A Sociotheological Approach to Catholic Social Teaching

This book introduces Catholic social teaching (CST) and its teaching on the common good to the reader and applies them in the realm of public health to critically analyze the major global issues of COVID-19 that undermine public interest. It uses the sociotheological approach that combines the moral principles of CST and the holistic analysis of modern sociology and also utilizes the secondary literature as the main source of textual data. Specifically, it investigates the corporate moral irresponsibility and some unethical business practices of Big Pharma in the sale and distribution of its anti-COVID vaccines and medicines, the injustice in the inequitable global vaccine distribution, the weakening of the United States Congress's legislative regulation against the pharmaceutical industry's overpricing and profiteering, the inadequacy of the World Health Organization's (WHO) law enforcement system against corruption, and the lack of social monitoring in the current public health surveillance system to safeguard the public good from corporate fraud and white-collar crime. This book highlights the contribution of sociology in providing the empirical foundation of CST's moral analysis and in crafting appropriate Catholic social action during the pandemic. It is hoped that through this book, secular scholars, social scientists, religious leaders, moral theologians, religious educators, and Catholic lay leaders would be more appreciative of the sociotheological approach to understanding religion and COVID-19. "This book brings into dialogue two bodies of literature: documents of Catholic social teaching, and modern sociology and its core thinkers and texts...The author does especially well to describe how taking 'the sociotheological turn'...will benefit the credibility and dissemination of Catholic social thought." - Rev. Fr. Thomas Massaro, S.J., Professor of Moral Theology, Jesuit School of Theology, Santa Clara University, Berkeley, California.

Autorentext

Dr. Vivencio "Ven" O. Ballano is Associate Professor V of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, College of the Social Sciences and Development (CSSD), Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP), Manila, Philippines. He received his doctorate in sociology from the Ateneo de Manila University and master's degree in theology from the Loyola School of Theology (LST), Ateneo de Manila University. He is the author of three Scopus-indexed books, namely: "Sociological Perspectives on Media Piracy in the Philippines and Vietnam" (2016), "Law, Normative Pluralism, and Post-Disaster Recovery" (2017), and "Sociological Perspectives on Clerical Sexual Abuse in Catholic Hierarchy" (2019), all published by Springer Nature Singapore. Dr. Ballano has written several Scopus- and Web of Science-indexed journal articles. His research interests include sociology of law, religion, media piracy, post-disaster management, digital education, and Catholic Social Teaching. In 2021, he received a gold medal award for excellence in international research publication (Lathala Award 2021) from the Polytechnic University of the Philippines. Correspondence: voballano@pup.edu.ph.