Research On Catholic Social Services

With the economic development and social progress in China, the demand for social services is increasing, while in the process of modernization, our society has many problems, especially the gap between the rich and the poor widening, the social contradictions highlighting, government failure, market failure and the lack of family protection. In order to respond to the challenges of modernization and enhance the level of social welfare, the role of social organizations in social welfare provision needs being paid more attention. Since the reform and opening up, Catholic Church as part of the social sphere, has participated in social services widely and played an important role in our society. In order to promote Catholic Social Services, in-depth study of the current situation, features, impact, challenges and limitations has important theoretical meanings, practical meanings and policy value. In this study, the author takes Hongjialou Catholic Church as an example, gets a lot of first-hand information through participant observation and depth interviews, describes in detail the providers, recipients, object, content, type, manner of Catholic Social Services, sums up the six characteristics:Catholic Social Services are closely related to Catholic beliefs, the combination of material help and spiritual comfort, the combination of internal services and external services, nonprofit and voluntary, convenience and continuity in resource mobilization, the role and role-playing of clergy, in which the core feature is the relationship between Catholic Social Services and Catholic beliefs. Catholic Church focuses on the combination of material relief, soul soothing and charitable education in social services, and have had a positive impact for the state and society. As one of the main social services providers, on the one hand, Catholic Church with the state, market, family and other NGOs constitutes a comprehensive social service delivery system, thereby reducing the burden of the state, expanding the scope of social services and enhancing the level of social welfare; on the other hand, its unique soul soothing makes up for the deficiencies of other service providers, and its charitable education has become a useful supplement of the national ideological and moral education. However, in the process of participating in social services, Catholic Church is facing financial problems, media underutilized, cognitive bias, and many other challenges. Meanwhile, the church itself has limitations, and the most important are the lack of clergy and unsound organization. To solve these problems, the author proposes feasible proposals in three dimensions. In this study, the author uses the state and society theory as a theoretical perspective, elaborates on the necessity of Catholic Social Services, and take this research project into the sociological discourse system, allowing the subject to have a support for sociological theory.