Increasingly the religious leaders of the world are addressing problems of political economy, expressing concern about the poor. But will their efforts actually help the poor? Or harm them? Much depends, Michael Novak asserts, upon what kinds of institutions are constructed, that is, upon realism and practicality. Although the Catholic church during the ninteenth and early twentieth centuries set itself agains liberalizm as an ideology, it has slowly come to admire liberal institutions such as democracy and free markets. Between the Catholic vision of social justice and liberal institutions, there is a profound consonance (but not identity). First published in 1984 as Freedom with Justice, this new edition adds both a lengthy introduction chapter carrying forward the original argument and long concluding chapter on Pope John Paul II's controversial new encyclical of early 1988, Sollictudo Rei Socialis.

Michael Novak is the George Frederick Jewett Scholar in Religion, Philosophy, and Public Policy at AEI.