The Compendium as Teaching Tool

In response to Susan's question, I haven't studied the Compendium in depth, but my use of it thus far has led me to consider it an invaluable tool for quickly ascertaining the Church's social teaching on a given issue -- especially an issue with which we might be unfamiliar.  Given its all-encompassing scope, however, it necessarily treats subjects with less depth than other sources, and its format would require a lot of skipping around from section to section to give students a sense of the necessary relationship between different components of the social teaching.  As such, I'd be hesitant to substitute the Compendium for a papal encyclical in the classroom environment, although it could be valuable in providing students with a sense of the broader social teaching.  The Compendium is helpful in communicating the social tradition; encyclicals (and other sources) are more helpful in allowing the reader to enter into the line of reasoning that has helped form the tradition.  For students who come to these topics prepared to disagree with the Church, exposing them to the richness of the encyclicals is especially crucial, as they essentially enter into a seamless story, rather than encountering the social tradition as one might encounter the Restatement in Torts class.  Students might still disagree with the Church's positions after reading an encyclical, but at least they will have experienced the foundations of those positions in all their fullness.

Rob