This week’s blog post is the address of Pope Francis to the 25th Anniversary meeting of the Federation of Catholic Family Associations in Europe in Clementine Hall, the Vatican on 10th June 2022. The theme was “The Urgent Need to Develop Family Networks”. For brevity, some of the formalities have been edited out.
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This is the second of two posts on how Catholic economists see their work. The posts are published in celebration of World Catholic Education Day on May 26, 2022, and within the context of the Global Compact on Education called for by Pope Francis. Quentin Wodon is a Lead Economist at the World Bank and a Distinguished Research Affiliate with the College of Business at Loyola University New Orleans.
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Part I of this post looks at the background to this subject. It is the first of two posts on how Catholic economists see their work. The posts are published in celebration of World Catholic Education Day on May 26, 2022, and within the context of the Global Compact on Education called for by Pope Francis.
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There are some who worry that prison is like “a holiday camp” these days, although maybe this sentiment will be less prevalent given what so many have been through during the pandemic.
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In ‘Refuge Reimagined – Biblical Kinship in Global Politics’ Mark R. Glanville and Luke Glanville have created an innovative inter-disciplinary way to rethink conversations surrounding refugees and displaced people. Drawing on both theology and the subject area of international relations, each discipline representing the authors’ separate academic fields, Mark Glanville and Luke Glanville challenge us to rethink and re-imagine current arguments as individuals, as church communities, as a nation and as a globe, proposing instead a more compassionate response grounded in the notion of a biblical ethic of kinship.
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This article by Jenny Sinclair is a summary of her remarks at the first of a series of events on the common good hosted by St. Mary’s University, Caritas Social Action Network, Together for the Common Good and the Centre for Social Justice.
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There is a temptation to play down those aspects of Rerum novarum which related to private property. This encyclical was really about labour, it is argued. Or it is suggested that the right to property is only a secondary right subject to the universal destination of goods and therefore not important. Still others say it was an encyclical that, in this respect, reflected its time – a period when the Church’s property was under attack from extreme socialists.
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In this post I explore citizenship education through the lens of Catholic teaching on education. I also make reference to Pope Leo XIII’s teaching on citizenship. I show that there is such a thing as a Christian ‘idea’ of citizenship. This might not sit comfortably in a society which seeks to marginalise (intentionally or unintentionally), the Christian voice.
Citizenship, education and religion
How citizenship education in the Catholic school is both understood and taught makes it a crucial feature of the contemporary educational scene.
Citizenship education flows from a political or civic desire to build community cohesion – universally deemed a ‘good thing’. How to promote, far less achieve, this in a multi-cultural society remains problematic.
For some, citizenship education is a ‘secular’ version of religious education: values emerge, it seems, from reason alone without a concomitant contribution from revealed religion. Although religious belief and practice should be fundamental parts of citizenship education, contemporary articulations of citizenship education minimise discussion of the difficult issues arising from religious faith or identity. Nonetheless, the number of children of all faiths and none who are educated in Catholic schools should place the Catholic school not at the margins but at the heart of citizenship education.
Religions, of course, are an expression of diversity. This leads to the following question: is contemporary education a means of monopolising thought and values within a conceptual framework which purports to be inclusive but, intentionally or otherwise, fails in this objective?
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This post is reproduced by kind permission of the Catholic Herald who first published this article. It was written before the Pope’s encyclical Fratelli Tutti was published. The encyclical covers important themes about how we should care for those in need, including the elderly.
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A recent report in the Lancet spelled out in detail the alarming fall in fertility across the world. Demographic car crashes happen in slow motion and it has been known for years that countries such as Japan, Germany and Italy are about to enter population free-fall.
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