Christine Firer Hinze - Böcker

The Second Vatican Council's landmark document Gaudium et spes called Catholics to cultivate robust, mutually enriching dialogue with the modern world by attentively and discerningly listening to the "voices of our times." This distinctive new publication, the first of two volumes that explore sexual diversity and the Catholic Church, gathers an important set of these voices: the testimonies and reflections of Catholic and former Catholic LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) persons, their friends, family members, and those who teach and accompany them.Drawn from a series of conferences held in autumn 2011 and offering a spectrum of professional, generational, and personal perspectives, the essays in Voices of Our Times suggest the breadth and complexity of Catholic experiences of and engagements with sexual diversity. Each writer locates her or his reflections in careful attention to how ways of experiencing sexuality and speaking about sexual diversity are embodied in and shaped by particular practices—familial, interpersonal, professional, ecclesial, cultural, and political.Part I, "Practicing Love," introduces the voices of singles, families, couples, parents, and children who reflect on their experiences of sexual diversity in light of their experiences of Catholicism and of Catholics. Part II, "Practicing Church," offers the perspectives of clergy and lay ministers, casting light on what pastoral workers, Catholic and otherwise, encounter as they walk with people who are grappling with issues of faith and sexuality. In Part III, "Practicing Education," writers discuss their experiences with sexual diversity in Catholic educational settings as teachers, as students, and as witnesses to the lives, loves, and struggles of LGBTQ young adults. Finally, Part IV, "Practicing Belonging," spotlights contributions by authors who have struggled with their identities and place within and around the Catholic community.Striving to acknowledge, honor, and respect the truth and value embodied in both LGBTQ persons' lives and in the Catholic tradition, this book provides a close-to-the-ground look at the state of the conversation about sexual diversity among contemporary Roman Catholics in the United States. Along with its companion volume, Inquiry, Thought, and Expression, Voices of Our Times represents a unique opportunity for readers inside and outside the Catholic community to engage in a conversation that is at once vibrant and complex, difficult and needed.

Working Alternatives explores economic life from a humanistic and multidisciplinary perspective, with a particular eye on religions' implications in practices of work, management, supply, production, remuneration, and exchange. Its contributors draw upon historical, ethical, business, and theological conversations considering the sources of economic sustainability and justice.The essays in this book—from scholars of business, religious ethics, and history—offer readers practical understanding and analytical leverage over these pressing issues. Modern Catholic social teaching—a 125-year-old effort to apply Christian thinking about the implications of faith for social, political, and economic circumstances—provides the key springboard for these discussions.Contributors: Gerald J. Beyer, Alison Collis Greene, Kathleen Holscher, Michael Naughton, Michael Pirson, Nicholas Rademacher, Vincent Stanley, Sandra Sullivan-Dunbar, Kirsten Swinth, Sandra Waddock

Working Alternatives explores economic life from a humanistic and multidisciplinary perspective, with a particular eye on religions' implications in practices of work, management, supply, production, remuneration, and exchange. Its contributors draw upon historical, ethical, business, and theological conversations considering the sources of economic sustainability and justice.The essays in this book—from scholars of business, religious ethics, and history—offer readers practical understanding and analytical leverage over these pressing issues. Modern Catholic social teaching—a 125-year-old effort to apply Christian thinking about the implications of faith for social, political, and economic circumstances—provides the key springboard for these discussions.Contributors: Gerald J. Beyer, Alison Collis Greene, Kathleen Holscher, Michael Naughton, Michael Pirson, Nicholas Rademacher, Vincent Stanley, Sandra Sullivan-Dunbar, Kirsten Swinth, Sandra Waddock

Rethinking the means through which we can achieve economic well-being for all.In this timely book, Christine Firer Hinze looks back at the influential teachings of priest-economist Monsignor John A. Ryan (1869-1945), who supported worker justice and defended a living wage for all Americans in the first half of the twentieth century. Advancing Ryan’s efforts to articulate a persuasive plan for social reform, Hinze advocates for an action-oriented livelihood agenda that situates US working families’ economic pursuits within a comprehensive commitment to sustainable “radical sufficiency” for all.Documenting the daily lives and economic struggles of past and present US Catholic working-class families, Hinze explores the larger impulses and patterns—economic, cultural, political, moral, and spiritual—that affect the work these people perform in homes, in communities, and at paid jobs. Their story entwines with the larger history of the American dream and working people's pursuit of a dignified livelihood. Surveying this history with an eye to the dynamics of power and difference, Hinze rethinks Ryan’s ethics and Catholic social teaching to develop a new conception of a decent livelihood and its implications for contemporary policy and practice. The result is a critical Catholic economic ethic capable of addressing the situations of workers and families in the interdependent global economy of the twenty-first century.Radical Sufficiency offers transformative strategies and strategic policy directions for achieving the radical Christian goal of dignified work and a good livelihood for all.