Yesterday, October 24, Pope Francis gave the young people who are auditors at the 2018 synod a copy of Docat. If the name is new to you, don’t worry – it’s new to a lot of people but not to those who attended the 2016 World Youth Day in Krakow, Poland.
Listen here to Pope Francis explain his dream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fB_eIm3X6tU
And now read the following report put together by Catholic World Report when Docat was revealed at the 2016 WYD.
DOCAT, A CATECHISM OF CATHOLIC SOCIAL DOCTRINE FOR YOUTH
(Catholic World Report, July 2016)
DOCAT, says Pope Francis in the Introduction, “it is like a user’s manual that helps us to change ourselves with the Gospel first, and then our closest surroundings, and finally the whole world.”
DOCAT, the follow-up and companion volume to the popular YOUCAT (Youth Catechism), was officially released yesterday at World Youth Day 2016 in Kraków, Poland.
DOCAT (pronounced “do-cat”) is a popular adaptation of the social doctrine of the Catholic Church that draws on Scripture, YOUCAT, the Catechism and the Compendium of Catholic Social Teaching, and features a foreword by Pope Francis (see below). As part of the release, a DOCAT app has been made available to all World Youth Day participants. The app helps readers to start groups, participate in discussions, and do acts of justice as a present to the pope, who, in writing the foreword to DOCAT, shared his dream with youth on how to change the world.
DOCAT is published and available in North America through Ignatius Press, which offers this description of the accessible, Q&A-formatted volume:
DOCAT is written with help from church and business leaders, social activists and young people in a popular Q-and-A, YOUCAT style that guides young people in conscience formation and Catholic action on social and political issues. It shows Catholics how to apply Gospel values to poverty, imbalance of wealth, employment and unemployment, the use of natural resources and environmental concerns, terrorism, immigration and abortion, among other topics.
DOCAT features inspirational and insightful quotes from Catholic leaders and saints, including St. Pope John Paul II, Mother Teresa, Pope Francis and Pope Benedict; excerpts from Francis’ magisterial teaching; and important statements from his immediate predecessor regarding the four principles of Catholic social teaching: the dignity of the human person, the common good, subsidiarity and solidarity.
“DOCAT answers the question: ‘What should we do [as Catholics]?’; it is like a user’s manual that helps us change ourselves with the Gospel first, and then our closest surroundings, and finally the whole world,” says Pope Francis in the foreword of DOCAT. “For with the power of the Gospel, we can truly change the world.”
Mark Brumley, President of Ignatius Press, states in a recent interview with Fathers For Good that DOCAT “shows young people how to use Catholic social teaching — which is really the gospel lived in society in a consistent way — in their daily lives and in their life aspirations.” He explains that the volume will help young people become what they are called to be: “enthusiastic, well-formed and well-informed disciples of Jesus, acting by the power of the Spirit.”
Ignatius Press has also co-published, with the Augustine Institute, The DOCAT Study Guide, which is an aid for using the DOCAT in a classroom setting, at home, or in small groups.
An 8-page, full-color flyer offering details about DOCAT and the Study Guide is available in PDF format from the Ignatius Press website.
Joan's Rome 