Giáo Huấn Xã Hội của Giáo Hội Công Giáo (Catholic Social Teaching, 6 ECTS)

This course aims to help students who have studied Fundamental Moral Theology to focus their understanding and analysis of Catholic Social Teaching with practical application on several selected themes that are relevant to their local context.
This course focuses on three main parts:

• Part One includes three main topics: Sources, methods and Principles
  1. Sources and Methods of Catholic Social Doctrine
  2. Faithful Citizenship: The Church and Politics
  3. Core Principles of Catholic Social Doctrine 
• Part Two emphasizes the necessity of understanding social realities (such as structure, culture, and the relation of structure and moral agency) in order produce normative claims regarding social evil and how persons should respond such evil.
  1. Liberation Theology and Structures
  2. Injustice structures and social sins 
• Part Three attempts to propose possible ways by which Social Catholic Teaching helps students reflect and apply selected themes on particular relevant social issues in the context of Asia and Vietnam.
  1. The role of Catholic Social Teaching today
  2. Two approaches
  3. Case studies or Key Themes of Catholic Social Teaching

Methodology

1. Lecture (descriptive) Questions (descriptive and evaluative, in that order) 
2. Student leader of discussion (evaluative and applicative) 
3. Case or issue (applicative)

Requirements 

• Class participation (10%); 
• Oral exam (40%); 
• Final paper (50%) (10 pages): The paper should provide: describe the socio-structural issue; a social theory to explain the nature of the problem; an ethical methodology (of your choosing); and a normative analysis in which the author judges the social structure and/or produces suggestions regarding how structural transformation should transpire.

Resources: Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, 2004 [Hội Đồng Giám Mục Việt Nam – Ủy Ban Bác ái Xã Hội. Tóm Lược Học Thuyết Xã Hội Của Giáo Hội Công Giáo. NXB. Tôn Giáo 2007]; DeBERRI, EDWARD and JAMES E. HUG. Catholic Social Teaching: Our Best Kept Secret. New YorK: Orbis Books, 2003; MASSARO, THOMAS. Living Justice: Catholic Social Teaching in Action. Wisconsin: Sheed & Ward, 2000; O’BRIEN, DAVID J. and THOMAS A. SHANNON. Catholic Social Thought: The Documentary Heritage. New York: Orbis Books, 1992; RUBIO, JULIE HANLON. Hope for Common Ground: Mediating the Personal and Political in a Divided Church. Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2016.