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Dr. Michael Andrews Gives Talk on Catholic Social Thought

Dr. Michael F. Andrews presented a lecture co-sponsored by the Social / Political / Legal Workshop, the Philosophy Department, and the LUC Jesuit Community on Thursday, November 10, 2022 at St. Ignatius House on the Loyola Lakeshore campus. The talk, “Searching for the (un)Common Good: Engaging Catholic Social Teaching in an Age of Disenchantment from Saint Francis to Pope Francis,” envisioned a re-thinking of how we might learn to read “the signs of the times” in our search for the Common Good during an age of radical social transformation, environmental degradation, and political upheaval on a global scale. In his presentation, Dr. Andrews explored several key concepts of Catholic Social Teaching by re-imagining Jesuit discernment according to four distinctive models or principles by which Catholic Social Teaching can be engaged in the contemporary world. To a great extent, these models both anticipate and deconstruct the very conditions that make “justice” as the Unconditional Event possible in the first place. In his talk and lively Q&A follow-up session, Dr. Andrews explored themes of identity, alterity, human authenticity, and subsidiarity in dialogue with St. Ignatius Loyola, Matteo Ricci, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Pope Francis as our Jesuit guides.