This book identifies both the consistencies and disparities between Catholic Social Teaching and the United Nation's (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). With Pope Francis' Laudato si' encyclical, Catholicism seems to be engaging more than ever with environmental and developmental concerns. However, there remains the question of how these theological statements will be put into practice. The ongoing involvement of the Catholic Church in social matters makes it a significant potential partner in issues around development. Therefore, with the use of the comparative method, this book brings together authors from multiple disciplines to assess how the political and legal aspects of each of the UN's 17 SDGs are addressed by Catholic Social Teaching. Chapters answer the question of how the Catholic Church evaluates the concept of sustainable development as defined by the Agenda 2030 Goals, as well as assessing how and if it can contribute to shaping the contemporary concept of global development. Examining the potential level of cooperation between the international community and the Catholic Church in the implementation of the Agenda 2030 Goals, this volume will be of keen interest to scholars of Catholic Studies, Religious Studies and the Sociology of Religion, as well as Environmental Studies and Development Studies.

This book identifies both the consistencies and disparities between Catholic Social Teaching and the United Nation’s (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). With Pope Francis’ Laudato si’ encyclical, Catholicism seems to be engaging more than ever with environmental and developmental concerns. However, there remains the question of how these theological statements will be put into practice. The ongoing involvement of the Catholic Church in social matters makes it a significant potential partner in issues around development. Therefore, with the use of the comparative method, this book brings together authors from multiple disciplines to assess how the political and legal aspects of each of the UN’s 17 SDGs are addressed by Catholic Social Teaching. Chapters answer the question of how the Catholic Church evaluates the concept of sustainable development as defined by the Agenda 2030 Goals, as well as assessing how and if it can contribute to shaping the contemporary concept of global development. Examining the potential level of cooperation between the international community and the Catholic Church in the implementation of the Agenda 2030 Goals, this volume will be of keen interest to scholars of Catholic Studies, Religious Studies and the Sociology of Religion, as well as Environmental Studies and Development Studies.

This book identifies both the consistencies and disparities between Catholic Social Teaching and the United Nation’s (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). With Pope Francis’ Laudato si’ encyclical, Catholicism seems to be engaging more than ever with environmental and developmental concerns. However, there remains the question of how these theological statements will be put into practice. The ongoing involvement of the Catholic Church in social matters makes it a significant potential partner in issues around development. Therefore, with the use of the comparative method, this book brings together authors from multiple disciplines to assess how the political and legal aspects of each of the UN’s 17 SDGs are addressed by Catholic Social Teaching. Chapters answer the question of how the Catholic Church evaluates the concept of sustainable development as defined by the Agenda 2030 Goals, as well as assessing how and if it can contribute to shaping the contemporary concept of global development. Examining the potential level of cooperation between the international community and the Catholic Church in the implementation of the Agenda 2030 Goals, this volume will be of keen interest to scholars of Catholic Studies, Religious Studies and the Sociology of Religion, as well as Environmental Studies and Development Studies.

“In the heart of this world, the Lord of life, who loves us so much, is always present. He does not abandon us, he does not leave us alone, for he has united himself definitively to our earth, and his love constantly impels us to find new ways forward. Praise be to him!” – Pope Francis, Laudato Si’ In his second encyclical, Laudato Si’: On the Care of Our Common Home, Pope Francis draws all Christians into a dialogue with every person on the planet about our common home. We as human beings are united by the concern for our planet, and every living thing that dwells on it, especially the poorest and most vulnerable. Pope Francis’ letter joins the body of the Church’s social and moral teaching, draws on the best scientific research, providing the foundation for “the ethical and spiritual itinerary that follows.” Laudato Si’ outlines: The current state of our “common home” The Gospel message as seen through creation The human causes of the ecological crisis Ecology and the common good Pope Francis’ call to action for each of us Our Sunday Visitor has included discussion questions, making it perfect for individual or group study, leading all Catholics and Christians into a deeper understanding of the importance of this teaching.

This book draws on the expertise of faculty and colleagues at the Balsillie School of International Affairs to both locate the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a contribution to the development of global government and to examine the political-institutional and financial challenges posed by the SDGs. The contributors are experts in global governance issues in a broad variety of fields ranging from health, food systems, social policy, migration and climate change. An introductory chapter sets out the broad context of the governance challenges involved, and how individual chapters contribute to the analysis. The book begins by focusing on individual SDGs, examining briefly the background to the particular goal and evaluating the opportunities and challenges (particularly governance challenges) in achieving the goal, as well as discussing how this goal relates to other SDGs. The book goes on to address the broader issues of achieving the set of goals overall, examining the novel financing mechanisms required for an enterprise of this nature, the trade-offs involved (particularly between the urgent climate agenda and the social/economic goals), the institutional arrangements designed to enable the achievement of the goals and offering a critical perspective on the enterprise as a whole. Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals makes a distinctive contribution by covering a broad range of individual goals with contributions from experts on governance in the global climate, social and economic areas as well as providing assessments of the overall project – its financial feasibility, institutional requisites, and its failures to tackle certain problems at the core. This book will be of great interest to scholars and students of international affairs, development studies and sustainable development, as well as those engaged in policymaking nationally, internationally and those working in NGOs.

A lively investigation of the Catholic Church and its controversial social mission in the developing world

There have been significant efforts to implement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at multiple levels of governance across all regions of the world. However, the manner in which the global governance norms underlying the SDGs are actually being diffused is under-researched and not well understood. This book considers the promotion of the SDGs through the lens of norm diffusion theory, with a focus on three SDG policy areas; health, education and decent work. A distinctive feature of the book is that it offers multiple original case studies of SDG norm diffusion involving Asian and European actors. A unique feature is that the case studies in the book identify relevant SDG norm senders and norm receivers, and examine the relationship between them. The book also challenges the assumption that the SDGs themselves are static and unchanging, and reveals how SDG norms are dynamic and can be reformulated as a result of contestation between norm senders and norm receivers. As well as introducing a diverse and original set of case studies, the book therefore allows readers to deepen their understandings of the policy diffusion mechanisms by which SDGs are diffused, and grasp the patterns of success and failure in the implementation of these policies. Chapters 4, 5 and 7 of this book are available for free in PDF format as Open Access from the individual product page at www.routledge.com. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 licence.

This book explores the extent of parallelism and cross-influence between Catholic Social Teaching and the work of the world’s oldest human rights institution, the International Labour Organisation (ILO). Sometimes there is a mutual attraction between seeming opposites who in fact share a common goal. This book is about just such an attraction between a secular organisation born of the political desire for peace and justice, and a metaphysical institution much older founded to bring peace and justice on earth. It examines the principles evident in the teachings of the Catholic Church and in the secular philosophy of the ILO; together with the theological basis of the relevant provisions of Catholic Social Teaching and of the socio-political origins and basis of the ILO. The spectrum of labour rights covered in the book extends from the right to press for rights, i.e., collective bargaining, to rights themselves – conditions in work – and on to post-employment rights in the form of social security and pensions. The extent of the parallelism and cross-influence is reviewed from the issue of the Papal Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII Rerum Novarum (1891) and from the founding of the ILO in 1919. This book is intended to appeal to lay, professional and academic alike, and will be of interest to researchers and academics working in the areas of international human rights, theology, comparative philosophy, history and social and political studies. On 4 January 2021 it was granted an Imprimatur by the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool, Malcolm P. McMahon O.P., meaning that the Catholic Church is satisfied that the book is free of doctrinal or moral error.

This book presents a collection of chapters that examine various dimensions of development. Between 2000 and 2015, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) remained the overarching development framework that governed the international development community. After a decade and half of commitment to the MDGs, the framework is widely considered a success, although progress reported across countries has been uneven. The new overarching international development framework may not be successful or present the best opportunities for the desired global change without a better understanding of factors that contributed the most or the least to the attainment of the MDGs. The chapters presented in this book provide discussions and insights into understanding these factors better. They represent a collection of scholarship that address some of the important questions in international development. They adopt a wide range of research methods to provide insight into what works, and what does not, in promoting the stipulated development goals.

This book brings development theory and practice into dialogue with a religious tradition in order to construct a new, transdisciplinary vision of development with integral ecology at its heart. It focuses on the Catholic social tradition and its conception of integral human development, on the one hand, and on the works of economist and philosopher Amartya Sen which underpin the human development approach, on the other. The book discusses how these two perspectives can mutually enrich each other around three areas: their views on the concept and meaning of development and progress; their understanding of what it is to be human – that is, their anthropological vision; and their analysis of transformational pathways for addressing social and environmental degradation. It also examines how both human development and the Catholic social tradition can function as complementary analytical lenses and mobilizing frames for embarking on the journey of structural and personal transformation to bring all life systems, human and non-human, back into balance. This book is written for researchers and students in development studies, theology, and religious studies, as well as professional audiences in development organizations.