³⁴ A representative, though no doubt incomplete, list of constructive and critical readings includes Francis, Joseph A., “Catholic Social Teaching and Minorities,” in Rerum Novarum: A Symposium Celebrating 100 Years of Catholic Social Thought, ed. Duska, Ronald F. (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 1991), 99–107Google Scholar; Phelps, Jamie T., “Racism and the Church: An Inquiry into the Contradictions between Experience, Doctrine, and Theological Theory,” in Black Faith and Public Talk: Critical Essays on James H. Cone's Black Theology and Black Power, ed. Hopkins, Dwight N. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1999), 53–76Google Scholar; Andolsen, Barbara Hilkert, “The Grace and Fortitude Not to Turn Our Backs,” in The Church Women Want: Catholic Women in Dialogue, ed. Johnson, Elizabeth A. (New York: Crossroad Publishing, 2002), 73–82Google Scholar; Copeland, M. Shawn, “Disturbing Aesthetics of Race,” Journal of Catholic Social Thought 3, no. 1 (2006): 17–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hayes, Diana L., “The Color of Money: Racism and the Economy,” in Romero's Legacy: The Call to Peace and Justice, ed. Closkey, Pilar Hogan and Hogan, John D. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007), 79–91Google Scholar; Pfeil, Margaret R., “The Transformative Power of the Periphery: Can a White US Catholic Opt for the Poor?,” in Interrupting White Privilege: Catholic Theologians Break the Silence, ed. Cassidy, Laurie M. and Mikulich, Alexander (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2007), 127–46Google Scholar; Mary E. Hobgood, “White Economic and Erotic Disempowerment: A Theological Exploration in the Struggle against Racism,” in Interrupting White Privilege, 40–55; Nothwehr, Dawn M., That They May Be One: Catholic Social Teaching on Racism, Tribalism, and Xenophobia (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2008)Google Scholar; Massingale, Bryan N., Racial Justice and the Catholic Church (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2010)Google Scholar.

³⁵ I would like to thank my coauthors, Jessica Coblentz and Megan McCabe, for organizing the panel on which this paper originated, providing the guiding framework, and offering generous feedback on an early draft, including suggesting reading recommendations that proved to be crucial. Thanks as well to the panel attendees at the College Theology Society annual meeting for their valuable input and suggestions.

³⁶ Theologians have tirelessly critiqued CST's limited, naive portrayal of women, and this essay will neither catalog all the limitations nor attempt to fix them. See, for example, Christine Gudorf's characterization of papal teaching on women as “romantic pedestalization” in “Encountering the Other: The Modern Papacy on Women,” Social Compass 36, no. 3 (September 1989): 298; see also Helman, Ivy A., Women and the Vatican: An Exploration of Official Documents (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2012)Google Scholar.

³⁷ Karen Ross, Megan K. McCabe, and Sara Wilhelm Garbers, “Christian Sexual Ethics and the #MeToo Movement: Three Moments of Reflection on Sexual Violence and Women's Bodies,” Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 39, no. 2 (2019): 344; for women's “unique and decisive” responsibility to avoid and prevent the sins of abortion, euthanasia, and birth control by “transforming culture,” see Pope John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae (On the Value and Inviolability of Human Life ), March 25, 1995, §99, https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_25031995_evangelium-vitae.html.

³⁸ Pope John Paul II, “Letter to Women,” June 29, 1995, https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/letters/1995/documents/hf_jp-ii_let_29061995_women.html; Pope John Paul II, Laborem Exercens (On Human Work), September 14, 1981, §19, https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_14091981_laborem-exercens.html.

³⁹ Pope Francis, Amoris Laetitia (On Love in the Family), March 19, 2016, §242, https://www.vatican.va/content/dam/francesco/pdf/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20160319_amoris-laetitia_en.pdf.

⁴⁰ Daniels, Nice White Ladies, 169–70.

⁴¹ Jacob M. Kohlhaas, Beyond Biology: Rethinking Parenthood in the Catholic Tradition (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2021), 14.

⁴² Kohlhaas, Beyond Biology, 21.

⁴³ Daniels, Nice White Ladies, 159. Willful ignorance of this history may have contributed to US readings of the papal tradition that can seem deliberately cherry-picked, such as those by Michael Novak, who read warnings against dependence into a tradition that all but shouts that the state should provide families with economic support. See, for example, “Economic Rights: The Servile State,” Crisis Magazine, October 1, 1985, https://www.crisismagazine.com/vault/economic-rights-the-servile-state.

⁴⁴ Kohlhaas, Beyond Biology, 23.

⁴⁵ Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (New York: Knopf Doubleday, 2007), 36.

⁴⁶ Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church), November 21, 1964, §11, https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19641121_lumen-gentium_en.html; Pope John Paul II, Laborem Exercens, §19; Pope Francis, Amoris Laetitia, §48.

⁴⁷ Nichole Flores’s exploration of how Latina/o families manifest the goods of solidarity is a welcome corrective to narrow, white-dominated views of family in Christian tradition. “Latina/o Families: Solidarity and the Common Good,” Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 33, no. 2 (Fall/Winter 2013): 57–72. With Amoris Laetitia §52, the papal tradition has acknowledged families founded by same-sex couples.

⁴⁸ See, for example, Sandra Sullivan-Dunbar, “Valuing Family Care: Love and Labor,” in Sex, Love & Families: Catholic Perspectives, ed. Jason King and Julie Hanlon Rubio (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2020), 151–61; Christine Firer Hinze, Radical Sufficiency: Work, Livelihood, and a US Catholic Economic Ethic (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2021); Kate Ward, “Universal Basic Income and Work in Catholic Social Thought,” American Journal of Economics & Sociology 79, no. 4 (September 2020): 1271–306; Kate Ward, “During This Primary Election, Vote for Family Justice,” U.S. Catholic (blog), March 4, 2020, https://uscatholic.org/articles/202003/during-primary-election-vote-family-justice-31984/.

⁴⁹ Daniels, Nice White Ladies, 79.

⁵⁰ Patricia Hill Collins, “Shifting the Center: Race, Class, and Feminist Theorizing about Motherhood,” in Mothering: Ideology, Experience and Agency, ed. Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Grace Chang, and Linda Rennie Forcey (New York: Routledge, 1994), 45–66.

⁵¹ Judith Shulevitz, “Forgotten Feminisms: Johnnie Tillmon's Battle Against ‘The Man,’” New York Review of Books (blog), June 26, 2018, https://www.nybooks.com.

⁵² Selma James, “The Wages for Housework Campaign Began in 1972, Yet We Are Still Working for Free,” Independent (UK), March 9, 2020, https://www.independent.co.uk.

⁵³ Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America (New York: Bold Type, 2016), 358, 446.

⁵⁴ Nikole Hannah-Jones, “Choosing a School for My Daughter in a Segregated City,” New York Times Magazine, June 12, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/magazine/choosing-a-school-for-my-daughter-in-a-segregated-city.html.

⁵⁵ Massingale, Racial Justice and the Catholic Church, 24.

⁵⁶ Courtney E. Martin, Learning in Public: Lessons for a Racially Divided America from My Daughter's School (New York: Little, Brown, 2021); Sarah W. Jaffe, Wanting What's Best: Parenting, Privilege, and Building a Just World (Chicago, IL: Parenting Press, 2022); “Introducing: Nice White Parents,” New York Times, July 23, 2020; Linn Posey-Maddox, When Middle-Class Parents Choose Urban Schools: Class, Race, and the Challenge of Equity in Public Education (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2014).

⁵⁷ Catholic theologians have addressed the problem of opportunity hoarding by wealthy white families and urge concrete practices of solidarity and resistance; see Traina, Cristina L. H., “The Vice of ‘Virtue’: Teaching Consumer Practice in an Unjust World,” Journal of Moral Theology 7, no. 1 (January 2018): 13–27Google Scholar; Cloutier, David M., “Wanting ‘the Best’ for ‘Our’ Kids: Parenting and Privilege,” in Sex, Love & Families: Catholic Perspectives, ed. King, Jason and Rubio, Julie Hanlon (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2020), 259–70Google Scholar.

⁵⁸ Daniels, Nice White Ladies, 161.

⁵⁹ Aquinas, Thomas, The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas (ST), trans. Dominican Fathers of the English Province (London: Burns Oates & Washbourne, 1921)Google Scholar II-II, q. 66, art. 7.

⁶⁰ Daniels, Nice White Ladies, 193.

⁶¹ Aquinas, ST II-II q. 40 ad. 1; II-II q. 64; II-II q. 42.

⁶² Aquinas, ST II-II q. 32 ad. 6.

⁶³ Aquinas, ST II-II q. 94, ad. 5; q. 57, ad. 3.

⁶⁴ Pope Paul VI, Populorum Progressio (On the Development of Peoples), March 26, 1967, §24, https://www.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_26031967_populorum.html; Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World), December 7, 1965, §71, https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651207_gaudium-et-spes_en.html.

⁶⁵ Pope Paul VI, Humanae Vitae (Of Human Life), July 25, 1968, §15, https://www.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae.html; Alan Holdren, “Analysis: What the Pope Really Said about Condoms,” Catholic News Agency, November 22, 2010, https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/21465/analysis-what-the-pope-really-said-about-condoms.

⁶⁶ Pope John Paul II, “Message to the Second Special Session of the United Nations for Disarmament,” June 7, 1982, https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/messages/pont_messages/1982/documents/hf_jp-ii_mes_19820607_disarmo-onu.html; National Conference of Catholic Bishops, “The Challenge of Peace: God's Promise and Our Response,” https://www.usccb.org/upload/challenge-peace-gods-promise-our-response-1983.pdf.

⁶⁷ The existence of pernicious property reminds scholars to be careful about uncritically equating property, a term drawn from positive rather than natural law, with goods, the natural law term that views possessions in terms of their telos. For example, the Catholic principle of the universal destination of goods envisions a just distribution of the goods necessary to sustain life with dignity, but would not advocate redistribution of nuclear weapons or the power to exclude others from a flourishing life. Thanks to one of our anonymous reviewers for helpful clarity on this point.

⁶⁸ Daniels, Nice White Ladies, 236.

⁶⁹ Harris, Cheryl I., “Whiteness as Property,” Harvard Law Review 106, no. 8 (June 1993): 1707–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 1780.

⁷⁰ Harris, “Whiteness as Property,” 1779.

⁷¹ I would argue that the consideration of whiteness as property, rather than identity, is distinctly applicable to white racial identity due to the unique historical and legal treatment of whiteness as property that Harris demonstrates. There is no legal precedent for regarding racial labels besides whiteness as property in and of themselves. Quite the contrary, under legalized slavery, Black racialization imposed “the potential threat of commodification” (1791), and Native racialization was used against the legal property rights of Native land inhabitants (1722). I will leave for others the question of whether other racial identities might fruitfully be understood as property today and what that might entail for Catholic thought.

⁷² Harris, “Whiteness as Property,” 1750–57. Because Harris’s diagnosis of the problem is focused on the law, which has created the legal fiction of whiteness as property, her solutions focus on legal remedies. Daniels, consistent with the aim of her book, discusses personal choices including divesting from majority-white institutions such as de facto segregated schools or school systems (236).

⁷³ Daniels, Nice White Ladies, 169.