Catholic Social Teaching and Healthcare: Some Reservations

The author considers the capacity of Catholic Social Teaching(CST) to contribute to the public debate about health care andthen remarks on the capacity of CST to assist in the formationof "intentionally Christian institutions." The author arguesfor two main points. First, there are some serious obscuritiesin CST's account of the derivation and interrelation of variousrights. Hence, it is not altogether clear what ideal CST isseeking to promote in the public order. Second, the author arguesthat there is a serious political conflict in CST's commitmentto both subsidiarity and the preferential option for the poor.He also claims that it does not follow from these criticismsthat CST is useless as a guide for the formation of "intentionallyChristian institutions." Reflection on financing in the lightof subsidiarity and the preferential option suggests that thereis a need for Christian wealth-producing institutions and schemesof investment that will provide subsidium for healthcare enterprises.In the final portion of the paper, the author sketches out afew dimensions of that sort of vision.     

Catholic health care: rationale for ministry.

This essay attempts to describe contemporary Catholic sponsored health care in the United States and to describe the purpose and structure of these particular Christian charitable organizations within the broader society. As health care has become more complex, critics claim that there is not a need for Catholic sponsored health care any longer. The author attempts to evaluate critically whether Catholic health care has a place in contemporary society. He reviews some salient biblical, ecclesial, and justice teachings of the Church to demonstrate why religious institutional presence is still needed. The author reviews contemporary health care structures to show how this is accomplished. He also uncovers additional issues which need to be addressed in order for these charitable institutions to carry on the ministry of the Church, to shape social structures, and to proclaim the reign of God.     

A noble quest: cultivating Christian spirituality in Catholic adolescents and the usefulness of 12 pastoral practices

The essay considers the process of cultivating Christian spirituality in Catholic adolescents. It will integrate and document official Catholic Church teachings on the subject and also unofficial scholarly reflections. The exposé briefly defines adolescent spirituality and situates the process of cultivating adolescent spirituality in Catholic youth ministry. The concentration of the inquiry is predominantly single‐minded – addressing briefly – 12 Catholic spiritual virtues, traits, practices, and disciplines that cultivate adolescent spirituality in US Catholic young people.     

Managed Care, Catholic Vision, and the Claims of Justice

There are numerous challenges posed to Roman Catholic healthcare institutions by recent developments in health care delivery.Some are practical, involving the acceptable limits of accommodationto and collaboration with secular networks of health care delivery.Others, quite often implicated in the first set, are explicitlytheological. What does it mean to be a distinctively Roman Catholichealth care institution? What are the nature and the scope ofRoman Catholic institutional identity? More broadly, what isthe moral relevance of themes in Roman Catholic social teachingto the provision of health care? This issue of Christian Bioethicsaddresses these questions with a spirited exchange among itsauthors. They offer noticeably different perspectives on thegeneral cogency of Roman Catholic social teaching and differentstrategic recommendations for Roman Catholic institutions tomaintain, or recover, their distinctive presence in health caredelivery.     

Ethical issues in managed care: a Catholic Christian perspective.

A Christian analysis of the moral conflicts that exist among physicians and health care institutions requires a detailed treatment of the ethical issues in managed care. To be viable, managed care, as with any system of health care, must be economically sound and morally defensible. While managed care is per se a morally neutral concept, as it is currently practiced in the United States, it is morally dubious at best, and in many instances is antithetical to a Catholic Christian ethics of health care. The moral status of any system of managed care ought to be judged with respect to its congruence with Gospel teachings about the care of the sick, Papal Encyclicals, and the documents of the Second Vatican Council. In this essay, I look at the important conceptual or definitional issues of managed care, assess these concerns over against the source and content of a Catholic ethic of health care, and outline the necessary moral requirements of any licit system of health care.     

Religion and Public Health: Moral Tradition as Both Problem and Solution

Despite strong religious influence in the development of medicine and medical ethics, religion has been relatively absent in the rise of preventive medicine and population health. Episodic, clinical medicine has a powerful hold on the religious imagination in health care. Nevertheless, Hebrew Scripture, elements of rabbinical teaching, and modern concepts of social justice all can be used to inspire action in health care that goes beyond clinical medicine. The Christian tradition can call upon the corporal works of mercy, virtue ethics, and Catholic social teaching, as well as the modern history Catholic sisters in the U.S. to do the same. By considering the moral imperative for public health, Jewish and Christian individuals and organizations reaffirm the notion that the human person is both sacred and social. This article suggests a need for religious traditions to consider their moral traditions anew with an eye toward prevention and population health.

     

ROADS TO RECONCILIATION: AN EMERGING PARADIGM OF AFRICAN THEOLOGY

The heart of contemporary African Christian theology is the notion of “reconciliation.” Contextualizing this movement, the article begins by surveying the three major theological paradigms—inculturation, liberation, and reconstruction—that shaped post‐colonial African theology. Drawing on the writings of Desmond Tutu, John Rucyahana and Emmanuel Katongole and three grassroots reconciliation ministries, I delineate four principles of African reconciliation theology: interdependence, prophetic advocacy, holistic transformation, and alternative Christian community. The article concludes by addressing outstanding challenges of memory, justice, brokenness, and pluralism and considers how the Catholic sacrament of reconciliation could offer further theological resources for the emerging paradigm.     

Christian Bioethics in Europe: In Defense against Reductionist Influences from the United States

Christian ideas have continued to inspire European bioethicsuntil now. The central thesis of this essay is that the open-mindednessof Roman Catholic and other Christian denominations in Europeis crucial for understanding why Christian ethics is so wellintegrated in the European culture. The essay describes firstthe institutional frameworks in which these Christian mainlyRoman Catholic ideas are developed. It analyzes further thedifference between the secular Anglo-American and European bioethicsas it has been influenced by these Christian ideas. It finallysummarizes the challenges to which Europe's Christian bioethicalidentity is presently exposed to. The essay states that theChristian inspiration of European bioethics is mainly connectedwith the ideologically moderate, tolerant, and dialogical participationof Christian bioethicists in the bioethical debate in Europe.     

Understanding equality in health care: a Christian free-market approach.

This paper examines the arguments presented by the Roman Catholic Bishops in their 1993 Pastoral Resolution, Comprehensive Health Care Reform: Protecting Human Life, Promoting Human Dignity, Pursuing the Common Good, concerning health care reform. Focusing on the meaning of equality in health care and traditional Roman Catholic doctrine, it is argued that the Bishops fail to grasp the force of the differences among persons, the value of the market, and traditional scholastic arguments concerning obligatory and extraordinary health care. To attempt to equalize the distribution of health care would be ruinous. A more traditional understanding of Christian thought reveals an acceptance of inequality in health care distribution and a bias against using the secular state to coerce a solution to such concerns for social justice.     

The non-Christian influence on Anselm’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Proslogion</Emphasis> argument

This paper considers Anselm’s Proslogion argument against a background of historical events that include philosophical disputes between Christian and Jewish polemicists. I argue that the Proslogion argument was addressed, in part, to non-Christian theists and that it offered a response to Jewish polemicists who had argued that the Christian conception of God as an instantiated unity was irrational. Anselm is not trying to convince atheists that there really is a God. He is arguing that the Christian conception of God is logically coherent.     

The Bible, Knowledge of God and Dei Verbum

How may an inquiring person fittingly look upon the Bible? In what manner can a person's attention to the Bible assist them to knowledge? For a Catholic Christian analysis, what ideas are suitable about the place of the Bible in relations between God and humans, and in appropriation by a person today of whatever divine disclosure or revelation is at hand? This article outlines reflections on these matters. Links are apparent with key points in Vatican II’s Dei Verbum. The first of four sections concerns a fundamentalist outlook. Section II has to do with certain limited but significant ways in which a person may look on the Bible: ways similar to ways in which a person may look on other texts. Section III pauses on inquiries into ‘deep, inner’ matters of life where the person inquiring does not proceed from a perspective of Catholic Christian faith. Section IV surveys a broad range of thoughts that may aptly be endorsed from within a perspective of Catholic Christian faith. The thoughts concern the nature of the situation by which a Catholic Christian person today can advance in knowledge of God: in appropriation of divine disclosure. Ways in which a person may look on the Bible that go beyond those exhibited earlier are now made explicit. (The article fully allows that numerous views held by one or another follower of Jesus who does not adhere to Roman Catholicism may, in respects at stake, harmonize with a Catholic Christian faith‐perspective.)     

Catholics and the Christian Right: A View from Four States

Christian Right Organizations in the 1990s have tried to avoid the pitfalls for the religious particularism that undermined the earlier efforts of such groups as Moral Majority to build long lasting political coalitions. For many Christian Right leaders, conservative Catholics appear to be a particularly appealing group to reach for membership recruitment and political coalition-building. Yet such leading groups as the Christian Coalition have largely experienced disappointment with such efforts.
This essay presents data that offer reasons why conservative Catholics might be willing to form political coalitions with activists of the Christian Right but remain reluctant to join Christian Right organizations. The findings are based on a large survey of Republican party state convention delegates in four states. The data show that Catholic delegates hold very conservative issue positions in line with Christian Right organizations, and have positive feelings toward Christian Right leaders and organizations. Yet Catholic delegates hold somewhat distinctive positions among Republicans on certain issues, and therefore remain reluctant to join the Christian Coalition and other such groups.     

Revisionist practical theology and the meaning of public discourse

The author asks how practical theology can help a pluralist public by encouraging a public discussion of value issues. The aim of practical theology is to allow practice to inform theory; he seeks to allow the pastoral and religious praxis of the Christian life and the social, cultural, and political praxis of the wider society to inform each other, and thus practical theology. He begins by stating his assumptions, i.e., his way of understanding the issue of human responsibility in American society, and goes on to suggest religious and theological resources for responding to his questions. He distinguishes three realms comprising our society and suggests that there are value questions demanding discussion that may be differentiated in each as well as appropriate ways of discussing these questions.He is a Roman Catholic priest and has publishedBlessed Rage for Order: The New Pluralism in Theology.     

ALTRUISM AND CHRISTIAN LOVE

Abstract. Sociobiological theories have had little impact on Christian concepts of neighbor love. Since sociobiological theories of altruism depict love as a form of egoistic interest in enhancing one's general fitness, they are often thought to contradict Christian theories of love. However, altruism as defined by sociobiology has more affinity with Roman Catholic views of Christian love as caritas than Protestant views of extreme agape. Sociobiological views of altruism may provide more updated models for defining the orders and priorities of love, which has been an important aspect of Roman Catholic ethics. The family's role in mediating between kin altruism and wider love for the community is investigated.     

Feeling good,living life: a spiritual health measure for young children

Following previous work on the spiritual health of secondary students, the author wondered if it was possible to develop a spiritual health measure for younger children. Taking Fisher's model of spiritual health as the basis, items were developed to reflect relationships with self, with others, with the environment and with a god. The children's ideals for spiritual health (what makes them Feel Good) were compared with their lived experience (Living Life) to ascertain their levels of spiritual health. Factor analyses on responses from 1080 students in 14 schools (State, Catholic, Independent and Christian Community Schools) in Victoria and Western Australia are reported in this paper.     

Called to be holy: the transformative potential of Christian service programmes in Catholic schools

This is the second in a series of four papers which seeks to articulate theologically and practically the consequences of the ecclesial identity of the Catholic school. The series is based on the principle that the ‘marks’ of the Church – one, holy, catholic, and apostolic – are also marks of the Catholic school, since the Catholic school is within the Church and derives its ecclesial identity from the Church. Each paper analyses one of these ‘marks’, discerning what it means theologically and practically for the Catholic school. In this paper, the second of the marks of the Church and therefore of the Catholic school – holiness – is discussed in terms of what it means to be, and to continually become, holy. In reference to a current research project, Christian service programmes in Catholic schools are analysed in regard to what they already contribute to the formation in holiness of Catholic students, but also in terms of what more they may become. It is argued that for their potential for growth in holiness for teachers and students to be fully realised, Christian service programmes need to be more than just charitable works, and that they need to engage critically with inequity and injustice in keeping with the Church’s radical social teaching.     

How Christian upbringing divides the religious nones in Britain: exploring the imprints of Christian upbringing in the 2016 EU referendum

ABSTRACT

Over the last few decades, Britain has witnessed a significant decline in Christian affiliation and the corresponding growth in the number of religiously unaffiliated individuals. Relatively little attention has, however, been paid to ‘former Christians’ who were brought up in a Christian household but now identify as having no religion. This study focuses on the effects of Christian upbringing on the voting behaviour of religious nones in the EU referendum of 2016. Using data from the 2016 British Social Attitudes survey, the empirical analysis in this article examines the socio-cultural characteristics of Anglican, Catholic, and ‘Other Christian’ households as well as their role in shaping the voting turnout and the voting intentions of individuals who are religiously unaffiliated. The results suggest that Anglican upbringing and Catholic upbringing serve as salient proxies for national identities among the secular groups. Additionally, in the EU referendum, the voting behaviour of religious nones with different kinds of Christian upbringing was very distinct. This reveals that religious upbringing is a source of within-group variety among British religious nones and that Britain’s Christian heritage still has important socio-political implications despite the decrease in the country’s Christian population.     

Jewish and Roman Catholic approaches to access to health care and rationing

In addressing issues of access to health care and rationing, Jewish and Roman Catholic writers identify similar guiding values and specific concerns. Moral thinkers in each tradition tend to support the guarantee of universal access to at least a basic level of health care for all members of society, based on such values as human dignity, justice, and healing. Catholic writers are more likely to frame their arguments in terms of the common good and to be more accepting of rationing that denies beneficial and needed health care to some persons. Jewish writers are more likely to consider individual responsibility for illness in allocation decisions and to accept differences in health care that different members of society receive. The article considers the relevance of both shared and complementary perspectives for deliberations in nations such as the United States.     

The Eastern Catholic Churches and the paradox of Vatican II

The author investigates the challenges to Catholic ecclesiology presented by two Eastern Catholic Churches – the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and the Melkite Greek Catholic Church – as they assert prerogatives validated by the teachings of Vatican II. In their reception of the Council these Churches highlight the need to develop the Trinitarian and Eucharistic ecclesiology rediscovered by the Council. This practical development is mirrored in the progress of the International Roman Catholic–Orthodox Dialogue and the teachings of Pope John Paul II. Although a final resolution still awaits, it is evident in the treatment of the Eastern Catholics by the Vatican that reception of the Council demands a renewed understanding of the mutual interdependence of primacy and conciliarity. Such a development will only hasten Christian reunification.