Catholic Studies publication

What is distinctive about the Church in the world? What does the Church ask of the world, and what should the world expect of the Church? Soul of the World is George Weigel’s exploration of the rich theological roots of the public witness of the Roman Catholic Church, especially during the pontificate of John Paul II, whose work has left a decisive imprint on the lives of nations and peoples around the world.

"In the tradition of John Courtney Murray and Reinhold Niebuhr, George Weigel has become one of the outstanding social critics of our time. This book of his presents a vision of American foreign policy for the 1990s which would reconcile the imperatives of Realpolitik with the moral fervor of the American culture." –Eugene V. Rostow, National Defense University

Through the insightful and thought-provoking commentaries of ten distinguished Catholic writers, Building the Free Society critically examines a century of Catholic reflection and argument on human freedom, the just society, and the international order. Renowned theologian Richard John Neuhaus opens the book with a challenging foreword on Christians as "resident aliens" of any earthly city, setting the tone for the compelling essays that follow.  Contributors: William Murphy, Thomas C. Kohler, Robert A. Sirico, George Weigel, Mary Eberstadt, Kenneth L. Grasso, Robert Royal, James Finn, Robert A. Destro, and William McGurn.

The collapse of communism in central and eastern Europe–the Revolution of 1989–was a singularly stunning event in a century already known for the unexpected. How did people divided for two generations by an Iron Curtain come so suddenly to dance together atop the Berlin Wall? Why did people who had once seemed resigned to their fate suddenly take their future into their hands? Some analysts have explained the Revolution in economic terms, arguing that the Warsaw Part countries could no longer compete with the West. But as George Weigel argues in this thought-provoking volume, people don’t put their lives, and their children’s future, in harm’s way simply for better cars, refrigerators, and TVs. Something else–something more–had to happen behind the Iron Curtain before the Wall came tumbling down.

President George Bush said yes; some bishops said no; even Doonesbury touched on the question. But what does is mean, in any case, to say that a war is just?  What are the yard-sticks of justice that support President Bush’s claim that is was just to reverse Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait?  And how does on evaluate the justness of stopping the war when the allies did?  And what of our fierce bombing of the fleeting Iraqi troops on the road from Kuwait?  The threat to Israel?  The value of oil in weighing whether to fight or not?

During the last twenty years, American Catholics have been locked in a Fierce Struggle to shape not only the inner life of their church but the stance their church will take on civic and political questions.In the book George Weigel takes us to the center of that struggle, where the Left and the Right are rallying around their standards,.One side, he believes, is yielding to a Jacobin temptation of descriptive radicalism which obscures the authoritative message of the gospel.The other side is retreating to a disgruntled, world-denying posture, longing for the restoration of a bygone and largely mythical age.