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Catholic social teaching’s attention to the common good has potential for disentangling some of health care’s knottiest paradoxes: American health care is both abundant and scarce. Although the U.S. appears to have the least medical-care rationing of any similar country, we legitimately can be described as having more. It’s just that our kind of rationing isn't so obvious.

Intense ethnic conflicts bring to the surface important paradoxes about the function of memory in politics. The capacity to remember is vital for political success, but too much memory, or the wrong kind of memory, stokes the fires of revenge. Successful political action demands both the capacity to remember and the capacity to forget. How and when each comes into play is difficult to formulate conceptually. A classic text in which the politics of memory plays a central role elucidates these issues and suggests central political dimensions of remembering and forgetting. This essay uses the story of Joseph in the Hebrew Bible to explore the politics of memory and to suggest factors that produce constructive and destructive results. It examines two principal forms: prudential and mythic, the qualities of which differ importantly. It concludes with an account of a third form: memory as a step toward political reconciliation.The conundrum of memory: Healthier to remember? Surely it is best sometimes to forget–though not to forget Kosovo now. Eventual obliviousness may equally free all sides from the hereditary obligation to hate. ... What's happening there now amounts to a religious war between the future and the past. Beware: in that place, the past is a black hole.“ –Lance Morrow1

Gary D. Glenn and John Stack advance two important claims; one explicit, the other implicit. Their explicit claim is that the “new regime of civil liberties” is dangerous to Catholicism. Here I am in qualified agreement, though important ambiguities cloud the argument. Their implicit claim is that it is a bad thing for Catholicism to be in danger. This proposition is flawed. Glenn and Stack cite (without irony) American Catholics “who have spent several generations seeking to become accepted and acceptable to the American democratic culture.” A large part of the danger seems to be “the punishment of exclusion from respectability in the culture.” This assumes that the “normal” mode for Catholicism is comfortable accommodation to political culture and institutions.

The religion and politics border occupied by Catholic social thought and American health care policy contains rich material for reflection. Religious institutions, particularly Catholic, ate deeply embedded in both health care delivery and health care lobbying. Each activity is consciously driven by understandings of the imperatives of Catholic social thought and by institutional missions formulated with the intention of realizing commitments that flow from Christian faith lived within the Catholic tradition. Because health care delivery is powerfully shaped by public policies at the federal and state levels, Catholic leaders, Catholic institutions such as hospitals, and Catholic theologians have been driven to reflect on and to deliver health care within a context powerfully political and public. They have also for many years engaged in policy advocacy to influence the economic, social, and legal environment of their activity. Moreover, just as Catholic health care acts and advocates, it reacts to public policies that affect not only the "externals" of health care delivery, but also the essential mission and identity of Catholic institutions. Catholic health care has challenged and been challenged by public policy. This mutual questioning on an important boundary between politics and religion makes the topic of Catholic social thought and health care policy reform intensely interesting for students of church and state.

Government and market forces have fundamentally transformed the religious healthcare sector. Religious healthcare organizations are struggling to define their identities and determine what it is that makes them different and what implications the differences have for the delivery of social services and for public life. In response to these questions, the defenders of traditional Catholic healthcare make a variety of responses that first defend the continued relevance of the major institutions of Catholic healthcare, especially its hospitals, and second, specify reforms to make these institutions even more relevant to the new healthcare system. This essay argues that these defenses are inadequate to that challenge and that the reforms proposed are too timid. Catholic healthcare needs a better theoretical account of its mission and more creative institutional adaptations.

Political participation empowers and transforms citizens. To par ticipate in the public affairs of one's community is to call upon and to develop personal capabilities for speaking, taking responsibility, carry ing through projects, and working with others. To participate is to be an autonomous citizen rather than a subject, an actor rather than a specta tor.1 So say advocates of such participation. Moreover, they argue that deliberation responds to the deepening pluralism and the larger scale of complex, post-industrial democratic polities.2 In such societies, every area of life becomes "politicized"; that is, the norms recognized as legit imate (in family, church, workplace, gender roles, for example) must increasingly be negotiated, rather than taken for granted. As society becomes more differentiated, politics also becomes less state-centered. Therefore, citizens must learn the political skills of negotiation, discus sion, argument, persuasion, mediation, and compromise in order to function in most areas of life. It is possible then to think of democracy "as a distribution of empowerments and protections that enable and protect discursive negotiations of conflicts within and between institu

The article explores the issue of economic life within the theoretical tradition of the common good. To clarify the implications of the theory of the common good for economics, the economic philosophy of Yves R. Simon is presented. After clarifying the meaning of Simon's conception of the common good, the implications of the common good for Simon's economic thought are explored. It is argued that, for Simon, the economic system is a common good that undergirds the traditional Thomistic imperative that the use of goods be common. Some of the difficulties which Simon's thought has for market economics are then analyzed, and Simon's thought is used to suggest solutions. In this context, the roles of authority and virtue (particularly prudence) are treated.

This article identifies a "discretion school" or position within current public administration theory and the proximate historical causes for its articulation. The extent to which administrative discretion is thought to be permissible, and the justifications for it, are explored by way of comparing current views to Plato `s explication of the functions of the guardian class in the ideal Republic. Contemporary analogues to "knowledge of the good " (public interest and regime values) and the role of education are arrayed. The article concludes by posing problematics heretofore insufficiently resolved by discretionist points of view.

Although research suggests numerous interventions that can improve immunization coverage (Taskforce on Community Preventive Services, 2000), there is often a gap between policies supported by and public entities. The question for this study is whether the variation in childhood (19 to 35 months) immunization coverage rates across states is related to significant variations in state regulatory regimes that may optimize the benefits of state registries and systems that are designed to improve assessment of immunization practices. Utilizing 2002 data from the CDC and survey data collected from state immunization program officials, we find that financial support for state immunization programs, opt-out state registries, and state-mandated participation in provider quality improvement and assessment programs have positive associations with statewide coverage rates. We also suggest that more active state governmental support for interventions supported by rigorous scientific evaluation will not only improve early childhood immunization coverage, but may also support other public health objectives such as life-time full immunization and improve bioterrorism response planning.

There is a tendency to see the current challenges to Catholic health care ministry as unprecedented, and the particular shape they take certainly is. But there has always been pressure. The reason is simple: whatever the dominant political, economic, or medical system of a given time and place, Catholic identity must always be at an ethical angle. Catholics faithful to Jesus' words and deeds are “resident aliens” in every society.

Currently, Texas ranks in the bottom quintile of states for childhood vaccinations. Approximately, one fourth of Texas children younger than age 3 years have not received the recommended full schedule of vaccinations. Such a low rate can produce serious health consequences by reducing "community immunity." We review the current literature on barriers to high immunization rates and on effective, evidence-based strategies and programs. In addition, we report the results of interviews with public health officials responsible for implementing immunization programs in Texas and in a sample of high-ranking states for their assessment of the most effective strategies. We suggest legislative and administrative changes for Texas on the basis of the literature review and interview results. These recommendations involve improving the public health network, strengthening financial and administrative incentives to providers, enhancing incentives for parents, and encouraging federal program modifications.

BACKGROUND: Availability of options other than aggressive medical treatment for persons with life-limiting illnesses has provided hospitals an opportunity to adopt formalized end-of-life care services. OBJECTIVE: To describe hospital ownership types that have adopted formalized end-of-life services (who), the scope of end-of-life services offered (what), and the geographic location of service provision (where). RESEARCH DESIGN: Nationally representative cross-sectional data for 3,939 hospitals (80% of respondent hospitals) obtained from the American Hospital Association Annual Survey of Hospitals was used for the year 1998. MEASURES: A scale was developed to measure hospital provision of general end-of-life, pain management, or hospice services. A multivariate ordinary least-squares regression model was used to test the association of ownership as a predictor of end-of-life service provision, while controlling for internal (organizational) and external (market location and size) characteristics. RESULTS: Independent correlates of the number of end-of-life services provided include Catholic ownership, teaching status, number of staffed beds, and being located in a metropolitan statistical area or in New England. Forty-four percent of the sampled US hospitals provide none of the three end-of-life services included in this study. Another one third of hospitals provide only one of the three services. CONCLUSIONS: Given the attention paid by both the general public and health professionals to pain relief and providing appropriate care to dying persons, such services are slow to be institutionalized in the hospital setting. The authors' findings suggest strategies for research and policy.

Religion and politics is a burgeoning subfield. Liberalism–communitarian literature now includes attention to religious communities. Theorists of civil society recognize that religious organizations implement a considerable range of policies. Since pluralism entails the presence of multiple voices in public conversation, theorists debate how a liberal society should treat religious voices. Theorists within religious traditions debate the bearing of faith on political action and the extent to which churches should cooperate with state institutions.

The world lost a true gentleman and a scholar–an aristocrat of the highest order—in early 2004 when Metin Tamkoc passed away in Istanbul, Turkey. One of his colleagues described him as having “possessed a rare combination of urbanity, seriousness of purpose, and good humor. He treated students and faculty alike with deep respect and pursued the highest standards of scholarship.”

Charles J. Fox, professor of political science at Texas Tech University, died of natural causes Thursday, May 6, at his residence in Lubbock, Texas.

The problem of authority has a practical and a theoretical side. Practically, the decline of authority contributes to the crisis of legitimacy in contemporary governments and to difficulties in the practice of morality. Theoretically, authority is often confused with power, force, or coercion. Thus, it is viewed with suspicion. The thesis of this paper is that authority is not a form of power; rather, it transforms power. Like power, force, and coercion, authority is directive, but it is so in quite a different way. An examination of the concept of authority in three very different theorists – Carl Friedrich, Yves R. Simon, and Michael Polanyi – reveals that a sound concept of authority must be rooted in community as a system of shared beliefs, experiences, and traditions and in transcendent standards referred to by such beliefs, experiences, and traditions. Authority is that which directs a community to its proper end.

Secular culture drives a wedge between political philosophy and scripture. For medieval thought the Bible had been a primary source for doctrines, principles, and examples to be woven into the fabric of political speculation. Theorists in the modern period also felt compelled to engage the scriptures. Machiavelli tells his readers to study Moses; Hobbes devoted two books of Leviathan to political theology; Locke refuted the scriptural arguments of Filmer and employed biblical examples to discuss conquest and tyranny. Yet incorporation of Scripture in political thinking largely died out by the twentieth century in academic political science and political philosophy. A series of recent works may signal an end to the divorce of political philosophy and scripture. In 1979 David C. Rapoport published his challenge to Weber's concept of charisma through a reexamination of the leadership of Moses.I Steven Brams (1980) considered game theory and the Bible the following year.2 The year 1980 also saw the beginning of a long series of articles on the Book of Genesis by Robert Sacks (1980-1984). The leadership of Moses and its significance for the theory of political leadership were ex

The term "common good" is not much in use of late. "Public interest" has largely replaced it. Yet some of the problems of modern political thought are evident in the current widespread disagreement about the meaning of "the public interest." " Many reject the idea of public interest or common good altogether;2 others identify it with an aggregation of particular interests.3 Most commonly, the public interest is conceived as the policy which emerges from the conflict of interests within the democratic process, or, occasionally, as the process of interest conflict and compromise itself. I have criticized these conceptions elsewhere.4 Their most fundamental flaw is the failure to see anything to politics beyond the encounter of interests: that is, wants, desires, or preferences. In the "politics of interest" there is no public to possess an interest, let alone any criteria according to which an interest's moral or political worth might be assessed. I do not intend to re-cover that ground in this essay. I intend, rather, to suggest how a "unitary conception" of the common good, such as Yves R. Simon's, avoids the theoretical pitfalls to which other theories are subject. The term is taken from Virginia Held's classification of public interest theories. Held's criticism of other conceptions-"preponderance theories" and "common interest theories"-parallels and complements that given above of the dominant conceptions and need not be

Where communitarian theorists were once voices crying in the wilderness of political philosophy, now they camp near the centre of the discipline. This paper appraises the success of the new communal stirrings, particularly the work of Alasdair MacIntyre, Michael Sandel, Michael Walzer and Benjamin Barber. It also evaluates and finds wanting the liberal critics of the new communitarian turn, who defend the ‘thin’ theory of the self against the ‘thicker’, embedded theories of self advanced by the communitarians. The critics' contention that liberal tolerance and human rights depend on a ‘thin’ theory of the self is not persuasive. Yet the theories of community submitted as remedies for ‘thin’ theories of the self are themselves too thin. First, consideration of individual elements of community is too narrow. Character, for example, is mentioned by many of the communitarians but not explored in depth. Secondly, even those theorists who examine some essentials in depth neglect the range of requirements, particularly authority, loyalty and commitment. The communitarian line of argument, however, may very well help to move theoretical and political debate beyond the sterile confines of regnant ideologies.

T HE CONCEPT OF "the public interest" is important for at least two reasons. In the first place, the debate over the meaning and usefulness of the term in recent academic literature, especially in the field of political science but also to some extent in law, contains a great deal of intrinsic interest. The idea is important in the law of regulatory commissions; it appears frequently in the literature of public administration; and it abounds in political speeches and editorials.1 Recently the activities of public-interest lobbies on behalf of consumer and environmental causes have attracted extensive attention and comment.

Studies of religion and politics have tended recently to ignore the role played by public policy in the political activity of religious groups. This article, which examines religious politics in the 1970's and 1980's, finds reasons for this tendency in both liberal society's view of religion and the dynamics of social science in a liberal society. It suggests that different types of public policy, classified here as church-state, personal morality, and peace / justice, will have different effects on religious interests and promote different kinds of political activity by religious groups. The authors analyze major theoretical perspectives on religion and politics-interest group theory, civil religion, status politics, and secularization, and they conclude that conditions are such as to suggest the persistence of religious activity in American politics.