Citizens Yet Strangers

It’s hard — and getting harder — to discern the proper relationship between our Catholic Faith and American political life. Democrat, Republican, third party, or independent — how do we make sense of it all?

Citizens Yet Strangers resets the framework of how we engage with politics as Catholics. As author Kenneth Craycraft argues in this book, American Catholics have been more influenced by classical liberal political theory (of both the “conservative” and “liberal” variety) than by historic Catholic moral theology. While some incidental policy positions of the Democratic and Republican parties converge with Catholic moral teaching, for most Catholics, their respective positions are directed by their party affiliation, not by Catholic moral doctrine.

Craycraft explains how Catholic theology transcends partisan politics, and he challenges Catholics to move away from the individualist liberal impulses of American political identity, whether on the left or the right. Avoiding the common cliches that prevent us from examining the role our faith should play in our public actions, this book dives deeper into the very way we orient our moral and political lives.