Ernest Fortin collection Crisis: Their Limits: Two Cheers for Capitalism A discussion of John Paul II’s latest encyclical, Centesimus Annus, begins logically with a brief examination of the famous document whose centenary it commemorates, Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, the grandfather of the great social encyclicals of our century and the one that singlehandedly created a new theological discipline now commonly referred to as the … Read more

Ernest Fortin

Ernest L. Fortin, A.A. (1923 - 2002) was a professor of theology at Boston College. While engaged in graduate studies in France, he met Allan Bloom, who introduced him to the work of Leo Strauss. Father Fortin worked at the intersection of Athens and Jerusalem.

recent articles

Pros and Cons of Disestablishment: Did the Separation of Church and State Benefit Religion? Ernest L. Fortin

De Tocqueville is remembered among other things for having taught us that disestablishment or the separation of church and state, which America was the first nation to institutionalize, was good for both civil society and religion. That it should have been regarded as good for civil society is not surprising since state neutrality in matters … Read more

The Natural Wrong in Natural Rights—and the Problem With Communitarianism

For all the benefits that it provides and for which we can be immensely grateful, modern liberal democracy does not of itself produce a strong attachment to the common good of society and was not calculated to do so. Anyone in search of models of public-spiritedness will have to look elsewhere, as did our American … Read more

Friend and Teacher: Allan Bloom, 1930-1992

With the untimely death of my friend Allan Bloom on October 7, 1992, America lost one of its finest and most brilliant teachers. At the same time, and by more than mere coincidence, higher education lost its most courageous and incisive critic. My friendship with Allan goes back to the mid-’50s when we were in … Read more

Free Markets Have Their Limits: Two Cheers for Capitalism

A discussion of John Paul II’s latest encyclical, Centesimus Annus, begins logically with a brief examination of the famous document whose centenary it commemorates, Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, the grandfather of the great social encyclicals of our century and the one that singlehandedly created a new theological discipline now commonly referred to as the … Read more

Rome and the Theologians: Reports of a Grand Inquisitor Are Greatly Exaggerated

The nagging tensions inherent in any attempt to reconcile the demands of academic freedom with a firm commitment to the Church’s official teachings have again been forcefully brought home to us in an important document issued last June by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under the title, Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation … Read more

Men of Letters: The Little-known Correspondence between Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin

We owe a profound debt of gratitude to Professors Barry Cooper and Peter Emberley for their efforts in bringing to light the hitherto unknown correspondence between Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin, two of the great philosophic luminaries of our age. (In addition to Strauss and Voegelin’s letters, Faith and Political Philosophy, scheduled for publication later … Read more

Between the Lines: Was Leo Strauss a Secret Enemy of Morality?

History’s final verdict on Leo Strauss is not yet in and is not likely to be in for quite some time. Meanwhile, one cannot help noticing that since his death in 1973 Strauss’s reputation has been growing by leaps and bounds. Barely known beyond a small circle of colleagues, students, and friends when I first … Read more

Documentation: Catholic Social Teaching and the Economy

My brief and very general remarks are directed to the problem of the relationship between Christianity and the social order, particularly as it bears on matters of economic policy. The importance of this problem, to which no thoughtful Christian can be indifferent, has recently been brought to our attention by the bishops’ decision to issue … Read more

The Twilight of Socialism

The strange but suddenly popular notion that in John Paul II the Roman Catholic Church may have its “first socialist pope” (Kenneth L. Woodward, “The Vision of a Socialist Pope,” Newsweek, June 20, 1983, p. 47; cf. Gregory Buam, The Priority of Labor, Paulist Press, 1982, pp. 80-88) is based on a superficial reading of … Read more

Theological Reflections on a Pastoral Letter

We owe a deep debt of gratitude to our bishops for their splendid Letter and to Fr. Bryan Hehir for his brilliant analysis of the genesis and content of that Letter. The final draft strikes me as being vastly superior to the first two and serves as a fine example of what can be accomplished … Read more