The Catholic Citizen

The Curriculum

Twelve modules, four issues each, one a week. A year of formation in the Church’s social doctrine, taken in the order the Church itself builds it. Every issue works from the primary documents and cites them by paragraph number.

Four weeks a year are held back for Advent, Lent, Holy Week, and whatever the world does that cannot wait.

Module One · Free to everyone

Human Dignity in the Age of the Machine

The first module runs free on the public blog. It works through Pope Leo XIV’s Magnifica Humanitas, the first major papal document on artificial intelligence, and asks what the Church actually holds about the human person when machines can imitate so much of what we do.

Issue 1 · 27 August 2026 · Human dignity is not conferred by usefulness

The case: hiring systems that screen résumés before a person sees them. Sources: Magnifica Humanitas 51-58 and 112-124; Catechism 1700-1706.

Issue 2 · 3 September 2026 · A machine cannot bear moral responsibility

The case: autonomous weapons and the question of who answers for a killing. Sources: Magnifica Humanitas 96-111 and 198; Gaudium et Spes 17.

Issue 3 · 10 September 2026 · Work is participation, not merely output

The case: automation reaching work that people thought was safe from it. Sources: Magnifica Humanitas 37 and 148-167; Laborem Exercens 6.

Issue 4 · 17 September 2026 · Who owns the common inheritance of data

The case: training data, consent, and what a society produces together. Sources: Magnifica Humanitas 65-71 and 109-111; Centesimus Annus 31-32.

Modules two to twelve · For members

The rest of the year

2. Work and the Worker

Begins 24 September 2026. Rerum Novarum and Laborem Exercens. Wages, unions, rest, and what an employer owes.

3. The Common Good

Mater et Magistra, Gaudium et Spes 26, Compendium 164-170. Why it is more than the sum of what individuals want.

4. Subsidiarity

Quadragesimo Anno 79-80, Compendium 185-188. Decisions belong at the lowest level competent to make them.

5. Solidarity

Sollicitudo Rei Socialis 38-40 and Fratelli Tutti. Without subsidiarity it becomes dependency. Without solidarity, subsidiarity becomes selfishness.

6. The Preferential Option for the Poor

Evangelii Gaudium 52-60, Compendium 182-184. What the phrase means, and what it does not mean.

7. Property and the Universal Destination of Goods

Rerum Novarum and Centesimus Annus 30-43. Private property is legitimate and it is not absolute.

8. War and Peace

Pacem in Terris, Gaudium et Spes 77-82, Fratelli Tutti 255-262. Just war, and why the Church keeps narrowing it.

9. Life, From Conception to Natural Death

Evangelium Vitae, Catechism 2258-2330. The whole arc, including the parts each side of American politics prefers to skip.

10. Family, Community, Participation

Familiaris Consortio and Octogesima Adveniens. The family as the first cell of society, and what follows from that.

11. Integral Ecology

Laudato Si’ and Laudate Deum. Why the Church treats creation and the poor as one question.

12. The Political Vocation of the Laity

Christifideles Laici and Faithful Citizenship. What the Church asks of a Catholic in public life, and what it leaves to your judgment.

After each module, a study guide

When a module finishes, its four issues are collected into a printable PDF with discussion questions and room to write. Members can use it alone, with a spouse, or with a parish small group. Eleven of these across the year, and by the end you have a shelf of the Church’s social doctrine worked through against real events.

Seven days free, then $4.99 a month. Cancel any time.