In his 2004 book, Who Are We?, Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington argues that America’s national identity is in danger of being lost because of the influx of immigrants, particularly Hispanic, who are not being assimilated to American society. Huntington believes that the American identity was formed through the interaction of the Protestant Christianity of the original settlers with the New World. He calls for a revival of the American identity through a return to its sources, but fails to see that the liberalized and attenuated Protestant Christianity of today is no longer capable of revitalizing the American identity.

This is Part II of a continuing exploration of how to more effectively define and teach a Catholic sociology to today’s college students. In Part I, which appeared in the November 2004 issue of this journal, I examined how a specifically Catholic sociology was framed between about 1939 and 1970 in a number of widely used, explicitly Catholic, college-level sociology texts by three key authors of that era: Fr. Paul Hanly Furfey, Dr. Eva Ross, and Fr. Raymond Murray. They were part of a larger movement to shape college curricula and teaching advocated by the American Catholic Sociological Society. These authors developed textbooks that functioned as works of legitimation, works of foundation, and/or works of instruction. Part I dealt with the first two types; in this part I explore the last type, suggest some lessons we may learn from the pioneers’ efforts, and pose some crucial questions to consider today if we are to more successfully develop Catholic college-level sociology programs.

The author discusses the effects of contraception, which have borne out the predictions of Pope Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae: the explosion of out-of-wedlock births, lack of respect for women, STD's, HIV/AIDS, etc. The overpopulation claims that fed the acceptance and promotion of contraception have been discredited by demographers; now the social costs of underpopulation are increasingly apparent. Acceptance of contraception has now also led to an embracing of morally objectionable technologies like cloning. This is the latest consequence of the separation of sex and reproduction signaled by the acceptance of contraception.

The author argues that there are serious problems from the standpoint of Catholic social teaching (as well as traditional Western thought and simple prudence) in making the forcible spreading of democracy an objective of U.S. foreign policy. He argues that U.S. policy, in light of Catholic social teaching, should be prudently interventionist—but not primarily in a military sense—in promoting human rights, diffusing international tensions, and peacekeeping. Also, the author discusses such questions as shaping U.S. foreign policy in conjunction with allies and foreign aid, in light of Catholic social teaching.

The author notes how American public policy typically springs from good intentions, but brings unforeseeable consequences that cause new social problems. It also increasingly seeks to address speculative, not actual or certain, harms. He gives numerous examples and argues that the effect is increasingly expansive state power and heightened intrusion into private areas of individual and family lives. He also argues that all three public policy trends grow out of modern utopian tendencies and secularism.

The publicity surrounding the Terri Schiavo case has led many Americans to request copies of the “living will.” This document is the primary choice of euthanasia enthusiasts because of the standard form’s general presumption for death. The mentality behind the advocacy of the “living will” is that one is better off dead than debilitated or disabled. It is, therefore, dangerous and potentially lethal. The secularist, utilitarian, relativistic, “quality of life” ethic that is at the core of the culture of death, as well as healthcare’s preoccupation with costeffectiveness, is driving the push for “living wills.” Pro-life alternatives to the “living will” are readily available that afford more protection to persons in the event that they cannot speak for themselves. The author has over twenty years of experience working in healthcare facilities: twelve years in the field of diagnostics as a radiologic technologist and nine years in the field of nursing. As a registered nurse, she has worked in long-term care, adult mental health, and geriatric psychiatry.

A Natural Family Planning (NFP) public awareness campaign was conducted in the Diocese of Wichita, Kansas, under the auspices of the NFP office. This article presents an analysis of client data collected. The goals of the program were to raise awareness of NFP and elicit inquiries from the community-at-large. The data suggests that there is wide interest in NFP from the non-Catholic community and that responders to the campaign came from several distinct groups, each with its own characteristics. Based on the successful outcomes of the program, ways of segmenting the target market in future NFP awareness campaigns are presented.

A paucity of studies address deeper dimensions of the influence of the family on crime. In A General Theory of Crime (1990), Hirschi and Gottfredson emphasize the significance of effective parenting in the development of high levels of self-control and less likely criminal involvement based on their view of human nature. The values-based social teachings of the Catholic Church that emphasize central themes of human and personal dignity, the common good, and communion ofpersons in the family and society, provide a basis to contribute to and develop the empirical significance of the family experience and parenting in the development of self-control, and establish a more validating basis for criminal justice policy.

This article first appeared in Life and Learning XIV: Proceedings of the Fourteenth University Faculty for Life Conference, and is reprinted here with the kind permission of the editor, Joseph W. Koterski, S.J..Despite the enormous attention it received, the Terri Schindler-Schiavo litigation is not legally significant. The litigation involved the application of a fairly well-settled legal framework. This framework permitted, however, an unjust result. The controversy over Terri’s fatehas, though, helped to focus attention on a consensus that is in need of re-examination. This paper explores the lessons that ought to be learned from the Terri Schindler-Schiavo litigation. After briefly discussing the basic facts and the complex litigation history, the paper considers the relevant federal constitutional and Florida law. The paper then critiques Florida law and explains the legal and moral considerations that ought to inform the re-examination that is so sorely needed. The most important effort needed is to restore the sanctity of life ethic.

For the last 70 years, Catholic teaching on social communications has sought—and largely failed—to win a broadly shared commitment to sound moral formation as the foundational principle guiding the use of the instruments of social communications. This article explores one important factor for this apparent failure: amisunderstanding of the “practicality” of Catholic teaching on social communications. The article’s thesis is that the question of the practicality of Catholic social doctrine concerning social communications turns on this question of what “practicality” means and specifically whether the horizon of the practical includes anobjective moral order grounded in an intelligible human telos. The article also explores different ways in which the word “practical” can be understood and uses these ways to evaluate the practicality of Catholic teaching on social communications. It concludes by making a suggestion as to how the practicality of Catholic teaching on social communications might be better understood. The central points of the article are then encapsulated in a “Thomistic” article complete withobjections and replies.

This article addresses the topic of a new international order conceived of by the late Pope John Paul II. This order is not “new,” however, but goes back to the beginnings of his pontificate. The development of this new order will be considered. Some attention will also be given to the Holy See’s efforts to propose a different alternative to the “war on terrorism” by creating a more peaceful order based on the concepts of human dignity, development, solidarity, and the rule oflaw. Ultimately all nations are called to the duty of creating peace, with special emphasis placed upon the United Nations and international law.

The eminent historian of culture, Christopher Dawson, believed America possessed a unique opportunity in the aftermath of two world wars to revitalize Christian education and help stave off the disintegration of Western civilization. Only an authentic effort to recover the historic reality of Christian culture would ensure that Europe, and thus the west, regained the viable unifying principle of a common spiritual outlook.

Anger, a natural response to injustice, becomes resentment when the anger is maintained, for any of a variety of reasons. While both repression and venting are inadequate responses to resentment, forgiveness is a more appropriate response. Extrinsically motivated forgiveness, to which believers appear to be particularly susceptible, is insufficient to meet the generally accepted definition of forgiveness. Forgiveness, a moral gift to the offender that is consistent with justice and rational judgment, requires an internal understanding of the reasons motivating the cognitive decision to forgive. The dignity of the human person appears to be a helpful principle in reaching the internal motivation to forgive the offender. This understanding of dignity shared by the offender with all persons is approachable by philosophical or theological avenues of reasoning.

In the 19th century, Ireland and Brownson are the two best Catholic thinkers from whom one can learn something about whether the principles of the Declaration reflect the teachings of pre-modern Catholic political theologians or the atheistic teachings of modern political philosophers. They disagree, and their disagreement is both thought provoking and instructive. 20th-century Catholic thinkers follow Ireland’s understanding that the Declaration reflects teachings ofCatholic thinkers, though there are important differences between more moderate and more extreme versions of this argument. The 20th century culminates in the teaching of the philosopher—Pope John Paul II, who finds in the Declaration’s principles a meaning compatible with Catholic moral teachings. However, no one in the 20th century addresses Brownson’s substantial argument to the contrary.

This article traces the principles and practices that characterized the American democratic republic and American culture at its Founding and suggests possible inherent weaknesses in our Founding thought and outlook that may have paved the way for a later transformation and decay of the American political order.

This article explores the implications of the Supreme Court’s June 2005 decisions involving the public display of the Ten Commandments. The article first explains that the decisions will do little to alleviate the confusion that currently exists about the constitutionality of the public display of religious symbols. The article then focuses on a major problem with the Court’s Establishment Clause jurisprudence—viz., that the Court is unwilling to acknowledge the special value ofreligion. The article closes with some observations about the opinions of Justices Scalia and Thomas and suggests that their opinions offer the prospect of a much-needed reorientation of the Court’s approach to the Establishment Clause.

In any society, the political feasibility of transforming a private good into a public merit good financed with tax dollars will depend on the skewness of the income distribution in that society. In Canada, the income distribution is positively skewed and various merit good programs have been introduced. The transformation of health care into a merit good has created a number of new stakesholders each with legitimate claims on the resources of the health care system. The deliveryof quality health care to the sick, in a timely fashion, is no longer the primary objective of the health care system. It is only one objective among many. For the families of the 2000 victims who died as a result of the C. difficile epidemic in Montreal it might appear that the government did not fulfill its responsibilities to society and perhaps individual caregivers were negligent in their duties. However, it should be noted that, given the systematic causation and the system of incentives that is a central component of a merit good system, each member of the health care delivery system acted rationally. No one did anything wrong.

Robert Fogel, who won the Nobel Prize in economics for his research in economic history, particularly that assessing well-being in the past, has recently turned his skills to examining the future. Concluding that the past few centuries, especially the twentieth, provided unprecedented material gains in both well-being and in equality, he argues that future gains to utility will occur more from spiritual enrichment than from increases in material prosperity and that inequality will increasingly depend upon differences in spiritual resources. These changes call for new ways of thinking about and even measuring well-being. Despite his more secular definition of spiritual, his call indicates new openings for Christians to participate in such debates with economists specifically, and with all people concerned about equality and justice.

This is a brief reflection published in the now extinct Oratre Fratres (January 1941). The consequences of the turning from common Fatherhood and the resulting loss of common brotherhood are as evident today as when this was first written. McCoy was in St. Paul Seminary at the time and was to be ordained in May 1941. He had earned his Ph.D. in Political Science (constitutional law) from the University of Chicago in 1938