THE BEST OF THE CATHOLIC INTELLECTUAL TRADITION
For 75 years,
Commonweal
magazine has sought to bring Catholic faith and modern life — especially the experience of American freedom and diversity — into fruitful contact. Now
Commonweal Confronts the Century
not only marks the anniversary of this distinguished journal, it also traces the ways in which the Catholic intellectual tradition has struggled with modernity, democratic institutions, and American culture while remaining faithful to its heritage.
Collected here are many of the most provocative essays the journal has published by a number of the century's most distinguished writers and thinkers. Together they confront controversial issues of continuing relevance within both the Catholic Church and American society in general. In the pages of
Commonweal,
liberal Catholics have carried on a dialogue about American culture and politics, the arts, religious pluralism, domestic upheaval, war and peace, liberal freedoms, and new moral and sexual sensibilities. Here is a feast of argument, observations, and good writing that will appeal to both the religiously informed and the intellectually curious. Highlights of
include:
Dorothy Day on poverty
Graham Greene on his religious conversion
Thomas Merton on nuclear war
Jean Bethke Elshtain on gay marriage
Daniel Callahan on health care