- Feb 5, 2002
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Catholics need to offer something simple, radical and real — and something that can transform hearts and change what Americans want.
“Does America need a Catholic politics?”
Or, in other words, does our broken political landscape, divided between two rival emphases of the same liberal individualism, need the healing balm of communal solidarity and personal dignity offered by the Church’s social application of the teachings of Jesus Christ?
That was ostensibly the topic question at an Oct. 13 panel discussion hosted by the Institute for Human Ecology at the Catholic University of America.
But the answer to this query seems to be so obviously “yes!” that the participants — which included New York Times columnist Ross Douthat as moderator, and The Lamp’s Matthew Walther and Commonweal’s Paul Baumann as discussants — instead spent the hour and half focusing on a far more difficult pair of questions:
Continued below.
America Needs to Want a Catholic Politics
“Does America need a Catholic politics?”
Or, in other words, does our broken political landscape, divided between two rival emphases of the same liberal individualism, need the healing balm of communal solidarity and personal dignity offered by the Church’s social application of the teachings of Jesus Christ?
That was ostensibly the topic question at an Oct. 13 panel discussion hosted by the Institute for Human Ecology at the Catholic University of America.
But the answer to this query seems to be so obviously “yes!” that the participants — which included New York Times columnist Ross Douthat as moderator, and The Lamp’s Matthew Walther and Commonweal’s Paul Baumann as discussants — instead spent the hour and half focusing on a far more difficult pair of questions:
Continued below.
America Needs to Want a Catholic Politics