Cover of Catholic Social Science Review
Already a subscriber? - Login here
Not yet a subscriber? - Subscribe here

Browse by:



Displaying: 1-20 of 35 documents


part i - symposia
1. Catholic Social Science Review: Volume > 8
Vincent Jeffries The Nature of Integralism
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
This article is an introduction to a symposium on integralism. To clarify the nature of integralism, Pitirim A. Sorokin's ideas regarding culture types, their corresponding systems of truth and knowledge, and integralism as an innovative ontology and epistemology are described. The reasons why integralism should be considered an incipient paradigm in the social sciences are advanced. The remaining articles in the symposium are summarized in terms of the various projects necessary to establish integralism as a viable tradition of thought in the social sciences.
2. Catholic Social Science Review: Volume > 8
Lisa Lickona The Christocentrism of Pope John Paul II: Foundation for a "Catholic Integralism"
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
More than one writer in the field of social science has advocated the Integralisnn of Pitirim Sorokin as a worthy starting point for development of an epistemology that might serve the work of the Catholic social scientist. Because Sorokin's Integralism provides a theory of truth that embraces supernatural knowledge and an epistemology that makes room for the act of faith, his theory is of particular interest to Catholic scholars. The purpose of this paper is to present the sources for such a "Catholic variant" of Integralism in the works of Pope John Paul II, particularly his encyclical Fides et Ratio.
3. Catholic Social Science Review: Volume > 8
Guillermo Montes Is a Catholic Economics Possible?
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
This paper examines the assumptions and methods of modern economic theory to address the question of whether a Catholic economics is possible. It considers an alternative to contemporary secular economic approaches that prevail in the discipline and suggests how a Catholic economics can be achieved,
4. Catholic Social Science Review: Volume > 8
Barry V. Johnston Sin and Sociology: The Loss and Potential Recovery of a Concept
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
Sociology was bom in and has experienced its greatest intellectual growth during times of rapid social change Jhe questions driving sociologists emerged fromthe end of feudalism to the institutionalization of modernity The discipline thrived as an academic effort to uncover and explain the logic and dynamics of these changes. The most widely used models and methods were taken from the natural sciences and became the exemplars for the development of sociology. Empiricism and rationality are still the dominant tools used by sociologists to understand yet a new world. Humans are reduced to categories and numbers, and treated as items of data rather than Divinely created beings existing in a unique space between angels and ancestral apes. While current conditions may indicate to some a need for Divne connection and inspiration, others limit their faith to rationality, science, and politics. This is particularly true for sociologists who are faithful to a value free, empirically driven science of humanity and society. For them God and sin are value laden and problematic ideas having little or no relationship to what they do or how they understand the world.
5. Catholic Social Science Review: Volume > 8
Paul C. Vitz The Crisis in the Psychological Concept of Self or Person: A Neo-Thomist and Personalist Answer
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
The modern self is the familiar self namely the presumably autonomous integrated willful self that creates its own significance through choosing successful ways of self expression.This is the self of self-actualization and today's emphasis on self-fulfillment. Identity is a very central part of the self and involves the selfs conscious understanding of its interpersonal, social and cultural character. It is the identity aspect of the modern self which has begun to unravel and upon which the postmodernists have especially focused attention. They have particularly noted the way in which identity and other aspects of the self arise out of social constructive processes, rather than from some implicit intrinsic "authentic" qualities of the self As an answer to the modern and postmodern notions of self we should consider an alternative understanding of the person, one which has been emerging recently. I use the term "transmodern" to describe this new vision of the person and perhaps the new mentality which will follow our present postmodern period.
6. Catholic Social Science Review: Volume > 8
Lawrence T. Nichols Integralism and the Sociology of Deviance: Toward a New Paradigm
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
The purpose of this article is to sketch out a new approach to the sociology of deviance, by examining the field in the light of Pitirim A. Sorokin's philosophy of Integralism, Sorokin's Integralism has many affinities with traditional Catholic perspectives. The question of how Integralism might reorient disciplines such as sociology, and specialized subfields such as deviance, is thus closely related to the broader issue of the church in the contemporary world and the possibility of Christian and Catholic social science.
part ii - articles
7. Catholic Social Science Review: Volume > 8
John J. Conley Familial Rights and the Ethics of Parenting
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
The paper defends the proposition that families, and not only individuals, possess certain fundamental rights demanding legal respect and protection. Among these fundamental rights are: the freedom to contract a marriage covenant; the right to procreate and to determine the spacing of births; the right to educate one's children according to the religious-moral convictions of the parents; the right to special legal recognition as the fundamental cell of society; the right to social I economic assistance in the exercise of familial rights. In developing this apology of familial right, the paper draws upon resources in three interrelated disciplines: theology (Catholic social doctrine, especially the Holy sees 1981 Charter of Rights of the Family); philosophy (natural-law theory, specifically the work of Aquinas); social science (theories privileging intermediate bodies: Nisbet, Neuhaus and Berger).
8. Catholic Social Science Review: Volume > 8
Gerald E. DeMauro A Christocentric Anthropology Versus the Culture of Death
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
While anthropomorphism is decried in the more liberal approaches to the social sciences, the underlying disposition of the post-Darwinian world is in conflia: modern trends place man as one of many outcomes of natural dynamics, while more traditional evolutionists place him on top of a main tree with several branches. The confused recent compromise sits man atop the tree, as a benevolent older (or younger) sibling of many in the animal kingdom. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that all of God's creations reveal something of Him, with man being built in His image, and jesus being the perfect image of the Father. This paper examines the Magisterial approach of the Catholic Church, and what it means to the dignity of life to share in the image of God with Jesus as the perfect image of the father. An approach centered on what we hold to be true transforms social science into a moral endeavor with human fulfillment as its goal. This restored social science is in fact a fulfilled anthropology in the purest sense of integrated study of God's image and likeness.
9. Catholic Social Science Review: Volume > 8
George P. Graham Sociology and Faith: The Witness of Paul Hanly Furfey
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
Msgr. Paul Hanly Furfey in 1940 proposed a "supernatural sociology". Since sociology is the study of human society, and since the understanding of human society cannot be adequately achieved on the basis of statistical analyzes alone, Furfey points out the need for knowing about the nature of man and the purpose of his existence to understand a society. Through divine revelation we learn about sin and hell, justice and charity, grace and love. This broad definition of sociology seems due for a rebirth It a time when similar broad definitions of sociology are defended by feminists and homosexual and black liberationist sociologists.
10. Catholic Social Science Review: Volume > 8
John L. Greshom Jr. The Collective Charism of the Catholic Church: Werner Stark's Critique of Max Weber's Routinization Theory
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
Werner Stark (1909-1985) is a relatively unknown and under appreciated social theorist His contributions to the sociology of religion have not received the attention they merit Stark's sociology was clearly informed and shaped by his Catholic perspective at a time when Catholic sociologists were anxious to shed denominational labels in favor of a more neutral "scientific" approach. His concept of collective charisma provides a helpful complement and corrective to Weber's individualistic emphasis. This concept of collective charisma provides a framework for a more positive typology of priest and ritual than one finds in Weber's writings. Above all, Stark provides a contrasting vision of the relationship between institution and charisma.
11. Catholic Social Science Review: Volume > 8
James Leon Holmes, Jeremy Holmes From Aristotle to Jefferson: Christianity and the Separation of Church and State
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
Classical political philosophy saw politics as the architectonic art, the master art, to which all other activities, including religion, are subordinate. Christianity cannot accommodate itself to this view, because Christianity transcends the political order in origin, in goal, and in constituency, and the effort to place it beneath politics has been disastrous at every turn. On the other hand, every effort to subordinate politics to Christianity encounters similar difficulties, both because the coercive power proper to government is too blunt an instrument for the work of converting the heart, and because the Church is inevitably identified with and treated as the merely earthly power she has chosen to use. There are problems inherent in the separation of Church and State, given the impossibility of separating the two in the individual man. There are four possibilities for relating Church and State, and each is problematic in its own way.
12. Catholic Social Science Review: Volume > 8
Randy Lee From Words to Sacrament, from Sacrament to Flesh: the Concept of Marriage
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
Just as American legalism has threatened to confuse the faithful about the meaning of concepts like justice, equality, judgment, and forgiveness, it has also confused the meaning of more concrete terms like marriage. Furthermore, as God has invited us to understand His law as flesh and not merely as words. He has called us to understand marriage not as merely words in rules but as words transformed into life.
13. Catholic Social Science Review: Volume > 8
Richard S. Myers School Choice: The Constitutional Issues
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
This article makes three key points. First, the current educational system in this country interferes with religious liberty—particularly the liberty of parents to direct the education of their children. Second, the recent decisions of the United States Supreme Court provide some hope that this situation can be improved. Recent Cases (particularly the Supreme Court's decision in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris—the Cleveland voucher case) support the constitutionality of most school choice plans, Third, this somewhat improved situation is highly unsatisfactory. Vouchers (or some more equitable system of educational funding) are viewed entirely as a matter of legislative grace, and sometimes the state does not even have the ability to provide aid to religious schools if it so desires, because of state restrictions on providing such aid. It is necessary, therefore, to move to make a more equitable system mandatory and this will only be done if we focus more directly on what ought to be the governing principle in these discussions—that is, that it is parents and not the state who ought to have the ultimate control and responsibility for the education of their children.
14. Catholic Social Science Review: Volume > 8
Glenn W. OIsen The Role of Religion in the Twenty-first Century: Epoch of Secularization or Cosmos Regained?
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
In this essay, under the assunnption that continuing secularization will provoke continuing attempts at resacralization, I take up current protest by select religious thinkers and creative artists against the world we have received, and consider aIternatives they propose. The most likely answer to our question "Epoch of secularization or Cosmos Regained?" is "both at once," Secularization implies the continuation of processes long in place working for the marginalization or elimination of religion; quest for a more sacral view of the world implies deep reaction to and criticism of these processes,
15. Catholic Social Science Review: Volume > 8
G. Alexander Ross Spiritual Suicide: Durkheim's Underdeveloped Theory of Unbelief
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
In the exposition of his theory of egoistic suicide, Durkheim explained that the breakdown of social bonds gives rise to a general disillusionment that spawns metaphysical and religious systems that promote suicide by weakening an individual's sense of life's meaning. If Durkheim's explanation is correct, the social factors which he demonstrated were correlated with suicide ought also to be associated with a weakening of religious belief a spiritual suicide. Using General Social Survey data from 1988 to 2000, this paper examines unbelief as a function of several explanatory variables corresponding to the measurements Durkheim used to explain egoistic suicide. Analysis of these variables confirms the explanatory power of Durkheim's variables. The paper discusses the implications of this undeveloped theory of Durkheim for an orientation to the sociology of religion.
16. Catholic Social Science Review: Volume > 8
Nathan Schlueter Legal Agnosticism in the Abortion Decisions: Unborn Persons and the Fourteenth Amendment
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
It is a common assumption among pro-life scholars and legal advocates that a proper interpretation of the Constitution with respect to abortion would restore the decision of when, whether, and how to regulate abortion to the states. In promoting what I call the "restoration interpretation," these scholars and advocates for various reasons ignore or reject the correct interpretation, what I call the "unborn person interpretation." This paper consists of a criticism of the restoration interpretation and a defense of the unborn person interpretation of the Constitution. This defense is based upon originalist principles of Constitutional interpretation as those principles are outlined by justice Antonin Scalia in his book A Matter of Interpretation.
17. Catholic Social Science Review: Volume > 8
D.Paul Sullins Catholic Social Teaching: What Do Catholics Know, and What Do They Believe?
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
Most scholars believe anecdotally that Catholics' knowledge of the Church's Social Teachings (CST) is very low, but the question has never been studied scientifically. In this study I use two statistically representative national surveys to measure knowledge and assent to CST among Catholic priests and parishioners. Using instruments based on CST themes articulated by the U.S. Bishops, focusing on poverty, I confirm that CST Knowledge and assent is very low among parishioners, but much higher among priests. Assent among parishioners, however, is higher than their level of knowledge, and significantly higher than among non-Catholics, particularly with regard to the Option for the Poor. Assent increases with knowledge for the parishioners, but not for the priests. Younger priests are more knowledgeable about CST, but show lower assent, than older priests. I suggest in conclusion that CST assent, and belief in general, is more a product of social context and community participation than of direct indoctrination.
18. Catholic Social Science Review: Volume > 8
Randall Jay Woodard Prophet of Justice and Hope: John Paul II and the Dignity and Rights of Workers
abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
The splendor of the human person and the inherent dignity of the individual has been at the center of the pontificate of John Paul IL Although there are considerable theological and pastoral contributions by the Holy Father in regard to the promotion of human dignity, his message of the importance of human labor and the respect due to workers has been one of truly great significance. Through relentless preaching, public addresses and, principally, the encyclical, Laborem Exercens, John Paul II has consistently championed the dignity of workers and the fundamental right of individuals to meaningful employment.
part iii - reviews
19. Catholic Social Science Review: Volume > 8
James Bemis Bright Promise, Failed Community: Catholics and The American Public Order
view |  rights & permissions | cited by
20. Catholic Social Science Review: Volume > 8
Michael Coulter Principles and Heresies: Frank S. Meyer and the Shaping of the American Conservative Movement
view |  rights & permissions | cited by