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Catholic Social Teaching and the Gospel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

David McLoughlin
David McLoughlin*
Affiliation:
Newman University College, Bartley Green, Birmingham, B32 3NT
*
Email: d.b.mcloughlin@newman.ac.uk
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Abstract

The documents that represent Catholic Social Teaching are primarily papal and clerical. Following the approach of Herbert McCabe that CST is not a body of doctrine but is a response to concrete social circumstances, this paper notes the absence of serious engagement with the Bible in CST and particularly the teaching of Jesus. Using two parables as paradigms, we can see that Jesus was using the social and economic circumstances of his day to provoke debate and an imaginative response that might lead his listeners towards the kingdom of God. In developing the current state of CST, the Church must draw on the practical wisdom of already existing Church groups and must collaborate with groups outside the Church.

Keywords

Catholic social Teachinghistorical Jesusarchaeologyparablepoliticseconomics
Type
Original Articles
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 93 , Issue 1044 , March 2012 , pp. 163 - 174
Copyright
Copyright © 2012 The Author. New Blackfriars © 2012 The Dominican Council. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2011, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK, and 350 Main Street, Malden MA 02148, USA

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References

1 Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (London: Continuum, 2006)Google Scholar.

2 Pius XII, Apostolic Exhortation Menti Nostrae, AAS 42: 657–702 (Rome, 23 September 1950)Google Scholar.

3 The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, The Common Good and the Catholic Church's Social Teaching (London: CTS, 1998) p. 42Google Scholar.

4 McCabe, Herbert, God Still Matters (London and New York: Continuum, 2002) p. 86Google Scholar.

5 Op cit, p. 94.

6 Ibid., p. 24.

7 Rushton, Roger, Human Rights and the Image of God (London: SCM, 2011)Google Scholar.

8 Dorr, Donal, Option for the Poor (New York: Orbits, 1992)Google Scholar.

9 Honderich, Ted, Terrorism for Humanity: Enquiries in Political Philosophy (London: Pluto Books, 2003)Google Scholar.

10 I have found the following useful in thinking about this theme: Crossman, J.D. & Reed, J.L., Excavating Jesus: Beneath the Stones, Behind the Texts, (London: SPCK, 2001)Google Scholar; Frayne, S., Jesus, a Jewish Galilean, (London: Continuum, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hanson, K.C., ‘The Galilean Fishing Economy and the Jesus Tradition’ in Biblical Theology Bulletin, vol. 27, 1997, pp. 99–111CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rousseau, J.L. & Arab, R, Jesus and his World: An Architectural and Cultural Dictionary, (London: SCM, 1995)Google Scholar; Seasick, M., Crossing Galilee: Architectures of Contact in the Occupied Land of Jesus, (Pennsylvania: Trinity Press International, 2000)Google Scholar; Stresemann, W., Malian, B.J., & Thiess, G., The Social Setting of Jesus and the Gospels, (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002)Google Scholar; Thieve, C.P., The Cosmopolitan World of Jesus: New Light from Archaeology,(London: SPCK, 2004)Google Scholar.

11 In both of the parables I have considered I am very influenced by the readings of Horsley, Richard A. in Jesus and the Powers: Conflict, Covenant and the Hope of the Poor, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2011)Google Scholar.