This essay explores “the metaphysics of American ideas” and the strengths and weaknesses of Murray’s argument in We Hold These Truths. The philosophical principles that animate the American founding, it argues, presuppose a particular understanding of the structure of being whose roots are biblical in inspiration. Murray’s account, it continues, calls our attention to the many links between the American founding and the Catholic tradition, suggests ways in which Catholic thought can give us a deeper understanding of the “truths” informing the Founding, and illuminates the gulf between contemporary America’s secular “superculture” and the many cultures of local America. Expressing some concerns about the conceptions of reason, nature, and grace that inform Murray’s thought, and of Murray’s engagement with the thought of the American founders, it concludes by attempting to extend We Hold These Truths’ argument by identifying three truths, over and above those identified by Murray, that are essential to a proper understanding of the American democratic experiment.

This essay explicates five themes from We Hold These Truths. Specifically, it seeks to: (1) compare Murray’s treatment of contemporary America’s loss of a public philosophy to similar arguments made by important non-Catholic journalists and political theorists in his day; (2) bring Murray’s account of the Christian roots of the liberal tradition into conversation with the view that the liberal tradition is specifically modern; (3) explore the significance of Murray’s famous interpretation of the religion clauses of the First Amendment as entirely practical “articles of peace”; (4) critically engage Murray’s account of the thought of the founders and explore the motivations underlying this account; and (5) relate Murray’s account of the natural law theory undergirding the American democratic experiment to the political theory informing the Declaration of Independence and Lincoln’s re-founding of the American regime.

This essay maintains that although We Hold These Truths represented an important milestone in Catholic reflection on the American regime, Murray’s analysis of public morality and the state’s role in its promotion and enforcement is notably weak and of little assistance to us today. More specifically, it argues that Murray’s analysis is insufficiently philosophical and too concerned with the pragmatic task of forging an approach widely acceptable in the America of his day; that it rests on an artificial distinction between “private” and “public” morality that fails to sufficiently appreciate the essential dependence of sound morals legislation upon the government’s recognition of moral truth; and that it too closely identifies the whole of law’s competence with the scope of its coercive jurisdiction, thus failing to appreciate the directive and educative properties of law and its role in the establishment of conditions conducive to human flourishing.

An aspect particularly striking about Caritas in Veritate among social encyclicals is its emphasis from the beginning on Augustinian-based metaphysics. This paper considers Pope Benedict’s metaphysical starting point as a key contribution to social doctrine in times marked by the concrete embodiment of globalization, to which the postmodern mind has responded with increased secularism and religious indifferentism. Pope Benedict is seeking to guide globalization by man’s rediscovery of himself via a metaphysics open to faith. Such a metaphysics reveals man’s essentially relational character, intimatingthe unity in diversity of the Trinity, by whose power in charity lies the only lasting hope of human progress and development: not merely the peace of the earthly city but the city of God in its heavenly fulfillment. Broad as it is deep, Caritas in Veritate applies its metaphysics to social virtue in action in a variety of social concerns relevant to our contemporary world and society.

This review essay provides an exploratory critique of one prominent contemporary sociology of religion textbook from the perspective of a Catholic sociological sensibility. It is written with the projection that the critique could eventually be expanded into a more systematic and exhaustive review of other major textbooks in the field. The textbook is analyzed in light of eight fundamental questions.

The Mexican Reforma is often considered a classic example of the power struggles that occurred between church and state throughout the nineteenth century. However, since in this case both sides claimed to be Catholic, the most important battles in Mexico were actually intra ecclesiam. Ultimately, it was a fight over access to the sacraments that drove Mexico into civil war, transforming both the Church and society in the process. The current debate in the United States over allowing public figures who violate Church teaching to receive Holy Communion should be considered within the context of the Mexican experience.

The non-governmental organization (NGO) is perceived not only as a disseminator of information, monitor of human rights or provider of services but also as a shaper of national, regional, and international policy. Many members of the lay faithful, working with others from various Christian denominations, have established NGOs to monitor and to promote the rights of the unborn, the natural family, and many other topics of common interest. These NGOs lobby at the national, regional, and international levels. This paper discusses the role of the Catholic-inspired NGO on the international level with reference to the thought of Pope Benedict XVI in his encyclical, Caritas in veritate.

Regarded as the greatest of Russian philosophers, Vladimir Soloviev (1853-1900) was praised by Pope John Paul II for establishing “a fruitful relationship between philosophy and the word of God.” As the Christian philosopher of Godmanhood and critic of naturalism and atheistic humanism, he saw the urgency of ending the tragic schism between Russian Orthodoxy and Rome. His ecclesiological masterpiece, Russia and the Universal Church was an unequivocal profession of faith in the Catholic doctrine of the Roman primacy. French Jesuit Michel d’Herbigny’s seminal book Vladimir Soloviev: a Russian Newmaninfluenced many writers who similarly saw certain resemblances between two of the pioneers of nineteenth-century ecumenical thought, Soloviev and the Blessed John Henry Newman. Soloviev’s theocratic theology of politics and development of the social gospel remain of particular interest to students of Catholic social doctrine.

The nineteenth century brought challenges that undermined the unity of French Reformed Protestantism. Evangelicals held to the great doctrines of Luther and Calvin, while liberals preferred a looser connection with the past and emphasized the libertarian character of the Reformation rather than its formal doctrinal content. Protestantism was deeply rooted in dialectical forms of thinking and expression, most obviously between assumptions of biblical truth and Roman Catholic idolatry and superstition. That same dialectic, supported by contemporary philosophies, would be turned inward as liberals sought to claim theReformation as grounds for their freedom from traditional theological constraints while accusing evangelicals of a Catholic-like dogmatism.

This essay looks into the paradoxical friendship of Jacques Maritain, a Catholic philosopher, and Saul Alinsky, a radical community organizer. Commentators Bernard Doering and Charles Curran have used the fact of this friendship to draw the erroneous conclusion that Maritain approved of Alinsky’s philosophy. However, a closer look at their respective writings shows that Maritain and Alinsky retained profound disagreements on basic philosophical issues. Particular attention is paid to Maritain’s letter in response to Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, in which Maritain raised objections to many of Alinsky’s ideas. Thus, Maritain didnot compromise his Christian worldview.

This article offers an outline of administrative decentralization, subsidiarity, and related principles as they emerge from Tocqueville’s account of American democracy and the social teachings of the Catholic Church, respectively, accompanied by an analysis of the philosophic and theological underpinnings of each account. This analysis reveals a profound theoretical as well as practical harmony between the two notions: namely, that both are grounded in the potential of human beings to perfect themselves through virtuous actions, which society must foster in a fashion that preserves the freedom of citizens, who can achieve thecommon good only by taking active responsibility for it.

This article, which inaugurated SCSS president Stephen M. Krason’s monthly (sometimes bi-monthly) online column, “Neither Left Nor Right but Catholic” (in September 2010), takes note of an important address given by Archbishop Charles Chaput in Europe in which he foresees increasing repression by an arch-secularist political and cultural elite against Catholics and the Church when they try to bring the Church’s message to society. This represents a deeply disturbing narrowing of the meaning of religious liberty to mere freedom of worship.