Counsels of Imperfection:Thinking Through Catholic Social Teaching
EDWARD HADAS
(Catholic University of America Press, 448 PP, £35)

This month marks the 130th anniversary of the publication of Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum, which ­inaugurated modern Catholic Social Teaching. This marked a major shift in the Catholic Church away from the reactionary defiance of Leo’s predecessor, Pius IX, and towards active engagement with modernity.

It is therefore timely that the Catholic University of America has produced a major book on the subject, Counsels of Imperfection. Not that this is an academic work in either style or content. The author is a financial columnist by trade, and this is evident in the writing which is wonderfully clear and easy to understand, free of the turgid obscurity which can mar academic material. The book also avoids obscure controversies in favour of an attempt to make the teaching accessible and relevant to interested readers.