I received an email from a friend with a specific interest in the Church’s role in responding to Scotland’s addiction crisis. Attached were twelve deceptively simple questions.
Read more >>Responding to drug addiction as if people really matter
Category: Subsidiarity
Taxation, government debt, and the family
Render unto Caesar was published by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales in 2025. In this third of three blog posts from the contributors to an event on the publication, Philip Booth writes about taxation, government debt and the family.
Read more >>Catholic social teaching, taxation and generosity
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales recently published a document on taxation called Render unto Caesar. There is relatively little Catholic teaching that is specifically on taxation. Catholics apply principles such as the universal destination of goods, the right to property and the primacy of the family to try to develop practical approaches to taxation in the wide variety of specific circumstances in which they find themselves. Unsurprisingly, they disagree.
Read more >>Taxation for the Common Good
Render unto Caesar was published by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales in 2025. In this second of three blog posts from the contributors to an event on the publication, Professor Anna Rowlands writes about taxation and the common good.
Read more >>Building from the Bottom Up – Catholic social teaching, society and the state
Render unto Caesar was published by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales in 2025. It was followed by an event, and the next three blog posts will be articles based on the speakers’ remarks at that event. The articles are being published now because the Feast of the Annunciation was the ancient beginning of the tax year. Indeed, it was the beginning of the legal year until 1752. The change in the calendar led the tax year to move to its current starting point of 6th April. Our Christian roots, perhaps, go deeper than we realise.
Read more >>Business ethics and the common good
On the website www.catholicsocialthought.org.uk, there is a set of videos that introduce Catholic social thought and teaching. We continue featuring those videos on the blog with the video on “Business ethics and the common good”. This explores the vital role that business plays in promoting the common good and the importance of the vocation of the business leader being followed ethically. Also available in Portuguese.
Read more >>Principles of Catholic social thought and teaching
On the website www.catholicsocialthought.org.uk, there is a set of videos that introduce Catholic social thought and teaching. We continue featuring those videos on the blog with the video on Principles of Catholic Social Thought and Teaching which focuses on the four pillars of human dignity, the common good, solidarity and subsidiarity. These are also available in Portuguese .
Read more >>The Polycentric Republic – theory of civil order for free and diverse societies
“The Polycentric Republic”, published this year by Routledge, shows how modern ideas of governance neglect the interests and prerogatives of non-State associations and legitimate an imposing sovereign state that jeopardizes the freedom and integrity of communities and associations. In the book, David Thunder invites us to reimagine civil order in a way that is more friendly to the diverse interests and prerogatives of non-state communities and organizations, from churches, schools, and universities to farming co-ops, businesses, villages, and towns.
Read more >>Back to budget basics
Providing Christian commentary on the recent budget is not especially easy. There was a measure to remove the two-child cap on Universal Credit payments that was welcomed by many Christians. But the rest of the budget was really a collection of bits and pieces as well as deferred tax rises on which it is difficult to provide a Christian analysis.
Read more >>Catholic social teaching for everyone – fed by our relationship with God
The topic of fraternity was covered in a post shortly after the death of Pope Francis. It is worth revisiting, especially following Pope Leo’s apostolic exhortation Dilexi te, though this was drafted before that document was issued. The starting point for this post is the question “how might Catholic social teaching affect our everyday lives?”. In particular, I want to consider how it might affect all our everyday lives, not just those involved, for example, in political lobbying.
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