Search results

Contents -- Preface -- 1. The Problem of Order -- 2. Human Character -- 3. Communion and Hospitality -- 4. Character and Community -- 5. Authority -- 6. Freedom -- 7. Pluralism and the Common Good -- 8. Politics, Hospitality, and Character -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Religious crosses the spheres of both the private life and the public institution. In a liberal democracy, public and private interests and goals prove to be inseparable. Clarke Cochran's interdisciplinary study brings political theory and the sociology of religion together in a fresh interpretation of liberal culture. First published in 1990, this analysis begins with a reassessment of the nature of the ""public"" and the ""private"" in relation to the political. The controversy over religion and politics is examined in light of such contested issues of political life as sexuality, abortion

Politics and Catholic teaching -- Political participation -- Catholic social teaching : church and democracy -- Catholic social teaching : principles -- Avoiding ideological traps -- Beyond left and right, beyond Democrat and Republican -- How Catholics vote -- Catholics are not alike -- Historical trends : Catholics, voting, and political behavior -- Changes over time -- Current configuration of the Catholic vote -- Current configuration of Catholic political attitudes -- Is there a "Catholic vote"? does the answer matter? -- Conclusions -- Referencew -- A Catholic view of the issues -- The economy -- Poverty -- Health care policy -- Family policy -- Education -- An aging society -- Crime -- Civic life -- Race and ethnicity -- Immigration -- The environment -- Abortion, euthanasia, and the death penalty -- War, peace, and national security -- Assessing the candidates -- The importance of prudence -- Weighing issues -- Issues in political context -- The question of Catholic candidates -- Conclusion -- Transforming the American political landscape -- Increasing the influence of faithful Catholic voters -- A more prophetic voice -- Conclusion

Part II features fourteen commentaries on key documents: eleven encyclicals or other papal statements, two documents of the Second Vatican Council (Dignitatis humanae on religious freedom and Gaudium et spes on the Church's relation to the modern world), and the 1971 statement of the Synod of Bishops Justitia in mundo (Justice in the World).

Cochran reviews 'Crafting a Cloning Policy: From Dolly to Stem Cells' by Andrea L. Bonnicksen.

Intense ethnic conflicts bring to the surface important paradoxes about the function of memory in politics. The capacity to remember is vital for political success, but too much memory, or the wrong kind of memory, stokes the fires of revenge. Successful political action demands both the capacity to remember and the capacity to forget. How and when each comes into play is difficult to formulate conceptually. A classic text in which the politics of memory plays a central role elucidates these issues and suggests central political dimensions of remembering and forgetting. This essay uses the story of Joseph in the Hebrew Bible to explore the politics of memory and to suggest factors that produce constructive and destructive results. It examines two principal forms: prudential and mythic, the qualities of which differ importantly. It concludes with an account of a third form: memory as a step toward political reconciliation.The conundrum of memory: Healthier to remember? Surely it is best sometimes to forget–though not to forget Kosovo now. Eventual obliviousness may equally free all sides from the hereditary obligation to hate. ... What's happening there now amounts to a religious war between the future and the past. Beware: in that place, the past is a black hole." –Lance Morrow1

Gary D. Glenn and John Stack advance two important claims; one explicit, the other implicit. Their explicit claim is that the "new regime of civil liberties" is dangerous to Catholicism. Here I am in qualified agreement, though important ambiguities cloud the argument. Their implicit claim is that it is a bad thing for Catholicism to be in danger. This proposition is flawed. Glenn and Stack cite (without irony) American Catholics "who have spent several generations seeking to become accepted and acceptable to the American democratic culture." A large part of the danger seems to be "the punishment of exclusion from respectability in the culture." This assumes that the "normal" mode for Catholicism is comfortable accommodation to political culture and institutions.