Course Overview
This course is an introduction to the academic study of Catholic theology, a discipline within the Humanities. Students will learn about, and learn to critically engage, Catholic interpretations of essential biblical texts, fundamental Christian beliefs and practices, and the significance of the option for the poor throughout the Catholic tradition and today. This engagement will involve students’ developing and defending their own views about the meaning and purpose of human life and our human responsibilities to each other and especially to the vulnerable or suffering. Students will also engage other academic disciplines along with Catholic theology in order to better understand their own positions in relation to social constructions of power and privilege, especially in relation to economic inequality, immigration policies, and ecological devastation. This course is designed for USD’s distance education undergraduate degree completion programs and may not be applied to the requirements for any on-site undergraduate degree program that USD offers.
Learning Outcomes:
Upon completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Identify and evaluate their own and others’ positionality in the United States, including experiences of privilege and oppression, utilizing social location analysis.
- Explain and critically analyze major biblical texts, key Christian doctrines, and fundamental Catholic social teachings, especially as these relate to contemporary issues of economic inequality, immigration, and the importance of care for the natural world.
- Explain, evaluate, and demonstrate the use of academic methods appropriate to Catholic theology, especially as these involve Catholic methods of assessing the interpretation of the Bible, the development of tradition, and the role of experience and critical reasoning.
- Identify broad connections between Catholic theology and some other academic discipline(s), and articulate how the integration of Catholic theology and at least one other discipline can enhance one’s understanding of significant contemporary issues of economic inequality, immigration, and ecological devastation.