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“Whig Thomism” and the Making of the Catholic Neoconservative Movement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 May 2020

Jesse Russell
Jesse Russell*
Affiliation:
Georgia Southwestern State University
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Jesse Russell, Department of English, Georgia Southwestern State University, 800 Georgia Southwestern State University Dr., Americus, GA31709. E-mail: jesse.russell@gsw.edu; bigandlittlebear256@gmail.com
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Abstract

The writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, although widely noted for their clarity, are also rich and capacious enough to merit differing interpretations among scholars of good will and good faith. However, despite the noble intentions and praiseworthy work of the late Michael Novak and other Catholic neoconservatives, their marketing of St. Thomas Aquinas as the “first Whig” appears to sever elements of the Angelic Doctor's philosophy from its essential principles. Although jealously guarding the nobility of conscience and the interior life, St. Thomas envisioned a political community that was decidedly hierarchical and in which the faith was to be shepherded by the state, which itself was charged with suppressing heresy and dissident thinking. These political ideas, moreover, are rooted in the very heart of St. Thomas Aquinas's deepest philosophical and theological principles.

Type
Article
Information
Politics and Religion , Volume 14 , Issue 2 , June 2021 , pp. 294 - 315
Copyright
Copyright © Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association 2020

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