The Catholic Tradition: Religion, Morality, and the Common Good

Abstract

The distinctive contribution of Roman Catholic moral theology to public policy discourse has been to insist that it be open to conversation partners representing quite diverse religious and philosophical traditions. Thus Catholicism has what might well be considered a peculiar way of addressing “religiously” both civil rights and legislation: it dissociates the legitimation of rights and laws from specifically religious commitments. A key category in the Catholic approach is “common good,” as a normative description of social coherence; and its corollaries, including “justice” as its standard, mutual “rights” and “duties” as its constituents, and “public authority” and “law” as its guarantors. It is to the possible context and meanings of these terms that I wish to devote attention. Despite the fact that they are the focus of virtually all social theory in Catholic tradition, there is far from unanimity on their interpretation and implementation. I will focus on contemporary Catholic social thought, though I will refer briefly to some of its origins, especially in Thomas Aquinas.