Conception Research Guides: Pastoral Formation-Apostolics: Themes in Ministry

Co-Responsiblity

Co-responsibility demands a change in mindset especially concerning the role of lay people in the Church. They should not be regarded as “collaborators” of the clergy, but, rather, as people who are really “co-responsible” for the Church’s being and acting."

Pope Benedict XVI

Called & Co-Responsible: Exploring Co-Responsibility for the Mission of the Church More presentations.

Care for Creation

Laudato Si by Pope Francis
Call Number: 252.84 L367

Why no Catholic is exempt from caring about the environment
What does it mean to be truly pro-life? Amid debates over abortion and the death penalty, Catholic ecologists say that one issue is often overlooked in discussions involving human life and dignity – the environment.

Solidarity

Open Wide Our Hearts: the enduring call to love-a pastoral letter against racism
The document Open Wide Our Hearts: The Enduring Call to Love - A Pastoral Letter Against
Racism was developed by the Committee on Cultural Diversity in the Church of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).
Reconciled Through Christ On Reconciliation and Greater Collaboration Between Hispanic American Catholics and African American Catholics
The committees worked on developing Reconciled Through Christ with the intent of making the Church more aware of and sensitive to the need for collaboration and reconciliation. The document, prepared by both committees, is particularly directed at the pastoral leadership that works with the African American Catholic and the Hispanic Catholic who together share many similar challenges.
Strangers No Longer Together on the Journey of Hope
A Pastoral Letter Concerning Migration from the Catholic Bishops of Mexico and the United States
Responsibility, Rehabilitation, and Restoration: A Catholic Perspective on Crime and Criminal Justice-USCCB
It is time for a new national dialogue on crime and corrections, justice and mercy, responsibility and treatment. As Catholics, we need to ask the following: How can we restore our respect for law and life? How can we protect and rebuild communities, confront crime without vengeance, and defend life without taking life? These questions challenge us as pastors and as teachers of the Gospel.

Option for the Poor and Vulnerable

Catholic Worker Movement
On May 1, 1933, in the depths of the Great Depression, The Catholic Worker newspaper made its debut with a first issue of twenty-five hundred copies. Dorothy Day and a few others hawked the paper in Union Square for a penny a copy (still the price) to passersby.

Today 204 Catholic Worker communities remain committed to nonviolence, voluntary poverty, prayer, and hospitality for the homeless, exiled, hungry, and forsaken. Catholic Workers continue to protest injustice, war, racism, and violence of all forms..

Option for the Poor and for the Earth
Call Number: 224.7 D716 2012
The classic on Catholic social teaching with an emphasis on the option for the poor and economic inequality has been expanded to include Catholic teaching on care for the environment. Dorr demonstrates the development of these different areas of Catholic social teaching over time, highlighting their strengths and weakness.

Life and Dignity of the Human Person

Letter of His Holiness John Paul II to the Elderly
"As an older person myself, I have felt the desire to engage in a conversation with you. I do so first of all by thanking God for the gifts and the opportunities which he has abundantly bestowed upon me up to now."