Catholic Social Teaching and Distributism

Toward A New Economy

By (author) Michael Hickey

Not available to order

Publication date:

22 November 2017

Length of book:

166 pages

Publisher

Hamilton Books

ISBN-13: 9780761870050

Catholic Social Teaching is a relatively new and growing body of theology. Its foundation can be found in the Bible and Tradition of the Church. However, it began to be formalized beginning in 1891 with the writing of Pope Leo’s revolutionary Social Letter/Encyclical, On the New Things/Rerum Novarum. It subsequently has been woven through all the many Social Encyclicals written by the modern popes, right up to the current pope, Francis.

This book is written about the many themes of Catholic Social Teaching found in these Social Letters as well as an emphasis particularly on distributive justice as found in every modern Papal Social Letter. Additionally, these Letters often discuss the current failures of modern economic systems (Capitalism, Communism, and Socialism) to meet the needs of a majority of people in the world, particularly the poor and marginalized. Although these Social Letters never propose any new economic system, the heavy emphasis on distributive justice found in all of them is used as a basis to discuss a proposed and untried economic system called “Distributism.” Distributism was first introduced to the world in the early 1900’s by Catholic writer and theologian, G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc.

Section One: Themes of Catholic Social Teaching
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Section Two: Catholic Social Teaching and the Social Letters of the Modern Popes
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven: Social Letters of Pope John XXIII
Chapter Twelve: Social Letters of Vatican Council II, 1965
Chapter Thirteen: Social Letters of Pope Paul VI
Chapter Fourteen: Social Letters of John Paul II, 1981-1987
Chapter Fifteen: Social Letters of John Paul II, 1991-1995
Chapter Sixteen: Social Letter of Pope Benedict XVI, 2009
Chapter Seventeen: Social Letters of Pope Francis, 2013-2015
Section Three: Distributive Justice and Distributism
Chapter Eighteen: Roots of Distributive Justice
Chapter Nineteen: Distributive Justice in the Modern Papal Social Letters-The Foundational Letters
Chapter Twenty: Distributive Justice in the Social Letters of Pope John XXIII; and Vatican Council II
Chapter Twenty-One: Distributive Justice in the Social Letters of Pope Paul VI
Chapter Twenty-Two: Distributive Justice in the Social Letters of Pope John Paul II, 1981-1991
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five: From Distributive Justice to Distributism
Chapter Twenty-Six

This book serves as a primer for CST, especially for those seeking clarification on the major themes of CST, distributive justice, and distributism. As previously mentioned, Hickey provides many thought-provoking proximal interconnections within CST themes as well as with CST and modern economics (especially in section one). On the whole, Hickey does a decent job setting the stage for “a new economy.”