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Author: Clarke E. Cochran
Publisher: Orbis Books
Published: 2003-01-01
Total Pages: 340
ISBN-13: 1570754578
DOWNLOAD EBOOKTwo political scientists show how principles of Catholic social teaching apply to contemporary political issues.
Author: Kristin E. Heyer
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
Published: 2008
Total Pages: 249
ISBN-13: 158901216X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDepicts the ambivalent character of Catholics' mainstream 'arrival' in the US, integrating social scientific, historical and moral accounts of persistent tensions between faith and power. This work describes the implications of Catholic universalism for voting patterns, international policymaking, and partisan alliances.
Author: Kristin E. Heyer
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
Published: 2008-10-29
Total Pages: 249
ISBN-13: 158901653X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKCatholic political identity and engagement defy categorization. The complexities of political realities and the human nature of such institutions as church and government often produce a more fractured reality than the pure unity depicted in doctrine. Yet, in 2003 under the leadership of then-prefect Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a "Doctrinal Note on Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life." The note explicitly asserts, "The Christian faith is an integral unity, and thus it is incoherent to isolate some particular element to the detriment of the whole of Catholic doctrine. A political commitment to a single isolated aspect of the Church's social doctrine does not exhaust one's responsibility toward the common good." Catholics and Politics takes up the political and theological significance of this "integral unity," the universal scope of Catholic concern that can make for strange political bedfellows, confound predictable voting patterns, and leave the church poised to critique narrowly partisan agendas across the spectrum. Catholics and Politics depicts the ambivalent character of Catholics' mainstream "arrival" in the U.S. over the past forty years, integrating social scientific, historical and moral accounts of persistent tensions between faith and power. Divided into four parts—Catholic Leaders in U.S. Politics; The Catholic Public; Catholics and the Federal Government; and International Policy and the Vatican—it describes the implications of Catholic universalism for voting patterns, international policymaking, and partisan alliances. The book reveals complex intersections of Catholicism and politics and the new opportunities for influence and risks of cooptation of political power produced by these shifts. Contributors include political scientists, ethicists, and theologians. The book will be of interest to scholars in political science, religious studies, and Christian ethics and all lay Catholics interested in gaining a deeper understanding of the tensions that can exist between church doctrine and partisan politics.
Author: Gregory Allen Smith
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
Published: 2008-03-29
Total Pages: 273
ISBN-13: 1589013891
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFor well over a century the Catholic Church has articulated clear positions on many issues of public concern, particularly economics, capital punishment, foreign affairs, sexual morality, and abortion. Yet the fact that some of the Church's positions do not mesh well with the platforms of either of the two major political parties in the U.S. may make it difficult for Americans to look to Catholic doctrine for political guidance. Scholars of religion and politics have long recognized the potential for clergy to play an important role in shaping the voting decisions and political attitudes of their congregations, yet these assumptions of political influence have gone largely untested and undemonstrated. Politics in the Parish is the first empirical examination of the role Catholic clergy play in shaping the political views of their congregations. Gregory Allen Smith draws from recent scholarship on political communication, and the comprehensive Notre Dame Study of Parish Life, as well as case studies he conducted in nine parishes in the mid-Atlantic region, to investigate the extent to which and the circumstances under which Catholic priests are influential in shaping the politics of their parishioners. Smith is able to verify that clergy do exercise political influence, but he makes clear that such influence is likely to be nuanced, limited in magnitude, and exercised indirectly by shaping parishioner religious attitudes that in turn affect political behavior. He shows that the messages that priests deliver vary widely, even radically, from parish to parish and priest to priest. Consequently, he warns that scholars should exercise caution when making any global assumptions about the political influence that Catholic clergy affect upon their congregations.
Author: Mary T. Hanna
Publisher: Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press
Published: 1979
Total Pages: 280
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDespite the constitutional division of church and state, the impact of Catholics on American politics in the 1960s and 1970s has been remarkable--as the names of the Kennedys, Eugene McCarthy, Thomas "Tip" O'Neill, Peter Rodino, Thomas Eagleton, the Berrigan brothers, and Cesar Chavez will attest. In this portrait of American Catholicism, Mary Hanna intensely analyzes the political influence of this enormously complex organization. She focuses on the role of the Church in providing the means for an ethnic group to challenge and contribute to the values of the larger society. Hanna recognizes that the Church is constantly striving to maintain a balance between changing social conditions and the principles of faith. In her analysis of the dynamics of this balance, she asks, for example, why the Church has had such influence on its members on the question of abortion, but has been somewhat less effective on questions relating to minority welfare. Interviews with working-class leaders in Catholic "ethnic" communities provide a new understanding of the complexities of Catholic feeling on these timely issues. Hanna's chapter on the subtleties of the abortion issue, as interpreted by church leaders, Catholic politicians, and the lay population, is a model of scholarship. This study applies the methods of quantification, survey research, and interviewing to public policy, and yields unexpected results. For example, despite Catholics' stereotyped image as conservative and antiprogressive, Hanna shows that Catholic voters are very liberal on the subject of government's role in solving problems related to the general welfare-health care, the environment, education, crime, drug addiction. She also finds upward mobility in Catholics' education and especially their income. This work combines data from national surveys with personal interviews of clergymen and other Catholic public figures. Hanna's comprehensiveness, documentation, and innovation make this a searching analysis of contemporary American Catholicism.
Author: Clarke E. Cochran
Publisher: Orbis Books
Published: 2003-01-01
Total Pages: 340
ISBN-13: 160833399X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKTwo political scientists show how principles of Catholic social teaching apply to contemporary political issues.
Author: Timothy A. Byrnes
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2014-07-14
Total Pages: 188
ISBN-13: 140086237X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKOver the past twenty years the American Catholic bishops have played a leading role in the antiabortion movement, published lengthy and highly detailed pastoral letters on nuclear weapons and on the American economy, and involved themselves, collectively and individually, in several national election campaigns. What is the source of the sometimes controversial political role of these religious leaders? Timothy Byrnes proposes a new answer in this lucid description of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and its activities. He demonstrates that the key to the political role of the bishops and other modern American religious leaders has been political change, rather than religious revival. Originally published in 1991. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Author: Nicholas P. Cafardi
Publisher: Paulist Press
Published: 2012
Total Pages: 384
ISBN-13: 1616431407
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA collection of essays by noted Catholic scholars on how Catholics should participate in the political process.
Author: James Hitchcock
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
Published: 2016-11-30
Total Pages: 234
ISBN-13: 141286383X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThroughout its history the Catholic Church has taken positions on many subjects that are in one sense political, but in another sense are primarily moral, such as contraception, homosexuality, and divorce. One such issue, abortion, has split not only the United States, but Catholics as well. Catholics had to confront these issues within the framework of a democratic society that had no official religion. Abortion, Religious Freedom, and Catholic Politics is a study of opposing American Catholic approaches to abortion, especially in terms of laws and government policies. After the ruling of Roe vs. Wade, many pro-life advocates no longer felt their sentiments and moral code aligned with Democrats. For the first time, Catholics, as an entire group, became involved in U.S. politics. Abortion became one of the principal points of division in American Catholicism: a widening split between liberal Catholic Democrats who sought to minimize the issue and other Catholics, many of them politically liberal, whose pro-life commitments caused them to support Republicans. James Hitchcock discusses the 2016 presidential campaign and how it altered an already changed political landscape. He also examines the Affordable Care Act, LGBT rights, and the questions they raise about religious liberty.
Author: Chris Korzen
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Published: 2009-04-15
Total Pages: 178
ISBN-13: 0470370211
DOWNLOAD EBOOKOn the eve of the most important presidential election in decades, A NATION FOR ALL sounds the trumpet to the tens of millions of U.S. Catholics who have refused to buy the notion that people of faith must subscribe to the narrow agenda of the far right. By shining the light of authentic Catholic teaching on pressing contemporary concerns like war, human dignity, poverty, and the looming global climate crisis, this book shows Catholics how their own faith tradition calls them to tackle a sweeping array of issues commonly left out of the faith and politics dialog. Most important, A NATION FOR ALL demonstrates how the core Catholic and Christian belief in promoting the common good can provide Americans of all faith traditions with a much-needed solution to the downward spiral of greed, materialism, and excessive individualism.
