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Catholic Social Teaching: The Church’s best kept secret

The Catholic Union’s latest webinar featured a talk from Raymond Friel OBE on his new book on Catholic Social Teaching.

Mr Friel who has been Chief Executive of Caritas Social Action Network (CSAN) since 2021, and previously worked in education, spoke about his motivation to write the book.

He explained that he wanted a more “user friendly” guide to Catholic Social Teaching for schools, parishes, and charities.

As well as setting out the development of Catholic Social Teaching, the book includes a social action calendar with key dates and practical steps for how people can put this teaching into practice.

Mr Friel described Catholic Social Teaching as the Church’s best kept secret. He said that better formation was needed from schools to seminaries so that Catholics have a better understanding of this teaching.

He said Catholic Social Teaching was not simply a collection of Encyclicals or the Catechism of the Church, but rather it concerned putting Church teaching into practice.

The book – Catholic Social Teaching: An introduction for schools, parishes, and charities – is available from Redemptorist Publications. Catholic Union members and supporters can get 20% off using the code: CUWEB.

Details of future Catholic Union events can be found here.