excited about Catholic Social Teaching and Action!!!!!

The weekend before last I attended a series of conferences at my church on Catholic Social Teaching, titled, “The Quest for the Catholic State”. Speakers spoke on a range of issues including business, education, politics, medical ethics etc. I enjoyed it thoroughly, catching up with people I haven’t seen for a while, and meeting new people, spending the majority of Sunday serving tea and coffee. Great fun! I even spent a couple of hours the night before cooking a lasagne for the hot buffet. It was amazing how many people brought food - we had too much!! Almost enough to feed the 5,000!! I was so proud of my effort that I even took a photo!!!! (I don’t cook very often so this was a big achievement for me!)

(PICTURES IN DUE COURSE)

More importantly however was the subject matter – Catholic social teaching and action. Sometimes Catholics (particularly those labelling themselves as ‘traditional’) get unfairly caricatured as being obsessed with ritual and liturgy and unconcerned with social issues. And sometimes the latter is true; there are Catholics who are seemingly indifferent to social concerns. So it was good to hear about the experiences of various members of the laity trying to live out their faith on a day to day basis and the various struggles they faced in their professions. There was also quite a bit of expounding on the various documents the Church has produced on social teaching.

Catholic Social Teaching
Two encyclicals much quoted from were ‘Rerum Novarum’ (Concerning New Things) issued in May 1891 by Pope Leo XIII and ‘Quadragesimo Anno’ (Forty Years) written by Pope Pius XI. ‘Rerum Novarum’ describes the ‘wretched conditions’ of many of the working classes and how socio-economic changes have lead to industry and commerce falling under the power of a very rich few who have “laid a yoke almost of slavery on the unnumbered masses of non-owning workers”. The encyclical urges that action be taken by the State, employers and workers to cure this evil but warns against Socialism as holding the solution.

Catholic Social Action
One of the speakers talked a little about the Catholic Worker Movement (CWM) established by Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day in America in the early 1930s. Their activities were wide ranging; they produced a newspaper containing Catholic teaching which they distributed regularly along with Catholic pamphlets; set up the Worker House where they cared for those that were poor and needy, and Maurin established ‘Round Table talks’ on Friday evenings for the ‘clarification of thought’ around Catholic doctrine. There was also the development in the 1940s of the retreat movement. See these sites for more info. http://www.catholicworker.org/ and http://www.catholicworker.com/

Dorothy Day
Upon recommendation by a priest I am currently reading Dorothy Day’s autobiography ‘The Long Road to Loneliness” which is a fascinating read. I am just at the bit where she’s seriously contemplating conversion (it’s all very exciting) so I am sure I will blog more about Dorothy Day and the CWM in due course……