Abstract

Though the social teachings of the U.S. Catholic bishops differ in several respects from both the Protestant social gospel and Latin American liberation theology, there is a common theological logic grounding these kindred conceptions of the role of the church in social reconstruction. Christian social concern begins with a "contrast experience" of the failure of present actuality to satisfy the felt requirements of conscience. This experience compels attention to the resources of Scripture which are brought to bear by means of hermeneutical strategies that assume a social anthropology and are necessarily welded to penetrating social analysis. Universal moral principles are subsequently employed to permit expression of the values of faith in common public language.