New Catholic social teaching document
The Bishops of England and Wales are planning to produce a new social teaching document.
The Bishops want to produce an accessible document that is directed to an audience beyond - as well as within - the Catholic community.
The document will not be exhaustive. It will seek to present clearly the essence of Catholic social teaching and also its application to some – but only some – of the issues facing our society today.
It will seek to do so in a way that makes clear that this teaching is an integral dimension of the Gospel message, which is always rooted and founded in a life of prayer. They will therefore be seeking to convey the spiritual core of the Gospel message as the foundation and orientation of everything they say.
In Spring 2009, the Bishops held an initial consultation and received over 100 responses. The Most Reverend Peter Smith, Archbishop of Cardiff, expressed his gratitude on behalf of the bishops:
“The bishops on the working group are extremely grateful to all those individuals and organisations who responded to the consultation. There are many extremely helpful ideas about the issues the bishops might deal with in the document, and the consultation exercise has been very fruitful."
Consultation document for download
The consultation document and Archbishop Peter Smith's cover letter are now available below.
Catholic social teaching: Archbishop Peter Smith's covering letter (pdf)
Catholic social teaching: Consultation document (pdf)
Please read/download the document and feed through any comments/responses to our dedicated email address has been set up for responses:
The initial consultation period has now been completed. Thank you for your submissions.
Working group
At the Bishops’ Conference plenary meeting in November 2008 a decision was made to work on a new document reflecting on some salient aspects of life in England and Wales today in the light of Catholic social teaching.
IA working group of seven bishops was formed to take this work forward. They are:
Archbishop Peter Smith
Archbishop of Cardiff
Archbishop Vincent Nichols
Archbishop of Birmingham
Bishop Christopher Budd
Bishop of Plymouth
Bishop David McGough
Auxiliary Bishop of Birmingham
Bishop Declan Lang
Bishop of Clifton
Bishop Michael Campbell
Coadjutor Bishop of Lancaster
Bishop Malcolm McMahon
Bishop of Nottingham
The group hope to complete their work by the autumn of 2009.
The Common Good
The Common Good and the Catholic Church's Social Teaching
The Common Good is the Bishops document on the Church's social teaching published in 1996.