A break from the satire for a moment (thank you for the positive feedback!)…

I wish to promote and endorse this book – by a German bishop (*gasp!*) – which is a wonderful introduction into the world of Catholic social teaching. It is by the late Joseph Cardinal Höffner (d. 1987), Archbishop of Cologne.

Here, in English, online for free: Christian Social Teaching

Some other languages are available online as well.

From the foreword, by Lothar Roos…

Cardinal Höffner’s “Christian Social Teaching“ is surely the Catholic Church’s most successful textbook on this subject. The German version was first published in 1962, but over the next twenty years or so (up to 1983) eight more editions, some enlarged, appeared and it was translated into six languages (1964 English and Spanish, 1967 Japanese, 1970 Portuguese/Brazilian, and 1979 Italian and Korean). This fact, too, shows its unique importance for theChurch’s global mission. The ‘secret’ of the author’s success lies in a similarly unique combination of qualities. Joseph Höffner was a historian and systematist, theologian and economist, researcher and ‘populizer’, professor and bishop all in one person.