Meghan's Attempt at CST

If I had to talk about Catholic Social teaching at Immanuel Congregational United Church of Christ, I would start by directly quoting from Gaudium et Spes. “Christ entered this world to give witness to the truth, to rescue and not to sit in judgment , to serve and not to be served.”

I think it’s important to show that Catholics very strongly support human lives and believe that no one person is more worthy or important than another person. I believe this is the very foundation of CST, so I think a great deal of emphasis would go to it. Chapter 2 of Gaudium et Spes heavily focuses on the importance of community, and I think this would be a wonderful thing for those who didn’t know about CST to read. It portrays the ties that each person has with one another. It also shows the responsibility we have towards each other.

I’m actually most curious to see what they would think of this idea of strong community. I think it’s perhaps easier for Catholics to have a larger sense of community because the Catholic religion is so much more widespread than many Protestant religions. (It is the largest Christian church...) I would be curious to see the other side of this, and believe this would be where the most interesting insights would come from.

I was excited to read about “preferential option for the poor” in the 3rd chapter of Himes, mainly because it’s one of my favorite parts of CST. Every class I’ve ever taken about Catholicism talks about preferential option for the poor. It’s a great idea to consider topics as how they affect the poorest/ least privileged members before the more privileged ones. I think this was a very prominent point in all of Jesus’ sermons and teachings. He was always trying to help the underdogs, and I’m glad that the church has integrated this into their social teachings. I think it’s one of the strongest points of the Catholic church. I would definitely make sure to take some time to mention this.

I wasn’t a fan of John XXIII’s Mater et Magistra. Though he did make some points about the importance of equality for workers and they were all an important part of the companies they worked for, I believe this was covered first in Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum. (I do like this part in Rerum Novarum, and would have them read that specific passage. It marks the modern social teaching that every person has inherent worth.) Other than that, John XXIII gives very vague descriptions of being a good Christian without ever really explaining what that entails. It does make some nice statements about how the wealth in countries is unevenly distributed, but I doubt this would be news to the people learning about Catholic Social teachings. Mainly, he makes a lot of good points, but takes forever to make him (or maybe I was just impatient with him). His points can be summarized without anyone needing to actually read the document.

I would just hope that by the end of my talk, everyone would have a more informed view of CST.