John Courtney Murray's (Mis)Use of "Natural Law"

John Courtney Murray was one of most dominant U.S. Catholic theologians of the twentieth century. His paradigm for Catholic social ethics still maintains a deep influence on Catholic social thought. Murray’s (mis)use of the natural law tradition in Catholic thought allowed him to see the “self-evident” truths of America as self-evident truths for Catholics too.

Catholic participation in the American consensus has been full and free, unreserved and unembarrassed, because the contents of this consensus – the ethical and political principles drawn from the tradition of natural law – approve themselves to the Catholic intelligence and conscience. Where this kind of language is talked, the Catholic joins in the conversation with complete ease. It is his language. The ideas expressed are native to his own universe of discourse. Even the accent, being American, suits his tongue.

John Courtney Murray. We Hold These Truths: Catholic Reflections on the American Proposition (Kansas City: Sheed and Ward, 1960) 41.

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