It is often claimed that there is a conflict between the ethical mandates of Catholic social teaching and the findings of economic science. However, the kind of economic analysis such critics adhere to is either the mainstream neoclassical (including the Chicago School) or the Austrian School, whose modes of economic analysis differ from that employed by the popes. Using examples from encyclicals, this article shows that the Supreme Pontiffs gave a more prominent place in their economic thinking to economic power and to institutions such as legal or cultural norms than to market forces. Instances are then given in which economic power is shown to have affected economic outcomes, and alternative schools are proposed as offering a type of economic analysis closer to that used by the popes.

Like Pius XII, who fought to undermine the Nazis, Croatian Archbishop (later Cardinal) Aloysius Stepinac battled with the Nazi-like Ustashi regime. Like Pius, Stepinac was known to those close to him as a staunch opponent of Fascism, but also like Pius, his reputation was smeared by false accusations after the war. In fact, evidence that was manufactured by Communist authorities after the war to defame Stepinac, and which has since been established as false, has made itsway into the historical analysis of Pius XII’s papacy. That false evidence continues to confound scholars and distort their appreciation of efforts undertaken by Pius and Stepinac to combat evil regimes and protect victims of all different backgrounds.

The prevailing model of teaching business administration at Catholic universities does not sufficiently differentiate Catholic institutions; it does not live up to the expectations of the Church; and it underplays the potential of the Catholic Intellectual Tradition to elucidate the sphere of business. Attempting to integrate business administration into the “liberal arts” is a misguided approach, for barring an implementation of the historical liberal arts curriculum there is no non-arbitrary way of defining what the term denotes. From an Aristotelian perspective as carried on in the Thomistic tradition, reality is continuous, and all social and behavioral sciences are unified in their material object while they study persons under different aspects. Business is a region of human behavior, and its study naturally coheres with other disciplines. The practice of business is ontologically integrated into a reality that unifies man, his actions, and their results,and its study is integrated into the academic edifice through the use of the Catholic style of thought. This model facilitates a new understanding of teaching and research in business administration, in what is hoped to be a more Catholic spirit.

Commitments agreed upon internationally by Irish political representatives often escape scrutiny at home.1 One outcome of this omission is evidenced in the debate regarding the family: Is it pivotal to the achievement of the common good, or does its unity act as an obstacle to full equality? This article examines this debate from the standpoint afforded by MacIntyre’s formulation of tradition-constituted enquiries, asking whether current political trends entail a shift in the very basis on which the Irish reason practically.

As she emerges from the immediate post-Vatican II period, the Catholic Church in the U.S. is experiencing simultaneously both positive and negative developments. Negatively, the immediate post-Vatican II period, characterized by the institutionalization of internal dissent, predictably produced various religious and social dysfunctions and witnessed increasing numbers within the ranks of Catholic leadership accepting secular assumptions of reality as superior to those of the historic and organically developing Catholic tradition. During the immediate contemporary era, the growth of this institutionalized dissent—characterized as a “first wave” of decomposition—has been capped but has not been significantly reduced.Key to contemporary positive developments occurring at the moment is the appearance of a significant minority of young people in search of a worldview and lifestyle consistent with the spiritually rich and life-affirming worldview of the Catholic faith. Key to contemporary negative developments is a more recent “second wave” of decomposition characterized by needless and self-destructive rancor taking place within the remaining sectors of orthodox Catholicism. This second wave of decomposition is partially the result of the inability of a Catholic leadership too enamored of a secular bureaucratic mentality to articulate and enforce the parameters of Catholic orthodoxy in the form of a “Catholic center” as defined by Magisterial thinking.The failure to forge an effective Catholic center has resulted in the continuation of the general decomposition of the Church in the form of a partially hidden but operative “protestantization” and individualization within the Catholic community. In this second wave, elements of orthodox Catholicism conflate their time and space-specific responses to the unsatisfactory condition of the Church in America with the far wider range of legitimate responses acceptable within thetradition of the Church Universal, thus absolutizing what are, in reality, responses that are relative, incomplete, and, in some cases, simply false. Because of the lack of an effective “Catholic center” in America, in other words and in too many cases, the organizations and movements created by serious Catholics in response to the present unsatisfactory condition of the Church have failed to revitalize and invigorate the Church and her tradition through an organic development. Rather, they are serving to further splinter her into competing, and at best, partial and incomplete versions of the Catholic faith.The immediate future of the Catholic Church in America, and derivatively, the direction of American civilization depend on whether legitimate Catholic leadership can create a functioning Catholic center based on Magisterial authority that is consistent with the adage, “in necessary things, unity; in doubtful things, liberty; in all things, charity.” The task of this Catholic center, under present circumstances, is to suppress and control the two waves of decomposition, both of which operate simultaneously within the contemporary Catholic Church. The Catholic center must discipline and reject the overt dissent generated by secularism, focus attention on the basic and non-negotiable principles of the Catholic faith, and significantly reduce needless conflict on prudential concerns and issues between the various sectors of orthodox Catholicism in the United States.

A number of academic studies find that various types of state level pro-life legislation reduce the incidence of abortion. However, in these states, it is possible that changes in values and mores, and not the legislation itself, might be responsible for these abortion declines. Indeed, since the enactment of pro-life legislation is not a random occurrence, the analysis of these laws might be biased by what social scientists call “endogeneity problems.” In this study, I address these endogeneity problems through a series of natural experiments. I compare abortion trends in states that enacted pro-life legislation to abortion trends in states where pro-life laws were passed, but later nullified by a judge. All states passing pro-life laws should have experienced similar changes in values, however, the policy changed only in those states where the law took effect. Overall, the results contribute to the body of academic literature which finds that pro-life legislation reduces state abortion rates.

Critics of Pope Pius XII usually fail to account for the dangerous role he took as mediator in a conspiracy against Hitler at the outbreak of World War II in 1939. Peace negotiations between German military rebels and the British government flowed through the Vatican as a secret conduit. First-hand testimonies by German conspirators, and secondary studies by historians of the German Resistance and British-Vatican relations, all give evidence of the Pope’s heroic courage in the face of grave threats to himself and the Catholic Church.

This article presents some of Pope Benedict XVI’s thoughts on economic matters, drawing from his writings and speeches before and after his election to the Papacy. He has spoken on numerous occasions about Marxism, capitalism, and, more recently, globalization, which can be thought of as an extension of capitalism. While he is harshly critical of Marxism, his criticisms of capitalism are more moderate, though he maintains a number of reservations about it, and draws parallels between the two systems. In both Marxism and capitalism he sees an attempt to construct a social order on reason alone, and he contrasts thiswith a Catholic vision of the social order in which reason is united to virtue in the service of moral values. He is generally supportive of globalization, though he has expressed concern about its effects on families and on the poor, as well as its effects on inequality and monopoly power. (Ed. Note: It should be noted that this article was completed, and the current volume of the Review in production before Pope Benedict’s encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, was released.)

This is a summary and brief explanation of many of the key principles of the economic system called solidarism, developed by Fr. Heinrich Pesch, S.J. in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which was explicitly grounded on Christian and traditional natural law principles.