Liberalism, Conservatism, and Catholicism: An Evaluation of Contemporary American Political Ideologies in Light of Catholic Social Teaching - Softcover

Krason, Stephen M.

9781879860001: Liberalism, Conservatism, and Catholicism: An Evaluation of Contemporary American Political Ideologies in Light of Catholic Social Teaching

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1879860007 ISBN 13: 9781879860001

Publisher: Catholics United for Faith, 1991

With politics increasingly polarized and penetrating more and more facets of life, American Catholics need to know which doctrines and parties they can support while remaining faithful to Church teaching. Professor Stephen Krason of Franciscan University of Steubenville has produced an excellent guide for the perplexed. After defining liberalism and conservatism and distinguishing between the New Deal, anti-Communist, "old liberalism" of 1945-1960 and the more radical, activist post-1960 "new liberalism," Krason gives a detailed, useful presentation of papal teachings, with special attention to economics. He makes clear the popes' endorsement of private property and enterprise; their view that both employers and workers have rights and obligations; their emphatic rejection of Communism, socialism, and egalitarianism; and their insistence that the state can neither leave society, especially the needy, to laissez-faire competition, nor tax its citizens excessively. Most of the book is a thorough and scrupulously fair sifting of the ideologies. Krason assesses their philosophies by presenting their views on five core issues-the purposes of government; God, religion, and the natural law as the basis of the political order; freedom; equality; and Communism-and comparing them to Church teaching. He does likewise for specific policy proposals in economics; social welfare; agriculture; the environment; civil liberties and civil rights; education; foreign policy; defense; and disarmament.

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