Catholics and the “Fourth Estate”
Most Reverend Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap. Address to Legatus, July 8, 2009 As part of a White House press strategy to create good will before the president meets Pope Benedict XVI later this week, President Obama recently met with a variety of Catholic journalists and editors. His goal was a sensible one: to favorably influence […]
Catholicism & Capital Punishment
Avery Cardinal Dulles Copyright (c) 2001 First Things 112 (April 2001): 30-35. Among the major nations of the Western world, the United States is singular in still having the death penalty. After a five–year moratorium, from 1972 to 1977, capital punishment was reinstated in the United States courts. Objections to the practice have come from […]
Catholic Bishops And Immigration
James Fulford In the February, 2001 issue of First Things Magazine, Richard Neuhaus deconstructs the legislative program of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, which he has heard called the “religious lobby of the Democratic Party.” Of course liberals are calling it the “religious lobby of the Republican Party.” (It’s officially bipartisan.) The parts about crime and the poor are so socialistic that Nat […]
A Philosophical and Historical Analysis of Modern Democracy, Equality, and Freedom Under the Influence of Christianity
Rev. Joseph M. De Torre The concept of democracy was born in Greece, but did not come to maturity in that culture, mainly because of their poor concept of equality. The impact of Christianity was necessary in order to achieve a full awareness of the fundamental equality of all men, which was generally absent outside […]
A New Order of Religious Freedom
Fr. Richard John Neuhaus The great problem today is not the threat that religion poses to public life, but the threat that the state, presuming to embody public life, poses to religion.More than he wanted to be remembered for having been President, Mr. Jefferson wanted to be remembered as the author of the Virginia “Bill for […]
Can a Catholic support Socialism?
Answer: The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “The Church has rejected the totalitarian and atheistic ideologies associated in modern times with ‘communism’ or ‘socialism’” (2425). This does not mean, however, that Catholics can embrace a kinder, “Christian” socialism in its place. Pope Pius XI famously declared, “Religious socialism, Christian socialism, are contradictory terms; no […]
The Popes on Socialism
LEO XIII (1878-1903)“Overthrow is Deliberately Planned”For, the fear of God and reverence for divine laws being taken away, the authority of rulers despised, sedition permitted and approved, and the popular passions urged on to lawlessness, with no restraint save that of punishment, a change and overthrow of all things will necessarily follow. Yea, this change and […]