Empowering People through Encounter

A useful and enriching resource for empowering organizers rooted in Catholic Social Thought to engage the church on all levels and mobilize Catholics and other people of faith to enact social change.

Empowering People Through Encounter presents the Catholic social tradition as an embodied, practical, and inspiring way to connect faith and action. It highlights the dispositions, skills, and methods of faith-based community organizing through a combination of interviews with Catholic organizers in the field and case studies of campaigns from a variety of national contexts. Focusing on the relational praxis of organizing provides an opportunity for readers to encounter Catholic Social Thought as an integrated vision that gets lived on the ground by those closest to the pain of injustices rather than a set of abstract principles invoked by those at a distance.

Erin Brigham directs the Joan and Ralph Lane Center for Catholic Social Thought and the Ignatian Tradition and teaches in the department of theology and religious studies at the University of San Francisco. She also directs the St. Ignatius Institute, a living-learning community rooted in academics, spirituality, and solidarity. Her books include Sustaining the Hope for Unity: Ecumenical Dialogue in a Postmodern World (Liturgical Press, 2012) and Church as Field Hospital: Toward an Ecclesiology of Sanctuary (Liturgical Press, 2021). She grew up in the Rocky Mountains of Western Montana and now lives in the Richmond District with her family.

Maureen H. O’Connell is the chair of the department of religion at La Salle University in Philadelphia where she is also a professor of Christian ethics. She is the author of If These Walls Could Talk: Community Muralism and the Beauty of Justice (Liturgical Press, 2012). She serves on the board of the Society for the Arts in Religious and Theological Studies and is a member of St. Vincent De Paul parish in Germantown, where is also a member of POWER (Philadelphians Organizing to Witness, Empower, and Rebuild).

The Enacting Catholic Social Tradition series is dedicated to the systematic application of Catholic Social Teaching to real-world problems and issues. Written for both academics and pastoral practitioners who want to draw on and learn more about the rich resources of Catholic Social Tradition for the practical work of justice, the series aims to strengthen the capacity of the church to respond lovingly and well to the demands of the Gospel.