Stephen J. Tonsor

Now that we are celebrating the 150th anniversary of the publication of Volume I of Democracy in America we are no longer so startled at the genius and incisive observation of American democracy which characterizes Alexis de Tocqueville’s work. We have grown accustomed to the admiration and the commonplaces of critical approval and disagreement which … Read more

The “social Catholicism” of 19th-century reformers such as Bishop Wilhelm von Ketteler tried to remedy social and economic dislocation not through the invention of new forms but through the revival of the forms of traditional society. With that respect for experiential reality which characterizes both Christianity and Thomism, Rerum Novarum warns in paragraph 18, “Nothing … Read more