This volume honors and examines Daniel Finn's transformative contributions to the field of Christian ethics. In a career spanning nearly fifty years, Finn became a preeminent thinker on Christian economic ethics and pioneered pathways of interdisciplinary engagement between theological ethics and the social sciences. In this collection, a wide range of scholars from several disciplines take up key themes from Finn's scholarship--including the terms of the dialogue between economics and the...

Christian ethics has addressed moral agency and culture from the start, and Christian social ethics increasingly acknowledges the power of social structures. However, neither has made sufficient use of the discipline that specializes in understanding structures and culture: sociology. In Moral Agency within Social Structures and Culture, editor and contributor Daniel K. Finn proposes a field-changing critical realist sociology that puts Christian ethics into conversation with mode...

Luxury. The word alone conjures up visions of attractive, desirable lifestyle choices, yet luxury also faces criticism as a moral vice harmful to both the self and society. Engaging ideas from business, marketing, and economics, The Vice of Luxury takes on the challenging task of naming how much is too much in today's consumer-oriented society.David Cloutier’s critique goes to the heart of a fundamental contradiction. Though overconsumption and materialism make us uneasy, ...

A reinterpretation of justice in Catholic social thought as a lived experience of communal lifeCatholic social thought is a living tradition. Insights into justice that are centuries old still apply, but they need to be reexamined in light of historical developments such as democracy, global markets, feminism, the preferential option for the poor, environmental challenges, and the shift of Christianity's growth to the Global South.Rethinking Justice in ...

A comprehensive overview of the contribution of Catholic social thought to business ethicsCan a religion founded on loving one’s neighbor give moral approval to profit-seeking business firms in a global economy? What should characterize the relationship between faith and economic life? What can businesses, employees, and executives do to contribute to the common good and to make their practices and society more ethical?Business Ethics and Catholic Socia...

The growing shift in Catholic moral theology from reflecting on rules alone to focusing on the identity and formation of persons as moral agents prompts a further question: What impact do recent changes in the identity and formation of Catholic moral theologians themselves have on how that discipline is practiced? Young Catholic moral theologians experience a sharply different professional formation and a changed location of ongoing professional life than prior generations of moral theolog...

Once again, Pope Francis has set the pundits, news outlets, and politicians buzzing, this time with an historic encyclical letter on care for the environment called Laudato Sì: On Care for our Common Home. As an alternative to all the noise and bloviating, the faithful and the curious alike will welcome this reliable, serene, and inspiring companion to the document.David Cloutier’s Reading, Praying, Living Pope Francis’s Laudato Sì is an ideal guide for parish adu...

During his papacy, Pope Benedict XVI was called ‘the green pope’ because of his ecological commitments in his writings, statements, and practical initiatives. Containing twelve essays by lay, ordained, and religious Catholic theologians and scholars, along with a presentation and a homily by bishops, Environmental Justice and Climate Change: Assessing Pope Benedict XVI's Ecological Vision for the Catholic Church in the United States explores four key areas in connection with Benedict XVI’s...

How does the Catholic tradition understand the significance of the environment, and what are the implications for our daily lives? In Walking God’s Earth, David Cloutier provides a concise, accessible, and spiritually engaging introduction to these questions. Cloutier emphasizes the importance of “finding our place” within God’s created order, showing how spiritual experiences and scriptural narratives guide us to a humble and realistic perspective, one that often clashes with the...

Thirty years ago, the economic system of the Soviet empire—socialism—seemed definitively discredited. Today, the most popular figures in the Democratic Party embrace it, while the shapers of public opinion treat capitalism as morally indefensible. Is there a moral case for capitalism? Consumerism is an appalling spectacle. Free markets may be efficient, but are they fair? Aren’t there some things that we can’t afford to leave to the vicissitudes of the market?Robert Sirico, a oneti...

The split between the Gospel and culture is without doubt the drama of our time," wrote Paul VI in 1975. Since that time there has been an increasingly urgent awareness that inculturation is an indispensable task of the church. But inculturation, the dialogue between church and cultures, demands first of all that we who would enter into the dialogue understand what "culture" itself means and what dialogue entails. To that end, cultural anthropologist Father Gerald Arbuckle gives us this im...

Douglas Farrow seldom shies from controversy. Discussing several hot-button issues such as religion in public life, educational freedom, human rights, and the definition of marriage, Farrow challenges the common misconception that secular institutions can be religiously neutral.Inspired by current legal, political, and philosophical debates in North America, Desiring a Better Country engages leading political thinkers from Augustine to John Rawls and John Courtney Murray, ...