Catholic political identity and engagement defy categorization. The complexities of political realities and the human nature of such institutions as church and government often produce a more fractured reality than the pure unity depicted in doctrine. Yet, in 2003 under the leadership of then-prefect Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a "Doctrinal Note on Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life". The note explicitly asserts, "The Christian faith is an integral unity, and thus it is incoherent to isolate some particular element to the detriment of the whole of Catholic doctrine. A political commitment to a single isolated aspect of the Church's social doctrine does not exhaust one's responsibility toward the common good". "Catholics and Politics" takes up the political and theological significance of this "integral unity", the universal scope of Catholic concern that can make for strange political bedfellows, confound predictable voting patterns, and leave the church poised to critique narrowly partisan agendas across the spectrum. "Catholics and Politics" depicts the ambivalent character of Catholics' mainstream "arrival" in the U.S. over the past forty years, integrating social scientific, historical and moral accounts of persistent tensions between faith and power. Divided into four parts - Catholic Leaders in U.S. Politics; The Catholic Public; Catholics and the Federal Government; and, International Policy and the Vatican - it describes the implications of Catholic universalism for voting patterns, international policymaking, and partisan alliances. The book reveals complex intersections of Catholicism and politics and the new opportunities for influence and risks of cooptation of political power produced by these shifts. Contributors include political scientists, ethicists, and theologians. The book will be of interest to scholars in political science, religious studies, and Christian ethics and all lay Catholics interested in gaining a deeper understanding of the tensions that can exist between church doctrine and partisan politics.

The United States was founded on a commitment to religious tolerance. Based on this commitment, it has become one of the most religiously diverse and religiously observant liberal democracies in the world. Inherent in this political reality is the question, "What is the appropriate relationship between religious beliefs and public life?" This is not a new question, but in contemporary US politics it has become a particularly insistent one. In this intelligent, wide-ranging book, Kristin Heyer provides new and nuanced answers. Prophetic and Public employs the discourse of public theology to consider what constitutes appropriate religio-political engagement. According to Heyer, public theology connects religious faith, concepts, and practices to their public relevance for the wider society. Her use of public theology concepts to address the appropriate possibilities and limits for religio-political engagement in the United States is both useful and enlightening. Heyer approaches the relationship between public morality and religious commitment through the example of the Catholic Church. She looks at two prominent Catholics-Michael Baxter and Bryan Hehir-as a way of discussing norms for practice of public theology. Heyer also analyzes case studies of three US Catholic advocacy groups: The US Conference of Catholic Bishops, NETWORK, and Pax Christi USA. Through her analysis she shows the various ways that the organizations' Catholic identity impacts their social and political efforts. From her investigations come norms that define possibilities and limits for political actions based on religious conviction. This deeply thoughtful book examines what is truly fundamental and inescapable about public life and private religious belief in the United States. In doing so, it makes skillful use of the tools of theology, philosophy, law, and advocacy to demonstrate that the Catholic Church reveals great diversity in its public theology, providing legitimate options for a faithful response to urgent political issues.

The failure of current immigration policies in the United States has resulted in dire consequences: a significant increase in border deaths, a proliferation of smuggling networks, prolonged family separation, inhumane raids, a patchwork of local ordinances criminalizing activities of immigrants and those who harbor them, and the creation of an underclass - none of which are appropriate or just outcomes for those holding Christian commitments. "Kinship Across Borders" analyzes contemporary US immigration in the context of fundamental Christian beliefs about the human person, sin, family life, and global solidarity. Kristin Heyer expertly demonstrates how current US immigration policies reflect harmful neoliberal economic priorities, and why immigration cannot be reduced to security or legal issues alone. Rather, she explains that immigration involves a broad array of economic issues, trade policies, concerns of cultural tolerance and criminal justice, and, at root, an understanding of the human person. In "Kinship Across Borders", Heyer has developed a Christian immigration ethic - grounded in scriptural, anthropological, and social teachings and rooted in the experiences of undocumented migrants - that calls society to promote concrete practices and policies reflecting justice and solidarity.

Unaccompanied migrant children are the most vulnerable group of migrants and refugees. Their experiences, their contested legal status in the host countries, and their treatment before, during, and after migration call for an ethics of child migration that places unaccompanied migrant children at the center. This volume gathers international experts from the fields of social work, social science, law, philosophy, and Catholic ethics. Social science, psychological, and social work studies, analyses of US and international law of child migration, refuge and asylum policies, and several case studies regarding law enforcement highlight the more recent shifts in policies both in the United States and Europe. The current policies are confronted with two major normative frameworks that go beyond migration laws or the international refugee and asylum provisions: the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child, and the approach of the Catholic social ethics of migration. The authors address the challenges of childhood under the conditions of migration: the uprooting of lives, the journey and transition into foreign countries and cultures, and the transition into adulthood. They discern the legal provisions and obstacles of the immigration process, the securitization of the borders, and the criminalization of unaccompanied migrant children. Catholic social ethics, the theological authors argue, must offer more than its pastoral call for charity, solidarity, and compassion that is already in place, inspiring multiple Catholic organizations, groups, and individuals. The Christian emphasis on family rights and values, originating in the story of the Holy Family, is necessary, yet insufficient when children are separated from their parents-instead, children must be recognized as vulnerable agents in their own right, and the moral dilemmas families sometimes face be acknowledged. US and European policies must be informed by the interpretation of justice, and the principle of the common good must be held against the firewalling of the West. As a political ethics, Catholic social ethics must critique and reject the use of the Christian religion for nationalist policies and depictions of migrant children as a threat to the cultural identity of Western societies.