Resisting Throwaway Culture


Book Description

A Consistent Life Ethic, especially one which embraces Pope Francis' challenge to resist "throwaway culture", has the capacity to unite people who for the last several decades imagined themselves in a polarized culture war. Carefully examining a range of contemporary issues, this book articulates a new moral vision.




Losing Our Dignity


Book Description

There is perhaps no more important value than fundamental human equality. And yet, despite large percentages of people affirming the value, the resources available to explain and defend the basis for such equality are few and far between. In his newest book Charles Camosy provides a thoughtful defense of human dignity. Telling personal stories like those of Jahi McMath, Terri Schiavo, and Alfie Evans, Camosy, a noted bioethicist and theologian, uses an engaging style to show how the influence of secularized medicine is undermining fundamental human equality in the broader culture. And in a disturbing final chapter, Camosy sounds the alarm about the next population to fall if we stay on our current trajectory: dozens of millions of human beings with dementia. Heeding this alarm, Camosy argues, means doing two things. First, making urgent and genuine attempts to dialogue with a secularized culture which cannot see how it is undermining one of its most foundational values. Second, religious communities which hold the Imago Dei sacred must mobilize their existing institutions (and create new ones) to care for a new set of human beings our throwaway culture may deem non-persons.




For Love of Animals


Book Description

For Love of Animals is an honest and thoughtful look at our responsibility as Christians with respect to animals. Many Christians misunderstand both history and their own tradition in thinking about animals. They are joined by prominent secular thinkers who blame Christianity for the Western world's failure to seriously consider the moral status of nonhuman animals. This book explains how traditional Christian ideas and principles—like nonviolence, concern for the vulnerable, respect for life, stewardship of God's creation, and rejection of consumerism—require us to treat animals morally. Though this point of view is often thought of as liberal, the book cites several conservatives who are also concerned about animals. Camosy's Christian argument transcends secular politics. The book's starting point for a Christian position on animals—from the creation story in Genesis to Jesus's eating habits in the Gospels—rests in Scripture. It then moves to explore the views of the Church Fathers, the teachings of the Catholic Church, and current discussions in both Catholic and Protestant theology. Ultimately, however, the book is concerned not with abstract ideas, but with how we should live our everyday lives. Should Christians eat meat? Is cooperation with factory farming evil? What sort of medical research on animals is justified? Camosy also asks difficult questions about hunting and pet ownership. This is an ideal resource for those who are interested in thinking about animals from the perspective of Christian ethics and the consistent ethic of life. Discussion questions at the end of each chapter and suggestions for further reading round out the usefulness of this important work.




Too Expensive to Treat?


Book Description

The moral status of newborn infants -- Arguments against the social quality of life model -- The "weak" social quality of life model -- A constructive proposal for reforming the treatment and care of imperiled newborns.




Integral Ecology for a More Sustainable World


Book Description

Laudato Si’ insists on a revolutionary human response to the public challenges of our time concerning the ecological crisis. The volume takes up the revolutionary spirit of Pope Francis and speaks to the economic, technological, political, educational, and religious changes needed to overcome the fragile relationships between humans and Earth. This volume identifies various systemic factors that have produced the anthropogenic ecological crisis that threatens the planet and uses the ethical vision of Laudato Si’ to promote practical responses that foster fundamental changes in humanity’s relationships with Earth and each other. The essays address not only the immediate behavioral changes needed in individual human lives, but also the deeper, societal changes required if human communities are to live sustainable lives within Earth’s integral ecology. Thus, this volume intentionally focuses on a plurality of cultural contexts and proposes solutions to problems encountered in a variety of global contexts. Accordingly, the contributors to this volume are scholars from a breadth of interdisciplinary and cultural backgrounds, each exploring an ethical theme from the encyclical and proposing systemic changes to address deeply entrenched injustices. Collectively, their essays examine the social, political, economic, gender, scientific, technological, educational, and spiritual challenges of our time as these relate to the ecological crisis.




Send Lazarus


Book Description

A critique of and response to systems founded on indifference toward the needs and desires of people and God’s creation. Today’s regnant global economic and cultural system, neoliberal capitalism, demands that life be led as a series of sacrifices to the market. Send Lazarus’s theological critique wends its way through four neoliberal crises: environmental destruction, slum proliferation, mass incarceration, and mass deportation, all while plumbing the sacrificial and racist depths of neoliberalism. Praise for Send Lazarus “One of the best theological engagements with economics available. The critique of neoliberalism is spot-on: It is a type of class warfare that does not shrink the state but empowers it to protect the market from the people. The market is sublime and cannot be controlled by people. Neoliberalism is thus a type of theology for a deified market, and Eggemeier and Fritz respond with a compelling Christian theology of a God who wants mercy, not sacrifice. If you want a vision of a world beyond today’s suffering and inequality, read this book.” —William T. Cavanaugh, DePaul University “In Send Lazarus: Catholicism and the Crises of Neoliberalism, they propose the popular devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus as a counterpractice for resisting the heartlessness of neoliberalism and throwaway culture . . . Weaving together Pope Francis, St. Pope John Paul II, Cardinal Walter Kasper, and Jesuit Father Karl Rahner, all of whom write of their strong devotion to the Sacred Heart, Eggemeier and Fritz prompted me to reconsider the devotion's relevance in today's world.” —Meghan J. Clark, US Catholic “Required reading for those interested in theological responses to neoliberalism or concerned with social injustice. Highly recommended.” —Choice




The Social Transformation of American Medicine


Book Description

Winner of the 1983 Pulitzer Prize and the Bancroft Prize in American History, this is a landmark history of how the entire American health care system of doctors, hospitals, health plans, and government programs has evolved over the last two centuries. "The definitive social history of the medical profession in America....A monumental achievement."—H. Jack Geiger, M.D., New York Times Book Review




Catholic Music Through the Ages


Book Description

"The Church has always sought a dynamic balance between the expressive and the formative attributes of liturgical music. (This book) traces the development of the Church's music through the ages and is a chronicle of the music we have used in the earthly Liturgy of the Church. .... " [from back cover]




The Panopticon


Book Description

Named one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists Anais Hendricks, fifteen, is in the back of a police car. She is headed for the Panopticon, a home for chronic young offenders. She can't remember what’s happened, but across town a policewoman lies in a coma and Anais is covered in blood. Raised in foster care from birth and moved through twenty-three placements before she even turned seven, Anais has been let down by just about every adult she has ever met. Now a counterculture outlaw, she knows that she can only rely on herself. And yet despite the parade of horrors visited upon her early life, she greets the world with the witty, fierce insight of a survivor. Anais finds a sense of belonging among the residents of the Panopticon—they form intense bonds, and she soon becomes part of an ad-hoc family. Together, they struggle against the adults that keep them confined. But when she looks up at the watchtower that looms over the residents, Anais realizes her fate: She is an anonymous part of an experiment, and she always was. Now it seems that the experiment is closing in. Now with Extra Libris material, including a reader’s guide and bonus content




Beyond the Abortion Wars


Book Description

The abortion debate in the United States is confused. Ratings-driven media coverage highlights extreme views and creates the illusion that we are stuck in a hopeless stalemate. In this book Charles Camosy argues that our polarized public discourse hides the fact that most Americans actually agree on the major issues at stake in abortion morality and law. Unpacking the complexity of the abortion issue, Camosy shows that placing oneself on either side of the typical polarizations -- pro-life vs. pro-choice, liberal vs. conservative, Democrat vs. Republican -- only serves to further confuse the debate and limits our ability to have fruitful dialogue. Camosy then proposes a new public policy that he believes is consistent with the beliefs of the broad majority of Americans and supported by the best ideas and arguments about abortion from both secular and religious sources.