The Crisis of Liberty in the West

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The West faces a deep crisis of liberty. Full human flourishing is hindered by the dawning collapse of civil society and by crony capitalism and cultural cronyism. Natural law arguments, with their appreciation of rights and duties, provide a better framework than natural rights or utilitarian arguments for understanding economic liberty; a natural law conception of social justice recognizes the state’s role in economic justice but also requires respect for the proper authority of society.

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A Turn That Went a Long Way: Remembering Michael Novak

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Any adequate account of the swirling currents in Catholic intellectual life during the decades following the Sixties and Vatican II—think names like Wills, Greeley, Berrigan, Ruether, Hesburgh, Buckley—would have to give a major place to Michael Novak, who died at age eighty-three on February 17.

Novak was a frequent contributor to Commonweal from the late 1950s to the middle ’70s. In these pages and in the National Catholic Reporter, Timemagazine, and elsewhere, he was a skillful exponent of the work of Vatican II and a passionate champion of the radicalism arising from campus opposition to the war in Vietnam.

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Michael Novak Crafted a Moral Defense of Democratic Capitalism

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In 1960, at age 26, Michael Novak moved into a Manhattan apartment swarming with cockroaches. After 12 years of preparing for the Roman Catholic priesthood, he had abandoned that mission and would devote himself to writing—about exactly what, he wasn’t sure.

He realized, as he noted later, “there was no way to know how deep my talent ran.”

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Michael Novak and Karen Laub: A Love Story

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Michael Novak has now turned 80 — and what a privilege to have been present here and in Washington as so many have sounded his praises this week. We’ve heard from family members Ben, Jana, Mary Ann, and Rich; from editors, authors, philanthropists, and diplomats; from at least one Supreme Court justice – and from a standup comedian who moonlights as a constitutional-law professor named Hadley Arkes. To that list we can also add the wonderful speeches by Father Derek Cross, Samuel Gregg, Michael Pakaluk, Brian Anderson, David Dalin, and George Weigel, during the conference earlier this morning.

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Michael Novak, Friend of Economic Freedom

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The news of Michael Novak’s death Feb. 17 saddened close friends and colleagues in the community of think tank scholars who drew so much from his writings and lectures.

Novak’s perspectives expanded our conceptual grasp of economic liberty beyond dry formulas to include a more complete picture of the creative, human, and virtuous nature of entrepreneurship.

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Michael Novak, Noted Theologian, Philosopher and Author Was 83

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Michael Novak, a Catholic philosopher, theologian and author who was highly regarded for his religious scholarship and intellectual independence, died Feb. 17 at home in Washington, D.C. He was 83.

His daughter Jana Novak told The Washington Post the cause of death was complications from colon cancer.

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Johnstown native Michael Novak dies: Author, diplomat and theologian counseled two popes, influenced world leaders

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Johnstown native Michael Novak, an influential Catholic philosopher and diplomat whose written works on religion’s role in capitalism helped mold the modern conservative movement, has died. He was 83.

The son of an insurance salesman and onetime Penelec stenographer, Novak was a seminary student and later a Stanford University professor who served as a vocal Catholic critic of the war in Vietnam.

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How Michael Novak changed my life, and yours

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In the late 1970s I underwent two conversions: the first was reading myself out of the left wing politics in which I had been active. The second, not unrelated, was to return to the practice of the Catholic faith.

I say these transformations were related because I found that the more I saw the basis of a free society was predicated on free human action in the economy, the more I found myself thinking about the nature of the human person, his transcendence, and his dignity, and hence my return to the faith of my youth.

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How Michael Novak changed my life, and yours

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In the late 1970s I underwent two conversions: the first was reading myself out of the left wing politics in which I had been active. The second, not unrelated, was to return to the practice of the Catholic faith.

I say these transformations were related because I found that the more I saw the basis of a free society was predicated on free human action in the economy, the more I found myself thinking about the nature of the human person, his transcendence, and his dignity, and hence my return to the faith of my youth.

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