponding to these rights are duties and responsibilities – to one another, and to the larger society.

- Preferential Option for the Poor and Vulnerable: The moral test of any society is how it treats its most vulnerable.

- Solidarity and the Common Good: We recognise that we are one family, and commit to the common good.

- Subsidiarity: Functions should be undertaken at the lowest level practicable. Local communities should be empowered.

- Respect for the Dignity of Work and the Rights of Workers: The economy must be at the service of people, and not the other way around. Workers have a right to a living wage; to productive work; to organize and form unions; and to safe working conditions.

- Stewardship, and Care for Creation: We must exist in right relationship with all of creation. We must sustain and strengthen, and not exploit or abuse, God’s creation.

- Promotion of Peace: With an increasing emphasis on nonviolence.

Well known US Catholic priest Fr John Dear has just launched a new organisation, the Beatitudes Center for the Nonviolent Jesus, "to help teach and promote the nonviolence of Jesus, so that we can deepen our Gospel nonviolence; work for an end to racism, poverty, war, nuclear weapons and environmental destruction; and welcome God’s reign of peace and nonviolence here on earth".

a dramatic rediscovery of the nonviolence of Jesus... Throughout the Gospels, Jesus combines a rejection of violence with the prophetic power of unconditional love. He called his followers to reject violence and killing, to love their enemies, to return good for evil, to heal divisions, to seek justice for the poor and outcast, and to put sacrificial love into action. The modern term “nonviolence” (that comes to us from Gandhi’s English translation of the ancient Hindu term “ahimsa”) captures the comprehensiveness of Jesus’ way of love in action. It illuminates in a startling way the depth and power of Jesus’ life and mission...

Ken Butigan, writing about the Beatitudes Center mentioned in >2 John5918:

Link

Pax Christi International and its Catholic Nonviolence Initiative has recently published Advancing Nonviolence and Just Peace in the Church and the World, the culmination of a three-year global conversation among church leaders, community organisers, activists, social scientists and theologians about how the Catholic Church might return to its Gospel nonviolence roots and transform the world. The book shares the experiences of on-the-ground nonviolent interventions, explores the scriptural, theological and historical foundations of nonviolence, reviews the most current social science on how nonviolence has been effectively employed, and outlines a vision for how the Church might embrace active nonviolence into every aspect of its life.

Full disclosure: I am part of the "three-year global conversation", but this book itself has nothing to do with me, so I hope this post will not be construed as commercial spam.

The pope has already taught nonviolence: Let's put it in an encyclical (NCR)

How close is Pope Francis to proclaiming Gospel nonviolence as the church's central teaching on how to confront the curse of war? How close is he to removing the just war theory from its long-term, prominent position — making the just war theory at long last a footnote in the church's history of moral teaching? How close is he to making the proactive, assertive stance of nonviolent peacemaking the Christian's first choice when confronting oppression, violence and war?

It seems as if his recent encyclical, Fratelli Tutti, has already put aside the passive stance of the just war theory. So when will he authoritatively lay out the way of Christian nonviolence for the world to learn and practice?

In Fratelli Tutti, Francis includes some paragraphs, 256-262, that are extremely harsh on the just war theory: "In recent decades, every single war has been ostensibly 'justified' " (even preemptive wars). Note the quotation marks of irony.

He goes on to say that, with the development of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, "we can no longer think of war as a solution, because its risks will probably always be greater than its supposed benefits."

In other words, Francis does not see that the criterion of just war theory, "proportionality," can be met. Nor does he think the criterion of "noncombatant immunity" can ever be observed in modern wars. "The enormous and growing possibilities offered by new technologies," he writes, "have granted war an uncontrollable destructive power over great numbers of innocent civilians."

Most tellingly, in a footnote he writes: "Augustine, who forged a concept of 'just war' that we no longer uphold in our own day, also said that 'it is a higher glory still to stay war itself with a word, than to slay men with the sword, and to procure or maintain peace by peace, not by war' "...

A short video on nonviolence - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMaDVlcZsoA&feature=youtu.be

A way of life, a force for social change, and a universal ethic for transforming the world.

Christmas retreat on nonviolence/Retiro de Navidad sobre la no violencia/Retraite de Noël sur la non-violence (Pax Christi International)

The Catholic Nonviolence Initiative is pleased to share with you a special invitation to attend a virtual Christmas retreat on Gospel nonviolence

Friday, December 18 at 16.00-19.00 (Rome time, CET) (10 AM Eastern Standard Time, 7 AM Pacific Standard Time)

Repeated on Saturday, December 19 at 11.00 -14.00 (Melbourne time, AEDT) (7 PM Eastern Standard Time, 4 PM Pacific Standard Time, December 18) ENGLISH ONLY

(It is not necessary to join both – the program is identical in each session)

Please join us for prayer and reflection featuring an exclusive screening of “The Third Harmony,” a new film on the power of nonviolence, and brief presentations by Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire, Dr. Bernice A. King, and Rev. Emmanuel Katongole, as well as Mons. Bruno Marie Duffé, Dr. Alessio Pecorario and Fr. Joshtrom Isaac Kureethadam from the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.

Registration here

Also in French and Spanish.

A 43 minute video that was watched as part of the retreat this evening:

https://vimeopro.com/bullfrogfilms/vatican-christmas-retreat

Pope Francis says God gives everyone the task of being peacemakers (America Magazine)

As the Catholic Church celebrated World Peace Day Jan. 1, Pope Francis offered prayers for the people of war-torn Yemen, especially the nation’s children left without education and often without food by years of civil war...

“Human efforts alone are not enough,” he repeated, “because peace is above all a gift—a gift from God to be implored with incessant prayer, sustained with patient and respectful dialogue, constructed with an open collaboration with truth and justice and always attentive to the legitimate aspirations of individuals and peoples.”

Peace, he insisted, is a gift that requires a human response and human effort...

Four short videos on nonviolence.

"An effective strategy, a spirituality, and a way of life".

Defining Nonviolence

Understanding Nonviolence

Planning for Nonviolence

Nonviolence in Action

Bishop Barron on Pope Francis and Our Responsibility for the Common Good (YouTube)

Friends, in “Fratelli Tutti,” the Holy Father prophetically calls Christians to rediscover the long tradition of Catholic social teaching as it pertains to labor, business, and property.

A nice little summary of Catholic Social Teaching on the concept of the common good, which also demonstrates how CST doesn't fit neatly into political left-right dynamics.

Pope Francis upholds Martin Luther King's nonviolent legacy (Vatican News)

“In today’s world, which increasingly faces the challenges of social injustice, division and conflict that hinder the realization of the common good, Dr King’s dream of harmony and equality for all people, attained through nonviolent and peaceful means, remains ever timely,” he writes.

Pope Francis goes on to quote from his encyclical, Fratelli tutti, saying “Each one of us is called to be an artisan of peace, by uniting and not dividing, by extinguishing hatred and not holding on to it, by opening paths of dialogue”...

Preventing Unjust War: A Catholic Argument for Selective Conscientious Objection

By Roger Bergman, Published by: Wipf and Stock Publishers.

Description

Catholic pacifists blame the just war tradition of their Church. That tradition, they say, can be invoked to justify any war, and so it must be jettisoned. This book argues that the problem is not the just war tradition but the unjust war tradition. Ambitious rulers start wars that cannot be justified, and yet warriors continue to fight them. The problem is the belief that warriors do not hold any responsibility for judging the justice of the wars they are ordered to fight. However unjust, a command renders any war "just" for the obedient warrior. This book argues that selective conscientious objection, the right and duty to refuse to fight unjust wars, is the solution. Strengthening the just war tradition depends on a heightened role for the personal conscience of the warrior. That in turn depends on a heightened role for the Church in forming and supporting consciences and judging the justice of particular wars. As Saint Augustine wrote, "The wise man will wage just wars. . . . For, unless the wars were just, he would not have to wage them, and in such circumstances he would not be involved in war at all."

Link

My eldest son is in the Canadian Military as an army paramedic, and when I watch Mel Gibson's film about Hacksaw Ridge, I lose my everloving mind. As a big fan of righteous anger, that film hits me with all 7 deadly sins, and all cardinal and theological virtues. I know all about inner turmoil on a deeply personal level. My youngest has special needs, and my identical twin sons sit in between. 38 months separate them, from Jan1997 to Mar2000. I remember praying nightly 'just keep them alive until they're five' but so much more is at stake now. Sigh.

In a few minutes on Sunday, Pope delivers a mini-social encyclical (Crux)

Once again praying from the window of the Apostolic Palace overlooking St. Peter’s Square, despite rain and the coronavirus pandemic, Pope Francis on Sunday ticked off many of his core social concerns: Peace, life, migration, and the fight against modern-day slavery, all in a matter of minutes...

Seminar examines Pope’s proposal for a Universal Basic Income (Crux)

Inspired by Pope Francis’ latest book, Let us Dream, co-written with Briton Austen Ivereigh, a seminar on Thursday considered the pontiff’s proposal for a “Universal Basic Income,” meaning a government-guaranteed minimum income that each citizen would receive unconditionally...

Holy See urges European nations to guarantee equal access to labor market (Vatican News)

"Every person, woman or man, has the right to economic initiative, and should be able to make legitimate use of their talents.” Accordingly... OSCE States “have an obligation to guarantee fair and equal access to the labour market for all their citizens, regardless of their sex, and this should only be oriented towards the necessary qualification.”

‘Shoot me instead’: Myanmar nun’s plea to spare protesters (Guardian)

Sister Ann Rose Nu Tawng is photographed begging armed police officers not to shoot ‘the children’. Kneeling before them in the dust of a northern Myanmar city, Sister Ann Rose Nu Tawng begged a group of heavily armed police officers to spare “the children” and take her life instead. The image of the Catholic nun in a simple white habit, her hands spread, pleading with the forces of the country’s new junta as they prepared to crack down on a protest, has gone viral and won her praise in the majority-Buddhist country. “I knelt down … begging them not to shoot and torture the children, but to shoot me and kill me instead,” she said...

A classic and courageous example of effective nonviolent protest.

Myanmar coup: 'We were told to shoot protesters', say police who fled (BBC)

Police officers from Myanmar have told the BBC they fled across the border into India after refusing to carry out the orders of the military which seized power in a coup last month. In some of the first such interviews, more than a dozen defectors told us they escaped, fearing they'd be forced to kill or harm civilians. "I was given orders to shoot at protesters. I told them I can't"...

This demonstrates one of the aims and effects of organised nonviolent protest - to encourage and empower those who collaborate with the oppressors to refuse to carry out illegal and inhumane actions. I saw it myself on the streets of Khartoum back in 1985 during the nonviolent intifada which ousted dictator Jaafar Nimeiri, when the police limited themselves to minimalist keeping of order without using violence against the demosntrators, and when the army was called to intervene, the generals made it clear that they would not order their troops to fire on unarmed demonstrators.

The sharing of goods and the social function of private property (Vatican News)

The Acts of the Apostles tells us that “no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common.” This “is not communism; it is Christianity in its pure state.” With these words, Pope Francis, in the Mass celebrated on Divine Mercy Sunday, commented on the sharing of goods realized in the first Christian community...

Pope Francis said, “We build social justice on the basis of the fact that the Christian tradition has never recognized the right of private property as absolute and untouchable, and has always emphasized the social function of any of its forms. The right of ownership is a secondary natural right, derived from the right held by all, arising from the universal destination of created goods. There is no social justice capable of addressing inequity that presupposes the concentration of wealth”...

The right to private property,” Pope Francis continued in Fratelli tutti, “can only be considered a secondary natural right, derived from the principle of the universal destination of created goods. This has concrete consequences that ought to be reflected in the workings of society. Yet it often happens that secondary rights displace primary and overriding rights, in practice making them irrelevant”...

Pope Francis encourages young people in efforts to promote a more just economy (Vatican News)

In a message addressed to the second meeting of the “Economy of Francesco” held on Saturday in Assisi, Pope Francis commended young activists across the world for their “enthusiastic” commitment in promoting a new people-centred and sustainable economy in the aftermath of COVID-19...

Catholic tradition of care for environment dates back centuries before Pope Francis (NCR)

Pope Francis led dozens of religious leaders Oct. 4 in issuing a plea to protect the environment, warning that "future generations will never forgive us if we miss the opportunity to protect our common home." The pope has voiced support for green policies before, including his 2015 encyclical letter to the entire Catholic Church "Laudato Si', on Care for Our Common Home."

But Francis is not the first Catholic leader to emphasize care for the planet. In fact, every pope for the past half-century — except John Paul I, who died after just one month in office — has addressed environmental issues in his official publications. As a scholar whose research focuses on the medieval Church, I see many of these concerns deeply rooted in the history of the Catholic tradition...

the book of Genesis... St. Irenaeus of Lyons... Benedictines... St. Hildegard of Bingen... St. Francis of Assisi...

And of course Care for Creation is one of the pillars of Catholic Social Teaching.

Catholic Social Teaching Has Useful Principles for Popular Movements to Follow: Pope (ACI Africa)

Speaking over a video call on Saturday, Pope Francis told members of popular movements that Catholic social teaching has useful principles that can help people of any faith to improve the world. “The social teaching of the Church does not have all the answers, but it does have some principles that along this journey can help to concretize the answers, principles useful to Christians and non-Christians alike,” the pope said Oct. 16.

He said the principles compiled in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, a manual of the Catholic Church’s social teaching, are “tested, human, Christian... I recommend that you read it, you and all social, trade union, religious, political and business leaders,” he said...

My copy of the Compendium is well-worn and heavily underlined, and never far from my desk! A very useful book indeed.

"Our response to injustice, exploitation must be more than mere condemnation": Pope (ACI Africa)

Denunciation is not enough when it comes to issues of injustice, the pope said this weekend. “Our response to injustice and exploitation must be more than mere condemnation. First and foremost, it must be the active promotion of the good: denouncing evil and promoting the good," Pope Francis on Oct. 23. “This means putting the Church's social doctrine into practice,” he said. Pope Francis encouraged Christians to “sow many small seeds that can bear fruit in an economy that is equitable and beneficial, humane and people-centered”...

Faith Leaders in Africa Decry “impunity of corporate, elite capture of African land” (ACI Africa)

Representatives of various Faith-Based Organizations (FBOs) and Civil Societies Organizations (CSOs) in Africa have, in a joint statement, decried the “capture of African land and natural resources” by what they have called “private actors” and condemned the “impunity” enjoyed by those involved.

Some of the FBOs and CSOs include the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM), Africa Europe Faith and Justice Network (AEFJN), the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA), the Rural Women Assembly (RWA), and the Pan-African Institute for Citizenship, Consumers and Development (CICODEV), among others...

“The impunity of corporate and elite capture of African land and natural resources and the damage this is doing to Africa’s food systems, to our environment, our soils, lands and water, our biodiversity, our nutrition and health, is a major concern,” the representatives of FBOs and CSOs in Africa say in their statement shared with ACI Africa.

They add, “Large-scale land acquisitions by private actors are encouraged and financially supported by governments and their public development banks. A complex web of financers, including private equity funds and European Development Finance Institutions, finance the land acquisition projects”...

An interesting reflection by Fr Richard Rohr today:

“We need to make the kind of society where it is easier for people to be good,” said Peter Maurin (1877–1949). That is our difficulty today. We are surrounded by good, well-meaning folks who are swept along in a stream of shallow options. Not only is the good made increasingly difficult to do, it is even difficult to recognize. It seems that affluence takes away the clear awareness of what is life and what is death. I don’t think the rich are any more or less sinful than the poor; they just have many more ways to call their sin virtue. There is a definite deadening of the awareness of true good and true evil.

I have found one fuzzy area that often needs clarification: We have confused justice and charity. Charity was traditionally considered the highest virtue, popularly thought of as a kind of magnanimous, voluntary giving of ourselves, preferably for selfless motives. As long as we rose to this level occasionally by donating food, gifts, or money at the holidays or in times of crisis, we could think of ourselves as charitable people operating at the highest level of virtue.

What has been lacking is the virtue of justice. Justice and charity are complementary but clearly inseparable in teachings of Doctors of the Church, as well as the social encyclical letters of almost all popes over the last century. The giving and caring spirit of charity both motivates and completes our sense of justice, but the virtue of charity cannot legitimately substitute for justice. Persons capable of doing justice are not justified in preferring to “do charity.” Although this has clearly been taught on paper, I would say it is the great missing link in the practical preaching and lifestyle of the church. We have ignored the foundational obligation of justice in our works of charity! For centuries we have been content to patch up holes temporarily (making ourselves feel benevolent) while in fact maintaining the institutional structures that created the holes (disempowering people on the margins). Now it has caught up with us in unremitting poverty, massive income disparity, cultural alienation, and human and environmental abuse.

Jesus preaches a social order in which true charity is possible, a way of relating by which cooperation and community make sense. Jesus offers a world where all share the Spirit’s power “each according to their gift.” And that “Spirit is given to each person for the sake of the common good” (1 Corinthians 12:7). That is the key to Christian community and Christian social justice. It is not a vision of totalitarian equality, nor is it capitalist competition (“domination of the fittest”). It is a world in which cooperation, community, compassion, and the charity of Christ are paramount—and to which all other things are subservient. The “common good” is the first principle of Catholic social doctrine—although few Catholics know it.

(Link)

Another reflection from Fr Richard Rohr (link)

A Concern for the Good of the World

Fr. Richard and the Center’s commitment to the common good is deeply rooted in both the Scriptures and the Catholic Church’s social teaching and doctrine. Authors Chris Korzen and Alexia Kelley offer this brief outline:

The Catholic vision of the common good is as clear as it is challenging. The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, which the Vatican released in 2004, notes that the specific “demands” of the common good are deeply connected to the fundamental dignity and rights of the human person:

These demands concern above all the commitment to peace, the organization of the State’s powers, a sound juridical system, the protection of the environment, and the provision of essential services to all, some of which are at the same time human rights: food, housing, work, education and access to culture, transportation, basic health care, the freedom of communication and expression, and the protection of religious freedom. ¹

A robust commitment to the common good dates to the very beginnings of our faith and is rooted in both the Old and New Testaments. The Hebrew scriptures call readers to look beyond their own self interest to create a just and healthy community; and the Gospels teach us to love God with all of our heart, mind, and soul, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. {Richard: The so-called vertical line toward God must be embodied by a horizontal line toward everything else.}

The common good also requires a concern for the entire world community. . . . In 1963, Pope John XXIII introduced the phrase “universal common good” ² in the Catholic social tradition in recognition of the duty to promote the good of our neighbors around the globe as well as at home. ³

Episcopal Bishop Michael Curry speaks of the specific challenges facing us today and how prayer is needed:

In the United States and in the world, we have different cultures, different politics, different experiences that have shaped our beliefs. But if we can establish that we’re working toward some common good, whether we like each other or not, then we can be brothers and sisters. . . . Let’s all stop worrying about whether we like each other and choose to believe instead that we’re capable of doing good together. . . .

If love is your purpose . . . it was and still is the time to double down on prayer. Because prayer, real prayer, is both contemplative and active. . . . Part of that is working for a good, just, humane, and loving society. That means getting on our knees {to pray} . . . and it also means standing on our feet and marching in the streets. It means praying through participation in the life of our government and society. . . . Through fashioning a civic order that reflects goodness, justice, and compassion, and the very heart and dream of God for all of God’s children and God’s creation. ⁴

1. Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (Libreria Editrice Vaticana: 2004), 94.

2. Pope John XXIII, Pacem in Terris (Peace on Earth), encyclical, April 11, 1963.

3. Chris Korzen and Alexia Kelley, A Nation for All: How the Catholic Vision of the Common Good Can Save America from the Politics of Division (Jossey-Bass: 2008),
4–5.

4. Michael Curry with Sara Grace, Love Is the Way: Holding on to Hope in Troubling Times (Avery: 2020), 205, 206.

Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation today:

The Goodness of Solidarity

Few Christians in the twentieth century lived their lives as devoted to the common good as Dorothy Day. She served the poor, homeless, and hungry in New York City for decades. Her steadfast belief in the dignity of the poor as bearing the presence of Christ inspired her persistent action, manifest as both charity and justice. In 1964, she wrote:

On Holy Thursday, truly a joyful day, I was sitting at the supper table at St. Joseph’s House on Chrystie Street. . . . The general appearance of the place was, as usual, home-like, informal, noisy, and comfortably warm on a cold evening. And yet, looked at with the eyes of a visitor, our place must look dingy indeed, filled as it always is with men and women, some children, too, all of whom bear the unmistakable mark of misery and destitution. Aren’t we deceiving ourselves, I am sure many of them think, in the works we are doing? What are we accomplishing for them anyway, or for the world, or for the common good? “Are these people being rehabilitated?” is the question we get almost daily from visitors or from our readers (who seem to be great letter writers). One priest had his catechism class write us questions as to our work. . . . The majority of them asked the same question: “How can you see Christ in people?” And we only say: It is an act of faith, constantly repeated. It is an act of love, resulting from an act of faith. It is an act of hope, that we can awaken these same acts in their hearts, too, with the help of God, and the Works of Mercy, which you, our readers, help us to do, day in and day out over the years. . . .

The mystery of the poor is this: that they are Jesus, and what you do for them you do for Him. It is the only way we have of knowing and believing in our love. The mystery of poverty is that by sharing in it, making ourselves poor in giving to others, we increase our knowledge of and belief in love.¹

In his encyclical Laudato Si’, Pope Francis emphasized solidarity with the poor and marginalized as part of our faith vocation to pursue the common good:

In the present condition of global society, where injustices abound and growing numbers of people are deprived of basic human rights and considered expendable, the principle of the common good immediately becomes, logically and inevitably, a summons to solidarity and a preferential option for the poorest of our brothers and sisters. This option entails recognizing the implications of the universal destination of the world’s goods {RR—by paying attention to how much we consume and how and where it is made}, but . . . it demands before all else an appreciation of the immense dignity of the poor in the light of our deepest convictions as believers.²

1. Dorothy Day, On Pilgrimage: The Sixties, ed. Robert Ellsberg (Orbis Books: 2021), 111, 112, 113.

2. Pope Francis, Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home, encyclical, May 24, 2015, paragraph 158.

An Easter reflection from Daniel Berrigan: Essential Writings:

Once there was a dead man, a criminal, a subject of capital punishment. And lo! He refused to stay dead. He stood up. As the authorities shortly came to sense, this was an earthquake in nature; in the nature of law and order, in the nature of death, the nature of war. For in the nature of things, as defined by the nation state (a great one for deciding what the nature of things is)--dead men stay dead. The word from Big Brother, the word that gives him clout, inspires fear, is--A criminal, once disposed of, stays disposed! Not at all. Along come these crazies shouting in public, “Our man’s not dead, He’s risen!” Now I submit you can’t have such a word going around, and still run the state properly. The first nonviolent revolution was, of course, the Resurrection. The event had to include death as its first act. And also the command to Peter, “Put up your sword.” So that it might be clear, once and for all, that Christians suffer death rather than inflict it.

And from Richard Rohr (link):

An Uprising for Justice

Theologian and Episcopal priest Kelly Brown Douglas compares the Risen Jesus’ instruction to his disciples to meet him in Galilee (Mark 16:6–8) and our own encounter with the risen Christ when we stand against injustice.

In asking his disciples to meet him in Galilee, Jesus was indeed calling them to imagine something different for the world. Jesus was asking them to imagine a world where life, not death, is centered. . . . The Resurrected Jesus resurrected his disciples by inviting them away from the despair of death that was the cross into the hope of new life that was the resurrection. A community that had given up on the possibilities for life, that had lost faith in the gospel that Jesus preached, was called back into life-giving ministry. This is what the invitation to Galilee was all about.

When I remembered this Galilean invitation, as I stood in my own existential despair of crucifying Black deaths, it was as if I was being invited to Galilee to meet the resurrected Jesus. . . .

Douglas participated in a protest in support of Black lives and was filled with unexpected joy and what she calls “resurrecting hope”:

As I stood there in what seemed like a sea of people, my {spontaneous} laughter was nothing less than a signal of transcendence pointing me to the resurrecting hope that had disrupted the seeming futility of crucifying Black death. . . .

Standing in that small space of Black Lives Matter Plaza in front of the White House was the most motley and diverse crew of God’s sacred creation that I had seen come together in protest. They reflected an “otherwise way of being in the world.” They were Black, white, brown, Asian and non-Asian, Latinx and non-Latinx, queer and non-queer, trans and non-trans, bi-gendered and non-bi-gendered. They were also young and old and everything in between. . . . People were there advocating, each in their own way, for a world that looked more like God’s just future: a future where all people were living in the peace that was justice. They were embodying that very future. ¹

CAC teacher Brian McLaren envisions much the same in a world saturated by the Risen Christ’s presence:

Resurrection has begun. We are part of something rare, something precious, something utterly revolutionary.

It feels like an uprising. An uprising of hope, not hate. An uprising armed with love, not weapons. An uprising that shouts a joyful promise of life and peace, not angry threats of hostility and death. It’s an uprising of outstretched hands, not clenched fists. It’s the “someday” we have always dreamed of, emerging in the present, rising up among us and within us. It’s so different from what we expected—so much better. This is what it means to be alive, truly alive. This is what it means to be en route, walking the road to a new and better day. Let’s tell the others: the Lord is risen! ²

1. Kelly Brown Douglas, Resurrection Hope: A Future Where Black Lives Matter (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2021), 188, 190, 192, 195.

2. Brian D. McLaren, We Make the Road by Walking (New York: Jericho Books, 2014), 170.

Meet Emilce Cuda: Pope Francis' Catholic social teaching expert in the Vatican (NCR)

Appointment spotlights ways the Latin American church is reshaping global Catholicism... As a laywoman and theologian from Latin America, her quick ascendancy in a male-dominated, clerical institution underscores the structural changes Pope Francis is seeking to make in the Vatican. But those who know Cuda say that's only part of the story and that Pope Francis is looking to her to help him hardwire Catholic social thought in the Vatican's operations and beyond... Cuda's one-line sound bite that describes her work is "a theologian focusing on social problems." And like her boss in Rome, she is interested first and foremost in the people. As a practitioner of teología del pueblo ("theology of the people"), Cuda not only believes in a preferential option for the poor, but maintains that it requires standing with the poor as a vocal advocate, particularly so that they are participants in economic decision making... Cuda writes that Francis understands "the people" as a dynamic uniting together "to save themselves," not motivated by political parties but by a communal understanding of their history, injustices and, ultimately, hope. "It is about unity in difference, which does not suppose a partisan indoctrination on common interests but, rather, faith in a divine economy of salvation, in the community as a faithful People of God," she writes. She believes this Latin American perspective, both of hers and of Francis — whom she calls a "prophet of the people" — has lessons to offer the global church...

Bishops emphasise dignity in new migrants document

“Rather than begin with our own national system, we are challenged to start with a global approach to upholding human dignity”... Bishop McAleenan describes “our Christian duty to look beyond such labels and see the person who has left their homeland in search of a better life”...

Make Catholic social teaching 'less hidden' to save environment

A leading cardinal has called for efforts to help make Catholic social teaching “less hidden” in order to help save the environment. “The earth, our common home, and the local and global relationships which nurture and sustain it, are confronted by a time of unprecedented fragility,” Cardinal Michael Czerny SJ said...

Both from the Tablet.

Vatican repudiates 'Doctrine of Discovery' used to justify colonialism after demands from Indigenous peoples (ABC)

The Vatican has responded to Indigenous demands and formally repudiated the "Doctrine of Discovery," the theories backed by 15th-century "papal bulls" that legitimised the colonial-era seizure of Native lands and form the basis of some property law today. A Vatican statement said the 15th-century papal bulls, or decrees, "did not adequately reflect the equal dignity and rights of Indigenous peoples" and have never been considered expressions of the Catholic faith. It said the documents had been "manipulated" for political purposes by colonial powers "to justify immoral acts against Indigenous peoples that were carried out, at times, without opposition from ecclesial authorities". The statement, from the Vatican's development and education offices, said it was right to "recognise these errors", acknowledge the terrible effects of colonial-era assimilation policies on Indigenous peoples and ask for their forgiveness...

I've just come across a mention of Catholic Social Teaching which describes it as a branch of moral theology. I had never thought of it in those terms. Interesting.

It's in an unpublished manuscript which I am editing, so I can't cite the source.