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Institutional
Affiliations
American Enterprise Institute: George Frederick Jewett Scholar in Religion, Philosophy, and Public Policy; Director of Social and Political Studies (1978-current) (1, 2)
National Endowment for Democracy: Member of the Board (2002-current) (1, 4)
Institute
on Religion and Democracy: Member of the Board of Directors (13)
Empower America: Member of the Board of Directors (3)
National Review Online: Contributing Editor (5)
Capital Research Center: Member of the Board of Directors (6)
Center of the American Experiment: former Member of the Board of Advisors (6)
International Broadcasting: Member of the Board (1984-1994) (1)
First Things: Co-founder and Member of Editorial Board (2)
This World: Co-founder and Member of Editorial Board (2)
Crisis: Co-founder and Publisher/Editor (2)
University of Notre Dame: Professor of American Studies and Welch Chair (1987, 1988) (1)
Syracuse University: University Professor and Ledden-Watson Distinguished Professor of Religion (1976) (1)
Rockefeller Foundation: Director of Humanities Program (1973-1974) (2)
State University of New York at Old Westbury: Faculty Member (1968-1973) (1)
Stanford University: Assistant Professor of Humanities (1965-1968) (2)
Harvard University: Teaching Fellow (2)
Government
Service
Conference on Security and Operation in Europe: U.S. Ambassador (1986) (1)
Presidential Task Force on Project Economic Justice (1985) (1)
UN Human Rights Commission: U.S. Ambassador (1981-1982) (1)
White House Office of Ethnic Affairs: Adviser (1974-1980) (1)
Corporate Connections/Business Interests
Pfizer Corporation: board of directors
Education
Harvard University: M.A. in history and philosophy of religion (1)
Gregorian University (Rome): S.T.B. (1)
Stonehill College: B.A. (1)
Right Web Connections
American Enterprise Institute
Institute on Religion and Democracy
National Endowment for Democracy
Institute on Religion and Public Life
Empower America
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Highlights
& Quotes
More than any other neoconservative, Michael Novak has helped create a religious common ground for social conservatives, neoconservatives, and the Christian right. A Catholic theologian and longtime colleague of George Weigel, Novak has over the past three decades worked to bring Catholics into the neoconservative fold--and in the process has infuriated liberal and progressive members of the church.
As an American Enterprise Institute scholar for more than two decades, Michael Novak has attempted to bring together capitalism and social democracy within Catholicism, preaching concepts such as wealth accumulation and free market principles that the Vatican is opposed to. Along with David Jessup of the U.S.-government funded American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD), Penn Kemble, and Richard John Neuhaus, Novak help found the neoconservative Institute on Religion and Democracy.
In 1976 William Brock, chairman of the Republican Party, awarded Novak with the Republicans' "Favorite Democrat Award," which was presented none too soon since in the next few years Novak would leave the Democrats, ally himself with the Christian right, and support Reagan for president. (7) After turning to the new right and neoconservatism for his inspiration, Novak found a readership for his string of books about theology, politics, and capitalism. He helped build and maintains close links with an array of neoconservative institutes that aim to bring religion into the public square, including: Institute on Religion and Public Life, Institute on Religion and Democracy, American Enterprise Institute, Ethics and Public Policy Center, and Empower America.
Novak's niche role as a neocon political intellectual has been to provide the moral, ethical, and theological underpinnings of America's free-wheeling capitalist culture. He views the corporation as a sacred relic that needs constant polishing. In a puff piece produced for Pfizer pharmaceutical corporation, Novak (who sits on Pfizer's board of directors) traces the origins of the modern corporation to the Benedictine monasteries whose trading networks constituted the "West's first transnational corporations." As the current director of AEI's Religion, Philosophy, and Public Policy program, Novak offers a steady stream of moral justifications for U.S. transnational corporations--without which "the hopes of the poor would be bleak indeed." For Novak, "the three crucial institutions" fundamental to any healthy society are the family, religion, and the business corporation. (8)
In the September 2002 President's Economic Forum, Novak was glorifying capitalism in statements like the following: "The business corporation is the strategically central institution of social justice," responsible "for the liberation of the poor of the world through jobs and the creation of new wealth" and "for the success of democracy." (9)
In the name of resurrecting the orthodoxy of the Catholic Church, Novak has been on a personal crusade since his conversion to conservatism in the 1970s to challenge the church's teachings on social justice, fair economic relations, and what constitutes a "just war." In feel-good essays for capitalists, such as "Not Only the Rich are Capitalists Now" and "Capitalist Liberation," Novak makes the argument that "wealth is a useful way to open to all . the way of virtue." Novak has even developed a "theology of the corporation." In the lead-up to the preemptive invasion of Iraq, Novak argued that "the aim of a just war is the blocking of great evil." (10) Novak's moralizing about the virtues of the corporation and unprovoked wars has not only won him high marks--and honorariums--from corporate America but also has ensured that he receives steady support from the right-wing's bloc of foundations.
The separation of church and state is not one of the traditional U.S. values Novak promotes--either in theory or practice. In theory, Novak believes that government should promote the role of orthodox religion in society. In practice, he believes that religion should support the role of the government policies he as a Catholic theologian supports. Novak serves as a Republican Party appointee to the board of the neocon-dominated National Endowment for Democracy that promotes free-market democracies by channeling U.S. government political aid to foreign nongovernmental organizations and political parties.
At times, Novak has also served the U.S. government to channel its foreign policy views to the Vatican. His challenge of the church's just-war doctrine attracted the attention of the Bush administration during the buildup of lies and troops prior to the invasion of Iraq. In February 2003, James Nicholson, the U.S. ambassador to the Holy See and former Republican Party chairman, invited Novak to present to the Vatican the theological position for a preventive war against Iraq. Novak's trip to Rome as an ostensible representative of U.S. Catholics provoked a storm of complaints within the church that the U.S. government had "selected a theologian to represent the U.S. Catholic community's position on the morality of war without any consultation with recognized Catholic leaders." (11)
As a NED board member, Novak has advocated that the U.S. government increase its programs to build free-market democracies in the Middle East and Latin America, reasoning that will at the same time spread religion. In his The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism published by the American Enterprise Institute, Novak concluded: "Democratic capitalism calls forth not only a new theology, but a new type of religion." (12)
Houston Catholic Worker writers Mark and Louise Zwick sum up what they think the problem is with Michael Novak and others of his ilk (such as George Weigel and Neuhaus): "They use Catholicism as window dressing to promote an economic system based solely on self-interest, a system that has nothing to do with the Gospel or Catholic social teaching." The Zwicks urge Novak to take responsibility for his actions in Latin America, where he advocated for the eventually destructive neoliberal reforms in the name of the church. (13)
Shortly before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Novak wrote about the morality of going to war in Iraq, signaling a possible connection with Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda: "From the point of view of public authorities who must calculate the risks of action or inaction vis-à-vis the regime of Saddam Hussein, two points are salient. Saddam Hussein has the means to wreak devastating destruction upon Paris, London, or Chicago, or any cities of his choosing, if only he can find clandestine undetectable "foot soldiers" to deliver small amounts of the sarin gas, botulins, anthrax, and other lethal elements to predetermined targets. Secondly, independent terrorist assault cells have already been highly trained for precisely such tasks, and have trumpeted far and wide their intentions to carry out such destruction willingly, with joy. All that is lacking between these two incendiary elements is a spark of contact."(14) In a response to an interview question in August 2003, Novak described Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as narrative religions, but that Islam was "a more warlike narrative." (15)
Funding
Between 1985 and 2002, Novak received over $1.4 million from the conservative Olin, Bradley, and McKenna foundations. (7) From Olin Foundation, which gleans its fortune in part from arms manufacture, Novak's AEI program on religion and policy has received more than $1 million since 1985.
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