Springer A Sociotheological Approach to Catholic Social Teaching: The Role of Religion in Moral Responsibility During COVID-19

This book integrates ethical perspectives from Catholic Social Teaching (CST) to develop a sociotheological approach on the common good, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The author applies the Roman Catholic Church’s social doctrines that applies the Christian faith to social issues in society, and to global issues. The author advocates for protecting the common good during the pandemic by looking to reform in corporate moral responsibility on the part of the pharmaceutical industry, distributive justice in the global distribution of vaccines, US-led legislative regulation against corruption, overpricing and profiteering of vaccines and medicines, and strong global surveillance and law enforcement systems against corruption and white-collar crime. The book invites the Catholic hierarchy, moral theologians, religious educators, catechists, and lay leaders to draw from these contributions in ethics, theology, and the social sciences to better evaluate the role of religion during the pandemic. In turn, it advocates a questioning of the existing social order, to adapt and develop the Church’s social doctrines into the post-pandemic age. “This book brings into dialogue two bodies of literature: documents of Catholic social teaching, and modern sociology and its core thinkers and texts...The author does especially well to describe how taking ‘the sociotheological turn’...will benefit the credibility and dissemination of Catholic social thought”. - Rev. Fr. Thomas Massaro, S.J., Professor of Moral Theology, Jesuit School of Theology, Santa Clara University, Berkeley, California.