The creators of the UK’s first MA course in Catholic Social Teaching hope it will help develop the understanding that the search for social justice is a central part of the life of the Church
During the 2016 EU referendum campaign, a friend asked his parish priest for some guidance from Church teaching to help him think through which way he might vote. The priest replied that the Church didn’t have a view. This ignored his own bishops’ conference statement on the Brexit issue, not to mention dozens of statements by popes and bishops and theologians calling for international cooperation and supporting European unity. It was shocking, too, because 25 years ago the bishops of England and Wales asserted, in “The Common Good”, that “nothing is beyond the scope of faith”. St Mary’s University, Twickenham, had started to set up a new MA programme in Catholic Social Teaching in the summer of 2016. It was the brainchild of the then vice chancellor, Francis Campbell; clearly, we were doing the right thing at the right time.
