About IIPS 30718 - Catholicism and Politics, Spring 2012

It is not obvious that the Catholic Church and its teachings have much to do with politics. Realists say that politics has its own laws and logic to which a Christian must conform. Others agree that Catholic faith and politics are incompatible but insist that in order to avoid complicity in evil Catholics should have nothing to do with politics. Should a Catholic be involved in politics, then? If so, what does his or her faith have to do with the conduct of politics? How the Church views the political order is the first order of business in Catholicism and Politics. But if the Church does offer guidance for the political order, then of what does it consist? How ought Catholics to view the states policy towards war, religion and religious freedom, the death penalty, abortion, economics, global poverty, immigration, health care, humanitarian intervention, and relations with Islam? The goal of Catholicism and Politics is to train students to approach these questions from a Catholic perspective. The course begins with an investigation of classic Catholic ideas about politics as found in Scripture and in tradition up through the Second Vatican Council. It then examines how the Church thinks about a range of contemporary issues and how it draws from its classical thinking in doing so. A highlight of the course is a series of dramatic debates in which students bring alive Catholic political issues in the context of a fictional Church gathering: a canonization hearing on the policy of Pope Pius XII towards the Holocaust and sessions of the "Council of South Bend." The course will also pay attention to the contemporaneous presidential primaries of 2012, asking how well the Republican candidates as well as President Obama (who will not be contesting) stack up on Catholic teaching.