Red, White, Blue, and Catholic
by stephen p. white
liguori, 101 pages, $12.99
In this primer on Catholic citizenship, the Ethics and Public Policy Center’s Stephen White reminds us that faithful citizenship is about love—“love for the people and institutions to which we are bound by birth and by choice. This is not a blind love, which ignores failings and sins, but a love that wills and strives for the best for ourselves and our country.”
Three virtues of this work stand out. First, it is written for a popular audience without being simplistic. Second, in an age of vitriol, it strikes an irenic tone and appeals to people of good will. Third, it explicates core principles of Catholic social teaching and eschews narrow, sectarian political causes. Avoiding pox-on-both-your-houses rhetoric—a constant temptation for Catholics—White reveals how our state-versus-the-individual political discourse routinely ignores the space in which most of life actually occurs and calls for strengthening mediating civil institutions such as families, churches, and unions.
—Logan Paul Gage is assistant professor of philosophy at Franciscan University of Steubenville.
