Abstract
Michael J. McGrath’s Acting for the Common Good is an excellent contribution to the growing body of work exploring Catholic social teaching and its vitality as applied to central social and structural problems, especially in the face of growing waves of nationalism and populism throughout the world.
This is a thoroughgoing study that begins with an exploration of the moral good of community generally and explores the failure of community through the particular example of the financial crisis of 2008. It then sets out a moral vision grounded in the tradition which is Catholic social teaching. This second chapter in particular is to be commended; rather than simply recounting the contents of papal documents, McGrath unpacks the wealth of Catholic social teaching in a much broader analysis of the changing nature of state and society to which Catholic social teaching is in part a response.
Throughout the book, McGrath emphasizes the priority of the concrete over the abstract, building on the consistent teaching of Pope Francis that ‘realities are greater than ideas’. As such, each subsequent chapter focuses on a particular extended example: gender equality in the workplace, the need for a minimum living wage, and climate change. However, the manner in which each of these examples is explored is in the context of a broader conceptual and theological analysis of the themes of justice both philosophically and politically. Each chapter, and the book itself, ends with ‘a next step’, demonstrating McGrath’s commitment to concrete acts above abstract reflection. He notes at the end that, in any study of the common good, such acts ‘necessarily remain unfinished. Acting for the common good – this is the next step’ (p. 267).
There is an irony running throughout this book. There is often a (false) distinction between activists/practitioners and theorists/reflectors. Focusing on concrete examples and repeatedly making the claim that the task of the book is unfinished until action is taken, McGrath rightly refuses this false distinction. However, for the activist/practitioner, the arguments set out for each next step might seem overly abstract. The sum total of the work is not to provide necessarily a body of theoretical reflection to help the activist or practitioner judge the ‘correct’ next step.
The irony throughout is that McGrath succeeds in bringing the concrete and particular into a theoretically robust account of the moral vision at the heart of Catholic social teaching that is more likely to resonate with the theorist than the activist. Indeed, in some respects it is to this audience that this book is most obviously addressed. The success of the book will be its ability to move those who are more content to rest in theoretical discussion and debate to the realization that those discussions are necessarily unfinished until the lives of those about whom they discuss are transformed in reality. McGrath is persuasive, and argues convincingly that each of us needs to take that next step.