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Abstract

Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum is considered one of the first major works to introduce Catholic social thought on a global level. A key message undergirding Rerum is the concept of supporting the needs of others, leading to empowerment and self-sufficiency. The purpose of this study was to create a list of reflection prompts informed by Rerum for post-secondary students to consider and apply towards their academic service-learning experiences. Through qualitative analysis, three main themes related to Rerum’s key message were identified: (a) opportunity to obtain resources; (b) intrinsic right to continual resources; and, (c) communal support of families and dependents. These themes were then used to develop eight distinct reflection prompts for each stage of the service-learning experience; here, the goal is to provide post-secondary students with a foundation for processing their thoughts and developing their leadership styles in an ethically-informed manner, grounded in Catholic social thought.

DOI

10.15365/joce.2402082021

First Page

143

Last Page

158

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

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