A Sociotheological Approach to Catholic Social Teaching

Beschreibung

This book introduces Catholic social teaching (CST) and its teaching on the common good to the reader and applies them in the realm of public health to critically analyze the major global issues of COVID-19 that undermine public interest. It uses the sociotheological approach that combines the moral principles of CST and the holistic analysis of modern sociology and also utilizes the secondary literature as the main source of textual data. Specifically, it investigates the corporate moral irresponsibility and some unethical business practices of Big Pharma in the sale and distribution of its anti-COVID vaccines and medicines, the injustice in the inequitable global vaccine distribution, the weakening of the United States Congress’s legislative regulation against the pharmaceutical industry’s overpricing and profiteering, the inadequacy of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) law enforcement system against corruption, and the lack of social monitoring in the current public health surveillance system to safeguard the public good from corporate fraud and white-collar crime. This book highlights the contribution of sociology in providing the empirical foundation of CST’s moral analysis and in crafting appropriate Catholic social action during the pandemic. It is hoped that through this book, secular scholars, social scientists, religious leaders, moral theologians, religious educators, and Catholic lay leaders would be more appreciative of the sociotheological approach to understanding religion and COVID-19.  
“This book brings into dialogue two bodies of literature: documents of Catholic social teaching, and modern sociology and its core thinkers and texts...The author does especially well to describe how taking ‘the sociotheological turn’...will benefit the credibility and dissemination of Catholic social thought.”
- Rev. Fr. Thomas Massaro, S.J., Professor of Moral Theology, Jesuit School of Theology, Santa Clara University, Berkeley, California.

This book integrates ethical perspectives from Catholic Social Teaching (CST) to develop a sociotheological approach on the common good, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The author applies the Roman Catholic Church’s social doctrines that applies the Christian faith to social issues in society, and to global issues. The author advocates for protecting the common good during the pandemic by looking to reform in corporate moral responsibility on the part of the pharmaceutical industry, distributive justice in the global distribution of vaccines, US-led legislative regulation against corruption, overpricing and profiteering of vaccines and medicines, and strong global surveillance and law enforcement systems against corruption and white-collar crime. The book invites the Catholic hierarchy, moral theologians, religious educators, catechists, and lay leaders to draw from these contributions in ethics, theology, and the social sciences to better evaluate the role of religion during the pandemic. In turn, it advocates a questioning of the existing social order, to adapt and develop the Church’s social doctrines into the post-pandemic age.

“This book brings into dialogue two bodies of literature: documents of Catholic social teaching, and modern sociology and its core thinkers and texts...The author does especially well to describe how taking ‘the sociotheological turn’...will benefit the credibility and dissemination of Catholic social thought”.

- Rev. Fr. Thomas Massaro, S.J., Professor of Moral Theology, Jesuit School of Theology, Santa Clara University, Berkeley, California.

Autor*in

Vivencio O. Ballano

Themen in »A Sociotheological Approach to Catholic Social Teaching«

Catholic Social Teaching Regulating Big Pharma Sociotheological Turn Theories on the Common Good COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution and Equality The State and the Common Good Catholic Social Thought and Corporate Social Responsibility Corruption in COVID-19

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