Catholic Social Thought in the Era of the Un-Common Good
A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 December 2025 | Viewed by 338
Special Issue Editor
Interests: social and economic justice; human rights; human development; the relationship between Catholic social thought and secular political and moral philosophy
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
This Special Issue will focus upon the challenges and possibilities of magisterial Catholic Social Teaching (CST) and thought in the current and newly complex era of the 21st century, in particular in light of the rise of right-wing populism, isolationism, and nationalism both globally and particularly coming from the United States of America. It will seek to explicate the historical legacy of CST and to apply it to specific issues in this emerging global climate.
CST and Catholic social thought seek to offer prudential judgments based in scripture, tradition, philosophy, and expert analysis from myriad realms of human knowledge, theory and practice. See, Judge, Act, as John XXIII clarified. This Special Issue seeks to draw upon practitioners of Catholic social thought, necessarily in conversation with CST, but also therefore, necessarily, not simply Catholic theologians. Indeed, dialogue amidst pluralism and in all realms of discernment and action in the tradition of CST is what has produced Catholic social thought, in all its global scope.
In short, we seek articles that will highlight core principles of CST and concomitant thought, but also critically apply them to the very new realities of this present stage of history.
Example topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Subsidiarity, solidarity, and public education (or public health, etc.);
- Global solidarity, subsidiarity, and climate change;
- Global solidarity, distributive justice, and foreign aid;
- Forced migration, human rights, and preferential options for the poor and marginalized;
- Justice and disarmament (integral and nuclear);
- The global common good and isolationism;
- The global common good and nationalism;
- Forced migration from the global south and necessities for the global north.
Proposals from myriad disciplines are welcome (e.g., theology, philosophy, economics, political science, sociology, etc.), but it is essential to have robust engagement with magisterial CST from a clearly identifiable academic field.
Dr. James P. O’Sullivan
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- Catholic social teaching
- solidarity
- subsidiarity
- human rights
- common good
- preferential options for the poor and marginalized
- integral human development
- sustainability
- nuclear disarmament
- nationalism
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