Clases Doctrina Social de la Iglesia

1. CHAPTER 7 – The Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church

2. CHAPTER 7 – The Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church
CHRIST WANTS A CIVILIZATION OF LOVE
• Christ came to bring a spiritual, hidden
life into the world
• In Scripture, Mark’s Gospel speaks of
the rich man that desired to live in the
Kingdom
– The rich man realized that it would require
something more than fulfilling the
Commandments
• To give of oneself sacrificially, to deny
oneself, to give rather than receive
– The rich man went away disillusioned as he
could not part with his possessions

3. CHAPTER 7 – The Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church
CHRIST WANTS A CIVILIZATION OF LOVE
(continued)
• In 2008, Pope Benedict XVI came to
the U.S. and praised the country for its
generosity and religious fervor
– He added that all peoples though need
to draw closer to Christ, to have “an
encounter with the living God” and must
“clear away some of the barriers to this
encounter”
• Three contemporary obstacles that
stand between human beings and God
– Secularism, Materialism, and
Individualism

4. CHAPTER 7 – The Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church
SECULARISM
• Pope Benedict XVI distinguished unhealthy secularism from a
healthy secularity
– It’s proper for Catholics to have a secular character
– The word “secular” comes from the Latin meaning “the world” and “the
ages”
– It is the duty of Catholics to transform the world from within
• There is a tendency for modern people to look at faith as something
“spiritual, but not religious”
– By spiritual, they mean subject to opinion and preference and less real then
the material world
– Christians and many others have a different view of the spiritual
– Biblical Revelation tells us that the spiritual dimension of reality is just as
real as the material dimension

5. CHAPTER 7 – The Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church
SECULARISM (continued)
• God is pure spirit and yet, is the origin and destiny of all in the
material world
• Spiritual commitments are also binding, just as material bonds
are (citizenship, family membership)
• God made a family bond with his people on earth
– This is binding and “binding” is the root meaning of the word religion
– Religion is “the ties that bind”
– Religion entails duty, responsibility, commitment, and identity

6. CHAPTER 7 – The Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church
SECULARISM (continued)
• Pope Benedict XVI spoke of
Catholics who maintain
“external social bonds but
without an integral, interior
conversion to the law of Christ
… rather than being
transformed and renewed in
mind,” these people choose
instead “to conform themselves
to the spirit of this age”
• This is evident in Catholics who
promote an alleged right to
abortion

7. CHAPTER 7 – The Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church
SECULARISM (continued)
• The Pope calls for Catholics to grow in understanding of the
Faith and of the natural law
– Catholics should be proficient in apologetics: the art of explaining and
defending the Faith
– Moral issues should be addressed in terms of natural law
• As mentioned earlier, these methods worked to transform the
Roman Empire and can also work to change other “secular”
regimes

8. CHAPTER 7 – The Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church
SECULARISM (continued)
• Catholic social doctrine:
– Is not a religious agenda for politics or a party platform
– Is not “liberal” or “conservative,” but transcends these movements and
corrects ideological blind spots
– Is a rule by which we, as citizens and as Catholics, can measure social
and political programs and propositions as needed
• Pope Benedict said, Catholic social doctrine liberates us from
the “tyranny of relativism and convention”
– Relativism is the belief that there is no absolute truth in morality
– Convention becomes tyranny when it resists legitimate development

9. CHAPTER 7 – The Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church
MATERIALISM (continued)
• Catholic tradition places a premium on reason, a disposition that
enabled the empirical sciences to grow and flourish
– Nicholas Copernicus, the great astronomer, was a priest
– Gregor Mendel, the founder of genetics, was a monk
– Nicholas Steno, founder of geology and paleontology, was a convert and a
Bishop
– Antoine Lavoisier, founder of modern chemistry, was a devout layman
– Biologist Louis Pasteur and mathematician Blaise Pascal were also devout
layman
• Catholicism does not reduce reality to what is merely visible,
audible, and measureable
– Spiritual realities are affirmed that cannot be contained or controlled

10. CHAPTER 7 – The Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church
MATERIALISM (CONTINUED)
• A human is “a creature composed
of body and soul, made in God’s
image and likeness”
– Human beings are a composite of spirit
and matter
– For true fulfillment, our spiritual
component cannot be neglected
– Often, success and personal progress is
merely based on material items
acquired—money, type of car, size of
home

11. CHAPTER 7 – The Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church
MATERIALISM (CONTINUED)
• No amount of material possessions can
bring true happiness in a lasting way
– Money and property cannot make up for an
absence of love
• Materialism can have a toxic effect on
proposed solutions to social problems
• If society does not acknowledge that
human nature is spiritual and created, it
is unlikely that the universality of
human dignity will be recognized

12. CHAPTER 7 – The Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church
MATERIALISM (CONTINUED)
• When defining humanity according to only material means,
there will invariably be some humans that fall outside the
limits of community
– If judging based on productivity, there will be little use for people with
disabilities
– Those who believe sex, apart from marriage, is a basic human right will
have little use for the inconvenient life conceived out of wedlock—the
innocent life will be defined outside of humanity
– This thinking can also discount the human dignity of people in comas
and people with dementia—individuals that are unable to be
productive due to illness and aging

13. CHAPTER 7 – The Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church
INDIVIDUALISM (continued)
• We fulfill our vocation through service to others
– To give of oneself is to act in a Christlike way
• In social life, we experience this in solidarity with one another
– The opposite of solidarity is individualism, the habit of being self-reliant
and self-directed
• Pope Benedict XVI recognized that individualism arises from a
good impulse–from the belief that human beings should not
be constrained by the circumstances of birth or ancestry
– The heroes of literature and history have overcome situational
limitations, gaining their independence through prodigious efforts

14. CHAPTER 7 – The Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church
INDIVIDUALISM (continued)
• What begins as a healthy inclination toward self
possession can lead to closing oneself off from
the world
• Pope Benedict XVI noted that “individualism
obscures the relational dimension of the person
and leads him to close himself off in his own
little world, to be attentive mostly to his own
needs and desires, worrying little about others”
• The individual’s “little world” is not a real world,
but a world of the individual’s own making,
focusing only on his own needs and desires

15. CHAPTER 7 – The Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church
INDIVIDUALISM (continued)
• Individualism recognizes no duty to the common good, rather
promotes only self-interest
– “What’s in it for me?”
• Individualism leads to the breakdown of family
– Divorce (free from family obligations)
– Euthanasia (free of the “burden” of sick family members)
– Abortion (free from an unwanted pregnancy)
• Individualism demands that the law accommodate the
“necessary” means of removing those who are inconvenient

16. CHAPTER 7 – The Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church
INDIVIDUALISM (continued)
• Individualism leads to moral relativism
• The individualist is right about the value
of self-discipline and self-possession,
but not about reasons or goals
• While appearing to affirm the dignity of
individual opinion, it leaves human
dignity vulnerable to opinions that deny
it altogether
• Enlightened self-interest should lead us
away from the dead end of
individualism and toward the love of
others

17. CHAPTER 7 – The Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church
CONCLUSION
• There will always be social problems and social concerns, due to our
fallen nature
• The human tendency seeks to find solutions to social problems, but
Christ offered no political platform
• The social means that Christ established for society is for individuals
to reform their lives
• He established the Church, with her Sacraments, as a means of
grace and transformation in the world
• Social problems are resolved in the smallest increments, when
individuals move toward Christ
• Christians working within society will transform it from within