Review excerpt:
This is a small book that attempts to do many things. Arguably, it attempts too much. And yet, the argument calls for more. One wishes, for instance, that Novak had addressed the mushrooming growth of evangelical Protestantism in Latin America, a typically anti-Catholic force that seems to be advancing the democratic capitalism that he favors. Also, we need a fuller explanation of why his program of Catholic Whiggism has, in historical fact, been pioneered under cultural auspices of a distinctly Protestant nature. Finally, one wonders if the author does not make too much of a few selected statements by John Paul II, tending to ignore papal pronouncements apparently in tension with Novak's understanding of democratic capitalism. Far from being in the lead, it is possible that Catholic social teaching is just beginning to play catch-up in a world that is rapidly moving beyond anti-capitalist versions of moral reasoning.
Richard John Neuhaus is editor-in-chief of First Things: a Monthly Journal of Religion and Public Life. Michael Novak is the George Frederick Jewett Scholar in Religion, Philosophy, and Public Policy at AEI.
