Author: David Cloutier

The Georgetown conference on overcoming polarization continues to bear fruit, the latest coming in an essay Robert George just published at First Things. The essay is a revision of the remarks he made at a particularly powerful panel at the conference. George leads with the memorable quote we all probably wrote down at his panel: Catholic social teaching is Catholic moral teaching; Catholic moral teaching includes Catholic social teaching. It is a mistake—a common one, yet a profound error—to speak and think of “social” and “moral” teaching as separate and distinct categories. We need to begin treating this way...

Wow, our country is a mess. I’ve read enough of my MacIntyre and Hauerwas to have no illusions about confusing American politics with the Kingdom of God. That said, it would be good if we could at least get a grip on things. A moral grip. Because our shared hysterics do have profound moral foundations, and unless we grant that, we’re going to pretend we can fight a “culture war” (literally) against fellow citizens, with the illusion that we will “vanquish” them (whatever that might mean – that you will post enough Twitter slams to make you feel like...