The Political Thought of Michael Novak
Lecture Two: John Paul II, Politics, and Economics
George Weigel, a friend of both Michael Novak and Pope John Paul II, recounts that Catholic social doctrine began in 1891 with Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum. In it, the Pontiff addressed the great issues posed by the Industrial Revolution and the new forms of government that rose with the decline of European monarchism. Catholic social doctrine reached its apogee with Pope John Paul II’s 1991 encyclical Centesimus Annus.
In Weigel’s estimation, Centesimus Annus is the most coherent proposal for the ordering of the human future. It provides a vision of a free and virtuous society in the 21st century and offers penetrating insight into what makes institutional freedom, democracy, and the market work. Such a society, as described in the document, has three interlocking parts: a democratic political community, a free economy, and a robust moral culture.
The task of the moral culture is to form the habits of heart and mind that allow citizens to drive the political and economic sectors toward human flourishing and social solidarity. John Paul II’s understanding of the economic sector evolved, thanks in part to the influence of Michael Novak, from the old understanding of wealth as being derived from the land to understanding it as primarily a function of human creativity applied to the problems or needs of society.
