On Sustainability
Religion in Society
Interdisciplinary Social Sciences
Global Studies
Organization Studies
Reda Sadki
William Cope
Jason Berg.png "Rita van Haren")
Rita van Haren
Eric PatnoudesVivencio Ballano’s Shares
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Why is inculturation in Catholic theology difficult to operationalize?
This article attempts to explain sociologically why the Catholic Church’s popular theological concept of inculturation is difficult to operationalize or provide empirical indicators in order to make it more observable and measurable for social scientists, missionaries, and inculturation practitioners. Using some secondary data and peer-reviewed literature, it explores how the following major hurdles inhibit the clear conceptualization and operationalization of inculturation projects, namely: the (1) lack of unified definition in the Church for culture, (2) plurality of the meaning of inculturation, (3) ambiguity of the extent of the cultural change in inculturation that results in unsettled levels and units of analysis in measuring it, as well as (4) lack of social science training and expertise of Catholic theologians, clerics, and missiologists, leading to the neglect of empirical studies that operationalize inculturation in the mainstream research. This study recommends intensified social science training for missionaries and clerics in the Catholic Church and active dialogue between inculturationists and social scientists to enhance the empirical dimension of inculturation in research and literature.
Credit: Vivencio O. Ballano
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The Commodification of Healthcare in the United States and the Spirituality of Social Transformation for Catholic Healthcare Professionals
This article explores how the Catholic Church's teaching on the spirituality of social transformation can be used by Catholic health professionals against the growing commodification of health care in the United States. Using the qualitative research method that uses secondary literature, it argues that living out the spirituality of social transformation against commodification in the healthcare industry implies imitating Christ's healing ministry and doing social action by physicians and healthcare workers to protect human dignity in medical research, to see health care work as a vocation, to give preferential treatment for poor patients, and to exercise prudence and Christian discernment in dealing with corporate medicine.
Credit: Vivencio O. Ballano
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Natural Law, Homophobia, and LGBTQI+ Exclusion in the Catholic Church
Why can't the Catholic Church fully accept gender diverse LGBTQI+ members as 'normal' Catholic, despite Pope Francis's compassion for the gay community? In this cutting-edge work, Ballano investigates how deductive moral frameworks and institutional homophobia play a key role in the social exclusion of the LGBTQI+ community in the Catholic Church. He traces the contours of this discrimination by using Francis's synodal theology as the primary conceptual framework along with sociological perspectives on gender, gender diversity, and morality. This volume aims to build sociological-synodal bridges for the full LGBTQI+ inclusion in the Catholic Church. It is sure to be valuable reading for church authorities, moral theologians, and LGBTQI+ leaders, as well as scholars and students of sociology, religion, theology, and gender studies.
Credit: Vivencio O. Ballano
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Commodified Health Care and Lay Catholic Social Spirituality: A Sociotheological-Synodal Approach
This book establishes a lay social spirituality for health care practitioners that pursues the Catholic Church’s social teachings on the preferential option for the poor, structural sin, and health care reform to address today’s commodification of the health care system where maximizing profit and patient’s capacity to pay become the primary consideration. Applying a sociotheological approach that combines the perspectives of modern sociology, Catholic social doctrines, and Pope Francis's inductive synodal theology, as well as drawing from secondary literature, media reports, and church documents, it argues for the necessity of a holistic, interdisciplinary, and synodal lay Catholic social spirituality that is informed by Pope Francis’s synodality. Presenting sociological research for health care practitioners to uphold options for the poor in public health, it envisions a lay spirituality that participates in civil society’s health care reform agenda at the macro level, and practices Christian and Ignatian discernment at the micro level, as its main behavioral components. This book appeals to Christian health care actors, entrepreneurs, and spiritual directors as well as scholars and students in sociology, religion, moral theology, bioethics, and spirituality.
Credit: Vivencio O. Ballano
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The Next Pope
Join us as we speak with Father Gregory Ramon Gaston, Rector of the Pontificio Collegio Filippino in Rome, and Dr. Vivencio Ballano, Chairperson of the Master of Arts in Sociology Program at PUP Manila, as they provide insights into the future leadership of the Church.
Credit: Bilyonaryo News Channel
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"We're Not an Ideology But Persons With Human Dignity" (Gender and the Catholic Church, #3)
This book sociologically argues that the nonbinary sexuality and gender of the LGBTQI are not recent inventions of gay rights movements and activism that constitute an ideology. Homosexuality and gender diversity have long been existing in society since Adam and Eve or Adam and Steve. The gender identities of the LGBTQI community cannot be fully understood using the deductive moral framework of natural law but by inductive sociological research and theory that view gender as social and cultural realities. Recent papal pronouncements and church documents have inaccurately labeled gender as an ideology rather than an authentic human experience. This volume contends that gender and the LGBTQI community are not mere social construction and ideology but represent a community of persons with human dignity. It recommends an updating of the Catholic Church's philosophical moral framework on sex and gender to unconditionally welcome the LGBTQI group in the Catholic Church.
Credit: Vivencio Ballano
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God's Call: Why I Entered the Seminary (My Religious Vocation and Journey Vol. 1)
This book details my spiritual conversion and experience of God's call in my life as a Catholic Christian and sociologist. It narrates how my accidental reading of the Bible had led to my spiritual journey with Christ. Thinking that God called me to become a Catholic priest, I abandoned my dream to become a pilot and engineer and entered the Catholic seminary--only to discover that He had other plans for me beyond the priesthood. This short volume illustrates how God can reveal His call through ordinary human events and experiences, requiring Christian discernment, prayer, and generous personal response from those who are called. It also provides a glimpse of what the seminary life would look like to the reader. This volume therefore appeals to those who want to discover God's call in their personal and spiritual lives as Christians.
Credit: Vivencio O. Ballano
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"We are God's Children Too!": Resisting Homophobia and Natural Law for Full LGBTQI Integration in the Catholic Church (Gender and the Catholic Church, #2)
This book affirms the human dignity of the members of the LGBTQI as Children of God who should be fully accepted in the Catholic Church. It sociologically analyzes how institutional homophobia or fear of homosexuality and the traditional natural law morality that only allows heterosexuality and gender complementarity of male and female constitute the primary ecclesial and conceptual hindrance toward the full integration of the gender-diverse LGBTQI in the Catholic Church. It recommends the updating of the Church's natural moral framework and adoption of a sociological-synodal moral framework to overcome homophobia and unconditionally welcome the gay community in the Catholic Church with full moral rights like heterosexuals as God's Children.
Credit: Vivencio Ballano
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Why Can't Pope Francis and the Catholic Church Fully Accept the LGBTQI?: A Sociological-Synodal Exploration and Solution
Pope Francis appears to be fully welcoming the LGBTQI community in the Catholic Church in his media interviews and writings. However, a closer sociological analysis would reveal that he remains conservative in his moral doctrine and resistant to LGBTQI inclusivity with his continued subscription to the Church's natural law morality. This book argues that unless the Catholic Church updates its natural law moral framework and incorporates the inductive theological approach and sociological theory and research method on sexuality, gender, and gender diversity, Francis's moral dilemma between upholding official moral doctrines and accepting the LGBTQI Catholics unconditionally in the Catholic Church could never be resolved. This book proposes some alternatives for the full integration of the gay community in the Church that apply the sociological-synodal moral framework.
Credit: Vivencio Ballano
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Resolving Contemporary Moral Issues in the Catholic Church
This chapter explores how the quantitative and qualitative research methods of sociology and inductive synodal theology of Pope Francis can be utilized to resolve contemporary moral issues in his latest ecclesial reform project called the Synod on Synodality. It explores how universal polls and surveys to be done through Catholic research networks can prepare the synod to understand the general sentiment of all Catholics on urgent moral issues such as homosexuality, same-sex union, and LGBTQI inclusivity. It also recommends the use of the sociological qualitative research methods in the churchwide synodal consultations and roundtable discussions on these issues to validate and triangulate survey results to resolve them inductively in spirit of Francis’s synodality. It argues that resolving contemporary moral issues in the Catholic Church requires synodal listening, sociological research methods, and synodal forum between Catholic moral theologians and sociologists to achieve Pope Francis’s synodal Church.
Credit: Vivencio O. Ballano
