An Introduction to Catholic Social Doctrine

If I could, I would give this book 5 stars for what it contains, but 3 stars for the editing. The book I got was 72 pages long, which tells me there may be a new edition that addresses some of my problems in the current edition which is apparently 80 pages long.

Firstly, the book itself is great. Fr. Bourmaud eloquently explains the social doctrine in an enlightening way. Although I was familiar with the social doctrine of the Catholic Church, Father perfectly describes it and words it in a way that is both thought-provoking and easy to understand. He does use a few philosophical terms like distinguishing between the four causes of a thing, but he even explains those well. Father also draws on some French works that aren't very accessible to us here in the English speaking world like Cardinal Pie's works along with very particular statements from the various pre-conciliar popes that must have been difficult to research. I do wish he could have addressed the ideology of Distributism or the Distributists like Belloc and Chesterton but I have a feeling that the modern Distributists would claim this book describes their position.

At the beginning of the book, there is a reference to a "Further Reading" section. My copy didn't come with this. However, there are books in the footnotes that are definitely great to know about. Further, there are some typos throughout the book that could have been fixed with further editing.

I took many notes and will be coming back to this book!