The renewed emphasis on the study of Roman Catholic social teaching and how it can contribute to the rebuilding of the culture of life presents many challenges. A formidable one is relaying the essentials of that teaching to the average person in a way that simply and concretely captures the imagination. This is especially necessary today as the linkage between religious values and good citizenship appears all but broken. Indeed, people who believe in God are being pushed farther and farther to the perimeter of public discourse. We need a new rallying cry suitable to the specific problems of our time in order to reestablish the connection between God and good government.

This cry may be buried deep within John Paul II’s encyclical Centesimus Annus. In paragraphs forty and forty-one of the encyclical the...

Sometimes we advocates of the free and virtuous society become so wrapped up in defending its technical merits that we neglect to deliberate on the broader, more fundamental reason for promoting a free economy as part of this society. To avoid (or correct) this tendency, we should pause to wipe clean whatever particular lens we have been looking through and ponder what the true goal for the market should be.

That goal should be solidarity. Solidarity includes accepting that we have a social nature and affirming the bonds we share with all other human beings, rightly thought of as our brothers and sisters. Thus, solidarity is a social virtue that bears many fruits and blessings. It creates an environment in which mutual service is encouraged and the social conditions for human rights are respected and nurtured. The...

R&L: What significance do intellectual property rights have within a free market economy and what importance did the Founding Fathers place on intellectual property rights in the American economy?

Rogan: They are the underlying basis of a free market economy. The amazing thing about the Founders, aside from their wondrous gift of the Constitution, is that while they were in Philadelphia drafting that precious document they recognized the importance of intellectual property. When I give speeches on the subject, I tell people that if they look at Article I, Section 8, they will find the anticipation of a patent and trademark system. Freedom of religion is what drove the Founders’ ancestors from England to America. Clearly that freedom would have been of primary concern for the first...

One branch of Quakers—the unprogrammed, officially called Friends (the organizational name for the Quaker religion is the Religious Society of Friends)—believe that God is in each person and that he leads humans to truth not through adherence to creeds or confessions, but purely through the Spirit by means of experiential understanding and evidence. This experiential evidence manifests itself in the statements of Friends who speak up at a meeting, either voicing their thoughts or reading a passage from Scripture or other literature. Friends are only supposed to speak at a meeting when they feel the Spirit is leading them to do so.

Among unprogrammed Quakers, business meeting is conducted usually once a month. Decisions are made by the Sense of the Meeting, which occurs when the Friends at a meeting arrive...

In any discourse about the modern welfare state, rehearsing all the religious and moral reasons for assisting those in need is unnecessary. Citing one passage from the Gospel will do: “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these members of my family, you did it to me” (Matt. 25:40). However, this sensitivity does not emancipate us from the obligation to prudently and wisely consider the most appropriate means to carry out this ministry. While Paul encouraged the early Christian community to be sensitive to the needy, he also prudently admonished “if a man does not work, neither let him eat” (2 Thess. 3:10). With all its emphasis on love as the fundamental virtue, Christianity has never accepted that a moral responsibility exists to help those who could, but would not help themselves.

J.R.R. Tolkien è stato professore di lingua e letteratura inglese ed anglo-sassone all’Università di Oxford negli anni fra il 1925 e il 1959. Deve la sua notorietà ai suoi libri Lo Hobbit (1937), Il Signore degli Anelli, che contiene tre volumi intitolati La Compagnia dell’Anello, Le Due Torri e il Ritorno del Re (1954-55), e Il Silmarillion (1977), ognuno dei quali ambientato nel mondo mitologico della Terra di Mezzo.

Tolkien, da sempre cattolico molto devoto, si ricordava perfettamente, per il fatto di averli vissuti sulla propria pelle, di quei tempi in cui la libertà religiosa all’interno del Regno Unito non era ancora completamente garantita. La fede per...

The prosperity and way of life in many countries of western civilization (namely Germany, Holland, Switzerland, England, and the United States of America) have existed for a few hundred years now. Much like those who lived in the Roman Empire, the sheer force of this history may persuade contemporary members of secular society to feel invincible against the demise of this prosperity and way of life, demanding it as a birthright rather than accepting it as a delicate heirloom. Rather than embracing the qualities that have brought about this prosperity, Fred Catherwood in The Creation of Wealth: Recovering a Christian Understanding of Money, Work, and Ethics notes that contemporary secular society has replaced these qualities with two basic assumptions: good and evil have no absolute definition and a moral order of right and wrong...