Counsels of Imperfection: Thinking Through Catholic Social Teaching

by Edward Hadas
Catholic University of America Press, 2021
eISBN: 978-0-8132-3332-1, Paper: 978-0-8132-3331-4

ABOUT THIS BOOK
For more than a century, the teaching authority of the Catholic Church has attempted to walk along with the modern world, criticizing what is bad and praising what is good. Counsels of Imperfection described the current state of that fairly bumpy journey.

The book is divided into 11 chapters. First comes an introduction to ever-changing modernity and the unchanging Christian understanding of human nature and society. Then come two chapters on economics, including a careful delineation of the Catholic response, past and present, to socialism and capitalism. The next topic is government, with one chapter on Church and State, another on War, and a third that runs quickly through democracy, human rights, the welfare state, crimes and punishments (including the death penalty), anti-Semitism, and migration.

Counsels of Imperfection then dedicates two chapters on ecology, including an enthusiastic analysis of Francis’s “technocratic paradigm”. The last topic is the family teaching, which presents the social aspects of the Church’s sexual teaching. A brief concluding chapter looks at the teaching’s changing response to the modern world, and at the ambiguous Catholic appreciation of the modern idea of progress.

For each topic, Counsels of Imperfection provides biblical, historical and a broad philosophical background. Thomas Aquinas appears often, but so does G. W. F Hegel. The goal is not only to explain what the Church really says, but also how it got to its current position and who it is arguing with. In the spirit of a doctrine that is always in development, Counsels of Imperfection points out both strong-points and imperfections in the teaching.

The book should be of interest to specialists in Catholic Social Teaching, but its main audience is curious newcomers, especially people who do not want to be told that there are simple Catholic answers to the complicated problems of the modern world.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Introduction: Explanations and Acknowledgments
Chapter 1: Background and Key Ideas
Idea 1: Human Nature Is Real and Comes in Three Types
Idea 2: People Naturally Search for the Supernatural
Idea 3: People Are Fundamentally Social
Idea 4: Love Is the Foundation of All Human Communities
Idea 5: Societies Are Always Imperfect
Idea 6: Authority Is a Necessary Part of Social Life
Idea 7: The Only Historical Story That Really Matters Is the Story of Redemption
Idea 8: Catholics Have Responded to Modernity but Not Very Successfully
Idea 9: The Catholic Social Teaching Is a Response to Huge Changes
Idea 10: Most of the Catholic Social Teaching Is Universal
Idea 11: The Catholic Social Teaching Can Only Offer Counsels of Imperfection
Idea 12: The Church Always Calls People to Perfection
Chapter 2: Economic Issues in an Industrial Age
The Biblical Base
The Philosophical Base
Five Principles
The Virtues and Vices of Technical Ingenuity
The Fading Challenge of Poverty and the New Challenges of Affluence
Free Markets
A Better Way
Chapter 4: Government—Church and State
The Biblical Base
Philosophical Tensions
Historical Perspective
What Now?
Chapter 5: Government—War and Peace
The Biblical Background
The Philosophical Background
The Historical Background
The Just War Doctrine
The Current Teaching—The War against War
Chapter 6: The Church Adrift in a Secular World
Democracy
Human Rights
The Welfare State
Crimes and Punishment
Anti-Semitism
Migration
Looking Forward
Chapter 7: The Care of Creation
The Biblical and Theological Base
The Teaching in Context
Catholics against the Mainstream—Four Issues
Chapter 8: Integral Ecology
The Big Old Idea—Misguided Anthropocentrism
The Big New Idea—The Technocratic Paradigm
Food Production—People in Nature
The Life of Cities—The Poor and the Rich
The Life of Leisure
The Denigration of the Domestic
Cautionary Conclusion
Chapter 9: The Human Family—I
The Family in the Bible
The Modern Shift, in Practice
The Modern Shift, in Theory
The Catholic Response
The Catholic Response in More Detail
A Brief Cheerful Conclusion
Light and Shadows
From Frightened Pride to Confident Humility
Progress and Its Discontents
Bibliography
Index

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