Thomas P. Harmon is Professor and Scanlan Foundation Chair in Theology at the University of Saint Thomas in Houston, Texas, where he also directs the MA in Evangelization and Culture. He is the author of The Universal Way of Salvation in the Thought of Augustine (Bloomsbury/T&T Clark) and is co-editor of Augustine and Frontiers of Pluralism (Routledge) and Wisdom and the Renewal of Catholic Theology: Essays in Honors of Matthew L. Lamb (Wipf and Stock/Pickwick). He lives in Sugar Land, Texas with his wife and six children.
It is all too tempting to try to use Catholic Social Doctrine as a policy platform with which to bludgeon one's political opponents. Pope Leo XIV's address is a good sign that he seems to understand what is at stake.
Date posted: 2025-07-05
To say that a bishop may rightly engage in political discourse - particularly on matters touching religious liberty - is not to deny the risks. The danger is real: that the Church will be seen as merely another "stakeholder" in public life, her sacramental character blurred into mere "advocacy," her religious mandate mistaken for partisan ambition.
Date posted: 2025-05-29