Encyclopedia of Catholic Social Thought, Social Science, and Social Policy

Following Volumes 1 and 2, which were released in 2007, this book aims to fill informational gaps and explicate the Church’s perspective on new controversies, including scientific advances and related moral concerns. Coulter (Family in America), Richard S. Myers (Thomas Aquinas), and Joseph A. Varacalli (Bright Promise) gather the research of nearly 120 field specialists. Also covered in the alphabetically organized, multiparagraph entries are figures who have shaped or opposed Catholic social thought, such as Albert Camus and Richard Dawkins. VERDICT Occasionally, subtle editorializing accompanies explanations of Church perspective. Otherwise, this is a valuable, accessible guide to Church principles as they relate to specific issues and people. * Library Journal *
The first two volumes of this encyclopedia of Catholic matter were published in 2007, and this first supplemental volume adds another 202 entries on events that have occurred during the intervening five years, and on matters that either were deferred from the original volumes or have become more important in public debates since then. Among the discussions are Pope Benedict XVI's recent encyclicals, a statement on ethical implications of biomedical research, and recent social science research that bears on Catholic teaching. The full index for the third volume is accompanied by an index of entries and authors for all three volumes. * Book News, Inc. *
As a refernce book, the Encyclopedia lives up to the editors' claim that is 'represents a distinctive contribution to academic scholarship'. . . . It belongs in every library, not least because it "clearly presents a Catholic alternative in intellectural and moral public discourse." * Touchstone: A Journal Of Mere Christianity *
This work is a reliable and useful Catholic handbook on American and global social issues theoretically and theologically constructed and practically applied. Those libraries holding the original two-volume set will want to add this supplemental edition to their collection. * American Reference Books Annual *
The supplement is a useful work in its own right. . . . It sets out rightly to show practical Catholic thinking is not a mile away from the best theologically-informed social science research in the field[.] * s *
Five years after the publication of the two-volume Encyclopedia of Catholic Social Thought, Social Science, and Social Policy, a supplemental third volume now has been published. As the only such encyclopedia. . . currently available in English, these volumes make a unique and very helpful scholarly resource.The editors produced the volumes with the aim of applying 'a Catholic sensibility and critique to a wide variety of aspects of social existence, from intellectual and scholarly disciplines, to culture and institutional structures, to the strategies and possibilities of government intervention in the lives of the citizenry' (xi). On the whole, the volumes succeed in their given task. . . . The same standard of quality and approach evident in the first volumes is maintained in the supplemental volume. Libraries that hold the original two-volume set should add the supplement to their collection; those lacking this resource should add all three volumes. * Catholic Social Science Review *