It is possible to be a serious scholar who presents a Catholic perspective to the study of economics, politics, sociology and any other social-science discipline

Organization Brings Balance to Economics, Politics

BY BRIAN FRAGA

Society of Catholic Social Scientists Based at Franciscan University

Since its founding, the organization publishes The Catholic Social Science Review on an annual basis and offers a theology master’s degree program in partnership with the Graduate Theological Foundation. The society’s members have also published a Catholic Social Thought book series, as well as two volumes of the Encyclopedia of Catholic Social Thought, Social Science and Social Policy. The society also helps to conduct the Summer Institute of Catholic Social Thought, which offers a weeklong introduction to Catholic social thought, emphasizing both theory and application to specific academic disciplines in the arts and human sciences.

Contrary to what some academics might think, it is possible to be a serious scholar who presents a Catholic perspective to the study of economics, politics, sociology and any other social-science discipline.

"So much of our social policy, political thinking and economic thinking is laced with ideologically fashioned premises," said Stephen Krason, a political science professor and chairman of the Department of Humanities and Catholic Social Thought at Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio.

"Church teaching, on the other hand, is not an ideology. The Church has a great balance in her teachings, because they are based on what man is and of what men’s end and purposes are," said Krason, who also serves as the president of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists, which he co-founded in 1992.

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