Religious philosopher Michael Novak, cofounder of Crisis Magazine, was the 1994 recipient of the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. According to many observers, Novak’s influence played an important role in the drafting of Centesimus Annus, Pope John Paul II’s 1991 encyclical on Catholic social teaching. In particular, Novak’s work is seen within the Holy … Read more
Checking out at the grocery store the other day, I paid for my sack of rolls. The checkout person handed me my bag. “Thank you,” I said. “You’re welcome,” she said. I walked away with a sense that something was wrong. Do checkout people usually say “you’re welcome” and nothing else? Not usually. Usually they … Read more
If ever there were a time when Catholics should not trust the United States government, it is now. The president, his administration, and the congressional leadership are removing all the abortion restrictions put in place since Roe v. Wade. And yet, the bishops are backing a proposal to give the federal government complete control … Read more
The pope’s new encyclical, Caritas in Veritate (CV), is a “big” document, and I won’t pretend to dispose of it with a brief commentary. Like its ancestor, the epochal Rerum Novarum, it will work its way through the mills of hundreds of thinkers for decades to come — provoking responses by writers of every political … Read more
Pro-life Catholics fall into two camps on the issue of abortion: those who see it first and foremost as an individual moral failing, and those who consider it primarily a social moral failing. Â There is nothing mutually exclusive about the two positions, of course, but that isn’t the problem. The real issue here is … Read more
People who study economics are often told that modern capitalism is an outgrowth of a certain English Protestant or agnostic tradition represented by writers such as John Locke, David Hume, Adam Smith, and John Stuart Mill. The notion of a link between capitalism and Protestantism owes a lot to Max Weber’s famous thesis The Protestant … Read more
I must admit right up front that I am anything but an economist. My fiscal sensibility was formed by the heritage of seven generations of Pennsylvania Mennonite farmers. We live within our means. We don’t buy what we can’t pay for. We don’t have debt and we don’t gamble with our money — either in … Read more
Put forth a robust defense of the free market as the most morally and materially satisfying economic system and you invite all manner of invective and accusation. What are you, some kind of dissenter? Not so fast. Although the documents of modern Catholic social teaching normally begin with Rerum Novarum (1891), students should instead start … Read more