While some of my closest friends are Catholics, I’m not, so I wouldn’t have had a vote in this poll to determine America’s ten greatest Catholic intellectuals. The current list:
The Catholic Hall of Fame’s Greatest American Catholic intellectuals, in the order of their birth:
- Orestes Brownson (1803–1876)
- John Courtney Murray (1904-1967)
- John Senior (1923-1999)
- Avery Dulles (1918-2008)
- James Schall (1928-)
- Ralph McInerny (1929-2010)
- Richard John Neuhaus (1936-2009)
- Mary Anne Glendon (1938-)
- George Weigel (1951-)
- Robert P. George (1955-)
I’d hesitate to subtract any names from the list, but would be tempted to add at least two: the prolific and profound Peter Augustine Lawler and the always interesting Michael Novak.
As the proprietors of the list note, future versions will have a place for clerics like Archbishop Charles Chaput and novelists like Flannery O’Connor (and, I’d add, Walker Percy).
Any nominations or votes from our readers?
October 14th, 2011 | 11:44 am
Thomas Merton (1915-1968)?
October 14th, 2011 | 11:44 am
Alasdair MacIntyre most certainly has to be on this list, if one wants to make lists–and his vast influence would easily vault him ahead of many of the ten above.
October 14th, 2011 | 11:59 am
What?! No Russell Kirk? No William F. Buckley, Jr.?
October 14th, 2011 | 12:07 pm
Fulton Sheen was a philosophy Phd.
October 14th, 2011 | 12:09 pm
The latency bias reveals far too much of a whiff of intramural promotion within a certain bubble.
October 14th, 2011 | 12:09 pm
Dear Dr. Adam DeVille: But MacIntyre isn’t American, is he? I always thought he was a Brit, but I could be wrong.
There are so many. Fr. Joseph Koterski comes to mind, as does Eleonore Stump; however, these perhaps have not had the public influence the others named have had.
October 14th, 2011 | 12:13 pm
MacIntyre is brilliant, but a Scot, so he’s ineligible.
October 14th, 2011 | 12:16 pm
I was going to say Alasdair MacIntyre, but Dr. Deville beat me to it.
October 14th, 2011 | 1:00 pm
Andrew Greeley and Thomas Merton
October 14th, 2011 | 1:01 pm
Gregg,
Place of birth is apparently not what the makers of the list were going for; Neuhaus was born in Canada. As such, I’d have to agree that MacIntyre should be a part of the list. As should Russell Kirk. Also, what about Marshall McLuhan; he’s a different type of thinker than most of the people on the list, but probably deserves inclusion.
October 14th, 2011 | 1:53 pm
Based on some of the names being offered here, some people might be confusing “smart, admirable, influential people” with “intellectuals.” They’re not precisely the same thing.
“The latency bias reveals far too much of a whiff of intramural promotion within a certain bubble.”
Do you mean that on a subjective list, people are going to prefer the people whose work they admire for the title of “great?” Imagine that.
October 14th, 2011 | 2:27 pm
Neuhaus always self-identified as an American. Does MacIntyre?
October 14th, 2011 | 2:42 pm
I would suggest Thomas Merton, without hesitation…
October 14th, 2011 | 3:30 pm
George Santayana
And I’m very pleases to see Orestes Brown on the list.
October 14th, 2011 | 3:31 pm
Cormac McCarthy
October 14th, 2011 | 5:07 pm
Germaine Grisez and Bill Buckley
October 14th, 2011 | 5:34 pm
How about Mortimer Adler? (1902-2001)
October 14th, 2011 | 10:39 pm
Yesssss, Brownson makes #1! He’s the greatest American intellectual (Catholic or not) that most people have never heard of.
And yes, where the heck are Buckley and Bishop Sheen?
October 15th, 2011 | 6:12 am
Wonderful ideas, except for Santayana – an active homosexual, atheist.
October 15th, 2011 | 6:18 am
While I’m not Catholic, I have great respect for the Catholic Church, and the great thinkers who are a part of Her. I would suggest William f. Buckley, as others have mentioned, and also the great philosopher Peter Kreeft.
October 15th, 2011 | 10:01 am
If we list Neuhaus (Canadian born) can we add Charles Taylor? Alasdair MacIntyre may be a born Scot but I just saw him a few weeks ago on campus where he taught for many years (Notre Dame).
October 15th, 2011 | 10:32 am
Cardinal Dulles should be #3 by order of birth, Senior #4.
October 15th, 2011 | 11:26 pm
Daniel Berrigan, SJ
David Tracy
October 15th, 2011 | 11:28 pm
Also, Garry Wills
Just trying to balance this out a tad…
October 16th, 2011 | 12:14 pm
Wendell Berry is the greatest exponent of Catholic subsidiarity and Chestertonian Distributism of the last half century. He has written it, fought for it, and he has lived it (once he left NYC for home in Kentucky!). Of course, the fact that he is a Baptist is not a mark against him, but against us as Catholics who have not successfully identified or resisted the Capitalist or Socialist/Communist temptations in economics and public life. Where is the Catholic Wendell Berry?
October 16th, 2011 | 3:28 pm
Not to raise this thorny issue again, but I do think, despite his at-times-grievous flaws, Joseph Sobran will be remembered eventually for his brilliance, not his crankiness. He is about as close as we have gotten to an American Chesterton.
October 16th, 2011 | 8:11 pm
In Australian academic circles the term “catholic intellectual” would be considered an oxymoron – in the same category as “military intelligence”. I can’t imagine how much lower “American Catholic Intellectuals” would be assessed.
I agree with Liam’s flowery assessment of the bias in the list.
It reads more like a list of Greatest American Catholic Dogmatists – with maybe one or two exceptions like John Courtney Murray and Richard John Neuhaus (despite the Canadian connection!)
October 17th, 2011 | 12:30 am
[...] I’d hesitate to subtract any names from the list, but would be tempted to add at least two: the prolific and profound Peter Augustine Lawler and the always interesting Michael Novak. [more] [...]
October 17th, 2011 | 8:24 am
I nominate Alice von Hildebrand, for the work she has done in her own right as a philosopher (take a look at her wonderful book “The Privilege of Being a Woman,” the perfect gift for a young woman just entering adulthood), and for the work she is doing to remind us of the genius of her late husband, the philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand.
October 17th, 2011 | 7:36 pm
Thomas Merton
October 17th, 2011 | 8:40 pm
For what it’s worth, Thomas Merton was born in France
October 17th, 2011 | 9:33 pm
Russell Hittinger is one of the most original and prolific Catholic intellectuals in the United States. Certainly at least the equal of several on the list.
October 18th, 2011 | 4:41 pm
Fr Romanus Cessario, OP for being the lynchpin of what is loosely known as Ressourcement Thomism and introducing Fribourg Thomism to North American Catholics. As well, he was a student of the late Fr Servais Pinckaers, OP and helped to introduce his thought — in English translation — to a North American audience.
October 19th, 2011 | 8:44 pm
[...] this the best we’ve got? The Catholic Hall of Fame’s Greatest American Catholic intellectuals, [...]
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