Paul Ryan is a longstanding advocate of decentralizing social welfare programs, but this does not mean he is deficient in either his moral commitment to the poor or his understanding of Catholic social doctrine. Continue Reading »
Pope Francis’s thought involves a series of dichotomies: North-South, imperial-populist, ideological-historical, abstract-concrete, and so on. Rourke shows in detail the intellectual formation that gave rise to this eccentric version of the social magisterium. Continue Reading »
Rerum Novarum (1891) begins with this sentence: “That the spirit of new things [revolutionary change], which has long been disturbing the nations of the world, should have passed beyond the sphere of politics and made its influence felt in the cognate sphere of practical economics is not . . . . Continue Reading »
If we abandon the peculiarly modern quest for strict equality of treatment, it should be possible for the E.U. to function with its member states unevenly integrated into the whole. Great Britain could remain part of the E.U. while, fully in accordance with subsidiarity, claiming as much independence as it needs and can handle. Continue Reading »
TRIGGER WARNING: This column will speak well of Paul Ryan, the new Speaker of the House of Representatives, and compare him favorably to two liberal icons. Over forty years of teaching and writing about Catholic social doctrine, I’ve gotten to know three men who had the opportunity to embody the . . . . Continue Reading »
See, judge, act.” Such has been the method by which modern Catholic social teaching has urged Catholics to approach the political and economic challenges of our time. First and foremost, the “seeing” involves looking with the eyes of Christ rather than through the prism of our own ideology. . . . . Continue Reading »
The World as It Could Be: Catholic Social Thought for a New Generation by thomas d. williams crossroad, 240 pages, $24.95 What would the world be like, asks Thomas Williams in The World as It Could Be, if essential truths of the human person were universally acknowledged and respected and “all . . . . Continue Reading »
Since 1950 I have worked with my many sisters from around the world as one of the Missionaries of Charity. Our congregation now has over four hundred foundations in more than one hundred countries, including the United States of America. We have almost five thousand sisters. We care for those who . . . . Continue Reading »
The year 1991 marked the centenary of modern Catholic social teaching—the issuing of the encyclical Rerum Novarum by Pope Leo XIII—and the bicentenary of the Bill of Rights to the United States Constitution. It might have come as something of a shock to the (very Protestant) . . . . Continue Reading »
Eighty-one years ago, G. K. Chesterton wrote a book entitled What’s Wrong with the World. His answer to that question was that, while there is general agreement as to what is wrong with the world, the real problem is that we cannot agree on what would be right. This absence of public . . . . Continue Reading »
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