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Subsidiarity post-covid

“[I]t is an injustice and at the same time a grave evil and disturbance of right order to assign to a greater and higher association what lesser and subordinate organizations can do.” (Quadragesimo anno, 79).

In the current crisis, there is much talk of “policy reset”. Some of that talk seems strange. We have the most centralised health service in the Western world and it has not obviously performed better than healthcare services in other countries. The NHS has also moved infected people out of hospitals and into care homes with disastrous consequences. Despite that, reliable sources in the UK government seem to be suggesting that, following the crisis, there will be a move to centralise political control of the NHS further and also that the NHS will take control of social care from local authorities.

Liberty in Education and Catholic Social Teaching

The provision of public services by the government has always raised concerns about the respect for individual liberty. And in the case of education, this issue gets even more relevant. For being a vehicle of transmission of knowledge, education contributes not only to tackle ignorance and to increase the level of literacy of the population, but also to create and promote a common set of values and behaviour patterns. In this post we analyse the perspective of Catholic social teaching on the provision of education by the government.

Government debt – a vacuum in Catholic social thought?

The UK government has borrowed huge amounts of money to try to deal with the covid-19 crisis. Catholic social teaching and thought discusses the question of personal debt and poor-country government debt a great deal but, oddly, there is no systematic treatment of government debt more generally. Yet there are several ways in which government borrowing might be thought problematic. This post will deal with just one aspect of the problem – distributive justice.

The Catholic Church and a Universal Basic Income (UBI)

In a recent letter, Pope Francis suggested that we consider the provision of a universal basic wage. In this article, which summaries an article that will appear in Pastoral Review in the autumn, we ask “Should the Universal Church support a universal basic income (UBI)?”

Covid-19: the importance for body and soul of getting back to work

One lasting legacy of the Covid-19 pandemic and the actions taken to slow its transmission will likely be a renewed understanding of the importance of work, not only as a means to earn one’s livelihood, but also as an essential aspect of man’s humanity and a vital element of the human person.

What next for Generation 4.0?

It seems that England has moved from being a nation of shopkeepers, in Napoleon’s apocryphal phrase, to become a nation of broadcasters. The movement to online presentation and teaching and learning has, of course, taken place worldwide. In this week’s post, Isabel Capeloa Gil, Rector of the Catholic University of Portugal and President of the International Federation of Catholic Universities reflects on this move and the importance of personal relationships in the provision of higher education in a Catholic context.

Five decades on from Populorum Progressio, have we achieved one world?

At this time of the rapid spread of coronavirus we can, of course, easily see one the downsides of globalisation. However, globalisation has been coming under pressure for some time with some even questioning its economic benefits. For example, this is, President Trump:

“You go to New England, Ohio, Pennsylvania …manufacturing is down 30, 40, sometimes 50 per cent. NAFTA is the worst trade deal maybe ever signed anywhere”.

Wealth in Scripture: Blessing or Burden?

This week’s blog post is a non-Catholic perspective, but on a question which is frequently raised by Catholic commentators on social issues.

The late scholastics and globalisation

While the understanding of Catholic social thought as a structured and articulated body of thought is relatively recent, its roots go back much further. The work of St. Thomas Aquinas is certainly pivotal in this regard (and merits its own analysis), but in several matters the first consistent reflection on applied global economic and social issues from a Catholic perspective ought to be credited to the late scholastics and particularly to the so-called School of Salamanca.

The importance of ethics in economics

This blog will publish articles on a wide range of topics related to Catholic social thought – both theoretical and practical. This first post discusses the importance of ethics in economic action – a key theme of Catholic social teaching since the financial crisis.