The CCST aims to promote research into Catholic social thought, which includes official Catholic social teaching (as expressed mainly through papal encyclicals, official declarations and statements by regional and national bishops’ conferences), the Christian social tradition in general and, non-official Catholic social teaching developed by individual Catholic Scholars and by connected institutions, movements or groups dedicated to both reflection and action. The aim of the centre is realized via doctoral
Coordinator: Ellen Van Stichel
The immediate stimulus to the setting up of the centre was the expert seminar Whose Ethics? Which Priorities? Catholic Social Thought in Transition , Cambridge, Von Hügel Institute, 1999. The centre has organized several international expert seminars: on Gaudium et spes ("Scrutinizing the Signs of the Times") in 2003/2004, Catholic Social Thought and Development 40 years after Populorum Progressio (2007), Patristic Social Thought (2007), Catholic Social Thought and the Movements (2011), and served as co-org