Ecclesia et Civitas

Back to Socrates

May 5, 2014 James Kalb 0

Last month I discussed how the assumptions and language of public life today, which are based on commercial and bureaucratic concerns, are biased against Catholics. To make matters worse, the all-pervasive electronic media, increasing reliance […]

Ecclesia et Civitas

Christ in an Age of Technique

April 7, 2014 James Kalb 0

It seems that Catholics have been getting nowhere in the public square lately. The problem is not just losing ground on this issue or that, but an increasing inability to get our issues recognized as […]

Ecclesia et Civitas

Rebuilding Catholic Society

March 10, 2014 James Kalb 0

The Church is not part of the State. Nor is she simply a part of civil society set up by her members to advance their public and private goals. She is an independent society established […]

Ecclesia et Civitas

How Do We Advance Subsidiarity?

February 5, 2014 James Kalb 0

Subsidiarity is integral to a social doctrine based on natural law rather than technology. That ought to be a feature rather than a bug, but in today’s world it means no one can make sense […]

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Ecclesia et Civitas

What’s Normal?

January 14, 2014 James Kalb 0

The great political, social, and moral issue of the present day is the authority of the natural and normal. Accepting that authority means accepting a vernacular form of natural law, and thus a belief that […]

Ecclesia et Civitas

Subsidiarity

December 9, 2013 James Kalb 1

Subsidiarity is a basic principle of Catholic social teaching. Like other such principles, it is praised more than practiced, because it is at cross purposes with the outlook that now governs our public life. It […]

Ecclesia et Civitas

Sex and the Public Order

October 2, 2013 James Kalb 0

Sex and the institutions, customs, and restraints related to it are basic to social order. That claim shouldn’t be controversial, and it’s odd that it has become so. Older political philosophers such as Aristotle, who […]

Ecclesia et Civitas

The Church and the Experts

September 5, 2013 James Kalb 0

The Church today has a troubled relation to the academy and media. The reasons are quite basic. Secular intellectual authorities believe they stand for a way of understanding the world, free unprejudiced inquiry carried on […]

Ecclesia et Civitas

The Question for Our Age: “Quo Vadis?”

August 8, 2013 James Kalb 0

Secular liberalism is at odds with Catholicism. The point seemed obvious to most people until the postwar period, when the thought took hold that an essentially harmonious relationship could be established that would draw on […]