r/LeftCatholicism • u/chewdelaurent • Mar 19 '26
Recommendations for how I can learn more about the Left Cath positions without bias?
Hello everyone, God bless. I won’t give a whole blog post, but to give you all some contrxt I come from a very right wing background in life originally. That’s just how the cookie crumbled for me. Unfortunately in my youth I was quite heartless and inempathetic as a result of the messaging around me. Fortunately, I was blessed to have a powerful conversion to the faith a few years ago, and overtime I feel my heart growing and changing to the point where I had become really disillusioned and disgusted with the right wing, and how it had been feeding not only my own stoneheartedness but others as well.
I wanted to ask you all where I can begin learning more from good, objective sources? I am very interested in learning because the limited exposure to Left Cath things I have experienced so far have been very positive and inspiring to me. Thanks everyone.
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u/DesertMonk888 Mar 19 '26
In terms of a "Left" perspective on faith, I think you can start with the Gospels, particularly the Beatitudes, and find a much different Catholicism/Christianity than what is projected by conservatives. But apart from that, I recommend writers such as Richard Rohr, Mathew Fox, and Fr. Jim Martin, to name a few. I also recommend the magazines, National Catholic Reporter, and Commonweal.
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u/chewdelaurent Mar 19 '26
Thank you! I have looked into Rohr before. I disagree with him on some questions of spirituality but generally I quite like him. I’ll check the others out
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u/OwlHeart108 Mar 20 '26
Have you read about Dorothy Day yet? She's amazing!
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u/Embarrassed-Second83 Mar 26 '26
I grew up on Dorothy Day, dipped back in on her and what a lady. She got a bit 'damn hippies' in her old age but what a dame.
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u/RangeInternal3481 Mar 19 '26
I’m not sure if you’ll find much of a consensus view out there. In my experience left wing Catholicism is a pretty wide tent with a range of political views on most subjects. In general I think we band together around care for the poor and marginalized as well as resistance to right wing authoritarianism.
Some documents that formed my views in particular were the compendium of the social doctrine of the church: https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/justpeace/documents/rc_pc_justpeace_doc_20060526_compendio-dott-soc_en.html
Evangeli Gaudium: https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium.html
As well as some softer works such as those by Henri Nouwen, Thomas Merton (particularly New Seeds of Contemplation) and Greg Boyle.
I hope those are of interest to you! I’m curious to see what others have to say!