“Aiming Excessively High and Far”: The Early Lonergan and the Challenge of Theory in Catholic Social Thought

Abstract

Bernard Lonergan is not usually associated with the field of Catholic social thought. This article explores Lonergan's efforts to contribute to it in his manuscripts on history and economics from the 1930s and early 1940s, written in response to Quadragesimo anno's call for a reconstruction of the social and economic orders. The article describes Lonergan's early and novel attempts to transpose Catholic social thought into a more contemporary and adequately theoretic context while preserving its basic elements in a higher synthesis.