On the Square Today

Pete Spiliakos describes a populist Republican economic agenda :

The Republican National Committee is in a cul-de-sac. They see that support for the Republican party is becoming isolated to constituencies that are in relative demographic decline. What the RNC does not see (or chooses not to see) is that the party’s weakness is largely the result of the perception of the party as a vehicle for the self-interest of the wealthy.

George Weigel on the time he met Pope Francis :

When Pope Francis stepped out onto the central loggia of St. Peter’s on the night of March 13, I thought of the man I had met in his Buenos Aires office ten months before: Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, S.J., who was looking forward to laying down the burden of leadership and devoting himself to prayer, reflection and study.

Also today, in a feature from our April issue, Robert T. Miller offers a pragmatic defense of American liberalism :

There is a great gap between politics and moral philosophy. Thinking that a certain set of political arrangements is the best way to organize a particular society in particular historical circumstances is a prudential judgment, and in supporting America’s liberal political system I do not thereby commit myself to a liberal political philosophy.