Emmanuel
FROM THE EDITOR
The book Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, A Young Man, and Life’s
Greatest Lessons touched the popular imagination and became
an intergenerational hit a dozen years ago. It told the story of an
enduring friendship between two men at very different points in life’s
journey as they conversed about some of the great themes of human
existence.
Several years ago, a group of parishioners in New York City who had
committed a year to studying and exploring Catholic social teaching
through a life-changing program called JustFaith approached me
about continuing to meet once a month for prayer and reflection.
They asked that I join them. Thus, “Tuesdays with Tony” was born. They
still meet in my absence now to talk about how the “social Gospel” has
transformed their lives, their relationships, and their worldview. These
remarkable people have taught me so much about compassion,
about justice for the oppressed and those on the margins of society
and the church, and about concern for the earth, which is home to us
all. And, importantly, each has found ways to translate social theory
into concrete actions with and on behalf of others.
In the subtitle of a 2003 book on the subject, the authors describe
Catholic social teaching as “our [the church’s] best secret.”
It is generally accepted that the modern emphasis on Catholic social
teaching began with the publication of Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, on
labor and capital, in 1891. It has echoed through the decades in John
XXIII’s Pacem in Terris (1963), Paul VI’s Populorum Progressio (1967), John
Paul II’s critique of both totalitarianism and unbridled capitalism, and
Benedict XVI’s Caritatis in Veritate (2009).
In this same tradition, Pope Francis recently stated: “Whenever our
interior life becomes caught up in its own interests and concerns,
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