





































Ecclesial Futures
2023 – Volume 4 – Issue 2

B O O K  R E V I E W

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Ecclesial Futures – DOI: 10.54195/ef18345

DOI: 10.54195/ef18345

Rowlands, Anna. 2021. Towards a Politics 
of Communion: Catholic Social Teaching in 
Dark Times

London: T & T Clark.
ISBN 9780567242730

Reviewed by Benjamin Aldous

Anna Rowlands is currently St Hilda Professor of Catholic Social Thought and Prac-
tice in the Department of Theology and Religion at the University of Durham. In this 
book she gives us a unique and thoughtful account of Catholic Social Teaching in an 
era of permacrisis. A recent recipient of the Joseph Ratzinger Foundation and Razón 
Abierta Institute Expanded Reason Award the book offers a rich tapestry of thought 
exploring the philosophical, theological and historical origins of the developing tradi-
tion of Catholic Social Teaching (CST). Rowlands herself acknowledges that the book 
does not aim to offer a definitive or even comprehensive account of CST but rather 
a way into selected parts of the tradition depending on the reader’s own interest 
or confession. Rowlands too notes that the fundamental ideas in CST can look and 
feel a little worn around the edges as the notions of human dignity, the common 
good, subsidiarity and solidarity can at times be collapsed in meaning through their 
overuse or feel banal in over exposure. As a relative newcomer to the CST tradition 
I found the book quite dense and sinewy but nevertheless a rewarding effort and I 
will undoubtedly use the text as a go-to handguide when considering the value of 
CST in my ecumenical work with Churches Together in England reflecting on mission.

For Rowlands the church is necessarily political since it sees in scripture a call to 
proclaim a social vision of the human person within human and divine commu-
nity – a social vision which Rowlands says is about the human person being fully 
alive and living out the common good. Divided into 11 chapters the first outlines 
the emergence of modern CST post 1891. Rowlands rightly reminds us that “CST in 
its modern form is as much a tarrying with the ideas that constitute modernity as 
with its concrete practices” (17). Drawing on Social Encyclicals and Apostolic exhor-
tations of Popes from Leo XIII to Francis, she helps the reader to see that CST is far 



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Ecclesial Futures – DOI: 10.54195/ef18345

from being a set and homogenous body of teaching but that each Pope brings their 
own particular nuance and understanding of CST. For example, in Leo XIII’s Rerum 
Novarum the fundamental model for social order is rooted in the household or family 
and there is a refutation of the idea of mere contract or transaction as the basis for 
social justice. Francis in Fratelli Tutti, whilst willing to engage with liberalism as a polit-
ical philosophy, is outright in his opposition to individualism.

Chapters 2 to 4 are rooted in an exploration of human dignity, first drawing on phil-
osophical and theological sources (from Cicero to Mary Wolfstencraft) and subse-
quently drawing on the varying encyclicals. Chapter 3 deals with the issue of (forced) 
migration in and chapter 4 focuses on the questions of social and structural sin with 
regards to human dignity. In this chapter Rowlands helps the reader see ways in 
which each Pope has understood the core elements of human dignity from different 
angles. John Paul II, the conservative, was very uneasy about the usage of the 
concepts of social and structural sin simply seeing them as “the multiplication or 
accrual of individual sinful acts into consolidated, calcified structures” (101). Francis, 
on the other hand, has, during his papacy, continued to move the debate about social 
sin beyond a question of mere human willing to the context of political-economic 
relations (102) since cultures of ideologies malform human beings’ perceptions of 
good (103). Francis has expanded notions of human dignity by drawing racism and 
categories around environmental degradation into the discussion being unafraid of 
a more wholistic vision and moving away from a personalism of conscience – an 
important widening.

Rowlands outlines the long tradition of of the common good in chapters 5 to 7, 
honestly reminding us that, “an account of the common good that lacks an overt 
awareness of the operation of power in history and commitment to struggle with 
others through forging collective identities fails” (114).

Chapters 8 to 10 deal with the body politic, subsidiarity and solidarity. I enjoyed 
Rowlands’ chapter on the political responsibilities and understandings of Catholi-
cism and particularly bringing the work of French social philosopher and mystic 
Simone Weil into the equation. Weil made an important contribution to the post-
World War  2 debates in helping to counterbalance an over emphasis by Catholic 
intellectuals towards personalism and modern rights language. “Weil worried that 
Catholic intellectuals and the church were failing to spot the fundamentally problem-
atic anthropology that undergirds both” (192). I found the synopses of the encyclicals 
of the Popes from Pius XII to Francis helpful. Rowlands points out that transna-
tional themes of migration, the environment, global inequalities and degradation of 
democracy are key interlinked social issues for Francis, that have shaped his papacy.



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Ecclesial Futures – DOI: 10.54195/ef18345

I found chapter 10 on solidarity moving and Rowlands urges us to remember the 
complex narrative which draws us away from naivety. She remarks that “solidarity 
enters the modern lexicon on the slipstream of the revolutions of the eighteenth 
and nineteenth centuries, expressing what had been thought of over the centuries in 
Christian usage as fraternity and friendship” (240). Yet the idea of solidarity, she says, 
has been largely secularized over the past century. She again very usefully traces the 
various papal understandings and use of the term in the encyclicals and other docu-
ments.

As usual, I found myself asking what the missiological implications of such a book 
are. Certainly, a more nuanced understanding of the major themes of CST. It helps 
me analyse prevailing concepts like the common good which can be bandied around 
with little thought on occasions. It will particularly help me in thinking more deeply 
about imago Dei and theological anthropology from the perspective of my Catholic 
friends and colleagues in my work with Churches Together in England. This is dense 
and rich – at times so dense that I found it difficult to wade through – but it presents 
important insights for those with patience from a distinguished Catholic theologian.

About the author
Benjamin Aldous, Principal Officer for Mission and Evangelism at Churches Together 
in England, the national ecumenical instrument and an honorary research fellow at 
the Queens Foundation in Birmingham.
ben.aldous@cte.org.uk

mailto:ben.aldous@cte.org.uk

