In October 1979, John Paul II landed on American soil and delivered a diagnosis of the nation's soul that has only grown more urgent. His argument — that freedom divorced from truth becomes self-destruction, that dignity is not a political position but the ground of all politics — speaks directly to the questions America faces at its 250th year.
Hillsdale College professor Matthew Mehan argues that Catholic intellectual formation has lost fluency in the poetical and rhetorical tradition that moves persons toward a common vision. The gap is not in philosophical or theological knowledge, but in the imaginative inheritance that reaches the will and affective life before it reaches the rational faculty. His work clarifies what full Catholic formation requires — and what it costs to neglect.
Princeton's Robert George argues that the American republic's survival depends on the moral formation of its citizens — and that Catholic intellectual tradition carries specific resources for that work. As the United States marks 250 years, the question is not only what the founding achieved but what kind of persons its continuation requires.
In October 1979, John Paul II landed on American soil and delivered a diagnosis of the nation's soul that has only grown more urgent. His argument — that freedom divorced from truth becomes self-destruction, that dignity is not a political position but the ground of all politics — speaks directly to the questions America faces at its 250th year.
Hillsdale College professor Matthew Mehan argues that Catholic intellectual formation has lost fluency in the poetical and rhetorical tradition that moves persons toward a common vision. The gap is not in philosophical or theological knowledge, but in the imaginative inheritance that reaches the will and affective life before it reaches the rational faculty. His work clarifies what full Catholic formation requires — and what it costs to neglect.