Title

The Church and the Economy in the Modern World

Authors

Daniel K. Finn, College of Saint Benedict/Saint John's UniversityFollow

Document Type

Book Chapter

Publication Date

1986

Disciplines

Arts and Humanities | Catholic Studies | Economics | Ethics in Religion | Religion | Social and Behavioral Sciences

Abstract

Very few church documents are widely read and broadly influential. Even fewer are celebrated on an anniversary of their publication. The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes, is one of a handful of that rank in this century. This essay begins with an overview of the document’s vision of socioeconomic life in the context of Catholic social teaching prior to Vatican II. It includes a brief review of some of the developments in the world and the church since that time which are relevant to a moral assessment of economic activity. It considers the influence of economic science on public moral discourse, and concludes with four critical questions that remain on the agenda for Catholic social thought twenty years after the document was released in its final form.

Comments

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Author is listed in this publication as “Daniel Rush Finn.”

Recommended Citation

Finn, Daniel K. "The Church and the Economy in the Modern World." In Questions of Special Urgency: The Church in the Modern World Two Decades after Vatican II, edited by Judith A. Dwyer, 141-171. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1986.