Semester 2 unit | Action for a Fairer World

Since his 2015 document Laudato Si’, Pope Francis has continually urged vigorous ecumenical and inter-faith action to help solve global warming and extreme inequality. These issues are even more urgent after the financial and health crises following COVID-19.

The unit explores the influences on Pope Francis and his team of advisers and collaborators, including by leading economists, demographers, environmentalists and social thinkers involved in developing the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

It examines Pope Francis’s moral critique of economics today, especially extreme inequality resulting from neoliberal policies, and highlights the climate crisis compounding the challenge of how an increasing population can live sustainably without excessive consumption.

Francis strongly promotes the UN Sustainable Development Goals as our best hope to abolish chronic hunger and extreme forms of poverty, to feed and nurture increased population until it levels off, and to offer all people hope for a fulfilling life. The unit considers the roles of religion, values and economics in shaping a fairer world.

After his ordination for the Redemptorists, Bruce Duncan studied economics and politics at the University of Sydney, and has been teaching at YTU since 1986 about issues of justice, development and peace.

Yarra Theological Union

Yarra Theological Union is an inclusive and welcoming community, Catholic by tradition and ecumenical in spirit. We are committed to being a community of scholarship, prayer and pastoral care. We offer theological education and ministerial formation, open to those who seek educational and personal transformation in changing contexts. Our mission is to equip people for various ministries in the churches: parishes, schools, hospitals, church agencies and in the world at large.

ytu.edu.au/