Peter Maurin, a co-founder with Dorothy Day of the Catholic Worker Movement in America, once described the social doctrine of the Church as like dynamite which Catholic scholars had wrapped up in nice phrases, placed in a sealed container and sat on. For the Church to be the dominant social force it should be, he said, we need to blow the lid off.

It’s a bit harsh on Catholic scholars, especially some of our current crop like Anna Rowlands and Tony Annett, who’ve done their very best to light the fuse. The fact that Catholic Social Teaching is still haunted by the tag of the Church’s “best kept secret”, cannot be blamed just on scholars. When was the last time you heard Catholic Social Teaching from the pulpit? The formation of clergy over the years paid scant attention to this powder keg of Church teaching.

The Church’s social doctrine, or social teaching, is rooted in the Gospel and the Tradition of the Church. What we know as the modern phase of Catholic Social Teaching, delivered in papal encyclicals, begins at the end of the nineteenth century in response to the brutalities of capitalism. It was preceded by a new consciousness of social justice in a number of countries. In England, Cardinal Manning intervened in the London dockers’ strike in 1889. He was from a wealthy background, so the owners listened to him. He was a prince of the Church, so the Irish dockers looked up to him.

The leadership of the Church in the nineteenth century was mostly on the side of established power, perhaps in understandable reaction to the traumas of the French Revolution. The Church was very nervous about social reform and sided with the forces of hierarchy and conservatism. Cardinal Manning broke out of this in spectacular fashion when he turned on the owners in the dock strike and condemned the misery they were causing by refusing to negotiate in the strike, which he said was “not a private affair; it is a public evil.”

The strike ended with better conditions for the dockers. Reports were feeding back to Rome about these and similar movements in France and Germany. Pope Leo XIII, an aristocratic himself, struck a match and lit the fuse which would explode on 15 May 1891 with the publication of Rerum Novarum (“On Capital and Labour”), the first social encyclical. The major theme of the document, indeed of all that followed, was the protection and promotion of the dignity of the human person: “No man may with impunity outrage that human dignity which God Himself treats with great reverence.”

The explosions have been going off in the Vatican periodically ever since, initially after long gaps but increasingly more often, and louder. The social encyclicals of the popes, from Leo XIII to Francis, read the signs of the times in the light of the Gospel and encourage action to build a more just and compassionate world. Now, with the introduction of a new Catholic Inspection Framework in England and Wales, the dynamite has been delivered to our Catholic schools.

Leaders and governors, if they aspire to be outstanding, which they do, need to be “inspirational witnesses to the Gospel and to Catholic Social Teaching in their direction of the school at every level.” We know from our experience with Ofsted, that an inspection framework does not just evaluate what’s there, but acts as a lever to encourage what should be there, in the opinion of those running the framework. The decision to bring Catholic Social Teaching to the front and centre of the life and mission of the Catholic school is very much in line with the recent Magisterium of the Church.

Vatican II’s Declaration on Christian Education, the most authoritative Church document on education, made it clear that the purpose of a rounded education for our young people was so that they would “become actively involved in various community organizations, open to discourse with others and willing to do their best to promote the common good.” There’s the link. Catholic schools at the service of humanity, forming generations of young people inspired to build a better world.

Leaders and governors, according to the new inspection framework, are expected to demonstrate in every one of their decisions, “an exemplary commitment to care for our common home, to the pursuit of the common good and to service of those in greatest need.” This extends as well to how staff are treated, including in services that may be contracted out, such as catering or cleaning. The legacy of Leo XIII always points us to the treatment of the workers.

In the classroom, we need more than a poster of a Catholic scientist on the wall. We need the curriculum to be in conversation with social justice, a task which Catholic schools are now undertaking with great energy and creativity. I have seen a Maths teacher delivering a lesson on percentages, which the curriculum requires. So far, so much like any other school. The difference comes in the example used to illustrate percentages.

This teacher used the example of a lone parent who worked on a zero hours contract (along with about one million people in the UK). There was no more work after Wednesday, so no more pay. This person has children to look after. They go online and borrow money from a payday loan company, or go to the loan shark on the estate. They borrow £100. A month later they owe £500, and are aggressively pursued for its payment. The pupils are learning about percentages, but in the context of a question of social justice.

With the numbers of Catholic pupils and teachers in Catholic schools on a downward trend, Catholic Social Teaching is an ideal ‘way in’ to Catholicism for staff, and it’s engaging for the pupils. Nor is it some dumbed down version of the faith. Pope Francis has said that the social doctrine of the Church “comes from the heart of the Gospel. It comes from Jesus himself. Jesus is the social teaching of God.”

In this election year, it’s time to set the charges and blow the dynamite of the Church. The force of these explosions is not destructive, but rather eruptions of solidarity and love. Our schools are called to raise a prophetic voice and stand up for people in situations of poverty, to re-weave the fabric of communities, to offer a vision for the common good.