Simon Cuff is a Tutor and Lecturer at St Mellitus College, a ministry training college of the Church of England. He is interested in theology, contemporary critical theory, and political thought. The accessible language of his new book, Love in Action, successfully introduces and systematises Catholic Social Teaching to readers who may not be Roman Catholics, or academic theologians.

These documents of Catholic Social Teaching were issued and published throughout the last century. They were written or approved by different Popes from Leo XIII, John XXIII, John Paul II and now Francis. The ‘whole’ Catholic Social Teaching has been expressed differently, in terms of cultural changes and various theological responses to social context.

However, Cuff makes use of seven themes by chapter to map out the picture and dimensions of Catholic Social Teaching. These themes include ‘personal dignity,’ ‘common good,’ ‘solidarity,’ ‘subsidiarity,’ ‘social sin,’ ‘for the poor,’ and ‘see-judge-act method.’ (Cuff asserts that the Compendium of Social Doctrine of 2004, which distills the principles of Catholic Social Teaching, was the basis of his book.) Cuff deliberately makes the value of ‘personal dignity’ for ‘common good’ the first two themes he introduces, so that he can expand on it in the rest of the book, by showing how the other themes are related to human dignity—an unchanging truth in this changing world.

Cuff begins each chapter with an explanation of the social-political context in which the theme was developed and the document published. Secondly, he briefly outlines the scriptural basis of the theme. He then moves on to discuss the theme by extracting it from different documents. His presentation not only shows the coherence and consistency of the principles of Catholic Social Teaching, but it also illustrates the wide variety that exists in the long tradition of Catholic Social Teaching. It also explains why there have been different focuses in different periods of time.

Overall, this is a useful book for broadening one’s understanding of the principles of Catholic Social Teaching.

Yin-An Chen, Westcott House (Cambridge)