God has created man as a social being. Helping one another is part of man’s ontological structure. We are looking forward to your participation in this Symposium in order to debate and to find answers to questions such as these: Are indeed the ever more elaborate social policies leading to an enhanced quality of life? Or are we perhaps witnessing a degradation and a drifting towards shop-window models, affecting more and more members of the community? Can we say that the Church has truly developed a social protection system for those who are in distress, or that it is merely dealing with this work on a sporadic and insular basis? Is the social system of the Church in a relationship of collaboration with the State? Or is it a subordination one? Or maybe one of competition? What is the substance of the State–Church relationship in the field of social assistance? How has that relationship evolved throughout history? Is social performance a common mission of the Church and the State? Since the State has taken social assistance over from the Church, can we speak of an enhanced or a diminished fulfilment of social assistance services’ objectives? Are social problems that we are facing today generated by our society’s current way of life, or is it just history repeating itself? To what extent has the secularization of the Church patrimony affected the social assistance that used to be provided by the Church? Is (or should be) the finality of the action of the Church really indifferent to the laic State? Does only the donor impose the rules in a collaboration, or is the implementing entity also entitled to propose action models?
These are some of the topics that we are inviting you to analyse, to bring arguments for and against, to present ideas resulting from an investigation of the relationship and collaboration between the State and the Church in the field of social work.
