The focus of this publication is the Church's charitable ministry in relation to Catholic social teaching. The authors of this collaborative monograph provide answers to the questions of the forms and reasons for their mutual estrangement, how the position of charitable service has changed with the publication of the encyclical Deus caritas est and especially Motu proprio Intima ecclesiae natura, how and why a theology of charitable service can be legitimately conceptualized, how and where such a theology is being developed in the world, and how the two strands of the Church's socio-pastoral mission can be brought into balance in an integral model of charitable practice today. |