How to take on corporate social responsibility
New social media and marketing strategies are needed in the face of the global economic downturn.
A new report from the Catholic Social Teaching Network (CSNT), which promotes social teaching in Catholic universities, suggests that Catholic social teaching is being “stifled” by a new trend to embrace “corporate capitalism” and “social responsibility” within the Catholic Church.
The CSNT’s new report, “Social Capitalism: The New Agenda for Catholic Social Thought”, says the “cornerstone” of this new corporate capitalism is a “new social model” that seeks to make profit by selling products that it “produces”.
The report’s authors have called for the Catholic church to “become the corporate society”.
“This new social model is now being articulated by the media, the advertising industry and the corporations themselves,” the report states.
“The corporate model has become a central theme in the new neoliberal capitalism, which has replaced the social model with a new one of profit.”
The report calls for a new “social-business” model that focuses on “social, moral and environmental responsibility”.
It also calls for the re-evaluation of the “social model” and the church’s relationship with social justice.
In a statement, the CSNT said the report “shows how this new social paradigm has the potential to transform the social teaching of the Catholic faith”.
“This report shows the power of social teaching as a tool for change and the need for Catholic social learning to be the centre of Catholic social and cultural life.”
The CSNT has been advocating for social teaching for some time, and its report comes at a time when the Church is facing an “economic crisis”.
In recent months, there has been a resurgence of anti-capitalist protests, with some students protesting against the proposed “socialism” tax in the UK and a similar demonstration in France last week.
According to the CSNX, there are also concerns about the “cultural climate” in Catholic schools.
The CSNC is calling for the renewal of the teaching of social justice within Catholic schools, and to ensure the teaching continues to “be a central part of the Church’s teaching and the Catholic social life”.
“The Catholic Church must continue to embrace and promote social teaching,” the CSNC says.
It says that in the “last five years, a new social-business model has emerged in which a new corporate model is emerging as a key component of corporate capitalism.
This new model of capitalism has become the cornerstone of this corporate capitalism and has become an increasingly important feature of the modern corporate economy.
For Catholic schools to become “corporations” and to sell products that are made by a “coronavirus corporation”, it is necessary for the church to re-examine its relationship with the social justice and social teaching that is the “foundation of the church”.
According the report, this “corona” is “corrosive to the very nature of the social and moral teaching that Catholic schools must be able to teach”.
