ABSTRACT
For American Catholics the social teaching of the American bishops since Vatican II in the 1960s have been the subject and object of unprecedented controversy. The bishops have scrutinized almost every aspect of American public policy, foreign and domestic, and found it wanting. In order to gain some perspective on Michael Novak’s quarrel with the American bishops it will be useful at the outset to compare his thought with that of John Courtney Murray, S.J. It is a comparison Novak welcomes. He clearly sees himself as the heir to Murray’s interpretation of the American democratic experiment. Novak’s defense of democratic capitalism must contend with a long trail of powerful critics, including the usual Marxists, socialists and assorted secular humanists as well as powerful elements within the Catholic Church itself. Nevertheless, after all is said in defense of the new science of the liberal state, there is a problem with democratic capitalism that will not go away despite Novak’s arguments.
