David Cloutier - Böcker

What would it take to renew our ability to name our sins in a meaningful and pertinent way? Naming sins is a particularly important task for Catholic moral theology, but it is one that often falls back into a paradigm of simple violations of rules. While laws and commandments are essential, Vatican II’s universal call to holiness and the revival of virtue ethics require moving further. Yet in part because moral theologians today tend to be lay people, not priests, there has been a de-emphasis on the confession of sins. Contemporary questions like poverty, racism, and abortion are usually connected to questions about sin in some way, but they are disconnected from the idea of naming specific sins in the sacrament of penance. Lay moral theologians raise these issues in a way that makes clear their implications for a parish social justice committee (or the voting booth), but not their implications for the naming of sins in the sacrament of reconciliation. Naming Our Sins proposes to re-make that connection: the moral theologian’s task of helping people name individual sins needs to be restored, though in ways distinctive from dominant pre-Vatican II notions.In this volume, editors Jana Bennett and David Cloutier gather some of the best of the current generation of moral theologians in order to reflect on the classic tradition of the vices. It is crucial to the Christian understanding of sin that we recognize (a) we bear at least some responsibilities for injuries, and (b) God wants us to participate in the process of healing and conversion. Neither the sin itself nor the healing simply come from somewhere else; the task of naming sins enlists us as mature, growing disciples.Each chapter takes on a different classical vice, describing the vice, exploring its dimensions in contemporary experience, and moving the reader toward naming specific sins that arise from the vice. The concluding chapters from Catholic priests explore two basic dimensions of the sacrament of penance: liturgical and communal.

How does the Catholic tradition understand the significance of the environment, and what are the implications for our daily lives? In Walking God’s Earth, David Cloutier provides a concise, accessible, and spiritually engaging introduction to these questions. Cloutier emphasizes the importance of “finding our place” within God’s created order, showing how spiritual experiences and scriptural narratives guide us to a humble and realistic perspective, one that often clashes with the presumptions of society. In its focus on practical ways of living out this message, the book identifies key areas—food, fuel, dwelling places, work, and leisure—where Catholics can bring their faith convictions into daily living.We are called to handle the things of God’s creation in holy, sacramental ways, as an essential part of our vocation to live out our faith. Walking God’s Earth emphasizes the importance of connecting both spiritually and morally, our environmental lives with the basics of our faith in hope that God’s desire for “the renewal of the earth” may be realized in our own desires and in the practices of our communities.

Once again, Pope Francis has set the pundits, news outlets, and politicians buzzing, this time with an historic encyclical letter on care for the environment called Laudato Sì: On Care for our Common Home. As an alternative to all the noise and bloviating, the faithful and the curious alike will welcome this reliable, serene, and inspiring companion to the document.David Cloutier’s Reading, Praying, Living Pope Francis’s Laudato Sì is an ideal guide for parish adult faith formation, RCIA, college and high school campus ministry, and individual study. Preachers and teachers, too, will welcome Cloutier’s consistently clear and engaging writing, free of academic jargon and Catholic code words. With Cloutier as a guide, readers will understand better and respond more effectively to the profound spirituality, the solid doctrinal principles, and the stirring call to action that Pope Francis offers in Laudato Sì.

Luxury. The word alone conjures up visions of visions of attractive, desirable lifestyle choices, yet it also faces criticism as a moral vice harmful to both the self and society. Engaging with ideas from business, marketing, and economics, The Vice of Luxury takes on the challenging task of naming how much is too much in today's consumer-oriented society. David Cloutier's critique goes to the heart of a fundamental contradiction. Though overconsumption and materialism make us uneasy, they also seem inevitable in advanced economies. Current studies of economic ethics focus on the structural problems of poverty, of international trade, of workers' rights -- but rarely, if ever, do such studies speak directly to the excesses of the wealthy, including the middle classes of advanced economies. Cloutier proposes a new approach to economic ethics that focuses attention on our everyday economic choices. He shows why luxury is a problem, explains how to identify what counts as the vice of luxury today, and develops an ethic of consumption that is grounded in Christian moral convictions.

Luxury. The word alone conjures up visions of visions of attractive, desirable lifestyle choices, yet it also faces criticism as a moral vice harmful to both the self and society. Engaging with ideas from business, marketing, and economics, The Vice of Luxury takes on the challenging task of naming how much is too much in today's consumer-oriented society. David Cloutier's critique goes to the heart of a fundamental contradiction. Though overconsumption and materialism make us uneasy, they also seem inevitable in advanced economies. Current studies of economic ethics focus on the structural problems of poverty, of international trade, of workers' rights -- but rarely, if ever, do such studies speak directly to the excesses of the wealthy, including the middle classes of advanced economies. Cloutier proposes a new approach to economic ethics that focuses attention on our everyday economic choices. He shows why luxury is a problem, explains how to identify what counts as the vice of luxury today, and develops an ethic of consumption that is grounded in Christian moral convictions.