Course held in Italian

The course aims to present an articulated analysis of the main elements of social ethics as they have been developed in Catholic social thought centered on the concept of the Person. From the beginning, Christians were known for their social sensitivity towards the poor, widows, orphans. Over the centuries, this constant attention has given rise to an important network of projects all over the world: schools, hospitals, orphanages and other structures for organized help to the ‘victims of the peripheries of the world’, until the end of the 19th century. When the industrial revolution disrupted agrarian civilization, the Church struggled to respond to the new situation and reacted late to an unprecedented situation, consisting of the movement of working masses animated by socialist and marxist doctrines, until 1891, the year of the beginning of a ‘Catholic reaction’ summarized in an ever richer cultural vision collected in the Social Doctrine of the Church (SDC).

The course will examine the roots of this doctrine, in the Bible and throughout the course of Christian history, focusing mainly on the last 130 years and deepening themes that emerged from the Industrial Revolution up to those perceived as more urgent in the contemporary era, such as peace, development, human rights and the environmental challenge, with an increasingly internationaland global sensitivity and also linked to the visions of the peripheries of the world.

Bibliographical references:

• Class handout.
• Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, 24 November 2013.
• Pope Francis, Laudato Si, 24 May 2015.