The crisis and the new humanistic synthesis of the Catholic Church

Our research plan will focus on three key elements. One concept, the crisis; one research thread, the social doctrine of the Catholic Church on the crisis; one case study, the Portuguese Catholic Church and the practical application of theology in the face of crisis. First, we will try to comprehend our dependent variable by inserting it in a specific context (contemporary post-industrial societies) and in a specific period of time (since the late XIX century until today). Secondly, we will make it interact with some independent variables such as the financial, economic, political, cultural and anthropological framework of modern societies. Thirdly, throughout a diachronic and synchronic analysis of the Church's multiple and unexplored primary sources we will be able to observe the evolution of the phenomenon, understand its modern consequences, and to interpret the Church's proposition to overcome the crisis. Finally, in order to give greater substance to our research, we will focus on Portugal to see how, in a context of profound socio-economic crisis, the Church has been acting with the view to promote and practice a new humanistic synthesis that places man as the aim and center of all socio-economic life.