Is John Paul II too liberal?
That was the question National Catholic Reporter journalist John Allen Jr. posed on August 22, 2003:
The question cuts against most conventional wisdom. If the man who said “no” to women’s ordination, gay marriage, and decentralization of power isn’t a conservative, many people would insist, then there’s no such animal.It was in fact Mr. Allen's column which inspired this website and our homegrown investigation of the relationship between the Catholic faith and what has been called America's experiment in "ordered liberty." Such questions as:But what if one has in mind not the sense in which Ted Kennedy is “liberal,” but in which virtually all Westerners are “liberals,” i.e., the classic notion of liberalism as belief in democracy, human rights, and free markets? If that’s the standard, then John Paul, though not uncritically, stacks up as a basically “liberal” pope.
Witness his proud claim that Christianity actually shaped the core tenets of liberalism in his August 17 Angelus address: “The Christian faith gave form [to Europe], and some of its fundamental values in turn inspired ‘the democratic ideal and the human rights’ of European modernity,” the Pope said.
Not everyone in the Catholic world approves. Although the movement has largely flown under media radar, John Paul faces a growing conservative opposition to this embrace of liberalism, understood in the classic sense. . . .
- What are the religious and philosophical foundations of the 'The American Experiment'?
- Is the liberal tradition (understood in the sense of democracy, human rights and the free market) a help or a hinderance to the life of the Church and evangelization?
- Is capitalism and the free market compatible with Christian morality and the social teachings of the Catholic Church?
- What is the proper role of religion in the public life of America today and how ought we to interpret the 'separation of Church and State'?
- What is the proper understanding of freedom, conscience and religious liberty in Catholic tradition?
For a summary of the debate from the Augustinian Thomist perspective, see The Church's Response to Modernity with Dr. Tracey Rowland (Zenit News, July 25, 2005).
Please note that the purpose of this website is to serve as an archive of articles and resources available online, and to other helpful websites pertaining to this important discussion -- a depository of pertinent information for those interested in these issues. Furthermore, while the debate between the 'Catholic neoconservatives' and their critics has expanded into issues of foreign policy (such as the Iraq war), this website is by and large confined to theoretical matters of political and economic philosophy. For a similar archive and chronicle of the 2002-03 "just war debate" over Iraq.
As always I welcome comments and criticisms. If you encounter online articles I may have missed, please don't hesitate to email me.
David Schindler is Gagnon professor of fundamental theology at the John Paul II Institute for the Study of Marriage and the Family in Washington, D.C., and editor of the North American edition of Communio, the international theological review. A nationally recognized author, teacher and lecturer, his latest book is 
(Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, Mich.)
Dr. Tracy Rowland is the Dean of the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family based in Melbourne, and a Permanent Fellow of the Institute of Political Philosophy and Continental Theology. She holds degrees in Law, Politics and Philosophy from the Universities of Queensland and Melbourne and a Doctorate from the Divinity School of the University of Cambridge. She is a member of the editorial board of the international Catholic journal, Communio, and a member of the Commission for Australian Catholic women. Her current research interests include Theological Anthropology, The Philosophy of Language and it relevance to the New Evangelisation, The Thomist Tradition, Theological Critiques of the Political Philosophy of Liberalism, Genealogies of Modernity and Post-Modernity, Communio Ecclisiology and interpretations of Vatican II.
Alasdair MacIntyre has written widely in philosophy since his first book, Marxism: An Interpretation , appeared in 1953. He has taught at Oxford University, Princeton University, Brandeis University, Boston University, Wellesley College, Vanderbilt University, Duke University, and the University of Notre Dame. In 1989 he was a Luce Visiting Scholar at the Whitney Humanities Center of Yale University. He has also served as President of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association. Professor MacIntyre is the author of over thirty books, including the influential triumvirate of recent works: 
Dr. Varacalli is Professor of Sociology and newly appointed Director of the Center for Catholic Studies at Nassau Community College. In 1992, he co-founded (with Stephen M. Krason) the 
Fr. Richard John Neuhaus was one of America's leading conservative Catholic intellectuals and founder of the journal First Things First Things, an ecumenical journal of "religion and public life." He devoted much of his writing in his monthly column "The Public Square" to reflections on the issues which occupy this blog and intellectually sparring on occasion with Communio editor Dr. David Schindler. Fr. Neuhaus passed away on January 8, 2009; an online archive of his writings can be found 
George Weigel is Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and author of Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II.
Michael Novak holds the George Frederick Jewett Chair in Religion and Public Policy at the American Enterprise Institute. His research focuses on the three systems of the free society--the free polity, the free economy, and the culture of liberty--and their springs in religion and philosophy. Twice the U.S. ambassador to the UN Human Rights Commission, and once to the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. He directs social and political studies for the AEI and is the author of twenty-five influential books published in every major Western language (as well as Bengali, Korean, Japanese). He is the recipient of the 1994 Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion; the Antony Fisher Prize for The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism presented by Margaret Thatcher; the Weber Award for contributions to Catholic Social Thought in Essen, Germany; the Cezanne Medal from the City of Provence, and the Catholic Culture Medal of Bassano del Grappa in Italy; the highest civilian award from the Slovak Republic in 1996; the Masaryk Medal, presented by Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic, in 2000.
Rev. Robert A. Sirico received his Master of Divinity degree from the Catholic University of America, following undergraduate study at the University of Southern California and the University of London. During his studies and early ministry, he experienced a growing concern over the lack of training religious studies students receive in fundamental economic principles, leaving them poorly equipped to understand and address today's social problems. As a result of these concerns, Fr. Sirico co-founded the Acton Institute with Kris Alan Mauren in 1990.
Dr. Samuel Gregg is a moral philosopher who has written and spoken extensively on questions of ethics in public policy, jurisprudence, bioethics, and ethics in business. He has an MA in political philosophy from the University of Melbourne, and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in moral philosophy from the University of Oxford, which he attended as a Commonwealth Scholar. Dr. Gregg is the author of several books, including Morality, Law, and Public Policy (2000), 
John Courtney Murray was a Jesuit theologian and prominent American intellectual who was especially known for his efforts to reconcile Catholicism and religious pluralism, religious freedom, and the American political order. His best-known book 
Jacques Maritain (1882–1973), French philosopher and political thinker, was one of the principal exponents of Thomism in the twentieth century and an influential interpreter of the thought of St Thomas Aquinas.
Described as "the magistrate of history," Lord Acton was one of the great personalities of the nineteenth century and is universally considered to be one of the most learned Englishmen of his time. He made the history of liberty his life's work; indeed, he considered political liberty the essential condition and guardian of religious liberty. - Acton Institute.
Claude Frédéric Bastiat (June 30, 1801 – December 24, 1850) was a French classical liberal theorist, political economist, and member of the French assembly.
