Catholic Social Science Review

Francis Bacon is known for equating knowledge and power. Today, one might interpret his idea of knowledge as an electronic club to manipulate others. In this essay, I examine one’s relation to knowledge in terms of a receptivity that might be described as service. Whether one actually treats another in harmony with relation to knowledge remains, of course, a matter of one’s free will. Nevertheless, at the level of being, the person is more fittingly described as a humble servant of the truth and of one another rather than as a domineering figure seeking to manipulate.

This paper examines ideas in psychology that eclipse a proper understanding of happiness. There are good reasons to believe in the existence of an obligational realm, a metaphysical territory over which a sovereign being rules. Once we recognize the obligational realm’s power, we can help others understand what it calls them to do in their small choices and major life decisions. Unfortunately, the force of the obligational realm is occluded by a social science model rooted in Epicureanism and Liberalism which casts happiness as a function of autonomy and utility. A duty-based conception of decision-making is offered as an alternative.

The former Cardinal McCarrick was often dubbed as the “Kingmaker” for his power to influence episcopal promotion in the United States and even in the Vatican. However, most of the information to support this argument is often lacking in context, making the claim easy to downplay. The purpose of this study is to look at one of the networks of Catholic bishops in the United States and to provide empirical evidence of McCarrick as the “Kingmaker” using social network analysis. The result of this study supports the claim that McCarrick was indeed the “Kingmaker” in his appointments of his former subordinates.

This article explores how social science literature views dogmatism and how the documents of the Catholic Church and her teachings are seldom regarded in the conceptualization of the human person, specifically focusing on the helping professions. This article examines dogmatism from a Catholic anthropological perspective and with a full appreciation for the Catholic intellectual tradition. It will be shown how through basic clinical skills, one can believe the teachings of the Church's Magisterium and still be an effective and ethical counselor. A distinction between beliefs and actions will be made, showing how relativism is not the only acceptable belief system for helping professionals.

This was one of SCSS president Stephen M. Krason’s “Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic” columns that appeared in Crisismagazine.com and The Wanderer. At a time when there is increased discussion about the need for criminal justice reform, he points to several areas that must be addressed: overcriminalization (making illegal too many kinds of actions), vagueness of laws, the decline of mens rea, too much readiness on the part of American police to arrest, excessive incarceration, and prosecutorial abuse.

This was one of SCSS president Stephen M. Krason’s “Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic” columns that appeared in Crisismagazine.com and The Wanderer. It discusses, in brief, the damage done by feminism. It singles out a few areas: the problems caused by the integration of women into the military, the need for a reassessment of women and work, the need to show a renewed respect for women who are full-time mothers, the role of women in the Church, and the need to make the case insistently to women how they have suffered the most from the sexual revolution and contraceptive use

This was one of SCSS president Stephen M. Krason’s “Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic” columns that appeared in The Wanderer. In the wake of the controversy about the integrity and legitimacy of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, which was caused in significant part by changes in voting procedures to make it utterly easy to register and vote and even downplayed voter identification requirements. Krason argues that these changes have been precipitated by the ingraining of the view that voting should be understood as a right and if we think of voting not as a right but a privilege—and a corresponding duty, as a means to check a tendency to overreaching and corrupt government—such problems and abuses could be avoided.