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I am grateful for the responses to Mr. Dettloff's article about Catholicism and communism, which we published recently in @americamag. It has served to remind me of one of the reasons why AMERICA is a great magazine: Our commitment to hosting a variety of opinions. 1/13
Some have written us to ask A) whether I, or the editors generally, agree with Mr. Dettloff, and b) why we published his article. I answered both of those questions in a recent column, which you can find here: 2/13 americamagazine.org/politics-socie…
Others have written to ask whether AMERICA would publish just any old argument. The answer is no. We have published articles about nationalism, for example, as well as articles about socialism, but we would not publish an article defending national socialism. 3/13
Would we publish an article, for example, that defended the conduct of the Khmer Rouge? No, we would not. But Mr. Dettloff's article was concerned with communism as an intellectual system, not with a defense of any specific regime. 4/13
We trust our readers to see these distinctions. We trust that they believe, as we do, that the first step in engaging with an argument is to listen to it. We trust, therefore, that AMERICA's readers want to read opinions that differ from their own. To that end: 5/13
Some have asked whether AMERICA would ever publish a defense of capitalism. In fact, we already have. It was written by @arthurbrooks of the American Enterprise Institute. You can find it here: 6/13 americamagazine.org/politics-socie…
Would AMERICA publish a defense of Catholicism and libertarianism? In fact, we have. It was written by @sladesr. You can find that here: 7/13 americamagazine.org/politics-socie…
Some have asked whether AMERICA'S openness to different ideas extends to other matters; whether, for example, AMERICA would publish a piece in defense of the latin liturgy. In fact, we have, just last week. You can find that here: 8/13 americamagazine.org/faith/2019/07/…
These are but a few examples of the diversity of viewpoints you will find in AMERICA magazine. We published more than 1,000 opinions last year from democrats, republicans, conservatives, liberals, atheists, capitalists, socialists, communitarians, libertarians. 9/13
The duty to engage with a diversity of viewpoints is a basic presupposition of the democratic process and of any Catholicism truly worthy of its name. Our job at AMERICA is to host an intelligent and charitible conversation among people who sometimes disagree. 10/13
In the current climate, the most countercultural dimension of AMERICA's mission is this commitment to listening to a variety of voices--some the editors agree with, others we don't. To know what AMERICA's editors think, you can read our editorials. 11/13 americamagazine.org/voices/editors
Even then, I suspect that you would have a hard time putting our editorials in an ideological pigeonhole. Much like Catholicism itself, our editorial views transcend partisan and ideological divisions. 12/13
If you also desire content that informs, nourishes and, yes, challenges you, then I invite you to join our growing readership by subscribing to AMERICA. You can do that here. Thank you for reading! 13/13 subscription.americamagazine.org/pcd/Order?iKey…
