While the Catholic Church has taken a number of steps to create a safe environment for children, its largely procedural approach to the sexual abuse crisis leaves a lot to be desired. If the Catholic Church wants to identify and counteract the elements that precipitated this crisis, it needs to enlist Catholic universities and parents, as universities possess the intellectual resources to understand the crisis in its full depth and breadth and parents are the most capable protectors of children in the Catholic Church. Empowering these two constituencies and relying on them to lead child protection efforts represent the best chance to overcome a legacy of pain and distrust and to create a Church that is nurturing and safe for its children.

Although blame for systemic sexual abuse in the Catholic church primarily rests with the perpetrators and institutional actors who engaged in cover-up, regular people also failed in their duties, both their secular or civil duties and their moral and religious duties. Using the language of social sin, this article examines responsibility for social sin and the structures of sin that contributed to the abuse of children within the church community. Using the tools of Catholic social teaching—especially the framework of “conversion, communion, and solidarity”—the article articulates some tenets of social morality in the wake of sexual abuse and cover-up. A conversion experience is needed to see how ordinary actions unintentionally contribute to injustice and social sin, and how structures of sin lead to intentional decisions that would not otherwise be pursued. Catholic social teaching helps to provide a framework for thinking through some of the obligations of ordinary folks in the aftermath of the collective failure to protect children from abuse and the structural injustices that encouraged it to continue.

This article explores issues surrounding celibacy that have been amplified by the exposure of the sexual abuse crisis within the Catholic Church, which, for some, has called such a lifestyle into question. Taking the view that celibacy can be healthy and life-giving, provided that it is discerned well, the authors consider the ways in which an unintegrated celibate life can and does cause harm and has contributed to the scandal, though not the cause of it in and of itself. Moreover, when celibacy is a gift of the Spirit, it can help to bring about a renewed, deepened understanding of sexuality needed for the Church and the world.

I offer examples of what Catholic liturgical law regards as liturgical abuses. I provide examples of practices that are not formal abuses but raise questions of clericalism, noting that clericalism has contributed to the Catholic sex abuse crisis. I discuss (a) recourse to the tabernacle for distribution of Communion at Mass; (b) reserving one chalice at Mass for the exclusive use of the presider; (c) the installation Mass of Archbishop Nelson Pérez of Philadelphia; and (d) a Mass in Buffalo in the wake of the resignation of then-Bishop Richard Malone. The paper concludes with reflections on what it means to offer worship to God that is necessarily imperfect.

In North America, across the political spectrum, we have a strong tendency to reduce religion to nothing more than a tool to promote our own socio-political views. This is a natural consequence of our hyper-polarized culture and our impoverished view of “religion.” It is also, however, a problem—particularly for those inspired by the call to renewal through an integration of the quest for social justice and the pursuit of the spiritual life. By focusing on the value of participating in religious liturgy, I show how a renewed respect for religion can help the proponents of social justice fulfil some of the foundational desires of the original movement and, thereby, to bring to fruition some of its dormant promise. This includes, in particular, the desire for social harmony and the desire to pay greater attention to our concrete reality.

After three years of political turmoil, the USCCB decided to reissue its 2015 statement Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship. The document lacks theological clarity and reduces all considerations to a narrow set of moral issues. This essay argues that the bishops have an understated framework for robust participation. By analyzing the papal sources cited in Faithful Citizenship and considering the recent insights from contemporary scholars, the author urges the bishops to remain engaged, include the faithful, maintain social teaching, and, at the very least, describe their theological rationale. Above all, the risks remain too great to continue repeating the current iteration of Faithful Citizenship, as they have done for the past three election cycles. The nation’s divisions, injustices, and crises make the bishops’ future work an urgent responsibility.

A pastoral response to challenges faced by lay leaders in a Catholic parish that has experienced an allegation of sexual abuse and the subsequent removal of a priest is described. Organized around a theological reflection, the four-part program draws on the Book of Lamentations and a contemporary understanding of the grieving process mediated by Jewish mourning practices.

This paper explores the reasons that led many Catholics to support the candidacy of Donald Trump in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections in the United States and the role played by the leadership of the U.S. Catholic bishops in the electoral process. Also explored are the outlines of an alternative approach, shaped by the more holistic “consistent ethic of life” contained in the teachings of Pope Francis. Attention is given to how this Francis-inspired alternative could provide a model for more constructive and prophetic engagement of the U.S. Catholic Church in the political arena. Brief profiles are presented of several U.S. Catholic bishops modeling this more holistic approach.

The global pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus has disrupted many sectors of normal life, including the communal worship of religious bodies. This essay first looks at the recent case of the Minnesota Catholic bishops and the Governor of Minnesota which came close to civil disobedience. Then the essay will consider the thought of John Courtney Murray on when it is legitimate for the coercive powers of the state to be used to limit religious freedom, including the right to worship. Finally, those standards are applied to the Minnesota case, arguing that the initial actions of the Governor failed to meet Murray’s test, while the revised executive order succeeded in meeting Murray’s standards.

Solidarity is one of the primary principles of Catholic Social Teaching. Pope Francis invoked it and called for prayer and fasting in his August 20, 2018 letter addressing the sexual abuse scandal and attendant cover-up in the church. Offering some thoughts regarding what the duty of solidarity requires in light of the Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal and subsequent cover-up, this article suggests a number of concrete things that lay Catholics can do in claiming our place as church.

In 2020, it is clear that racism must be a moral priority for white American Catholics, as for all white Americans. To face racism maturely, our consciences need more robust formation than we received as children preparing for First Reconciliation—or as adolescents at Confirmation, when we were instructed that we must be prepared to act boldly to defend our commitment to Christ. One way to build a racially-mature conscience is to seek feedback from anti-racism accountability partners, as the author did. Another is to explore the distinction in Catholic moral theology between invincible and vincible ignorance—what we can know and what we cannot—in order to discern whether an action or inaction is moral. Much of what liberal whites claim we can’t know without input from Blacks is readily available if we have ears to hear.

Sounding the call for an integral human development, CST invites considering the subsidiary nature of relationships at multiple levels of society as a spiritual matter. Drawing from diverse sources in theology, relational sociology, and evolutionary biology, this essay explores Catholic educational institutions and their role in fostering the moral agency of students and faculty. In the face of epidemiological evidence of the social ills of economic inequality, the question becomes: Do we have the freedom to imagine an alternative to current trends in the commodification of education? The partnership of Catholic Relief Services and the university offers hope as a relational subject from which emerges the good of mutuality. Integrating student experiences from the classroom to the field, this essay advances the development of a “pedagogy of liminal mutuality” in the reciprocal practices of solidarity-building at and from the margins.

Since 2000, Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and the University of Notre Dame (Notre Dame) have collaborated on joint programs while growing their institutional partnership. The relationship started with capacity strengthening of CRS peacebuilding staff and partners by Notre Dame faculty, based on common values enshrined in Catholic social teaching. Over time, the collaboration expanded as staff at each institution developed a better understanding of each other’s respective objectives, and experienced increasing mutual benefit. The partnership grew further as both institutions responded to external pressures from donors for universities and NGOs to work more closely together for greater field impact and evidence generation. Lessons learned from the partnership helped to guide both institution’s interactions with each other. From the initial task-oriented collaboration (capacity strengthening) that provided the institutions with associational value, CRS and Notre Dame gradually progressed toward deeper phases of partnership including resource transfer, interaction and achieving synergistic value.

This paper presents the “signs of the times” methodology and proposes its use as an appropriate pedagogical tool for contemporary practical theology, particularly in the area of social justice. The author presents three examples of the application of the method by students in theological formation for the Augustinian Order, and also provides an explanation of the method’s suitability for other Catholic traditions and Christian denominations.

This paper highlights the partnership approach to mission adopted by the Atlantic-Midwest Province of the School Sisters of Notre Dame (AMSSND), which is working to empower the people of Haiti through collaboration with Beyond Borders, an established NGO in the region. I explore this approach in light of the spirituality of St. Augustine that grounds the charism of unity of the School Sisters of Notre Dame (SSND). Examining the connections between Augustine and the mission and ministry of the SSND community, through reflecting on the ways partnership has been an effective means of engaging the SSND mission of facilitating unity, or “oneness,” illuminates helpful ways to conceive of solidarity.

This paper argues that Simone Weil developed an anthropology of the human condition that is a radical ontology of the human spirit rooted in reality. Weil begins her account from the real, but this real is not only the historical or social reality. It is also what is true about the human person as a created being in connection with the transcendent reality. She believes that affliction reveals the human condition and provides an openness to transcendence in which the individual finds the meaning of the human operation of spirit. Therefore, Weil’s radical ontology is based on a philosophy of the human being as an agent rooted in the world. In order to be rooted, a human being needs decreation (the creation of a new human) and incarnation (cross and love in the world). In her radical ontology derived from attention to the real, Weil argues for an active incarnation in social reality that recognizes others, especially the unfortunates, for the purpose of empowering them and promoting their dignity. Her radical ontology incarnates the human in the world between necessity and good, that is, between the natural and the supernatural.

The author situates the question of praxis in theological methodology and Catholic Social Teaching in relation to teaching ethics courses in Catholic higher education. The author uses a genealogical strategy to show that Cardinal Joseph Cardijn’s See-Judge-Act methodology of theological praxis has become canonical in Catholic Social Teaching. The author shows that advocates of Cardijn’s methodology include Pope Pius XI, Pope Pius XII, Saint Pope John XXIII, Pope Paul VI, and Pope Francis. In addition, the author shows that Cardijn’s methodology is used by the committee that drafts Schema XIII, the Conciliar document that becomes Gaudium et Spes. Besides its use in a Western European Catholic Context the author explains that Cardijn’s methodology of theological praxis is appropriated at the Consejo Episcopal Latinoamericano in Medellin, Colombia (1968); Puebla, Mexico (1979); and Aparecida, Brazil (2007). The author also explains how Cardijn’s methodology of theological praxis is integrated in ethics courses in order to develop students’ ability to discern whether a current business, healthcare, or environmental practice is a sign of the kingdom of God or the anti-kingdom. For the author, Cardijn’s methodology of theological praxis leads students to new insight about realities they are unaware and introduces them to the countercultural wisdom of the Catholic intellectual tradition, as well as the importance of moving beyond critical theological reflection and into the realm of social action.

While many believe that service should be connected to the religious identity of Catholic colleges and universities, little research has been done to see if this is in fact the case. To test this commonly-held belief, we surveyed students at and gathered information about twenty-six different Catholic campuses in the United States. We find no correlation between students’ frequency of service and their perception of Catholic identity. In addition, we find that students perceive their school to be less Catholic the more institutions link service to Catholicism. The only characteristic of service that is positively correlated with Catholic identity is the percentage of service learning courses offered. In other words, students do not see anything intrinsically Catholic about volunteering, but rather that Catholicism means that you should volunteer more. We believe this suggests how Catholic colleges and universities can link service to their Catholic identity.

In his 2017 TED Talk, Pope Francis invited his viewers to a “revolution of tenderness” through “love that comes close and becomes real.” Responding to that call, this article argues that Francis’s assertion that “mercy is doctrine” means that the substance of theology and its teaching requires a conversion of the minds and hearts of both students and teachers to paths wherein one might encounter the God of Mercy. After touching upon particular challenges facing teachers of theology in an undergraduate classroom, the article outlines Francis’s theological framework which both stands upon the tradition of Ignatian spirituality and justifies his using the weight of the papacy to reorient the church’s vision toward mercy and the margins. Finally, this article considers Pope Francis’s pastoral call to mercy theology might nourish undergraduate students’ imaginations and make merciful action intelligible, spiritually meaningful, and attractive.

Grace is hardly mentioned in the canon of Catholic social teaching. When grace is invoked, it is typically discussed as a gift for personal sanctification, but not a relationship empowering human and divine cooperation for social and ecological responsibility. This essay examines the limited treatment of grace in Catholic social teaching outside of Familiaris consortio and Amoris laetitia before proposing that the traditional emphasis on grace at work in family life can be a model for more intentionally partnering with grace beyond family life. Reclaiming grace as a relationship for cooperation provides a framework for practicing the principles of Catholic social teaching in order to effect change in family life, in local faith communities, and through Catholic NGOs that forge international connections. Grace thus inspires a template for moral formation from the ground up that emphasizes shared practices for participating in “social grace” (in contrast to “social sin”) for integral flourishing as envisioned in Catholic social teaching.