It’s now been three years since Michael Novak passed away. Novak was a Roman Catholic theologian, philosopher, and author, and was a powerful defender of human liberty. In this episode, Acton’s Samuel Gregg shares Novak’s history, starting with his time on the Left in the 1960s and ’70s and recounting his gradual shift toward conservative thought that culminated in the publication of his 1982 masterwork, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism. In this book, Novak grounded a defense of a free market in Judeo-Christian thought, influencing how many Protestants and Catholics thought about economics. As Gregg recently wrote, “No religious intellectual can match Novak’s influence in facilitating this transformation through the written word in America and throughout the world.”

Listen: An interview about Michael Novak and his vision of the market economy

Michael Novak and the ‘crisis of capitalism’

Rev. Sirico: What I learned from Michael Novak

The Michael Novak book that changed reality

Watch: A Conversation with Michael Novak

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