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This book explores how the themes and insights of official Catholic Social Teaching (CST) and broader Catholic social thought might illuminate, and be illuminated by, a deeper engagement with the context of prisons. What resources might Catholic social thought bring to pastoral work in prisons? And what might listening to the prison context bring to Catholic social thought? The volume includes constructive proposals for the relationship between CST and prison ministry, as well as critical questions about the role and shortcomings of prisons, CST, and chaplaincy. It contains contributions by scholars and practitioners of theology, criminology, and prison chaplaincy from the UK, US, and Ireland, and reflects on the inextricable relationship of social action and pastoral care in the work of prison ministry.
List of contents
Part 1 CST Informing Prison Ministry 1. Solidarity, Social Sin, and Prison Ministry 2. Common Good and Prison: Where's the Commonality? Where's the Good? 3. Prison, Work, and Human Dignity Part 2 Prisons Informing CST 4. Sitting Where They Sit: A Theology of Vulnerability 5. Hope, Despair, and Desistance: What Happens after People Are Imprisoned as "Sex Offenders"? 6. Prison Chaplains as Truthtellers: Speaking In, To, and About Prisons Part 3 Critical Perspectives on Prisons and CST 7. Prison Chaplaincy and Criminal Justice: A Critical and Creative Dialogue 8. "An Unchristian Institution": Christian Prison Chaplains and Penal Abolition 9. Catholic Social Thought and Prisons: How Focus on Individual Reform Obscured the Relational Harms of Imprisonment
About the author
Elizabeth Phillips is Director of Education and Engagement at the Woolf Institute, Cambridge, UK.
Férdia J. Stone-Davis is Director of Research at the Margaret Beaufort Institute of Theology, Cambridge, UK.
Summary
This book explores how the themes and insights of official Catholic Social Teaching (CST) and broader Catholic social thought might illuminate – and be illuminated by a deeper engagement with – the context of prisons.
