Less than two years after the citizens of Washington voted by referendum to uphold the state’s prohibition of physician-assisted suicide, a federal judge invalidated the statute as unconstitutional. . . . . Continue Reading »
Biblical Natural Law: A Theocentric and Teleological Approach by Matthew Levering Oxford, 260 pages, $110 The Dominican philosopher Fergus Kerr observes that natural law is “currently perhaps the most contested topic in Thomas Aquinas’ work.” In recent years, scholars have . . . . Continue Reading »
The Problem of Natural Law by Douglas?Kries Lexington, 214 pages, $25.95 The decade after the Second World War witnessed a small boom of interest in traditional natural-law thinking. The devastation and moral atrocities of the war, the rebuilding of European legal systems, the emergence of . . . . Continue Reading »
The past century and a half of papal teaching on modern times often seems a tangle: any number of different strands—theology, Thomistic philosophy, social theory, economics—all snarled together. And yet a little historical analysis may help loosen the knot. In fact, a careful reading of papal . . . . Continue Reading »
Michael Burleigh’s study of European religion and politics requires us to imagine a very different Europe than the one we behold today”not the polity of bureaucrats in Brussels but a Europe of statesmen and revolutionaries who aimed at the most extravagant notions of national destiny. . . . . Continue Reading »
Who is My Neighbor? Personalism and the Foundations of Human Rights by Thomas D. Williams The Catholic University of America Press, 342 pages, $69.95 When the Christian churches incorporated “human rights” as a philosophy and project, did they take on an ethic that corrupts their best . . . . Continue Reading »
The Supreme Court and Religion in American Life by James Hitchcock Princeton University Press Vol. I: The Odyssey of the Religion Clauses. 232 pp. $29.95. Vol. II: From “Higher Law” to “Sectarian Scruples.” 272 pp. $35. In the sport of religion jurisprudence, the cats sometimes . . . . Continue Reading »
The Common Good and Christian Ethics by David Hollenbach Cambridge University Press. 269 pp. $23 paper It is practically axiomatic for Catholic social doctrine that there are common goods which are irreducibly social, and which are not “public” merely by virtue of being utilities for . . . . Continue Reading »
No saint has been the subject of more hagiography than Francis of Assisi, and no founder has had his or her legacy more determined by biographers. Unlike Benedict, Francis did not convince his followers, if he convinced himself, that a written rule transcends the personality of the founder. Close . . . . Continue Reading »
A century ago Leo XIII welcomed pilgrims to Rome for the Holy Year of 1900. While expressing gladness at the piety of the pilgrims, Leo admitted that his pontificate had been “difficult and full of anxiety.” Born in 1810, one year after Pius VII was kidnapped by Napoleon, Leo had . . . . Continue Reading »
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