Catholic social doctrine resources

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Does anybody know of any good resources for Catholic social doctrine? (NB I already know of the section in the Catechism, and also the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church, just trying to read as widely as I can.)

My reason for asking is that I got into a discussion at Church last Sunday morning with someone who is a very left-wing Socialist, who claimed that his beliefs are the teaching of Jesus. I would like to reaearch what the Church really says as I feel that my associate’s views were very one-sided and he didn’t really answer some of the comments I made.
 
Mark1970 said:
Does anybody know of any good resources for Catholic social doctrine? (NB I already know of the section in the Catechism, and also the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church, just trying to read as widely as I can.)

My reason for asking is that I got into a discussion at Church last Sunday morning with someone who is a very left-wing Socialist, who claimed that his beliefs are the teaching of Jesus. I would like to reaearch what the Church really says as I feel that my associate’s views were very one-sided and he didn’t really answer some of the comments I made.
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This Wikipedia article lists the official Church documents that have been released by the Vatican on the topic of Catholic social doctrine: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_social_teaching#Encyclicals_and_other_official_documents

Two British Catholics who were vocal supporters of Catholic social doctrine were G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc. Their books on the subject include Chesterton’s What’s Wrong with the World and The Outline of Sanity and Belloc’s The Servile State.

I also want to stress the importance of Archbishop Wilhelm von Ketteler. He was a German bishop who was alive when Karl Marx published the Communist Manifesto, and in that same year he wrote a response that outlined the traditional Catholic alternative, now known as Catholic Social Doctrine, backing it up with strong logical reasoning and historical examples. He delivered it in a stirring set of sermons which were later published as Sermons on Social Catholicism. Keep in mind, this was before Rerum Novarum even existed, when Communism and Capitalism seemed like the only game in town, and he wrote this book to show that there was an alternative, traditional, Catholic way.

The full text of his book can be found in an American translation in this book: books.google.com/books?id=XLDZAAAAMAAJ and some excerpts can be found at this link: books.google.com/books?id=e7Y9AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA30#v=onepage&q&f=false See also this pdf: drive.google.com/file/d/0B8qPwAQJtKZSUXJzNXdwdHRrUE0/view (PDF) which contains many other extracts from the bishop on this issue.

I hope that helps. God bless!
 
One can google “Social encyclicals” and they’ll all come up. I suggest one read them in the order of their age.

Narrowing the focus just a little, there is an excellent book, available on Amazon, entitled “Redeeming Economics” by John Mueller. It’s economics from a very Catholic point of view. The equations in it are a bit tough to follow, but the actual text is not. Here is a short description. Get it and read it. You’ll be glad you did.

distributistreview.com/redeeming-economics/
 
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