What is Catholic Social Teaching?

Jesus taught us, “Love one another as I have loved you” (John 13:34). Catholic Social Teaching (CST) helps us to understand how we can live out this commandment in our world today. It is a set of principles that guide the way we treat people, care for our world and live as a community.

At St Joseph’s, we focus on seven key principles of Catholic Social Teaching to help us live out our faith in school. These include:

  • Human Dignity – every person is made in the image of God.
  • Care for Creation – we are called to protect and respect God’s world.
  • Solidarity – we stand with others, especially those who are suffering.
  • The Common Good – we work for what is best for everyone.
  • Option for the Poor – we put the needs of the most vulnerable first.
  • Justice and Peace – we act fairly and help to build a peaceful world.
  • Subsidiarity – everyone has a role to play, and decisions should be made at the right level.

Our faith calls us to love God and to love our neighbour in every situation, especially those living in poverty or facing injustice. Following in the footsteps of Christ, we try to bring God’s justice, love and peace into our school, our community and our world.

For more information about Catholic Social Teaching, please visit CAFOD’s website: CLICK HERE

Building The Kingdom

At St. Joseph’s we are proud to have started on our journey on the Building the Kingdom programme, the aim of which is to embed distinctive Catholic Curriculum design for the transformation of society.

“This initiative calls for the contextualising of all learning within the beliefs and values of the Gospel and the Catholic tradition, aspiring to reach the highest possible levels of learning.” (EducareM website)

Through Building the Kingdom, we explore the big questions of purpose and meaning that arise throughout the Liturgical year, and then create lessons and events which engage students with the skills needed to be agents for a spirit fuelled transformation of society.

 

We share here some examples of the events we have held so far.

We learnt about the colours of Mardi Gras.

We ended our Mardi Gras celebrations with an online collective worship, the children learning in school were united with children learning at home.

St Joseph’s Table

Pentecost

Advent –  Messengers of hope  

The Chaplaincy team led us in a Celebration of the Word this morning. They read their messages of hope for different groups of people.

Our Mission this week is to write our own message of hope for someone who needs it.