Greetings Fellow WPA Chestertonians and Friends,
We will be meeting on Friday evening, October 14 for our next installment in our series on Distributism.
At this next meeting, we will take a look at "How Does Distributism Work". We will include a peek at some of Distributism's philosophical underpinnings, some examples of it in action, and consider some of the common criticisms. We will read together the following 4 essays by different contemporary Distributists, and conclude by reading aloud an essay written by G.K. Chesterton in 1927. It will benefit our discussion if you can read these ahead of time. However, no matter whether you can pre-read or not... please print these and bring them along with you to the meeting. **(I suggest that you copy and paste them to a separate document so that you may reformat the text and avoid printing an inordinate number of pages.)**
Also,it is worth mentioning that the full texts of the early twentieth century papal encyclicals relating to Distributism [i.e., Rerum Novarum (Pope Leo XIII,1891), Quadragesimo Anno (Pope Pius XI,1931) and Divini Redemptoris (Pope Pius XI,1937)], are viewable and printable at http://www.papalencyclicals.net. Reading these can be very enlightening when looking at the context for Chesterton's Distributism.
The following additional links are to essays that I heartily recommend for contextual reading as well as a further treatment of the issues related to Catholicism and authentic Social Justice:
These links may also be of interest:
https://prezi.com/qut8zgwuuvke/social-encyclicals-centesimus-annus/
https://prezi.com/jrxo2jme4qum/social-encyclicals-caritas-in-veritate/
https://prezi.com/qut8zgwuuvke/social-encyclicals-centesimus-annus/
https://prezi.com/jrxo2jme4qum/social-encyclicals-caritas-in-veritate/
In November, we will consider, "Applied Distributism: What could this look like in my household?" We will look at a number of essays written by GKC in his own newspaper, "G.K.'s Weekly".The links will be forthcoming.
At all the meetings in the this series, we will strive to be clear about the definition of terms we will need to use.... terms like subsidiarily, solidarity, the Common Good, Catholic Social Teaching, distributive justice, goods, usury, capital, property, socialism, democracy, liberal, conservative, radical... you get the idea. These terms would need to be clearly defined for the purpose of meaningful dialog (AKA avoiding a brawl at the meeting), so please keep the pursuit of clear definitions in mind as you do your exploring.
I will post updates to this which will include more details and suggestions...in the coming weeks.
As usual...
Our meetings are held in the Village of Middle Lancaster, at the Lancaster Township Community Center located on Kings Alley and Community Center Drive, in Butler County PA. Kings Ally is off of Rt. 19 approx. 4.5 miles north of Zelienople, and just north of the Zion Lutheran Church and just south of East Lancaster Road. (The Community Center is a former one room school house, adjacent to the ball fields at Bauder Park.) The doors open at 7:00pm for pot luck refreshments, with the discussion beginning at 7:30. The meeting wraps up sometime around 9:30pm.
Please consider bringing something for the refreshment table, and as always, feel free to email me at wpachesterton@gmail.com if you have and questions or comments.
