Twenty-First-Century Conservatism

The great achievement of Leo XIII was to identify the ecology of a healthy society. It's one that sustains the three “necessary” societies in harmonious and ­mutually reinforcing balance. The family or domestic society ­anchored in marriage answers to our needs as domestic creatures. The Church fulfills our religious end. Civic life engages us as political animals. Each has a distinct ­character. Marriage accords with a natural law of male and female complementarity. The Church has a supernatural constitution. Political affairs are more open-­ended and variable, subject to prudential judgments about how best to organize civic life in order to promote the ­common good.