Introduction to the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church

1
Introduction to the Compendium of the Social
Doctrine of the Church
2
Overview

• Origins the 1977 Synod of Bishops of America
• From catechism to compendium
• Format complete and systematic overview of the
  social teachings (8)

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Part One

• Introduction
• Gods Plan of love for humanity
• Churchs Mission Social Doctrine
• Human person and human rights
• Principles of Churchs Social Doctrine

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Part Two

• Family
• Work
• Economic Life
• The Political Community
• The International Community
• The Environment
• The Promotion of Peace

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Part Three

• Social Doctrine and Ecclesial Action

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Indices

• Index of references
• Analytical index

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Critiques, concerns, limitations

• Approach doctrine / teaching
• Inductive v. deductive approach
• Light on historical development
• Overweighed on the teachings of JPII
• Use of documents of differing authority and
  differing level of teaching authority

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1. Introduction

• Dawn of the 3rd millennium
• Pilgrim people
• Traveling companions
• Offers social doctrine

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Significance of Compendium

• The Christian knows that in the social doctrine
  of the Church can be found the principles for
  reflection, the criteria for judgment and the
  directives for action which are the starting
  point for the promotion of an integral and
  solidary humanism. Making this doctrine known
  constitutes, therefore, a genuine pastoral
  priority, so that men and women will be
  enlightened by it and will be thus enabled to
  interpret today's reality and seek appropriate
  paths of action The teaching and spreading of
  her social doctrine are part of the Church's
  evangelizing mission5. (7)

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See-Judge-Act
 
           
See
Judge
Act
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Experience Explore and identify your personal
experience, bias and assumptions related to the
issue.
Issue Identify the issue.
     
Social Analysis Research the current reality,
historical context, cultural, social, economic
and political factors impacting the issue
Action How are we called to respond as faithful
followers of Jesus?
Theological Reflection What does Scripture
say? What does our Tradition say (historical
treatment, social teaching documents, other
theological sources)?
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Drawn from Gaudium et Spes

• An act of service by the Church
• To the men and women of our time
• In dialogue
• Question of mans place in nature and human
  society

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Challenges

• Truth of what it means to be human (what humans
  are, what they should be, what they can be)
• Understanding and management of pluralism and
  difference
• Globalization

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2. Gods Plan for Humanity

• Gods liberating action in the history of Israel
• Exodus story
• Ten commandments
• Covenant relationship
• Sabbatical and jubilee legislation
• Prophets

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Ten Commandments

• The Ten Commandments, which constitute an
  extraordinary path of life and indicate the
  surest way for living in freedom from slavery to
  sin, contain a privileged expression of the
  natural law. They teach us the true humanity of
  man. They bring to light the essential duties,
  and therefore, indirectly, the fundamental rights
  inherent in the nature of the human person25.

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The TEN COMMANDMENTS (Exodus 201-17) Then God
spoke all these words, saying, "I am the Lord
your God, who brought you out of the land of
Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall
have no other gods besides Me. You shall not
make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of
what is in heaven above or on earth beneath or in
the water under the earth. You shall not take
the name of the Lord your God in vain. Remember
the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you
shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh
day is a Sabbath of the Lord your God in it you
shall not do any work, you or your son or your
daughter, your male servant or your female
servant or your cattle or your sojourner who
stays with you. For in six days the Lord made
the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that
is in them, and rested on the seventh day
therefore the lord blessed the Sabbath day and
made it holy. Honor your father and your
mother, that your days may be prolonged in the
land which the Lord your God gives you. You
shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal. You shall not bear false
witness against your neighbor. You shall not
covet you neighbor's house you shall not covet
your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his
ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your
neighbor.
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Sabbatical / Jubilee Provisions

• This legislation is designed to ensure that the
  salvific event of the Exodus and fidelity to the
  Covenant represents not only the founding
  principle of Israel's social, political and
  economic life, but also the principle for dealing
  with questions concerning economic poverty and
  social injustices. This principle is invoked in
  order to transform, continuously and from within,
  the life of the people of the Covenant, so that
  this life will correspond to God's plan. To
  eliminate the discrimination and economic
  inequalities caused by socio-economic changes,
  every seven years the memory of the Exodus and
  the Covenant are translated into social and
  juridical terms, in order to bring the concepts
  of property, debts, loans and goods back to their
  deepest meaning.
• The precepts of the sabbatical and jubilee years
  constitute a kind of social doctrine in
  miniature28. (24-25)

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Sabbath Day Every 7th Day

• Take care to keep holy the sabbath day as the
  LORD, your God, commanded you. Six days you may
  labor and do all your work but the seventh day
  is the sabbath of the LORD, your God. No work may
  be done then, whether by you, or your son or
  daughter, or your male or female slave, or your
  ox or ass or any of your beasts, or the alien who
  lives with you. Your male and female slave should
  rest as you do. For remember that you too were
  once slaves in Egypt, and the LORD, your God,
  brought you from there with his strong hand and
  outstretched arm. That is why the LORD, your God,
  has commanded you to observe the sabbath day.
  Deuteronomy 512-15

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Sabbath Year Every 7th year

• Let the land rest and lie fallow for the poor,
  slaves and wild animals (Exodus 2310-11
  Leviticus 251-7)
•  Remission of debts (Deuteronomy 151-11)
•  Freedom of Hebrew slaves (Deuteronomy
  1512-18)
• Remember that you were a slave in the land of
  Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you for
  this reason I lay this command upon you today.
  Deuteronomy 1515

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Jubilee Year Every 50th year

• Proclamation of liberty (Leviticus 2510)
• Everyone returned to own land (Leviticus 2510)
• Treat poor with dignity, do not extract
  interest, do not enslave (Leviticus 2536-41)
• The land shall not be sold in perpetuity for
  the land is mine, and you are but aliens who have
  become my tenants. Therefore in every part of
  the country that you occupy, you must permit the
  land to be redeemedI, the Lord, am your God, who
  brought you out of the land of Egypt to give you
  the land of Canaan and to be your God. Leviticus
  25 23-24, 38.

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Jesus Christ, Fulfillment of Gods Love

• In the Gospel of Saint Luke, Jesus describes his
  messianic ministry with the words of Isaiah which
  recall the prophetic significance of the jubilee
  The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he
  has anointed me to preach the good news to the
  poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the
  captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to
  set at liberty those who are oppressed, to
  proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord (Lk
  418-19 cf. Is 611-2). Jesus therefore places
  himself on the frontline of fulfillment, not only
  because he fulfils what was promised and what was
  awaited by Israel, but also in the deeper sense
  that in him the decisive event of the history of
  God with mankind is fulfilled. (28)

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Revelation of Triune love

• Jesus awareness of being a beloved son
• Revealing the face of God
• Trinity as communion

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Human Person in Gods Plan of Love

• Being a person in the image and likeness of
  Godinvolves existing in relationship. (34)
• Christian revelation shines a new light on the
  identity, the vocation and the ultimate destiny
  of the human person and the human race. Every
  person is created by God, loved and saved in
  Jesus Christ, and fulfils himself by creating a
  network of multiple relationships of love,
  justice and solidarity with other persons while
  he goes about his various activities in the
  world. (35)

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The human vocation

• The pages of the first book of Sacred Scripture,
  which describe the creation of man and woman in
  the image and likeness of God (cf. Gen 126-27),
  contain a fundamental teaching with regard to the
  identity and the vocation of the human person.
  They tell us that the creation of man and woman
  is a free and gratuitous act of God that man and
  woman, because they are free and intelligent,
  represent the thou created by God and that only
  in relationship with him can they discover and
  fulfill the authentic and complete meaning of
  their personal and social lives that in their
  complementarities and reciprocity they are the
  image of Trinitarian Love in the created
  universe that to them, as the culmination of
  creation, the Creator has entrusted the task of
  ordering created nature according to his design
  (cf. Gen 128).

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Christian salvation

• Universal and integral
• Concerns the human person is all dimensions
• It is not possible to love one's neighbor as
  oneself and to persevere in this conduct without
  the firm and constant determination to work for
  the good of all people and of each person,
  because we are all really responsible for
  everyone44. (43)

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Positive anthropology

• There is no state of conflict between God and
  man, but a relationship of love in which the
  world and the fruits of human activity in the
  world are objects of mutual gift between the
  Father and his children, and among the children
  themselves, in Christ Jesus in Christ and thanks
  to him the world and man attain their authentic
  and inherent meaning. (46)

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• God, in Christ, redeems not only the individual
  person but also the social relations existing
  between men. (52)

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Reflection Questions

• How does the Catholic understanding of the person
  differ from other faith traditions?
• How does it differ from prevailing culture?
• What are the challenges of presenting this
  understanding?
• In the Catholic view, is it possible to
  compartmentalize religion from other aspects of
  life?

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Gods Plan and the Mission of the Church

• Mission proclaiming the Kingdom of God
  (communion with God among humanity) (49)
• The church is the seed and beginning of the
  Kingdom
• Sign and safeguard of the transcendent dimension
  of the human person.

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3. The Churchs Mission and Social Doctrine

• The Church, sharing in mankind's joys and hopes,
  in its anxieties and sadness, stands with every
  man and woman of every place and time, to bring
  them the good news of the Kingdom of God, which
  in Jesus Christ has come and continues to be
  present among them73. Sacrament of Gods love.
• Minister of salvation not in abstract or merely
  spiritual dimension, but in the context of
  history(60)

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Goal

• Proclaim the Gospel and make it present in the
  complex network of social relationships
• Reaching out to the person and
• Enriching and permeating society itself with the
  Gospel (62)
• Supernatural
• Raising the natural to a higher planenothing of
  the created or human order is excluded from
  grace. (29)

32
Whole person

• The whole man not a detached soul or a being
  closed within its own individuality, but a person
  and a society of persons is involved in the
  salvific economy of the Gospel. (65)

33
Evangelization

• Evangelical mission in relation to the social
  mission
• The Church's social doctrine is an integral part
  of her evangelizing ministry. Nothing that
  concerns the community of men and women
  situations and problems regarding justice,
  freedom, development, relations between peoples,
  peace is foreign to evangelization, and
  evangelization would be incomplete if it did not
  take into account the mutual demands continually
  made by the Gospel and by the concrete, personal
  and social life of man85.

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The Churchs social doctrine is

• An integral part of her evangelizing ministry.
• A distinctive way to carry out ministry of the
  Word and her prophetic role
• Essential part of the Christian message
• Not a marginal interest or one that is tacked on
  to the mission
• At the heart of the Churchs service ministry
• Stems from proclamation and witness

35
Evangelical Mission

• Early 1900s, two schools
• Saving souls
• Establishing visible churches
• Social mission was secondary and a means towards
  the goal.

36
Early development of social doctrine

• Focus was on savings souls within the Church
• Rerum Novarum

37
Vatican II

• Convergence of understanding between the
  evangelical and social mission
• Guadium et spes
• Reading the signs in light of the Gospel
• Mission of the Church to the world
• Promoting human dignity and rights
• Encouraging and fostering community
• Guidance as to the meaning and value of human
  activity

38
Synod of Bishops 1975

• Working of behalf of justice is a constitutive
  dimension of the preaching the Gospel

39
Redemptoris Missio

• Church is sent by Christ to reveal and
  communicate the love of God to all peoples and
  nations
• Happens in various ways
• A force of liberation through forming consciences
  that promote dignity, solidarity, peace, justice
  and integral development.

40
Post Vatican II Understanding of the paths of
mission

• Charity (communicating Gods love)
• Witness (presence)
• Dialogue (mutual witness / respect)
• Proclamation (invitation to relationship w/
  Christ) Development and Liberation from Injustice
• Inculturation
• Contemplation / prayer
• Reconciliation and healing

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Relationship between evangelical and social
mission

• Principles of CSD
• Life and dignity of the human person
• Call to Family, Community and Participation
• Rights and Responsibilities
• Option for the poor
• Dignity of work, workers rights
• Solidarity
• Care for creation

• Paths of mission
• Charity (communicating Gods love)
• Witness (presence)
• Dialogue (mutual witness / respect)
• Proclamation (invitation to relationship w/
  Christ) Development and Liberation from Injustice
• Inculturation
• Contemplation / prayer
• Reconciliation and healing

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Reflection Questions

• Do most Catholics see the social doctrine as
  essential to the evangelical mission of the
  Church? Why / why not?
• What is the role of the deacon regarding the
  social mission and does that relate to the role
  of the faithful?

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The Nature of the Churchs Social Doctrine

• Formed over time through intervention of
  Magisterium on social issues
• Not an ideology, but theology, particularly moral
  theology
• Crossroads where Christian life and conscience
  come into contact with the real world.

44
Foundations

• Main aim to interpret reality in light of the
  Gospel teaching on humanity and the human
  vocation (72)
• Foundation in Scripture and tradition
• Faith interacting with reason knowledge
  enlighten by faith
• Uses all branches of knowledge, philosophy, human
  and social sciences

45
Role of science

• This attentive and constant openness to other
  branches of knowledge makes the Church's social
  doctrine reliable, concrete and relevant. Thanks
  to the sciences, the Church can gain a more
  precise understanding of man in society, speak to
  the men and women of her own day in a more
  convincing manner and more effectively fulfil her
  task of incarnating in the conscience and social
  responsibility of our time, the word of God and
  the faith from which social doctrine flows110.
  (78)

46
Authority of the social teaching

• Insofar as it is part of the Church's moral
  teaching, the Church's social doctrine has the
  same dignity and authority as her moral teaching.
  It is authentic Magisterium, which obligates the
  faithful to adhere to it115. The doctrinal
  weight of the different teachings and the assent
  required are determined by the nature of the
  particular teachings, by their level of
  independence from contingent and variable
  elements, and by the frequency with which they
  are invoked116. (80)

47

• The Church's social doctrine is presented as a
  work site where the work is always in progress,
  where perennial truth penetrates and permeates
  new circumstances, indicating paths of justice
  and peace. Faith does not presume to confine
  changeable social and political realities within
  a closed framework137. Rather, the contrary is
  true faith is the leaven of innovation and
  creativity.

48
Historical Development

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