Dallas Lay Dominicans

Dear Lay Dominicans and Inquirers:

We will have our next monthly Lay Dominican meeting Sunday, Dec. 11th at St. Albert’s Priory, located near the Holy Trinity Seminary, adjacent to the University of Dallas.  Our meeting will start after the 11:15 Mass in the library.  Following the meeting we will share a meal (via sack lunches) and then pray Midafternoon  prayer (None) from the Liturgy of the Hours together.

Here is  a copy of the prayer that we will use or you  can follow along in your breviary – Liturgy of the Hours Vol. I: Ordinary: 658 Proper of Seasons: 266 (reading, concluding prayer) Complimentary Psalter: 1095 (Series III, Midafternoon)

The inquirers class will begin at 10AM in the library.  Newcomers are welcome to come for any part of the meetings.

Catholic Social Teaching for lay dominicans (final)

Linked above is the document that I tried unsuccessfully to send at the beginning of November.  We began discussing this at last Sunday’s meeting, and will continue to do at the next meeting (Dec. 11th.)  As I explained at the meeting, I volunteered to prepare a module for the Southern Lay Dominican Province that could be used by lay Dominican groups regarding Catholic Social Teaching.  This is what I have prepared, which is ready for review by our group.

As you read through it, please keep an eye out for things that should be revised, as I wish to present to the Province something that is useful.  Secondly, with this project I plan to develop discussion questions to go along with the reading.  If any such questions come to mind as you read through it, please jot them down or e-mail them to me as that would be very helpful. 

Finally, please bring a newspaper/internet article to the Dec. meeting that could be discussed in light of the principles of Catholic Social Teaching.  As time permits we will apply the principles, either present or lacking, to the stories that you bring to the meeting.

 Thank you so much for your help with this project.  This is a pilot undertaking…I’m hoping that it will eventually lead to a library of materials (written by other lay Dominicans!) that groups like ours can use for on-going formation!

See you in December!

In Christ,

Dear Lay Dominicans and Inquirers:

We will have our next monthly Lay Dominican meeting Sunday, Nov. 13th at St. Albert’s Priory, located near the Holy Trinity Seminary, adjacent to the University of Dallas.  Our meeting will start after the 11:15 Mass in the library.  Following the meeting we will share a meal (via sack lunches) and then pray the rosary together.  The inquirers class will begin at 10AM in the library.  Newcomers are welcome to come for any part of the meetings.

This month we will discuss Catholic Social teaching. Our moderator was asked by the province to author material for the revision to the formation materials. So please join us for a sneak preview. It is not posted here so as to not spoil the surprise.

As a very general overview of just what might be meant by Catholic Social teaching, please consider checking out the links below. There is a lot of material, so there is an attempt a least of a top down approach so that you can dig as deep as you may or may not like or for which you may have time:

Social teachings of the papacy – Wikipedia – has links to wiki articles about the encyclicals organized by Pope. Not much beyond the links and a couple of paragraph summary.

Subsidiarity – Wikipedia

Subsidiarity is an organizing principle that matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority. Political decisions should be taken at a local level if possible, rather than by a central authority. ^[1] The Oxford English Dictionary defines subsidiarity as the idea that a central authority should have a subsidiary function, performing only those tasks which cannot be performed effectively at a more immediate or local level.

The word subsidiarity is derived from the Latin word subsidiarius and has its origins in Catholic social teaching.

Link to the Catechism on Subsidiarity (1883-1885, 1894)

Catholic Social teaching – Wikipedia– A much more in depth article on the subject. This one also has links to wiki articles about the encyclicals organized by Pope like the above, plus a plethora of external content including a 14 week theology course available for download. Here for your convenience is the overview of the wiki article:

Catholic social teaching is a body of doctrine developed by the Catholic Church on matters of poverty and wealth, economics, social organization and the role of the state. Its foundations are widely considered to have been laid by Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical letter Rerum Novarum, which advocated economic Distributism and condemned Socialism, although its roots can be traced to the writings of Catholic thinkers such as St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine of Hippo, and is also derived from concepts present in the Bible.

According to Pope Benedict XVI, its purpose “is simply to help purify reason and to contribute, here and now, to the acknowledgment and attainment of what is just…. [The Church] has to play her part through rational argument and she has to reawaken the spiritual energy without which justice…cannot prevail and prosper”,[1] According to Pope John Paul II, its foundation “rests on the threefold cornerstones of human dignity, solidarity and subsidiarity”.[2] These concerns echo elements of Jewish law and the prophetic books of the Old Testament, and recall the teachings of Jesus Christ recorded in the New Testament, such as his declaration that “whatever you have done for one of these least brothers of Mine, you have done for Me.”[3]

Catholic social teaching is distinctive in its consistent critiques of modern social and political ideologies both of the left and of the right: liberalism, communism, feminism,[4][5] atheism,[6] socialism, libertarianism, capitalism,[7] fascism, and Nazism have all been condemned, at least in their pure forms, by several popes since the late nineteenth century.

Catholic Social Teaching – Provides a comprehensive index of Papal teaching on Social Doctrine as well as articles by Catholic scholars.