He was more right than perhaps he knew. We Americans tend to place the uniqueness and autonomy of the person above other values, like family and community. In this perspective, religion in general and the Church in particular can look simply like either a help or a hindrance to one's private relationship with God. If it's a help, we stay. But one's relationship with God, in the Catholic view, is not a private matter.
Faith has communitarian roots and social implications.
As a result, the Church must be tireless in grappling with the most challenging issues and tasks that face people today on the local, national, and international scenes. In this course, we will examine the Church's attitudes and policies on some of these issues, as well as the historical and theological facts that have shaped them. In, by Francis A. Sullivan, S.J., the course deals with the unity, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity of the Church. Under the mark of catholicity, the course also looks into the Church as the sacrament of integral salvation. This is a writing intensive class.