If I were giving a brief talk on Catholic social teaching to my service site, I would emphasize the importance of community. The main goal of social work is attaining the common good, and working together as a community for the good of the community. As Himes points out, God in and of himself is a community of three persons, according to the Christian understanding. Himes says that we as humans are made in the image of this Trinitarian God, and thus are naturally social beings. We are created to join in the experience of loving communion, and he alludes that community is natural and necessary if persons are to achieve their full stature.
I would present this understanding of the importance of community to my parish in trying to convince them to form a community with other parishes in order to better carry out God's work and benefit the neighborhood as a whole.
A passage I might read to go along with my message:
"Individuals, though centers of freedom and individual responsibility, are not solitary beings. In their inmost nature human beings are social and can neither live nor attain their fulll potential buy themselves. Thus the interdependence characteristic of our modern age is rooted in and finds fulfillment in the very nature of the person." (Gaudium et Spes)
I think that this is a very good passage because it emphasizes how essential sociality is to humanity, how it is in the very essence of a human. It confirms that working together is the right way not only to attain one's full individual potential, but also the universal common good.
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I think that your brief talk would capture the essential main point of Catholic Social Teaching. One thing you might consider is talking about the other main points discussed in Himes chapter three such as justice, social life, human rights and human dignity. It all depends on how long you would like your brief talk to be.
ReplyDeleteI think the purpose of your talk, to present the understanding of the importance of community and also to convince them to form a community, it great. I couldn’t agree more with you. This is after all one important point of our class.
The passage you quoted is great. I think it would be a good idea to maybe have them read another passage or two on the same topic, or maybe another aspect of CST just to reinforce the ideas. Overall I think your talk presented would be very effective on the point you want to get across, and if you would like to broaden the talk or make it longer it could be easy done with a few more aspects of CST and some more evidence from the passages.