Are You Confused about "Catholic Social Teaching"?

If so, Dr. Arthur Hippler, director of the Office of Justice and Peace in the Diocese of La Crosse, Wis., has written an excellent short primer on the subject, entitled, "What Do We Mean By 'Catholic Social Teaching?'"

We must therefore distinguish two senses of Catholic social teaching — a restricted one that applies to the peace in society that arises from just and friendly collaboration between different social classes; and the more general sense of Catholic social teaching, which applies the whole of Catholic moral teaching to social and political life. The restricted sense of "social teaching" that has arisen in modern times cannot be mistaken for the greater whole, that is, the fullness of the moral law that has been articulated over the Church’s 2,000-year Tradition. Ultimately, even the Catholic teaching on rich and poor is incomplete when emancipated from the larger context of tradition from which it arose.

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