Catholic Social Learning

The canon for Catholic social teaching spreads to six hundred pagesyet fewer than two pages are devoted to Catholic social learning or pedagogy. In this long-needed book Roger Bergman begins to correct that gross imbalance. He asks: How do we educate (“lead out”) the faith that does justice? How is commitment to social justice provoked and sustained over a lifetime? To address these questions Bergman weaves what he has learned from thirty years as a faith-that-does-justice educator with the best of current scholarship and historical authorities. He reflects on personal experience; the experience of Church leaders lay activists and university students; and the few words the tradition itself has to say about a pedagogy for justice.Catholic Social Learning explores the foundations of this pedagogy demonstrates its practical applications and illuminates why and how it is fundamental to Catholic higher education. Part I identifies personal encounters with the poor and marginalized as key to stimulating a hunger and thirst for justice. Part II presents three applications of Catholic social learning: cross-cultural immersion as illustrated by Creighton University’s Semestre Dominicano program; community-based service learning; and the teaching of moral exemplars such as Dorothy Day Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Archbishop Oscar Romero. Part III then elucidates how a pedagogy for justice applies to the traditional liberal educational mission of the Catholic university and how it can be put into action.Catholic Social Learning is both a valuable practical resource for Christian educators and an important step forward in the development of a transformative pedagogy.