In "How Christ Changed the World--the Social Principles of the Catholic Church", Msgr. Luigi Civardi, the foremost name in the great Catholic Action movement, describes briefly just what sort of changes Our Lord and His Faith have made, most of which people today merely take for granted. The religion of Jesus Christ eventually put an end to slavery, elevated women to equality with men, ennobled children, established the sanctity of marriage and its unity and indissolubility, elevated the workman and gave dignity to manual labor. This book makes it clear that Christ redeemed mankind, not only spiritually, to enjoy forever eternal life with Him and the Heavenly Father, but He redeemed and transformed man's life in this world as well.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Most people are not aware that the world was in a much worse shape before Christ, and that through His Catholic Church, changed it for the better. This most valuable work shows that the world owes a debt of gratitude to the Catholic Church for putting an end to slavery, elevating women to equality with men, ennobling children, establishing the sanctity of marriage and its unity and indissolubility, elevating the workman and giving dignity to manual work, making work a means of sanctification, ennobling poverty, teaching the proper use of riches, asserting for all time the rights of private property, establishing social justice for all classes, creating all kinds of charitable institutions such as hospitals, orphanages, nursing homes, etc. Great!
0 of 5 people found the following review helpful
By K. Nelan
I sincerely wish I would have read the review from the publisher before I bought this book, but I found it local in a half-priced shop and thought I'd give it a go. The publisher's review is obviously biased, but I would have stayed away from this book just based on the one sentence, "...and that through His Catholic Church..." Swing and a miss. That one sentence speaks to the old (pre-Vatican II) understanding of the authority of the Roman Catholic Church and how social justice is dispensed with a legalistic and hierarchical view. For the publisher to say the world owes a "debt of gratitude" to the Catholic Church as shown through the author's carefully guided discourse only shows the vanity of a flawed system or corporation that is the Roman Catholic Church. Of course this book was originally published long before Vatican II was even considered - when the authority of the Church was absolute, so it behooves a person to recognize this book was written before the concept of equality regardless of stature or religiosity.
The book does make good correlation between scripture and Christian teaching, but then also discusses application through the eyes of the Church rather than through the Body of the Christ. The church legalisms could have been left out and this would then have been an astounding read! However, Bishop Civardi wrote this book when we was a Monsignor in the early 1950's and it was then translated into English in 1960, republished in 1961 and then again in 1991. Bishop Civardi was born in 1886 into a Church which viewed itself as the supreme authority of the Christian faith, and this book is a reflection of that mentality.
Again, in general, there are lots of good things to be found in this book, and I would still recommend reading it, though I would caution the reader to take into account the day and age in which it was written. When you read this book, modernize it as you go along, and remember that the Christ (Christ is a title, not Jesus' actual real last name) called ALL to social justice, not just the Catholic Church, but the entire catholic (universal) church.
The book does make good correlation between scripture and Christian teaching, but then also discusses application through the eyes of the Church rather than through the Body of the Christ. The church legalisms could have been left out and this would then have been an astounding read! However, Bishop Civardi wrote this book when we was a Monsignor in the early 1950's and it was then translated into English in 1960, republished in 1961 and then again in 1991. Bishop Civardi was born in 1886 into a Church which viewed itself as the supreme authority of the Christian faith, and this book is a reflection of that mentality.
Again, in general, there are lots of good things to be found in this book, and I would still recommend reading it, though I would caution the reader to take into account the day and age in which it was written. When you read this book, modernize it as you go along, and remember that the Christ (Christ is a title, not Jesus' actual real last name) called ALL to social justice, not just the Catholic Church, but the entire catholic (universal) church.
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