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Book explores Globalization and Catholic Social Teaching
The rise of the Green Party was a hopeful "sign of the times" in Canada's recent frustrating general election. The two traditional parties concentrated on demonizing each other's leader. The Green Party pleaded with Canadians to attend to the crucial global issues -- clean air, clean water, soil preservation and failing energy sources. I believe that the new minority government offers us fresh hope that important
social justice and environmental issues will have a higher priority on the parliamentary agenda
as the New Democratics and Bloc Quebecois press the Liberals into action.
What Catholic social teachings says, or should say, about these and other crucial global issues, such as security and the widening gap between rich and poor, is the content of a Jesuit Centre book soon to be published jointly by Novalis and Orbis. Our preferred title is "Peril or Promise: Globalization and Catholic Social Teaching".
The authors of the book's 16 chapters participated in a September 2003 international seminar on "Globalization and Catholic Social Teaching: Present Impasse, Future Hope," organized by the Jesuit Centre. (Other seminar participants who did not write papers included our Centre staff members; Canadian Jesuits theologians Gord Rixon and Peter Bisson; Jean Marc Biron sj [Relations]; Yvon Elenga sj [West Africa]; Bishop Fred Henry [Calgary]; Joe Gunn [CCCB]; Heather Eaton [Saint Paul U]; Peggy Steinfels [Commonweal]; Jim Stormes sj [US Jesuit Conference]; and Bernard Daly [editor of the Centre's website].
The seminar was highly successful because the authors limited themselves to 15-minute presentations, leaving more than an hour for discussion of each paper. This allowed for substantial discussion of each topic and full involvement by all participants. John Coleman sj and I were the chief project planners and are the co-editors of the book. John wrote an introductory chapter, "Making the Connections: Globalization and Catholic Social Teaching," and I wrote a concluding chapter, "Personal Comments, Reflections and Hopes."
The main chapters are: "Catholic Social Thinking as Living Tradition which gives Meaning to Globalization as a Process of Humanization," by Johan Verstraeten [Leuven U]; "Globalization and the Common Good," by Lisa S. Cahill [U of Boston College]; "Economic Justice and Globalization," by Jim Hug sj [Center of Concern]; "Catholic Teaching and a Changing Order of International Security," by Bryan Hehir [Harvard]; "Globalization and the Environment," by Mary Evelyn Tucker [Bucknell U.]; "Toward a Global Culture of Life," by Joe Holland [Pax Romana]; "Global Civil Society and the Catholic Social Tradition," by Scott Appleby [Notre Dame U]; "Religion and Globalization," by Gregory Baum [McGill U]; "Some Reflections on a Dialogue Between the World's Religions and the World Bank with Reference to Catholic Social Thought," by Wendy Tyndale [World Faiths and Development Dialogue, Oxford, UK]; "Muslim's Dialogue with Globalization," by Farhang Rajaee [Carleton U, Ottawa]; "Globalization: The Search for a Christian Standpoint," by Fernando Franco sj [India]; "Notes on the Public Dimension of a Humanizing Globalization," by Arturo Sosa sj [Caracas]; "Globalization Viewed from Central America and the Carribean," by Michael Campbell-Johnston sj [Barbados]; "Globalization and Africa: A Grassroots Analysis with an Emphasis on Culture," by Peter Henriot sj [Zambia]. Finally, John Coleman added a short chapter on a few important issues not sufficiently developed in the seminar and which the editors discovered in editing the final papers.
We look forward to this book being a timely contribution by the Jesuit Centre for Social Faith and Justice to the discussion of issues, including the environment, that too frequently are neglected. Meanwhile, the Green Party deserves full credit for trying to make Canadians more aware of the need to care about the health of our global home. -- Bill Ryan sj.
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