Not-quite-so-glassy

Rob is right, certainly, that "cherry picking" of the Catholic Social Tradition is a temptation for those on the right and the left alike.  It strike me, though -- I've been a subscriber for about 11 years -- that First Things magazine's house is not as made-of-glass (there is a word for being made-of-glass, right?  what is it?) as Rob's post suggests. 

Surely, the magazine has -- many, many times -- addressed questions relating to the justice of the economic order and social-welfare policy, in a way that is informed by the various authors' understanding of the Tradition.  On the other hand, my impression -- which could be wrong, of course -- is that (as Novak suggests) the claim that the Tradition *necessarily* and *at its heart* speaks to the inviolable dignity of the human person (and, therefore, to abortion, embryo-destroying research, and euthanasia) encounters more resistance "on Catholic campuses" than would, in the First Things editorial offices, the claim that the Tradition poses strong challenges to our consumerist economic order or to libertarian social-welfare policies.

That said, I assume that we can all agree that the cherry-picking temptation is one to be resisted (and is hard, sometimes, to resist!).