Integralism and the Common Good: Selected Essays from The Josias (Volume 2: The Two Powers)

Like any part of creation, political life—established and willed by God for the sake of the temporal common good—has been wounded and is in need of healing by the grace of God, in whom all things subsist and to whom they are to be directed. Being both from God, the two powers—the temporal power of earthly rulers and the spiritual power of the Apostles and their successors—are meant to enter into an ordered relation, each having its own proper concern but capable of flourishing only in harmonious cooperation. This second volume of selected essays from The Josias is largely concerned with expounding the social duties of man and the meaning of the Social Kingship of Christ. It pursues the implications of the Church's demand for freedom of action (libertas ecclesiae), and deftly responds to objections raised against this vision of "integralism."

EDMUND WALDSTEIN, O.Cist. is a monk of the Cistercian Abbey of Stift Heiligenkreuz in Austria, lecturer in moral theology at the Abbey's theological college, and Director of the János-Brenner-Haus. Born in Italy and raised in the United States and Austria, he studied at Thomas Aquinas College in California, the Hochschule Benedikt XVI in Heiligenkreuz, and the University of Vienna, where he was promoted Doctor of Theology in 2019. His research has focused on eudemonism, the common good, Catholic integralism, and theological readings of literary fiction.