Title: On the relationship between Catholicism and Marxism

Authors: Kieran James; Jenny Kwai-Sim Leung

Addresses: School of Business and Enterprise, University of the West of Scotland, Paisley campus, Paisley PA1 2BE, Renfrewshire, Scotland ' Faculty of Business, Justice and Behavioural Sciences, Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga campus, Boorooma St., North Wagga Wagga NSW 2650, Australia

Abstract: This article contains a previously unpublished essay of personal reflections on the relationship between Catholicism and Marxism. The essay includes a critique of the social teaching encyclicals written by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and Pope John Paul II in the 1980s. We will see how John Paul II subtly incorporated some of the key ideas of the liberation theologians into the official body of Roman Catholic social teaching after 1986. This article should help younger researchers who might be interested in but are struggling with Catholic social teaching and/or Marxism in either theoretical and/or practical realms. This is especially important given that some Marxist authors within critical accounting are near or past retirement age and there is a real risk that the understandings of Marxist theory which they had will be lost to the discipline. We also look at some potential research topic areas which a developing country-based researcher could profitably explore using a Marxist perspective with a special focus on Fiji Islands, Indonesia and Singapore.

Keywords: catholic social teaching; critical accounting; Fiji Islands; John Paul II; liberation theology; Marxian economics; Marxism; Roman Catholicism.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCA.2018.092335

International Journal of Critical Accounting, 2018 Vol.10 No.2, pp.169 - 191

Received: 27 Nov 2017
Accepted: 13 Mar 2018

Published online: 14 Jun 2018 *

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