Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching

By: Anthony Esolen

Narrated by: John Haynes Walker

Many claim that Catholic Social Teaching implies the existence of a vast welfare state. In these pages, Anthony Esolen pulls back the curtain on these false philosophers, showing how they've undermined the authentic social teachings of the Church in order to neutralize the biggest threat to their plans for secularization the Catholic Church.

With the voluminous writings of Pope Leo XIII as his guide, Esolen explains that Catholic Social Teaching isn't focused exclusively on serving the poor. Indeed, it offers us a rich treasure of insights about the nature of man, his eternal destiny, the sanctity of marriage, and the important role of the family in building a coherent and harmonious society.

Catholic Social Teaching, explains Pope Leo, offers a unified worldview. What the Church says about the family is inextricable from what She says about the poor; and what She says about the Eucharist informs the essence of Her teachings on education, the arts and even government.

You will step away from these pages with a profound understanding of the root causes of the ills that afflict our society, and, thanks to Pope Leo and Anthony Esolen, well equipped to propose compelling remedies for them.

Only an authentically Catholic culture provides for a stable and virtuous society that allows Christians to do the real work that can unite rich and poor. We must reclaim Catholic Social Teaching if we are to transform our society into the ideal mapped out by Pope Leo: a land of sinners, yes, but one enriched with love of God and neighbor and sustained by the very heart of the Church's social teaching: the most holy Eucharist.

©2014 Anthony Esolen (P)2014 Sophia Institute Press

Excellent book; mediocre narration

The narrator mispronounces words sometimes but otherwise does a fine job. The book is excellent.

A wake-up call one joyfully receive.

I listened intently to a message which as Catholic gave me great joy and moved me to prayerful hope for the future. I come away with a better understanding of socialism vs social justice. They could not be more opposed to each other.

Much needed.

I highly recommend. We need this teaching. Anthony Esolen quotes Pope Leo XIII and applies it to our culture and our need of the church’s teachings.

A must read

I only thought I had a understanding of Catholic Social Teaching. Now I know how much I did not know. For example I never really realized how much Pope Leo XIII contributed to this rich teaching. I also am now convinced he either was a man gifted with great understanding of what was coming or a time machine. Either way he knew where western civilization would be 110+ years from now. This is the goto book to get a clearer understanding of the Social Teaching of our blessed Church.

The rest of the story

Mr. Esolen provides a thorough survey of Catholic social teaching in this book. It is multi dimensional, and comes from neither a left nor right perspective. Rather, it comes from the perspective of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

A Worthwhile Dream

I wish all Catholics were aware of the Churches Social Teachings and how they could change the world.

Insightful, thought-provoking, and will read

This is one of the best explorations of Catholic social teaching that I have come across. The narrator is a perfect fit for the conveyance of this material. The assertions are backed up with church documents being cited to show the historicity of the positions.

Great content, incompetent narrator

If you don’t speak Italian or Latin, and your get hired to read a book that has words in one of the two languages on every page, would you be humble and ask someone to coach you on pronunciation, or would you blunder through and absolutely murder those words? This narrator took door number 2 and the performance of the otherwise great content suffers as a result.

not the best

the ideas in here we're fine. I just found the writing a bit pretentious, repetitive, meandering.