This tenth anniversary edition of the landmark pastoral letter includes both A Decade After Economic Justice for All and A Catholic Framework for Economic Life.

The National Directory for Catechesis is a companion to the General Directory for Catechesis (GDC), building on some of the core themes of the GDC, like catechesis's relationship to evangelization and worship, and provides practical tools for doing catechesis well. This is a "must-have" for anyone in catechesis or Catholic education-teachers, principals, directors, and coordinators of religious education and youth ministry, catechists, and students in the field.

Use these lesson plans to give adult participants an opportunity to get in touch with their attitudes and ways of thinking about poverty and to become aware of and to understand "faithjustice."

The key in the Generations approach to faith formation is that it builds on the strengths of a parish's current catechetical program, while creating a lifelong faith formation plan and intergenerational learning programs that gather all the generations to learn together and nurture faith at home throughout the life cycle. The CD-ROM includes PowerPoint presentations for each chapter, along with articles by religious education theorists who have been instrumental in developing a new paradigm of lifelong faith formation. The book is ideal for parish pastoral and catechetical leaders, as well as university courses in religious education and pastoral ministry.

The reach of the Catholic Church is arguably greater than that of any other religion, extending across diverse political, ethnic, class, and cultural boundaries. But what is it about Catholicism that resonates so profoundly with followers who live under disparate conditions? What is it, for instance, that binds parishioners in America with those in Mexico? For Joseph M. Palacios, what unites Catholics is a sense of being Catholic—a social imagination that motivates them to promote justice and build a better world. In The Catholic Social Imagination, Palacios gives readers a feeling for what it means to be Catholic and put one’s faith into action. Tracing the practices of a group of parishioners in Oakland, California, and another in Guadalajara, Mexico, Palacios reveals parallels—and contrasts—in the ways these ordinary Catholics receive and act on a church doctrine that emphasizes social justice. Whether they are building a supermarket for the low-income elderly or waging protests to promote school reform, these parishioners provide important insights into the construction of the Catholic social imagination. Throughout, Palacios also offers important new cultural and sociological interpretations of Catholic doctrine on issues such as poverty, civil and human rights, political participation, and the natural law.

Overview This book is a philosophical reflection (using mainly Hegel, in addition to 1 Adam Smith, Kant, Marx and Catholic Social Thought) about the soc- political dimension of economics. In it I both agree and disagree with the slogan that “the least government is the best government. ” I agree with the slogan, in particular as it applies to the economic domain. Adam Smith taught us that rational and self-interested individuals, left by themselves, create a more efficient and reliable economic system than one in which the government has a heavy role as was the case in his time with the merc- tile system (Smith, 14, 651). Ludwig von Mises demonstrated the same idea for the communist command economy (Hayek 1935, 87–130). I d- agree with the above mentioned slogan if it is interpreted as suggesting that we can best forget about the role of the government for a good functioning economy. Instead, I will argue that the government has an important fu- tion in creating the proper regulations and the wise institutional arran- ments which will allow the economy to flourish in a more efficient, fair and humane way. This book is interdisciplinary in nature. It is a philosophical and ethical reflection on economics. Hence, I make use of philosophical ideas, often but not exclusively those of Hegel. I reflect philosophically on economic concepts.