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INTRODUCTION to the 1997 publication of the Vincentian Center for Church and Society The lead essay is the 1997 Chair of Social Justice address by Mary Ann Glendon, delivered during Founder's Week. Professor Glendon discusses the need to reach into our rich tradition of Catholic social teaching to bring together the "divided soul of the modern human rights movement." She also praises "Vincentian education, with its emphasis on social action, which proves that theory and practice are not opposed, but are in fact two blades of the scissors, contributing to a civilization of life and love." The second paper in this series provides an historical reflection of how economic, political and civil rights were denied to a nation, causing intense human suffering and even a type of genocide. The Vincentian Center invited Fr. Donal Kerr, Professor Emeritus of Ecclesiastical History at Maynooth College, Ireland, to lecture at St. John's during the celebration of the 150th Anniversary of the Great Irish Famine. His research captures "what no imagination can conceive, no pen can describe....the scenes of horror and desolation from the eye witnesses of the tragedy" and enables us to respond to hunger in our own times with a renewed commitment to social and political justice. The four papers which follow were produced by St. John's University faculty who have directed their research to poverty and injustice. Professor Christine Rider along with her colleagues, Professor Coleman and Professor Pashkoff, view the present efforts in our country for "welfare reform" through the lens of pre-Civil War New England and nineteenth century England. Professor Clark promotes "Basic Income" as a solution to poverty and income disparity in the United States. Professor Drucker evaluates the negative effects of parental abuse and neglect on the IQ scores of adolescents. Professor DiLorenzo evaluates the effects of race-based election districts on specific issues important to minority communities.
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With
great pleasure and pride in the scholarship and social concern at St.
John's University, the Vincentian Center presents the third volume of
the Vincentian Chair of Social Justice papers. The Chair was established
in 1995 by the Eastern Province of the Congregation of the Mission and
the University "to research poverty issues, to teach justice and to transform
society through justice." The Vincentian Chair of Social Justice has focused
on human rights throughout 1997 in anticipation of the 50th Anniversary
of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
