Joseph Louis Bernardin was an American Cardinal of the Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Cincinnati from 1972 until 1982, and as Archbishop of Chicago from 1982 until his death in 1996 from pancreatic cancer. Bernardin was elevated to the cardinalate in 1983 by Pope John Paul II.
The consistent life ethic, also known as the consistent ethic of life or whole life ethic, is an ideology that opposes abortion, capital punishment, assisted suicide, and euthanasia. Adherents oppose war, or at the very least unjust war; some adherents go as far as full pacifism and so oppose all war. Many authors have understood the ethic to be relevant to a broad variety of areas of public policy as well as social justice issues. The term was popularized in 1983 by the Catholic prelate Joseph Bernardin in the United States to express an ideology based on the premise that all human life is sacred and should be protected by law.
The Couples for Christ (CFC) is an international Catholic lay ecclesial movement whose goal is to renew and strengthen Christian values. It is one of 123 International Associations of the Faithful.
Catholic social teaching (CST) is an area of Catholic doctrine which is concerned with human dignity and the common good in society. It addresses oppression, the role of the state, subsidiarity, social organization, social justice, and wealth distribution. CST's foundations are considered to have been laid by Pope Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical, Rerum novarum, which advocated distributism. Its roots can be traced to Catholic theologians such as Thomas Aquinas and Augustine of Hippo. CST is also derived from the Bible and cultures of the ancient Near East.
Pedro Arrupe Gondra, SJ was a Spanish Basque priest who served as the 28th Superior General of the Society of Jesus from 1965 to 1983. He has been called a second founder of the Society, as he led the Jesuits in the implementation of the Second Vatican Council, especially with regard to faith that does justice and preferential option for the poor.
Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson is a Ghanaian prelate and cardinal of the Catholic Church who has served as chancellor of the Pontifical Academies of Sciences since 2022. He was president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace from 2009 to 2017 and the inaugural prefect of the Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development from 2017 to 2021.
Loyola High School is a private, Roman Catholic, college-preparatory high school for boys in Los Angeles, California, United States. It was established in 1865 and is part of the Society of Jesus. It is the oldest continuously run educational institution in Southern California.
The Jesuit Volunteer Corps (JVC) is an organization of lay volunteers who volunteer one year or more to community service with poor communities. JVC works in inner city neighborhoods and rural communities in about 36 different cities throughout the U.S. JVC works with the homeless, abused women and children, immigrants and refugees, the mentally ill, people with HIV/AIDS and other illnesses, the elderly, children, and on behalf of other marginalized groups. Jesuit Volunteers (JVs) in the international program that places volunteers in other countries.
The option for the poor, or the preferential option for the poor, is a principle of Catholic social teaching, explicitly articulated in the latter half of the 20th century. The concept was first articulated within Latin American liberation theology, and was championed by many Latin American Christian democratic parties at the time. It is also a theological emphasis in Methodism.
Gerald Frederick Kicanas is an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as bishop of the Diocese of Tucson in Arizona from 2002 to 2017. He served as the apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Las Cruces in New Mexico from September 2018 to July 2019.
The Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) is the national anti-poverty and social justice program of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)
The Catholic Church is a major provider of medical care to HIV/AIDS patients. Much of its work takes place in developing countries, although it has also had a presence in the global north. Its opposition to condoms, despite their effectiveness in preventing the spread of HIV, has invited criticism from public health officials and anti-AIDS activists.
The Catholic Common Ground Initiative is an intra-ecclesial relations effort launched in 1996 by the National Pastoral Life Center. Its original goal was to dialogue with dissenting Catholics on a variety of unresolved issues that came about in the years following the Second Vatican Council. One of its most notable proponents was the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago.
Elected on 13 March 2013, Francis is the first member of the Society of Jesus to be appointed pope and the first non-European to hold the office since the 8th century. He described his papal name as pointing to what he wants to emulate in Saint Francis of Assisi: to have a poor church, for the poor, always going out to the margins, and to show concern for the natural environment. His papal motto Miserando atque eligendo contains a central theme of his papacy, God's mercy, which has led to conflict with orthodox Catholics on issues such as reception of Communion by remarried Catholics. In addressing real life situations he often appeals directly to his experience, in continuity with his synodal way, which showed a renewed emphasis on listening and dialogue. He has placed greater emphasis on church synods and on widespread consultation and dialogue, uplifting the roles of laypersons and of women in the Catholic church and criticizing clericalism.
Hekima College is a Jesuit school of theology in Nairobi, Kenya, affiliated with the Catholic University of Eastern Africa. It opened in 1984 as a seminary for Jesuits studying to be priests. Since its opening, Hekima has diversified its student base. In 2004 it opened the Institute of Peace Studies and International Relations (HIPSIR).
Ignatian Solidarity Network (ISN) organizes Jesuit schools and universities in the United States, together with their alumni and all interested parties, in training and advocacy for social justice leadership. This is in pursuit of "the service of faith and promotion of justice" that was emphasized by Jesuit Father General Pedro Arrupe and by the Catholic bishops after Vatican II. The founding of ISN was in response to the US connection in the 1989 murders of Jesuits in El Salvador.
Michael F. Czerny is a Czechoslovakian-born Canadian prelate of the Catholic Church who has been prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development since 23 April 2022, after serving as interim prefect for several months. He was under secretary of that dicastery's Migrants and Refugees Section from 2017 to 2022. Pope Francis made him a cardinal in 2019.
Religious sector opposition against the dictatorship of President Ferdinand Marcos included leaders and workers belonging to different beliefs and denominations.
Nathalie Becquart, XMCJ is a French Catholic religious sister and member of the Congregation of Xavières. She was appointed a consultor to the Synod of Bishops of the Catholic Church in 2019 and named one of its undersecretaries in 2021. From 2008 to 2018 she oversaw the National Service for the Evangelization of Young People and for Vocations (SNEJV) within the Bishops' Conference of France.
Latin American liberation theology is a synthesis of Christian theology and Marxian socio-economic analyses, that emphasizes "social concern for the poor and political liberation for oppressed peoples". Beginning in the 1960s after the Second Vatican Council, liberation theology became the political praxis of Latin American theologians such as Gustavo Gutiérrez, Leonardo Boff, and Jesuits Juan Luis Segundo and Jon Sobrino, who popularized the phrase "preferential option for the poor". It arose principally as a moral reaction to the poverty and social injustice in the region, which Cepal deemed the most unequal in the world.
