In order to mark the 30th anniversary of the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation, Pope Francis requested that CAPP members and friends read, study, and promote his encyclical letter Fratelli Tutti: On Fraternity and Social Friendship.
In response to this request, CAPP-Canada organized a series of monthly Fratelli Tutti Study Sessions, running from September 2023 to April 16, led by Dr. Danielle Morin, one of CAPP-Canada’s two coordinators.
All the session presentation recordings are now available on CAPP’s YouTube Channel:
September 19, 2023: Introduction by Archbishop Christian Lépine
October 17, 2023: Chapter 1, with Dr. Danielle Morin
November 21, 2023: Chapter 2, with Dr. Cory Andrew-Labrecque
December 19, 2023: Chapter 3, with Dr. Paul Allen
January 16, 2024: Chapter 4, with Dr. Danielle Morin
February 20, 2024: Chapter 5, with Dr. Miles Smit
March 19, 2024: Chapter 6, with Peter Copeland
April 16, 2024: Chapters 7-8, with Dr. Danielle Morin
CAPP Canada’s Mission
CAPP-Canada is a national chapter of the Fondazione Centesimus Annus – Pro Pontifice, a Vatican-based lay-run foundation established by Pope John Paul II in 1993, with the primary mission of promoting a deeper knowledge and application of Catholic Social Doctrine among lay Catholics.
In other words, CAPP-Canada seeks to help lay Catholic leaders in Canada form their conscience in accordance with the fundamental principles of the Catholic Social Doctrine – dignity of the human person, solidarity, subsidiarity – that they, in turn, may help advance the Common Good and the spirit and presence of the Gospel throughout Canadian society. CAPP members and friends also support the charitable works of the Holy Father.
CAPP-Canada is therefore a missionary organization of the Catholic Church, which has been given the task of promoting the knowledge and implementation of that corpus of principles, born of the wisdom of two thousand years of tradition and over a hundred years of attentive observation of the world in which we live, that constitutes the Social Doctrine of the Church.
Core Principles
- Human Dignity is the prime principle of Catholic Social Doctrine. It recognizes that every human person is made in God’s image and likeness. It is this that makes every human life sacred.
- Solidarity flows from human dignity. It searches for a common good that affirms and supports the human dignity of every person, especially the most vulnerable and marginalized. It “consists in the very fact that in God and with God I love even persons I do not like or even know.” (Pope Benedict XVI, 18)
- Subsidiarity flows from human dignity. It affirms the freedom and responsibility of persons and the smallest or most local communities of persons to work towards the common good wherever and whenever they can, without unjustified interference by more centralized levels of authority. It recognizes “in the person a subject who is always capable of giving something to others” (Pope Benedict XVI, 16).
Catholic Social Doctrine does not prescribe specific policies or practices for addressing every political, social, economic or other challenge and opportunity; rather, it gives us principles, founded in the Gospel, for developing, proposing and evaluating specific policies and practices. It must be understood holistically, and not reductively.
Peter Copeland 