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On the Book Catholic Social Teaching: Our Best Kept Secret The book Catholic Social Teaching: Our

Best Kept Secret is essentially a compilation of the many different Catholic social encyclicals, documents, teachings, and the like. The one binding thing among all the encyclicals and teachings included in the book is that they are all centered on the idea of justice. Simply speaking, the theme of the whole book is basically justice. The really interesting thing about what the book gives the reader is that it does not write down the whole encyclical word per word and leave it at that. Instead, what is does is it delves into the meat of the matter. While reading the book, it does not make you read the whole thing as the original writer of the document wrote it but it gives you a brief introduction, background, and idea of the documents included. After which is it gives you sort of an outline of the important or key points of the documents. The issues tackled by the documents discussed within the book are issues that, I believe, people need to really think about. They are issues that are rampant in the world but most people just take them as they are and dont give them a second thought. The issues talked about are things that do happen but arent really noticed or are ignored as being normal. It is important that awareness is raised when it comes to these kinds of issues. Several among the issues discussed are work/labor, racism, development, solidarity, peace, and the common good. I really liked how the book was written. It was not too tedious and went right to the heart of the matter. It was written in a concise and straight to the point matter. It pointed

out the main parts and what the things are that people should know and remember about the topics. It gives clearly the idea of justice and talks about this within different contexts. I found it very practical. I mentioned earlier that the issues tackled are things that are happening in the world that need to be addressed and I believe that the book gives ways on how to deal with these things. It talks about the right attitude to take, what are the conditions, what is happening regarding the issues, etc. Some of the issues tackled are things that got me interested and made me really stop and ruminate about it. I would have to say that the issue discussed in the book that I found had impacted me the most is the issue of racism. Racism is something that has been going on for a long time. It is an issue that is rampant in most aspects of life, from kids in school to television show quips. This is something that I feel strongly about and am very much against. In the chapter The Church and Racism which is about a Statement of the Pontifical Justice and Peace Commission in 1988. It talks about the different forms of racism and what reactions and thoughts of people should be/do in order to erase this mindset. When I think of racism, I think about the more common ones such as the prejudices against the blacks, Asians, etc. The chapter mentioned racism when it comes to the indigenous people and when I read this, it made me think. I have never considered this aspect of racism before. Another form of racism discussed was anti-semitism. I never really knew that prejudice against Jews had a term to it. Only when I looked up what exactly antisemitism was did I find out. It was really weird of me (stupid actually) to have no idea about this term because racism against Jews is one of the most controversial ones. It sparked a very infamous historical event, the holocaust. Well, at least now, I know what the term antisemitism means.

Another point that the chapter makes is on the developments on artificial procreation and genetic manipulation. This aspect never really entered my mind but it does make sense. While reading it, it actually reminded me about a TV series that I watched called Dark Angel whose main character who was a genetically engineered human. The show goes on to show that people started to get violent against the genetically engineered when they were exposed to the general public and aggressions ran high. Even though I have watched something about it already, this form of racism never really entered my mind until I read about it. I realized that my conceptions of racism were really limited and that, even though I believed myself to have strong feelings about it, I did not have enough awareness to be able to really know the extent of it. It stresses the importance of human dignity and how everyone was made in Gods image and is equal. It says in the chapter that Faith in God should absolutely negate racist ideology and I believe this to be true yet in all honesty, there are still a number of Christians who are guilty of racism. I believe that racism is something that has been cultivated and embedded in people and is something that, once is in someone, is hard to remove. Under the heading The Contributions of Christians, it says that racism starts from the heart and that this is where the change should begin. It also says how we should act towards victims of racism, as well as how mentality and laws, etc. should be when it comes to issues of race. Another chapter that discusses racism is chapter 17 which is about the contribution of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace for a world conference against racism, racial discriminations, etc. in the year 2001. Here it talks about how there is an increase in racism and it also stresses how education is important to correcting racist behavior since racism stems from ignorance and prejudice. It mentions that education should

teach people to be more instead of have more and to be with others and more importantly to be for others. Reading this, I was reminded of Ateneo and how the school cultivates the mentality of men and women for others. Personally, I believe that while its true, educating the right ideas would help in the lessening of racism, there would still be external factors (like peer influence, family environment, etc.) that must be altered in order for racism to completely change. Another chapter that centers on racism is chapter 18 which is entitled Brothers and Sisters to Us. It is about the pastoral letter of the United States Bishops and is geared towards the situation and people in the United States however what was written can be applied in a worldwide context. First off, it calls racism a sin and it relates racism to unemployment issues, housing, and education. It promotes that people reject racism, even the seemingly little things about it like racist jokes. It pushes people to act and think in a way that would lead to racial justice. Racism is only one of the many different issues discussed in the book. In my case, in other people, it might be labor, common good, or a number of many other things. I mostly talked about racism because this issue was what I was most drawn to, that is not to say that the whole book is just about racism because its not. Racism is only a small part of it and the responses to this book would probably be greatly varied but no matter what issue it is that draws the readers attention, at the core of it is social justice. What I liked most about the book is that it gives a general overview of each of the documents and encyclicals and teachings contained in it. It includes so much different teachings of the church that refer to social justice. I liked that people can pick up the book, read through it and promptly get an idea of all the different teachings about social justice and

that the brief summary and outline of a particular document interests them, then they can look for the original document and read that. For me, it is a great idea to present people with little tidbits so that they can decide on what interests them the most and read the original documents of those particular ones instead of having to go through all the different original documents. The books in a nutshell approach is something that I find really appealing as a reader. It gives the reader a taste of a lot of different thingsdocumentsand from there, he or she can choose what interests him or her. I believe that this is one of the best things about the book. Also, an important thing that I liked about it is that it tackles a lot of issues that are going around in the world. It will be able to raise the awareness of the people who read it and to get them interested as well as give the right mentality in order to reduce the negative effects and ideas of these. It also talks about documents that are for specific countries (like U.S., Asia, etc.), depending on whom the document was addressed to, but the lessons taught in these documents can be applied by people elsewhere too. I was able to learn a lot and was made conscious of that fact that there are so many things going on around me that I know too little of as well as that what I knew of some things was just the tip of the iceberg for those issues. In my opinion, many people need to read this book. It would help the world situation a lot if people were to become aware and motivated to help in the effort of promoting social justice. The best case would be if not only Christians, but also non believers would pick up Catholic Social Teaching: Our Best Kept Secret and read it; be touched and apply these things in their lives. In this way, the world would be on its way to a better overall situation for everyonea world of equality, peace, and justice.

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