Michael Novak

Some time ago, I wrote an essay claiming St. Thomas as the first Whig, one of the founders of “the party of liberty.” One antecedent to this claim comes in the essays of Lord Acton on the origins of the idea of liberty, and other antecedents in the political writings of Jacques Maritain, Thomas . . . . Continue Reading »

It is all very curious. Once it became clear that the Republicans had won power on November 8, 1994, it took only seven days for the serious thinkers in the liberal press to rediscover the issue of poverty. “Scapegoat Time,” wrote Bob Herbert of the New York Times , while Anna Quindlen evoked . . . . Continue Reading »

In this dark night of a century, a first fundamental lesson was drawn from the bowels of nihilism itself: Truth . . . . Continue Reading »

Adam Smith in His Time and Ours: Designing the Decent Society by jerry z. muller free press, 272 pages, $22.95 A good work of intellectual history should exemplify two qualities above all: an imagination that allows the author to “pass over” into the horizon of his subject in order to see the . . . . Continue Reading »

The Ethics of Authenticity by charles taylor harvard university press, 142 pages, $17.95 To grow up in Canada is to inherit a privileged position for understanding modernity—sufficently distant from that hurtling spaceship of “the republic to our south,” while retaining (perhaps from . . . . Continue Reading »

When Dr. George Carey, the Archbishop of Canterbury, visited Pope John Paul II in May 1992, the two church leaders discussed the probable future ordination of women priests in the Anglican Church. That, the Pope said, “touched on the very nature of the sacrament of holy orders.” A Vatican . . . . Continue Reading »

Maritain viewed the history of Judaism as a mystery linked to the fate of the entire . . . . Continue Reading »

There they go again. The presidential election of 1992 is bringing out among politicians and the media the Big Economic Lie. Virtually all editors today allow their reporters to broadcast this lie uncritically: “During the 1980s under Reaganomics the poor and the middle class lost income.” Any . . . . Continue Reading »

Among the far-reaching effects of the great antisocialist revolutions of 1989 is one that has so far not received a proper measure of attention, and that is their impact on Latin American liberation theology At least one liberation theologian, observing the collapse of the socialist dream in . . . . Continue Reading »

When we come to measure the success of a presidency, it matters a great deal whether the administration in question made life better or worse for the poor. A culture whose values spring from Judaism, Christianity, and a compassionate humanism cannot be satisfied unless the poor are well cared for. . . . . Continue Reading »