Judaism and Catholicism: The Common Ground of Social Justice

This article is about the relationship between Judaism and Catholicism. Rather than proceeding on the plane of theology – comparing Catholicism and Judaism in terms of their conceptions of the divine – the author approaches the subject ‘from the ground up’, considering their convergence at the level of social action. Taking his cue from Margaret Archer, who has spoken about ‘the Church as a social movement’, he presents Judaism in a similar light, drawing on resources within Judaism that conduce towards promoting human rights and social justice. Moreover, writing as a Jewish Fellow at a Catholic Oxford college (St Benet’s Hall), he recounts certain experiences that illustrate how Jews and Catholics can come together on common ground.