Social Ethics

J. Brian Benestad, Professor of Theology at the University of Scranton, holds an S.T.L. from the Gregorian University in Rome and a Ph.D. from Boston College. He wrote his doctoral dissertation on "The new politics of the Catholic Church in the United States, 1966-1978" and has published more than 50 articles in scholarly journals, in addition to his many book reviews. He has edited several books, including Quest for justice : a compendium of statements of the United States Catholic Bishops on the political and social order 1966-1980 and works of Ernest L. Fortin: The Birth of Philosophic Christianity: Studies in Early Christian and Medieval Thought; Classical Christianity and the Political Order: Reflections on the Theologico-Political Problem; and Human Rights, Virtue, and the Common Good: Untimely Meditations on Religion and Politics. He is presently writing a book on Catholic social ethics for the Catholic University of America Press.

Course Number 042

1. Introduction
2. The Dignity of the Human Person
3. The Meaning of the Common Good
4. The Meaning of the Common Good
5. Seeking the Common Good through Virtue and Grace
6. Justice and Social Justice
7. The Dependence of the Common Good on Public Policy
8. Human Rights and Natural Law
9. Catholic Social Teaching, the Life Questions, and Bioethics
10. Just War Principles
11. The Role of the Clergy and the Laity
12. Liberal Education and Education to Justice