Do the Catholic Church and its teachings have much of anything to do with politics? Realists say that politics has its own laws and logic to which a Christian must conform. Radicals agree that politics is incompatible with the Catholic faith but insist that Catholics should have nothing to do with it. Should a Catholic be involved in politics, then? If so, what does his or her faith have to do with the conduct of politics? How the Church views the political order is the first order of business in Catholicism and Politics. But if the Church does offer guidance for the political order, then of what does it consist? How ought Catholics to view the state’s policies towards war, religious freedom, human rights, the death penalty, abortion, economics, global poverty, immigration, health care, and the environment? How ought Catholics to vote? Face issues of conscience? Deal with the Church’s own past sins?

The goal of Catholicism and Politics is to train students to approach these questions from a Catholic perspective. The course begins with an investigation of classic Catholic ideas about politics as found in the Bible and in tradition up through the Second Vatican Council. It then examines how the Church thinks about a range of contemporary issues and how it draws from its classical thinking in doing so. A highlight of the course is a series of dramatic debates in which students bring alive Catholic political issues in the context of a fictional Church gathering: a canonization hearing on the response of Pope Pius XII to the Holocaust; and several sessions of the “Council of South Bend.”   

• Syllabus Fall 2023

The subject of the course is Catholic apologetics for young adults. Studies show that young adults are leaving the Church in large numbers and that the ones who stay do not subscribe to Church teachings. The course begins with an examination of contemporary trends in the religious lives of young people, with a particular focus on Catholics. It proceeds to examine the major reasons why young people are leaving the Catholic Church and to engage students in arguments for and against the Church’s positions on: the rationality of God, science, sex and marriage, the Church’s role in historical injustices, and politics. In the final portion of the course, we will pivot to a “positive apologetics,” look at the case for the Church through beauty and the witness of the saints, modes of engagement that are said to appeal to young adults in today’s generation. The course concludes with the case for the resurrection of Jesus. Taught in the Political Science Department, the course considers the political dimension of each unit, corresponding to the politicized character of each of the disputed questions in the mind of contemporary young adults who are leaving the Church, as studies of opinion demonstrate. 

The course will be taught with a range of students in mind: those who are confident in their Catholic faith and wish to learn how to persuade others; those who are unsure of their Catholic faith; those who are of a different Christian or religious faith and interested in learning about the Catholic faith; and those who are skeptical of the Catholic faith. All are welcome, and the course places a premium on vigorous and respectful debate.

• Syllabus Spring 2024

This course is a survey of Christian political thought for graduate students. It is taught on the premises that Christian political thought has been critically important in shaping Western civilization and global civilization; that it is critically important for understanding the drama of Western political thought; and that it is worth learning in its own right. Distilled from a massive body of potential material, the readings and topics of this course inevitably entail principles of selection. One is a focus on writings from the past century-and-a-half, though only after first examining the foundations laid by St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. Second is a “schools of thought” approach in which each week represents a particular intellectual theme. Third is connectivity, meaning that the readings across the syllabus speak to one another. Fourth is intellectual diversity, involving a variety of perspectives and disagreement among them. An accompanying bibliographical essay, found on this website, attempts to map the landscape of Christian political thought in general.

• Syllabus Fall 2022