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This was one of SCSS President Stephen M. Krason’s “Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic” columns in The Wanderer in 2021. In it, he explains the need to in an organized manner oppose the left and how, in a general way, it needs to be done. This article is reprinted with permission.

This was one of SCSS President Stephen M. Krason’s “Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic” columns in The Wanderer in 2021. In it, he writes that the Democratic party has increasingly embraced the agenda of the left, been tolerant of violence by radical organizations, been willing to compromise the principle of the rule of law, and shown increasing intolerance of opposing perspectives and a tendency to political repression. This article is reprinted with permission.

This was one of SCSS President, Stephen M. Krason’s “Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic” columns that appear monthly at his blog site and in Crisismagazine.com and The Wanderer. This column discusses the problems of guaranteeing free higher education at state universities and colleges that was especially promoted by Senator Bernie Sanders in his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, and which is likely to continue as a political issue in the years ahead.

This was one of SCSS President, Stephen M. Krason’s “Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic” columns that appear monthly at his blog site and in Crisismagazine.com and The Wanderer. This column tells families and others proposing the “Benedict Option”—i.e., trying to separate as much from the secular culture as possible and trying to build up small Catholic subcultures where their children can be effectively reared in the Faith and family integrity preserved—to be attentive of the threat posed by (...) the current child protective system and the need to seek to reform it. (shrink)

This was one of SCSS President, Stephen M. Krason’s “Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic” columns that appear monthly at his blog site and in Crisismagazine.com and The Wanderer. This column speaks about what might be called a new expression of literalism and fundamentalism, especially among liberal Catholics and some in Church leadership, to take certain Scriptural passages and Church teachings and apply them to current situations and public questions without regard to the context of the situations or (...) full attention to nuances or even to the facts present—to in a certain sense absolutize the contingent. Sometimes this is done to promote certain policy agendas and without even considering the full statement of the Church’s teaching, as it is expressed in the social encyclicals and other documents. (shrink)

This was one of SCSS President Stephen M. Krason’s “Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic” columns that appear monthly in Crisis and The Wanderer. It discusses the tragic case of Charlie Gard, the baby who a U.K. hospital would not discharge so his parents could take him to the U.S. for experimental treatment for a rare, normally terminal DNA disorder that might have saved his life. Krason says that the case illustrated a number of dangerous current trends (...) in Western political societies: the advancement of the euthanasia/“quality of life” mindset, the suppression of parental rights by both child protective-type agencies and courts that are overly-deferential to them, runaway judicial power generally, the increasing authoritarianism of functional experts, and the unwillingness of elected political officials and leaders to come to the aid of the citizenry by standing up to them and the unelected bureaucrats and judges who protect them and more generally to uphold the traditional legal norms and principles that they are violating. (shrink)

This was one of SCSS President Stephen M. Krason’s “Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic” columns that appear monthly in Crisis and The Wanderer. In it, he summarizes his conclusions about the conformity of current American conservatism with Catholic social teaching—as put forth in the papal social encyclicals—on the subject of economics and social welfare policy from his 2017 book, Catholicism and American Political Ideologies. His analysis is based on the 2012 Republican party platform, which was held to (...) be a particularly conservative document—and thus a good measure of current conservative thinking on public policy questions. He concludes that American conservative thinking about economics and social welfare policy conforms reasonably well—certainly not perfectly—with Catholic social teaching. (shrink)

This was one of SCSS President Stephen M. Krason’s “Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic” columns that appear monthly in Crisis and The Wanderer. In it, he discusses how the current oppressive actions directed against those who oppose or dissent on religious grounds to various aspects of the sexual revolution—such as the agenda of the homosexualist movement—are in line with the oppressive actions directed against those who opposed blatant sexual immorality by politically powerful figures at earlier historical times, (...) such as King Henry VIII in England. Effectively, sexual immorality has at times in history paved the way for political tyranny and reshaped nations. (shrink)

SCSS President Stephen M. Krason wrote this letter in response to a review about a book he edited and contributed to in the SCSS’s Catholic Social Thought Book Series, The Crisis of Religious Liberty: Reflections from Law, History, and Catholic Social Thought. The review, which appeared in The Journal of Church and State, was mostly favorable to the book but made erroneous assertions and a false and unmerited conclusion about the sources Krason used in his Afterword in (...) the book. Krason also sent the letter to the editor of the Journal, but they apparently don’t run letters and did not make an exception with this one. Krason also sent a copy of this letter to the other contributors to the book and includes it here out of a sense of the need to have a public record of a response to a published book review that, of course, was publicly disseminated. (shrink)

This was one of SCSS President Stephen M. Krason’s “Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic” columns that appear monthly in Crisis and The Wanderer. It argues that a correct reading of the Vatican II document Nostra Aetate, while stressing interreligious understanding and noting certain common beliefs, in no way precludes a reasonable critique of Islam or criticism of its background and tenets from a Catholic standpoint.

This article was one of SCSS President Stephen M. Krason’s online “Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic” columns. It appeared on May 1, 2012. There is a link to Krason’s monthly column at the SCSS website. Since August 2012, his column also appears at Crisismagazine.com. This article considers weaknesses in present-day conservatism, and how embracing certain principles of Catholic social teaching could rectify those weaknesses.

This article is one of SCSS President Stephen M. Krason’s “Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic” online columns. It briefly addresses, in light of Catholic social teaching, the immigration question that has been a major public issue in the U.S.

This article was one of SCSS President Stephen M. Krason’s online “Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic” columns. It appeared on April 1, 2012. There is a link to Krason’s monthly column at the SCSS website. Since August 2012, his column also appears at Crisismagazine.com. This article considers new, serious threats to free speech in the contemporary Western world.

This was one of SCSS President Stephen M. Krason’s “Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic” columns that appeared during 2014 in Crisismagazine.com and The Wanderer and at his blog site. He argues that, despite the criticism of President Obama’s seemingly excessive exercise of executive power to further an ideologically leftist secularist agenda, the strong and maybe unprecedented use of presidential power after him may be the most certain way to try to restore weakened American constitutional principles and traditional (...) liberties and to begin to reverse our serious cultural decay. (shrink)

This was one of SCSS President Stephen M. Krason’s “Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic” columns that appear monthly in Crisis and The Wanderer. It discusses the solid social science research that shows the harms to children raised in same-sex households. He says that in spite of this the child protective system, which seems to regard such things as spanking and free-range parenting as child abuse/neglect apparently does not view the harms of same-sex parenting to be worthy of (...) investigating. Krason suggests that this is because of the ideological biases that characterize the CPS. (shrink)

This was one of SCSS President Stephen M. Krason’s “Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic” columns that appeared during 2015 in Crisismagazine.com and The Wanderer and at his blog site. He makes an assessment, in light of Catholic social teaching, of the race issue in America today. He argues that the typical commentary about it ignores obvious realities, is often driven by ideology and the opportunism of self-appointed racial spokesmen, and ignores serious, deep-seated problems in minority communities with (...) tragic consequences. (shrink)

This was one of SCSS President Stephen M. Krason’s “Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic” columns that appeared during 2014 in Crisismagazine.com and The Wanderer and at his blog site. It discusses how Catholic social teaching does not mandate particular public policies and must not be confused with a point of the teaching itself. It emphasizes that there can typically be many different policy approaches that can be used to make sure that moral demands are met.

This was one of SCSS president Stephen M. Krason’s “Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic” columns that appeared in Crisismagazine.com and The Wanderer. At a time when there is increased discussion about the need for criminal justice reform, he points to several areas that must be addressed: overcriminalization, vagueness of laws, the decline of mens rea, too much readiness on the part of American police to arrest, excessive incarceration, and prosecutorial abuse.

This was one of SCSS president and Franciscan University of Steubenville professor Stephen M. Krason’s “Neither Left Nor Right, but Catholic” columns that appeared initially in Crisismagazine.com on September 17, 2013. It points to the curious similarities between what the adherents of the Albigensian heresy —which, incidentally, helped trigger the Inquisition—believed and current cultural perspectives. The parallels between the Albigensians and the current age, especially on sexual and human life questions and male-female relations, are striking.

This article traces the principles and practices that characterized the American democratic republic and American culture at its Founding and suggests possible inherent weaknesses in our Founding thought and outlook that may have paved the way for a later transformation and decay of the American political order.

This article, which inaugurated SCSS president Stephen M. Krason’s monthly online column, “Neither Left Nor Right but Catholic”, takes note of an important address given by Archbishop Charles Chaput in Europe in which he foresees increasing repression by an arch-secularist political and cultural elite against Catholics and the Church when they try to bring the Church’s message to society. This represents a deeply disturbing narrowing of the meaning of religious liberty to mere freedom of worship.

This was one of SCSS President Stephen M. Krason’s “Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic” columns that appeared during 2014 in Crisismagazine.com and The Wanderer and at his blog site. He argues that the common strain running through such political developments as the rise of Islamism, modern political ideologies, and contemporary leftism is the fact that, one way or the other, they represent man trying to make himself God. To paraphrase Irving Babbitt and others, as the notion of (...) God goes, so goes philosophy, and society and culture, and politics, and economics—the religious outlook is at the core of all other perspectives. (shrink)

This article presents reflections on the Terri Schiavo starvation case: the public confusion about the facts of the case, the ethical and legal principles governing it, the modern philosophical trends that led to it, the failure of all three branches of government to properly address it, the authority of the Florida governor and the President to intervene to save Terri Schiavo, and how the case illustrated a gross and outrageous lack of political will.

The papers in this symposium were delivered at the Society of Catholic Social Scientists’ spring conference of the same name on April 17, 1999 at Notre Dame Law School. The Society in its history has given some particular attention to this issue, having sent letters to all the members of Congress opposing the early Clinton Administration initiative to let known homosexuals into the military and to all the U.S. bishops pointing out the serious problems with the homosexual-specific ministries which have (...) sprung up in various dioceses. The latter letter gained attention from a couple of national publications and generated numerous requests for copies. The fact that we have given this focus to the issue of homosexuality accords with the Society’s intention to especially stress family issues. We wish to try to disseminate these papers beyond the confines of this journal, if possible. (shrink)

A comprehensive, in-depth study of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decisions which legalized abortion. The author closely analyzes the opinions, and contends that the Court made significant errors in its understanding of the many aspects surrounding abortion.

Stephen M. Krason presented this talk at the “Stand Up for Religious Freedom” rally in Buffalo, New York on June 8, 2012. It was one of many that were held around the U.S. that day, to show opposition to the attempt by the Obama administration’s Department of Health and Human Services to mandate that religious entities provide free contraceptives and sterilization procedures in their health insurance programs.

This is a response by the author to the comments made about his book, The Transformation of the American Democratic Republic, in this symposium.

This was one of SCSS president and Franciscan University of Steubenville professor Stephen M. Krason’s “Neither Left Nor Right, but Catholic” columns that appeared initially in Crisismagazine.com on February 3, 2013. It discusses the ongoing assault by secularist groups to cleanse American public life of any vestiges of religion. This radical separationism, which had its roots in the post-Civil War period and essentially was embraced by the U.S. Supreme Court in its long line of establishment clause decisions, is (...) completely contrary to the thinking of the Founding Fathers and the predominant culture of earlier America. Krason calls for a renewed effort, at different levels, to reclaim America’s historically religious and Christian culture. (shrink)

This article is one of SCSS President Stephen M. Krason’s “Neither Left nor Right, but Catholic” online columns. It makes the argument, in accord with such principles of Catholic social teaching as subsidiarity, that government should undertake tasks in a political society only when truly necessary. It points to many problems that experience has shown in the U.S. tend to develop when functions are turned over to government, especially in domestic areas. He made a presentation based on this (...) column as part of a panel on “What the Role of Government in Contemporary America Should Be, in Light of Historical Experience and Catholic Social Teaching” at the 2011 SCSS National Meeting-Conference. (shrink)

The author notes how American public policy typically springs from good intentions, but brings unforeseeable consequences that cause new social problems. It also increasingly seeks to address speculative, not actual or certain, harms. He gives numerous examples and argues that the effect is increasingly expansive state power and heightened intrusion into private areas of individual and family lives. He also argues that all three public policy trends grow out of modern utopian tendencies and secularism.

This is a summary and brief explanation of many of the key principles of the economic system called solidarism, developed by Fr. Heinrich Pesch, S.J. in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which was explicitly grounded on Christian and traditional natural law principles.