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This unique, unprecedented document in the history of the Church serves as a tool to inspire and guide the faithful who are faced with moral and pastoral challenges.

The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church attempts to do for the Roman Catholic Church's Social Doctrine, what the Catechism of the Catholic Church does for its overall faith.

Structure and Writing

Unfortunately, this "Social Catechism" is neither as well organised nor (at least in English) as well written as the CCC. The nature of the Compendium as a synthesis of underlying authoritative Church documents shows through much more than in the CCC, with the result it feels more broken and uneven when reading it right though. A semi-technical vocabulary is also used in parts, with words such as "integral" and "subjective" being used in a technical sense, which can be confusing on first reading.

However, on the flip side, the Compendium does contain a vast array of in text footnotes to Church documents, particularly the recent Papal Magisterium. Further, to assist in its use as a reference guide to the Church's teaching, it contains an extensive Table of Contents, Index of References, and Analytical Index.

References

The range of sources referenced, including in respect of very practical applications of the Church's teachings, is indeed perhaps the greatest strength of this volume (even including quite low level and obscure Papal teachings, from things such as speeches for various events). A potential improvement for future volumes may well however include the extension of the sources referenced to the various documents of local Churches and Bishops Conferences, whose level of authority is very little less than some of the minor Papal teachings referenced, but whose scope would provide a greater level of understanding of how the Church has applied its teachings to various practical matters over the years.

Relationship to Hot Button Topics

The recent statement of Pope Francis, that:

“The dogmatic and moral teachings of the church are not all equivalent. The Church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently. Proclamation in a missionary style focuses on the essentials, on the necessary things: this is also what fascinates and attracts more, what makes the heart burn, as it did for the disciples at Emmaus.

“We have to find a new balance; otherwise even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards, losing the freshness and fragrance of the Gospel. The proposal of the Gospel must be more simple, profound, radiant. It is from this proposition that the moral consequences then flow.”

Applies as much to the Church's Social Doctrine as it does its teachings on "hot button" personal morality. Similarly, just as with the Church's teaching on personal morality, its Social Doctrine relies heavily on the natural law.

Accordingly, while the introduction to the Compendium makes much of the Social Doctrine's place in evangelisation, in truth it must take second place to the kerygma. While it is undoubtedly true the Social Doctrine will bring some people to the Church, just as the teaching on say abortion does in some cases, this will generally be taking the teachings the wrong way around (i.e. an acceptance of the person and Gospel of Christ first, followed by moral / ethical teachings, seems more logical).

However, again on the flip side, it also follows that the Social Doctrine is a positive sense the equal of the Church's teaching on personal morality. From this acceptance, it seems clear that the so called "Seamless Garment" / "Consistent Ethic of Life" approach must be preferred in the public square, due to its theological coherence. While this approach has been rejected in the past due to its perceived political incoherence (i.e. talking about everything means you talk about nothing from a political point of view), if a choice must be made, theological coherence must be considered more important to the Church than political coherence.

Content of the Teachings

The Truth of the Gospel does shine in the Social Doctrine included in the compendium. Its strong focus on the dignity of the human person is particularly heartwarming, and provides a strong basis for its practical recommendations. This perspective has I think been missing from recent rebates around matters such as climate change, which can get stuck in battles between purely economic ideas and gaia theory type pantheism.

Pope Francis' upcoming document on the environment will therefore be a welcome addition to both the compendium, when it is next revised, as well as the global debate on these matters.

Moreover, while the Social Doctrine often gets a bad rap from conservative Catholics, I think a reading of the compendium shows this is unjustified. While the Social Doctrine is not consistent with an Ayn Rand libertarian, it is very clearly consistent with the Tradition of the Church, as well as with the use of markets and capitalism as tools (though not as idolised ends).

Finally, while the Social Doctrine appears to have a very recent start date, being the publication by Pope Leo XIII of Rerum Novarum in 1891, a close reading of the compendium show this to be a function of the novel state of the world post the Industrial Revolution, rather than the doctrine itself being particularly novel.

Many of the matters addressed by the compendium did not exist in the same form before the Industrial Revolution, such that a need for an integrated teaching naturally arose at a particularly point in history, which did not exist previously. For example, the same may well occur in the future, in the unlikely event the world ever reaches say a post-scarcity economic state, for which equally novel approaches will undoubtedly be required to replace what is in the current compendium. ( )