Durham E-Theses Discovering the Common Good in Practice: The Catholicity of Catholic Charities JONES, PATRICIA How to cite: JONES, PATRICIA (2019) Discovering the Common Good in Practice: The Catholicity of Catholic Charities , Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/13104/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 1 Patricia Jones Discovering the Common Good in Practice: The Catholicity of Catholic Charities Abstract This research examines a group of UK Catholic charities working in the field of homelessness and social exclusion in order to understand how their Catholicity is constituted and how this impacts on their practice. I argue that their Catholicity is primarily found in how their practices enact, test and extend Catholic social vision rather than in institutional alignment. I demonstrate that the charities have an ecclesiological specificity which official Catholic texts fail to recognise. They operate across the porous boundaries of the visible Church, drawing into their work people who share elements of the social vision articulated in Catholic thought and tradition. Theologically, they enact the Catholic intuition about the meaning of social bonds and reciprocal human flourishing by working to counter social exclusion and vulnerability and point social realities towards the Kingdom. Their location on ecclesial boundaries, their inclusiveness, and their embeddedness in secular structures of social welfare and politics, are necessary conditions of social mission. I use the concept of the common good as a hermeneutic in order to read the charities as a case study testing how Catholic social teaching’s methodological strategies propose shared moral horizons. Using Thomas Bushlack’s concept of civic virtue in conversation with normative Catholic social teaching about the common good enables fresh insights into the practices which enact this principle. The charities discover the meaning of the common good by recognising and wrestling with the absence of the conditions that enable people to seek fulfilment. Their asymmetrical relational work, shaped by their narratives, renders an abstract and elusive concept as a real and practical task. Their communally held and inclusively enacted intuitions disclose pragmatic coherence with Conciliar ecclesiology and validate its orientations. The charities act as agents and inventors of mediated social mission, illuminating an expansive Catholicity. 99,475 words 2 Discovering the Common Good in Practice: The Catholicity of Catholic Charities Submitted by Patricia Jones For the qualification of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Theology and Religion Durham University 2019 3 Contents Chapter One: The Right Response ...............................................................................9 1 Introduction: Why this Research Matters..................................................................... 9 2 The Origins of the Research ........................................................................................10 3 The Research Question and the Boundaries of the Project ........................................11 4 Locating the Research in Wider Academic Discourse .................................................13 5 Identity: Between Catholicism and Catholicity ...........................................................15 6 Clarifying Concepts .....................................................................................................17 7 Positionality.................................................................................................................19 8 The Argument .............................................................................................................21 9 Overview of the Chapters ...........................................................................................22 Chapter Two: In Conversation with Practice: Methodological Influences and Research Strategies .................................................................................................... 27 1 Introduction: Tools and Concepts for Researching Communal Practices ...................27 2 The Extended Case Study Model ................................................................................29 3 Catholic Participation in Practical Theology: Positioning the Research ......................31 4 The Influence of Theological Action Research ............................................................33 5 Contributing to Pragmatic Coherence ........................................................................35 6 Research Design and Strategy .....................................................................................37 7 Interpreting the Data: Analysis, Reflection and Discernment ....................................42 8 What Can We Claim? Validity and Reliability in Qualitative Research Projects .........44 9 Epistemological Reflections ........................................................................................46 10 A Way to Be Both: Reflexivity and the Insider/Outsider Continuum..........................47 11 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................50 Chapter Three: Particularity, Tensions and Risks: The Evolution of Catholic Social Vision and Practice in England and Wales from the 1850s Onwards ....................... 52 1 Introduction: The Weight of History ...........................................................................52 2 The English Catholic Church and the Poor ..................................................................55 2.1 ‘The part of Westminster which alone I covet’: Nineteenth Century Catholic Social Vision and Practical Response. .............................................................................55 2.2 The Impact of the Welfare State .........................................................................57 2.3 The Contemporary Catholic Social Welfare Sector .............................................59 3 Catholic Social Vision and Political Engagement .........................................................61 3.1 Catholic Responses to the Welfare State ............................................................62 3.2 Models of Political Engagement and Impact ......................................................64 4 The Particularity of Catholic Social Vision in England and Wales ...............................65 5 The Recent Ecclesial Politics of Catholic Identity ........................................................69 6 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................72 Chapter Four: Catholic Social Mission Practice: Introducing the Charities and Reading Their Narratives and Public Voice ............................................................... 74 1 Introduction ................................................................................................................74 2 How the Charities Construct their Identity and Mission ............................................76 2.1 Reading the Public Texts .....................................................................................76 2.2 CST and the Narratives: Some Questions ...........................................................79 3 Reading the Charities’ Political Positioning: Critical or Constrained? .........................83 3.1 Embedded through Funding and Partnerships ...................................................83 3.2 Political Positioning: The Charities’ Strategic Context and Advocacy Work .......84 4 3.3 A Case Study of Advocacy ...................................................................................86 4 Ending Homelessness? The Counter-narratives of Practice .......................................88 5 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................92 Chapter Five: Pointing towards the Kingdom: Theological Resources For Constructing the Identity and Mission Of Catholic Charities .................................... 94 1 Introduction ................................................................................................................94 2 What is a Catholic Charity? .........................................................................................96 2.1 Catholic charities in Benedict XVI’s Deus Caritas Est ..........................................96 2.2 The Specificity of Catholic Charities ....................................................................97 2.3 The Theological Significance of the Secular ........................................................98 2.4 The Distinctiveness of Christian Charitable Practice? .......................................101 2.5 From Deus Caritas