Catholic social teaching as a metaphor-led discourse: Applying the insights of contemporary metaphor theory to the documents of Catholic social teaching to uncover its theological imaginaries.

Catholic social teaching is a central and essential element of our faith. In 1988 the Congregation for Catholic Education published Guidelines for the Study and Teaching of the Church’s Social Doctrine in the Formation of Priests. Ten years later the Bishops of the United States identified an urgent need to incorporate Catholic social teaching more fully and comprehensively into the mainstream of all Catholic educational institutions and programs. Despite these efforts current literature points to an inability on the part of the Church to capture the imagination of the vast majority of its members with its vision for social and economic life. Two questions arise: Can Catholic social teaching be presented in a way that stimulates the Catholic imagination in response to challenges arising in the ordering of social, political and economic affairs? Can such an approach provide a basis for interdisciplinary exchange, a necessary condition for the integration of CST into mainstream educational endeavours? This research concept posits: (1) the application of conceptual metaphor theory and the insights of cognitive linguistics to the study of Catholic social teaching appeals to the logic of the Catholic imagination; (2) methodologically this application provides a basis for interdisciplinary exchange. This research concept will begin with an overview of the conceptual metaphor theory most commonly associated with Lakoff and Johnson and the strategy for critical metaphor analysis subsequently developed by Jonathan Charteris-Black and refined by Gerard Steen. Second, in a selective application it will demonstrate how the method uncovers root metaphors of the Tradition and how these facilitate new conceptualizations of the social order. Finally the research will discuss the potential of this methodology for an interdisciplinary engagement with the insights of Catholic social teaching