Catholic Social Thought and Liberal Institutions: Freedom With Justice

Front Cover
Transaction Publishers - 287 pages
Increasingly, the religious leaders of the world are addressing problems of political economy, expressing concern about the poor. But will their efforts actually help the poor? Or harm them? Much depends, Michael Novak asserts, upon what kind of institutions are constructed, that is, upon realism and practicality. His thesis may be simply stated: Although the Catholic church during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries set itself against liberalism as an ideology, it has slowly come to admire liberal institutions such as democracy and free markets. Between the Catholic vision of social justice and liberal institutions, Novak argues, there is a profound consonance (but not identity). First published in 1984 as Freedom with Justice, this new edition adds both a lengthy introduction carrying forward the original argument and a long concluding chapter on Pope John Paul II's controversial new encyclical of early 1988, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis.

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Contents

The Development of Nations John XXIII and Paul VI
126
1 The Priority of Individual Men
127
2 At Last The Bill of Rights
131
Paul VI
133
4 Eighty Years After
140
5 The Peace and Justice Establishment
144
Creation Theology Pope John Paul II
149
1 Man as the Subject of Work
150

4 Social Justice
25
5 Political Economy
32
6 From Social Justice to Political Economy
35
An Awareness of Sin The US Catholic Bishops and the US Economy
39
1 Poverty and Welfare
41
2 The Creation of Employment
48
3 Temptations in the Desert
54
THE DEVELOPMENT OF CATHOLIC SOCIAL THOUGHT 18481982
59
The Architects of Catholic Social Thought
61
1 Wilhelm Emmanuel von Ketteler 18111877
62
2 Heinrich Pesch 18541926 and Solidarism
69
A Quintessential Liberal John Stuart Mill
81
2 Mills Principles of Political Economy
87
3 Distribution and Other Issues
96
From Politics to Economics Leo XIII and Pius XI
108
2 Quadragesimo Anno
110
3 Solidarism and Corporatism
115
4 World War II
123
2 The Priority of Labor Over Capital
153
4 Ownership
155
5 Invention and Discovery
157
6 Creation Theology
158
ETHOS VIRTUES AND INSTITUTIONS THE FUTURE DEVELOPMENT OF CATHOLIC SOCIAL THOUGHT
165
Catholic Social Thought in the Future Toward a Theology of Commerce and Industry
167
2 The Spirit of Economic Progress
176
Liberation Theology in Practice
183
The Communitarian Individual in American Practice
195
1 Two Assumptions
196
2 Associative Community
197
3 Political Economy
199
4 The Role of Mediating Structures
201
International Economics
209
Pope of Liberty Pope of Creativity John Paul II
219
Notes
253
Index
283
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