See, Judge, Act

Catholic Social Teaching and Service Learning, Revised Edition

Course instructors considering a book for adoption will be provided a complimentary copy.
$25.95
Digital Books

The new edition of See, Judge, Act is a splendid introduction to the rich heritage of modern Catholic social teaching. Even more, in the spirit of Pope Francis’s pastoral theology, it offers an invaluable guide to living the tradition in the context of service learning. Here teaching and learning go hand in hand: following the hermeneutical logic of the pastoral circle or spiral in responding to the “signs of the times,” Prof. Brigham brings the wisdom of a vital tradition to bear on such critical issues as poverty, migration, workers’ rights, white privilege and racial and ethnic bias, solidarity in peacemaking, and the global ecological crisis. Deserving a wide readership, especially in these contentious times, Brigham’s new See, Judge, Act gives us reason to hope that the Church’s social teaching will cease to be our “best-kept secret.”

William O’Neill
Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University

Professor Erin M. Brigham’s book critically explores the intersections of theology, service learning, and the Catholic social tradition for our contemporary context. Her commitment to helping faculty and the next generation learn about both the richness of those intersections and the challenges they present is robust and compelling. Theoretically grounded, empirically invigorating and pedagogically engaging, this book provides faculty a great resource and invites students to a disciplined understanding of what it means to see, judge, and act in a world of great injustices. A debt of gratitude is owed Brigham for the quality of her research and writing, the depth of her community collaboration, and the clarity of her pedagogical awareness that are so clearly evident in this searching and graceful book.

Kathleen Maas Weigert
Loyola University Chicago

We will never be able to respond to social crises in an effective, much less ethical, way unless we study issues of social justice closely. While there is much to learn in the world of ethics and public affairs, the first step is to learn how to learn, and this volume provides the veritable key to the entire process. Erin Brigham taps her impressive experience in service-learning programs to share the venerable methodology of social analysis, along with many wise and original insights into social justice challenges today. The vivid coverage of complex and disputed issues of global justice, including the crises of immigration and the environment, is even more relevant and more urgent than it was when the original edition appeared just a few years ago.

This is that rare book that successfully bridges the world of academic theology and hands-on experience. As students in service-learning programs (and anyone undertaking service opportunities in any struggling community) encounter human suffering and social injustice, they will benefit immensely from this timely and user-friendly volume. Rooted in the tradition of Catholic social teaching and committed to a pedagogy of engaged learning, this book is a uniquely valuable resource for our time.

Thomas Massaro, SJ
Fordham University

In this revised edition of See, Judge, Act, Erin Brigham skillfully updates her substantive yet accessible resource introducing readers to Catholic social teaching and praxis. In addition to incorporating newly relevant signs of the times and insights from Pope Francis, this edition offers a preface with valuable pedagogical guidance for those forming students for social change. Together with her community partners, Brigham offers insights into how service learning pedagogy can disrupt standard assumptions and help participants to understand their own well-being as bound up with the flourishing of those whom they encounter. I will continue to use this book in my undergraduate classroom and highly recommend it for use in small Christian community settings, as well.

Kristin E. Heyer
Boston College

About This Book

Overview

Although more and more classrooms are integrating service-learning components into their curriculum, teachers and students often lack the unique pedagogical resources or frameworks for community-based learning that these courses demand.

Erin Brigham’s See, Judge, Act: Catholic Social Teaching and Service Learning, Revised Edition updates a proven text that delivers the tools needed for reflective community engagement. Designed for readers with little to no theology background, See, Judge, Act introduces the seven principles of Catholic social teaching and guides students and teachers alike to apply them to contemporary social issues. Using the see-judge-act method of analysis—seeing social situations, judging them in light of CST principles, and acting to promote justice and improve the situations of those served—this resource deftly balances thoughtful reflection with concrete application. With service-learning vignettes, reflection questions that bookend each chapter, rich recommended resources, and sidebars that introduce relevant people, events, and concepts, See, Judge, Act invites and empowers students to participate in works of justice and social change.

Erin Brigham is the director of the Joan and Ralph Lane Center for Catholic Studies and Social Thought. She teaches Catholic theology and social thought at the University of San Francisco.

Details

Weight .55 lbs
Dimensions 8.25 × .50 × 5.375 in
Print ISBN

978-1-59982-943-2

Pages

228

Item # 7084

Customer Reviews

The new edition of See, Judge, Act is a splendid introduction to the rich heritage of modern Catholic social teaching. Even more, in the spirit of Pope Francis’s pastoral theology, it offers an invaluable guide to living the tradition in the context of service learning. Here teaching and learning go hand in hand: following the hermeneutical logic of the pastoral circle or spiral in responding to the “signs of the times,” Prof. Brigham brings the wisdom of a vital tradition to bear on such critical issues as poverty, migration, workers’ rights, white privilege and racial and ethnic bias, solidarity in peacemaking, and the global ecological crisis. Deserving a wide readership, especially in these contentious times, Brigham’s new See, Judge, Act gives us reason to hope that the Church’s social teaching will cease to be our “best-kept secret.”

William O’Neill
Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University

Professor Erin M. Brigham’s book critically explores the intersections of theology, service learning, and the Catholic social tradition for our contemporary context. Her commitment to helping faculty and the next generation learn about both the richness of those intersections and the challenges they present is robust and compelling. Theoretically grounded, empirically invigorating and pedagogically engaging, this book provides faculty a great resource and invites students to a disciplined understanding of what it means to see, judge, and act in a world of great injustices. A debt of gratitude is owed Brigham for the quality of her research and writing, the depth of her community collaboration, and the clarity of her pedagogical awareness that are so clearly evident in this searching and graceful book.

Kathleen Maas Weigert
Loyola University Chicago

We will never be able to respond to social crises in an effective, much less ethical, way unless we study issues of social justice closely. While there is much to learn in the world of ethics and public affairs, the first step is to learn how to learn, and this volume provides the veritable key to the entire process. Erin Brigham taps her impressive experience in service-learning programs to share the venerable methodology of social analysis, along with many wise and original insights into social justice challenges today. The vivid coverage of complex and disputed issues of global justice, including the crises of immigration and the environment, is even more relevant and more urgent than it was when the original edition appeared just a few years ago.

This is that rare book that successfully bridges the world of academic theology and hands-on experience. As students in service-learning programs (and anyone undertaking service opportunities in any struggling community) encounter human suffering and social injustice, they will benefit immensely from this timely and user-friendly volume. Rooted in the tradition of Catholic social teaching and committed to a pedagogy of engaged learning, this book is a uniquely valuable resource for our time.

Thomas Massaro, SJ
Fordham University

In this revised edition of See, Judge, Act, Erin Brigham skillfully updates her substantive yet accessible resource introducing readers to Catholic social teaching and praxis. In addition to incorporating newly relevant signs of the times and insights from Pope Francis, this edition offers a preface with valuable pedagogical guidance for those forming students for social change. Together with her community partners, Brigham offers insights into how service learning pedagogy can disrupt standard assumptions and help participants to understand their own well-being as bound up with the flourishing of those whom they encounter. I will continue to use this book in my undergraduate classroom and highly recommend it for use in small Christian community settings, as well.

Kristin E. Heyer
Boston College

About the Author

Erin Brigham

Erin M. Brigham is an adjunct professor in the department of theology and religious studies and the faculty coordinator of research in the Joan and Ralph Lane Center for Catholic Studies and Social Thought at the University of San Francisco. She holds a doctorate in systematic and philosophical theology from Graduate Theological Union. Her most recent book, Sustaining the Hope for Unity: Ecumenical Dialogue in a Post-modern World, was published by Liturgical Press in 2012.

Table of Contents

Contents

Foreword, by Paul J. Fitzgerald, SJ

Preface to Revised Edition, by Erin M. Brigham and Sam Dennison

Introduction

The See-Judge-Act Process

Service, Learning, and the See-Judge-Act Process

See, Judge, Act and the Catholic Social Tradition

1 Overview of the Catholic Social Tradition

  • Catholic Social Thought and Action
  • Catholic Social Teaching
  • Looking Ahead
  • For Further Study

2 Defending Human Dignity against Discrimination

  • Introduction
  • Human Dignity in Catholic Social Teaching
  • The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on Racism
  • Reading the Signs of the Times: Racial Discrimination and White Privilege
  • Summary and Integration for Service Learners
  • For Further Study on Catholic Social Thought and Racism

3 Justice for Immigrants: The Call to Family, Community, and Participation

  • Introduction
  • The Call to Family, Community, and Participation in Catholic
  • Social Teaching
  • The Catholic Church’s Response to Migration to the
  • United States
  • Reading the Signs of the Times: Undocumented Immigrants in the United States
  • Summary and Integration for Service Learners
  • For Further Study on Catholic Social Thought and Migration

4 Justice for Workers and the Dignity of Work

  • Introduction
  • The Dignity of Work in Catholic Social Teaching
  • The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on Labor
  • Reading the Signs of the Times: Vulnerable Workers
  • Summary and Integration for Service Learners
  • For Further Study on Catholic Social Thought and Workers’ Rights

5 Economic Justice and the Preferential

  • Option for the Poor
  • Introduction
  • Preferential Option for the Poor in Catholic Social Teaching
  • The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on the Economy
  • Reading the Signs of the Times: Poverty and Empowerment
  • Summary and Integration for Service Learners
  • For Further Study on Catholic Social Thought and Poverty

6 Promoting Solidarity in Peacemaking

  • Introduction
  • The Principle of Solidarity in Catholic Social Teaching
  • The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on Peacebuiling
  • Reading the Signs of the Times: Social Justice for US Veterans
  • Summary and Integration for Service Learners
  • For Further Study on Catholic Social Thought and Peacebuilding

7 Care for Creation and Environmental Issues

  • Introduction
  • Care for Creation in the Catholic Social Tradition
  • The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on the Environment
  • Reading the Signs of the Times: Environmental Racism
  • Summary and Integration for Service Learners
  • For Further Study on Catholic Social Thought on the Environment

8 Rights and Responsibilities in a

  • Globalized Context
  • Introduction
  • Catholic Social Teaching on Rights and Responsibilities
  • The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on Global Responsibility
  • Reading the Signs of the Times: Globalization and Human Rights
  • Summary and Integration for Service Learners
  • For Further Study on Catholic Social Thought on Globalization and Human Rights

Appendix

Church Documents Cited

Index

Professional Reviews

See, Judge, Act: Catholic Social Teaching and Service Learning. Rev. ed. By Erin

Brigham. Winona, MN: Anselm Academic, Christian Brothers Publications,

219 pages. $24.95 (paper).

When a text is selected for a theology or religious studies undergraduate class, intersectionality is essential in order to create pedagogy that is considerate of the background of students, the relevancy of the material contained in the actual text, and the praxis opportunities to apply theory to lived experience. See, Judge, Act: Catholic Social Teaching and Service Learning is such an academic work, which can be adopted in undergraduate social justice curriculums.

In her text, Erin Brigham weaves the best-kept secrets of Catholic social teaching with the relevancy of contemporary social issues facing college and university students. The weaving of this rich social justice tradition and scholarship animates classroom discussion on many of the social and ecological issues identified by Pope Francis with his exhortation for Catholic Christians to step down from the curb and act on behalf of the poor and marginalized of the world.

The text situates itself in the methodology of the Belgian Cardinal Joseph Cardijn, commonly referred to as “see, judge, act.” This methodology is the template repeated in each of the text’s eight chapters. Each chapter facilitates discussion with students about how to sharpen their critical-thinking skills to identify social situations (see) that shake the moral sensibility of observant young adults. Questions for reflection lead students into thoughtful conversation about their lived experience. Brigham’s text makes Cardijn’s judge accessible to students in modalities that are familiar and engaging. Flawlessly, each chapter moves into the social justice tradition found in Scripture, magisterial documents, and contemporary virtual scholarship from internet and podcast sources. Chapter bibliographies give students research opportunities for advanced scholarship. The dealmaker for the adoption of this text for classroom curriculum is the numerous ways Brigham invites students to “step off the curb” à la Pope Francis and act on behalf of justice. The essential component of storytelling is included in each chapter. Websites allow students to connect with local and global agencies whose missions are to work on behalf of justice. Further research and scholarship that could strengthen this text would be to increase and include more storytelling from people of color, with particular attention to women’s stories, illustrating how their lives are devoted to the pursuit of social justice. Internet websites open up the global aspect of Cardijn’s methodology. Even novice professors who have little experience in designing and facilitating service learning can feel comfortable setting up actual onsite locations with the proper accommodations students need to accomplish service hours. The text also is readable for student life personnel to collaborate with the academic side of the university to provide meaningful immersion opportunities for undergraduate students.

Adoption of this text for classroom use is ideal. Library adoption of this text for research would support any existing classroom pedagogy. The text is readable, understandable, and reasonably priced.

DARLENE M. KAWULOK, CSJ, D.MIN.

Mount Saint Mary’s University, Los Angeles

 

 

 

 

Darlene M Kawulok, CSJ. D.MIN.
Mount Saint Mary’s University, Los Angeles
3/21/2021

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