New Polity

In honor of the new Pope Leo XIV, and in celebration of the 134th anniversary of Rerum Novarum, Alex Denley and Andrew Willard Jones discuss the pontificate of Pope Leo XIII and the birth of modern Catholic Social Teaching. Our conference is two weeks away! Spots are still open: https://newpolity.com/events/2025You have money burning a hole in your pocket, and a mind yearning for knowledge. We have books. https://newpolity.com/pressSubscribe to the greatest magazine on Earth: https://newpolity.com/magazineJoin the conversation on our Discord: https://discord.gg/bNJ2uE7as6

In honor of the passing of the Pope, Marc Barnes and Reuben Slife discuss the life of Francis and the theology which he embodied: the theology of peoples. They also discuss Rocco Buttiglione's new book Modernity's Alternative and how Latin America formed the Pope's pastoral life and mission.

Modernity's Alternative is now available for order.

Registration is still open for the New Polity Conference!

Subscribe to New Polity MagazineRead more: Our essaysJoin the conversation on our Discord

At the 2024 New Polity conference, Matthew B. Crawford gave the keynote address in which he contrasted the view of man inherent in technocratic rationalism with that of a Christian view. Drawing from the work of Joseph Ratzinger and Michael Oakeshott, Crawford draws a distinction between an orientation toward receiving life as gift and cramped rationalism that views man as an object to be synthetically remade. The current push for technocratic control over every sphere of life collapses the vertical order of reality and aims to eliminate contingency, risk, and play. In contrast, one who affirms the inherent goodness of being is able to experience a real vitality of life in a meaningful world. Next conference is only a month and a half away. Make the trek out to God's own Steubenville! https://newpolity.com/events/2025

Pre-order for Modernity's Alternative is now available!

In this podcast, Reuben Slife and Marc Barnes discuss a new book from New Polity press: Modernity's Alternative by Rocco Buttiglione.

In the 20th century, a movement of priests and laypeople sought to find a way past the clash of ideologies that wracked Latin America. They found a solution in Latin America itself, which was born out of the conflict between Europeans and natives when, with the appearance of the Virgin Mary at Guadalupe, the grace of God forged one, new people out of strangers and enemies.This movement—called “theology of peoples”—focuses on the reality known as “a people.” Every human person belongs to a people. And every people has a “world”: the way it makes sense out of life, work, love, and the uncertain future.

What is the difference between a people and a nation? In this podcast, Marc Barnes and Alex Denley discuss Ernest Renan's influential lecture "What is a nation?". Renan argues that a nation is not formed by common descent, language, religion, or geography. Rather, a nation is a spiritual principle that requires sacrifice, and a forgetting of the past. Marc and Alex discuss Renan's definition of a nation and how it formed the development of nation states in the modern period. Registration is still open for New Polity Conference 2025! Ernest Renan's lecture can be found hereSubscribe to New Polity Magazine! Check out Marc's essay "National Forgetting"

In this special episode of Political Saints, Marc Barnes and Nicolas McAfee discuss the heroic political life of St. Thomas More. Thomas More was the Lord High Chancellor of England from 1529 until 1531. After refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy, he was convicted of treason and was executed. Pope Pius XI canonized Thomas More as a martyr in 1935.

Dr. Nicolas McAfee is the Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow at the Center for Thomas More Studies. He is the author of Political Wisdom in Late Shakespeare: A Way out of the Wreck (Lexington, forthcoming).You can find more on Thomas More Studies here: https://thomasmorestudies.org/New Polity Conference 2025 is only a few months away! Register at https://newpolity.com/eventsSubscribe to the greatest magazine on earth: https://newpolity.com/magazineCheck out our books at https://newpolity.com/press

For the last five years, the Political Right has been debating over a program for regime change in America: should populism be used to construct a new elite class? Should a new administration retire all government employees? Can the bureaucratic state be maintained but filled with new conservative staff? In this podcast, Alex Denley and Dr. Andrew Willard Jones discuss subsidiarity as the solution to this debate, and how it provides a program for genuine regime change. Dr. Andrew Jones' new book The Church Against the State is available for purchase!Subscribe for all our best essays Join the conversation on our Discord

What is the meaning of national identity? Does strong national identity necessarily create a hostile relation with other nations? In this podcast, Marc Barnes and Alex Denley discuss Joseph Ratzinger's short book "The Unity of Nations." Through a discussion of the political theology of Origen and St. Augustine, Ratzinger shows how the early Christians viewed their relation to the nations, and Christianity's nation-unifying gospel. Registration is open for the New Polity Conference 2025! Subscribe to New Polity magazine for all our best essays: Check out the books published by New Polity press: Join the conversation on our Discord

Registration is open for New Polity Conference 2025!

Are we headed to a grand and glorious technological future? In this talk, Andrew Willard Jones expects the opposite: "The Future is Always Worse Than You Think It Will Be." As he explains, there are two paths with the development on new technologies: one which leads to an extension of the humane world into greater areas, and another, the technocratic, which closes and mines the world from within.