No writer of the twentieth century has touched popular political sensibilities with as broad an effect as George Orwell. There is enduring interest in his two antitotalitarian novels, Animal Farm and 1984, which together set forth a sort of intellectual prophetic ground for the Cold War that Orwell only just glimpsed, dying as he did in 1950 of tuberculosis. But the popularity of these novels has tended to mask the rich variety and clarity of Orwell’s other writings, especially the journalism and essays wherein he builds his case for a politics of conscience, a strange brand of socialism that criticized communist deceit just as readily as capitalist malaise and that had, at its center, a defense of the integrity of language. His is a voice that, if we listen closely, has much to teach us about the urgency of speaking the truth and the necessity...

Jean-Baptiste Say was inspired to write his Treatise on Political Economy when, working at a life insurance office, he read a copy of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. His Treatise, often described as a popularization of Smith’s ideas, departed from the typical economics methodology of his day. This departure was based on Say’s conviction that the study of economics should start not with abstract mathematical and statistical analyses but with the real experience of the human person. Such a humanistic stress resulted in Say’s emphasis on the role of the entrepreneur in an economy. In fact, this emphasis...

What is the relationship between Christianity and the modern world? Is the spirit of capitalism fundamentally incompatible with the requirements of charity that were first formulated in the New Testament? While these have always been important questions for Christians, they have taken on a renewed sense of urgency. The recent terrorist attacks on New York and Washington forcefully reminded Americans that they cannot escape the question of the relationship between God and politics. On that day, the most economically and politically successful of all modern states was attacked by men who claimed to be defending the integrity of the Islamic religion. Since then, many American Christians have begun to wonder how their religion relates to the economic and political arrangements that constitute a modern democracy such as the United States....

The horrors of September 11, 2001, and their aftermath have so occupied our minds for the past nine months that the serious social pathologies of our urban centers have receded from our attention. The actions of a few terrorists somehow make even mugging, robbery, drug peddling, and inadequate education seem like minor troubles. These problems are not going away, however, and they may not be ignored.

The difficulty, of course, in dealing with issues such as poverty, crime, race, unemployment, and poor education is that there is no consensus as to what should be done about them. Though the continuum on which these issues rest is stretched hard, there are fundamentally two postures that can be described in a number of different ways. The two positions can be illustrated by imagining the following cocktail...

Monsignor George G. Higgins, who died at the age of eighty-six on May Day 2002, dedicated his social ministry to improving the lives of workers. A priest with a doctorate in labor economics, he was uniquely qualified to speak on behalf of Roman Catholic social teaching concerning the dignity of the worker. Father Higgins was also a passionate defender of religious liberty in the American tradition and was very influential in the Second Vatican Council’s statement on behalf of human dignity and freedom. Yet he would be known by his concern for worker—thus the moniker, “the labor priest.”

In American parlance, being in favor of labor implies a strong support of labor unions. In the 1980s, before the collapse of communism, Father Higgins traveled to Poland to support the Solidarity movement...

Religious writing on the environment generally fails for several specific reasons. First, most theologians and religious ethicists do not have a gift for science. Environmental science is especially hard because it requires, at a minimum, a good grasp of chemistry, physics, geology, and various subdivisions of biology. The scientist who can keep all the environmental balls in the air simultaneously is already a rare bird; but the theologian who can successfully apply his religious knowledge to a very different and difficult realm is as uncommon as any animal protected under the Endangered Species Act.

But that is only the beginning of the problem. If it were just a matter of bringing together our deepest values and one dominant modern mode of knowledge, we might manage tolerably enough. But environmental efforts...

R&L: You have done some scholarly work on the history of the church's social thought. What is Roman Catholic social teaching, and why is it important, particularly with respect to non-Catholics?

Pell: Modern Catholic social teaching is generally traced back to Pope Leo XIII (who reigned from 1878–1903) and, especially, to his great encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891). This encyclical built on the work of socially aware bishops and thinkers, especially from Germany, France, and the United States. As the encyclical's title suggests, it focused on the new social and political situation that had emerged in Europe over the course of the nineteenth century, and it spelled out a set of broad principles that were drawn from the natural law and concerned the rights and obligations of...