Date of birth: 9 Sept. 1933 Place of birth: Johnstown, Pa Parentage: Son of Michael J. Novak and Irene Sakmar Family: Married to Karen Laub-Novak, a professional artist and illustrator, until her death in August, 2009. They have three children (Richard, Tanya, and Jana) and three grandchildren.
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MICHAEL NOVAK: A BIOGRAPHY
[Awakening from Nihilism: The 1994 Templeton Prize Awarded to Michael Novak, ed. Derek Cross and Brian Anderson (Crisis Books, 1995), 59-65.]
Michael Novak’s life is a story of extraordinary religious scholarship, prescient social commentary, and striking intellectual independence. His revolutionary insights into the spiritual foundations of economic and political systems and his articulation of the moral ideals of democratic capitalism have secured Novak’s place as one of the world’s most original thinkers of the late twentieth century.
His selection as recipient of the 1994 Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion caps a career of undisputed leadership in theological and philosophical discourse that has left its mark on countries around the world. As one reviewer said of his 1982 book, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism, it “may prove one of those rare books that actually changes the way things are.” It did.
On issues as diverse as capitalism v. socialism, human rights, faith, labor union history, sports, ethnicity, peace, liberty and justice, the American presidency, families, welfare reform, television, and the role of the churches in a pluralistic world, Novak has set the standard for critical and literate debate in more than a score of books, hundreds of syndicated columns, and innumerable lectures, articles, and commentaries.
His work has been effectively applied by a variety of world leaders—from Eastern Europe to Latin America, from Beijing to London. Indeed, Novak’s work on the moral basis of democracy and capitalism may be more widely celebrated outside the United States than within it. In her 1993 book, The Downing Street Years, Lady Thatcher praised his “new and striking language” and “important insights” and added that his writing on the morality of political economy “provided the intellectual basis for my approach to those great questions brought together in political parlance as ‘the quality of life.’”
In Czechoslovakia, the dissidents of Charter 77 and Civic Forum used The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism and The Experience of Nothingness in their clandestine study groups. In El Salvador, President Cristiani once noted that after hearing Michael Novak lecture in San Salvador and reading The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism, he committed himself to running for the presidency of that war-torn land and to work for a just peace. In Chile and Argentina, proponents of democracy from right to left—including, often, Christian Socialists—turned to his writings on democracy and free markets for guidance.
So it was also among democrats in South Korea in the early 1980s. So it is now among younger scholars even in Communist cadres in mainland China, where The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism has just been published with the permission of the Communist Party. In Poland during 1984, a great debate raged within Solidarnosc over whether to risk the underground publication of The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism: In a very close vote, supporters triumphed. Many today look back upon that vote as a watershed in the movement away from socialism and toward a new ideal.
His reflections on religious, political, and economic issues have consistently been marked by outstanding foresight. Novak has repeatedly staked a lone position that eventually became mainstream thought.
Before the widespread recognition of ethnicity as a potent political force, Novak published The Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics in 1972. As opposition to nuclear weapons swept the western world in the early 1980s, Novak demurred, citing the need for fundamental change in Soviet politics as the only sure way to reduce the danger of nuclear war. Only later, after Gorbachev assumed the Soviet presidency and began moving toward internal political reform did the world first see a decline in the nuclear threat.
When Gorbachev introduced glasnost, Novak—then U.S. Ambassador to the Helsinki process in Bern—urged Western leaders to embrace the first tentative moves to openness but to reject inadequate measures.
When many theologians embraced “Liberation Theology” as the preferred political course for Latin America, Novak questioned the practical value of recommending socialism for poverty stricken peoples—long before the public collapse of socialism in 1989.
When most Catholic scholars were defending a “middle way” between capitalism and socialism, Novak’s work on the three systems of liberty—political, economic, and moral—was widely regarded to have influenced the argument of Pope John Paul II in Centesimus Annus.
Much of Novak’s life work sprang from his childhood. A descendent of Slovak immigrants, Novak was born in 1933 in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, in a blue-collar community. The oldest of five children, he grew up in a home where the Harvard Classics were the first joint purchase of his parents. His mother imbued Novak with a love of Catholicism. His father, who had only an eighth grade education but was a avid reader of history, gave him a healthy skepticism of the customary and conventional.
To test his call to the priesthood, Novak entered Holy Cross Seminary of the Congregation of Holy Cross at Notre Dame University at age 14. From there, he went on to receive a B.A. from Stonehill College, graduating summa cum laude. His
religious superiors selected him for higher studies at Gregorian University in Rome, where he earned a Bachelor of Theology, graduating cum laude. Beginning to question his vocation, Novak transferred to Catholic University in Washington, D.C.
A younger brother, Dick, followed Novak in religious study, eventually becoming a priest. It was to end in tragedy. While on missionary work in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), he was murdered during a Hindu-Muslim riot in 1964. In January 1960, after twelve years in the seminary and within months of being ordained, Novak left Holy Cross, moving to New York City to work on a novel, before being accepted to Harvard on a graduate fellowship that autumn. In 1963, Novak married Karen Ruth Laub. They have three children and one grandchild. A native of Iowa, Karen was an art instructor at Carleton College and had studied with Kokoschka and Lazansky. She is a professional painter, illustrator, and sculptor.
Novak traveled to Rome in 1963 and 1964 to cover the Second Vatican Council for various publications including Time, and in the process wrote what is now considered the landmark report on the second session, The Open Church (1964). From the time he was a young man, Novak thought that philosophers err when they break contact with the concrete issues of their time, and he resolved to hold his judgments under the pressure of regular journalism.
Novak introduced an empirical dimension to traditional Catholic teachings on family issues as editor of The Experience of Marriage, also in 1964. Resisting the “God Is Dead” school, he developed a philosophical method of self-knowledge, which he called “intelligent subjectivity,” as a way of deciding between atheism and theism in Belief and Unbelief (1965). After initial support for American involvement in Vietnam, Novak spent a month there in 1967 (one of the Stanford students he was visiting was killed in an ambush while Novak was there) and soon became a resister, co-writing Vietnam: Crisis of Conscience in 1967 with Robert McAfee Brown and Rabbi Abraham Heschel. He helped liberal Democratic presidential contenders Eugene McCarthy, Robert Kennedy in 1968, and ended up working for George McGovern in 1972. He served as speechwriter for McGovern’s running mate, Sargent Shriver, during the final months of the Democrats’ ill-fated 1972 presidential campaign. And from 1968 through 1972 he taught at the State University of New York’s experimental campus at Old Westbury.
From 1973 to 1974, Novak launched a new humanities program for the Rockefeller Foundation. Many of his initiatives—including the humanities fellowships and the National Humanities Center in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina—endure today.
As the years went by, Novak’s experience in liberal environments led him to ever-deeper dissent—first on foreign policy issues, then on cultural issues such a labor unions, abortion, the family, and crime. Gradually, he became a trailblazer in what came to be called “neoconservatism.” (Novak defines a neoconservative as “a progressive with three teenage children.”)
Novak cemented that position in 1983 when the National Review devoted an entire issue to “Moral Clarity in the Nuclear Age,” a lengthy lay letter drafted by Novak and signed by 100 fellow Catholic laypersons, including such notables as former Treasury Secretary William E. Simon, William Bennett, and Clare Boothe Luce. Whereas the public letter from the American Catholic bishops focused its moral reasoning on various weapons systems, the lay letter highlighted the fundamental need to change the closed Soviet political system. It also recommended a switch from an offensive deterrent strategy to strategic defense, a position taken before President Reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative, commonly known as Star Wars.
The Vatican, in a public memo to the U.S. bishops, raised many of the points made in the lay letter, while German and French bishops also drew from Novak in their own later letters.
Perhaps the most surprising of Novak’s religious meditations has been his sustained inquiry into American sports, especially baseball, basketball, and football, the three sports “invented by Americans for Americans.” Norman Mailer wrote of The Joy of Sports (1976), “If America is the real religion of Americans, then the sports arena is our true church, and Michael Novak has more to say about this, and says it better, than anyone else.”
In 1976, Harper’s published Novak’s “The Family Out of Favor” as a cover story—years before the term “family values” became a political buzzword. Later, The New Consensus on Family and Wefare (1987) cited “dependency” rather than “poverty” as the deeper social problem, and it pointed out the crucial need to reverse welfare incentives that lead to out-of-wedlock births, with their destructive social consequences. Unpopular when first articulated, these themes have moved to the center of discussion today.
Novak’s efforts to keep his thoughts concrete have taken many forms. His syndicated column, “Illusions and Realities,” appeared in the Washington Star from 1976 to 1980, and was nominated for a Pulitzer. His column on religion, “Tomorrow and Tomorrow,” appeared monthly in the National Review from 1979 to 1986. Forbes has featured his present column, “The Larger Context,” since 1989. His books have been translated into every major western language, as well as Bengali, Korean, Chinese, and Japanese.
He has founded two journals—This World and Crisis—and served on the editorial board of several others.
He has taught at Stanford (where he was chosen as one of the school’s “two most influential professors” by the senior class during two of his three years there), Harvard, SUNY Old Westbury, Syracuse, and Notre Dame.
Since 1978, he has been a resident scholar at one of the world’s most influential think tanks, the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research in Washington, D.C., where, since 1983, he has held the George Frederick Jewett Chair in religion and public policy and is director of social and political studies.
Novak has received twelve honorary degrees (including two in Latin America), the Friend of Freedom Award from the Coalition for a Democratic Majority, the George Washington Honor Medal from the Freedom Foundation, the Award of Excellence from the Religion in Media, 8th Annual Angel Awards, and the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.
Now, in 1994, he has been chosen to become the twenty-fourth winner of the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, an appropriate achievement of a lifetime for a lifetime of achievement.
MICHAEL NOVAK: A CHRONOLOGY 1933—On September 9, Michael Novak (Michael John Novak, Jr.), a grandson of Slovak immigrants, is born to Michael John and Irene Sakmar Novak in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Novak grows up as the oldest of five children in a blue-collar community where the Harvard Classics are the first joint purchase his parents make for their home.
1939—His father moves the family “up on the hill” to the suburb of Southmont.
1943-1947—Through promotions, his father moves the family to Indiana, Pennsylvania, then McKeesport, Pennsylvania.
1946—A true western Pennsylvanian, Novak organizes eighth-grade football team (six-man, tackle) to play all comers. The team finishes the season at 16-3.
1947—Founder and editor of eighth grade yearbook, The Crusader, at Pius V grammar school, McKeesport. Enters Holy Cross Seminary of the Congregation of Holy Cross at the University of Notre Dame at age 14.
1951—Graduates from Holy Cross Seminary, chooses the newly formed Eastern Province of the Congregation of Holy Cross, and enters the novitiate at North Dartmouth, Massachusetts.
1952—Enters Stonehill College in North Easton, Massachusetts.
1953—A younger brother, Richard, follows Novak to Notre Dame and then into the Congregation of Holy Cross, Eastern Province.
1955—Captains the Seminary’s intramural championship touch football team, which loses only two games in four years. In 1955, Novak is league’s highest scorer.
1956—Receives his Bachelor of Arts from Stonehill College, graduating summa cum laude. Chosen by his superiors for higher theological studies at the Gregorian University in Rome. Publishes first national article in Commonweal, the liberal lay Catholic journal.
1957—Organizes international quarterly, Colloquium, for Holy Cross Congregation. Also leads first international convention of all seminarians in Rome for “coming Catholic renaissance.”
1958—Receives his Bachelor of Theology degree from Gregorian University, graduating cum laude. Beginning to doubt his vocation, transfers to Catholic University in Washington, D.C., that autumn.
1960—Leaves the Congregation of Holy Cross after twelve years in seminary and within months of ordination as a priest. Given $100 by his father, moves to New York City to finish a novel. Works on an unsuccessful political campaign for a New Jersey congressional candidate, where he coins the phrase “New Frontier.” (Using different sources, John Kennedy later appropriates the term for his presidency.) Naively applying only to Harvard and Yale, he is accepted at both. Enters Harvard in September on a graduate fellowship.
1961—Receives prestigious Kent Fellowship as well as a teaching fellowship at Harvard. His first novel, The Tiber Was Silver, is published. Publishes “God and the Colleges” in Harper’s. Brother Dick is ordained a priest in LeMans, France, June 29, and chooses to become a missionary. He is later sent to Dacca, East Pakistan, to study Arabic.
1962—Novak raises questions about Catholic teachings on birth control privately with John T. Noonan, Jr., and others at Harvard. In May, meets Karen Ruth Laub, young assistant professor of art at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, a painter and former student of Oskar Kokoschka and Maurizio Lazansky. That summer, returns to Europe to work on a novel, and visits editors of Catholic journals in England and France to raise questions about birth control.
1963—On June 29, marries Karen Laub, now a professional artist and illustrator. Between 1965 to 1972, they have three children, Richard, Tanya, and jana. Using their savings, they take a six-month honeymoon in Rome. As a freelancer, Novak covers the second session of the Second Vatican Council for various publications and inherits a friend’s contract for a book on the Council (manuscript due January 16, 1964). Karen does a set of seventeen lithographs on “The Apocalypse.”
1964—On January 16, younger brother Richard, C.S.C., is murdered in Dacca during the Hindu-Muslim riots, his body never recovered. After delivering the manuscript for The Open Church, and after his brother’s memorial mass, Michael returns to Harvard for spring semester. Three books, The Experience of Marriage, A New Generation: American and Catholic, a collection of his essays, and The Open Church, are published, launching Novak’s career as one of his generation’s most insightful philosophers and theologians. The Experience of Marriage, which Novak edits, features thirteen Catholic couples candidly discussing the moral dilemmas of birth control in marriage. The Open Church, in which Novak stakes out a position as a liberal Catholic intellectual (modeling his report on Lord Acton’s coverage of Vatican I), is regarded as the landmark publication covering the second (and most decisive) session of the Second Vatica Council. Returning to Rome in the fall on a six-month assignment for Time magazine, Novak finds wide access to the halls of the Vatican for the Council’s third session. Karen finishes six etchings on T. S. Eliot’s “Ash Wednesday.”
1965—Accepts a three-year assistant professorship in religious studies at Stanford University, the first Catholic to hold such a position in the program’s history. For two of the three years, the senior class elects him as one of the university’s two most influential professors. Novak’s Belief and Unbelief engaged with leading unbelievers, argues the case for belief in God through self-knowledge, and is hailed as a classic. It remains Novak’s best-selling book, with about 200,000 copies sold.
1966—Becomes associate editor at Commonweal. Receives a Master of Arts in History and Philosophy of Religion from Harvard. As American involvement in Vietnam grows, Novak at first supports intervention.
1967—Travels to Vietnam—visiting three of his students there—to monitor national elections. Serves as the first Catholic contributing editor at Christian Century magazine, a position he holds until 1980, and becomes contributing editor to the Journal of Ecumenical Studies. A Time to Build, a collection of his essays on a broad range of philosophical and political subjects, which includes an account of his growing resistance to the war in Vietnam, is published. With Robert McAfee Brown and Abraham Heschel, he also writes Vietnam: Crisis of Conscience, a major text of the anti-war movement. Joins the board of CALCAV, Clergy and Laity Concerned About Vietnam.
1968—Becomes the first Catholic contributing editor for Christianity and Crisis, a position he holds until 1976. Edits American Philosophy and the Future, published in English and French. Works on the campaigns of presidential candidates Eugene McCarthy and Robert F. Kennedy. Accepts associate professorship of philosophy and religious studies at the State University of New York (SUNY) in Old Westbury, the state’s experimental campus, under Harris Wofford.
1969—Chosen to serve as provost of Disciplines College at SUNY Old Westbury. A Theology for Radical Politics, a collection of essays siding with, but also questioning, the New Left, published.
l970—Helps launch the Hastings Institute, a study center for bioethics. Novak’s Naked I Leave, his second novel, and The Experience of Nothingness, an American response to the European analysis of nihilism, is published to considerable critical acclaim. (It remains in print.) His brief monograph, “Story” in Politics, also appears. Awarded an LL.D. from Keuka College in Keuka, New York. Spends summer and fall campaigning for democratic congressional candidates in 39 states with R. Sargent Shriver. Begins to worry about the split in the Democratic party between the universities and the people.
l971—Named as a judge for the National Book Awards, and the DuPont Broadcast Journalism awards, the latter until 1980. Receives an L.H.D. from Davis and Elkins College in West Virginia. Two collections of essays, Politics: Realism and Imagination and All the Catholic People, and Ascent of the Mountain, Flight of the Dove, an introductory textbook to religious studies, appear. Takes a leave of absence from SUNY Old Westbury in autumn to work on the presidential campaign of Senator Ed Muskie. Karen wins commission for 12-foot bronze statue of Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug, for a park in Cresco, Iowa.
1972—Returns to SUNY Old Westbury in January and covers successive primaries in weekly essays for Newsday. His The Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics appears early in the spring, predicting a “new politics of neighborhood and family” and the growth of interest in roots, “the new ethnicity,” and cultural pluralism. Asked to join the presidential campaign of Senator George McGovern after the Democratic convention, he spends August through November with Sargent Shriver’s vice-presidential campaign as chief speechwriter. Drawings by his wife, with accompanying texts (written during earlier years) finally appears as A Book of Elements.
1973—Invited to design a new humanities program for the Rockefeller Foundation in New York, serving as associate director. Drawing on lessons learned about the “symbolic geography” of America in the national election campaigns of 1970 and 1972 and reflecting on the current and perennial crisis in the Presidency, Novak begins writing Choosing Our King.
1974—After accomplishing his task at the Rockefeller Foundation, Novak fulfills a lifetime ambition to write and lecture full time on his own. Novak establishes EMPAC, the Ethnic Millions Political Action Committee and successfully campaigns for the creation of a White House Office of Ethnic Affairs. Serves as an advisor to the office during the Ford and Carter administrations. Choosing Our King published.
1976—Accepts a University Chair at Syracuse University as the Ledden-Watson Distinguished Professor of Religion. Chosen as writer in residence at the Washington Star. That same year, his “Illusions and Realities” becomes a syndicated column. Receives an L.H.D. from LeMoyne College in Syracuse, New York. The Joy of Sports, part of Novak’s cycle of sustained theological reflection on all aspects of culture, is published and praised by, among others, Norman Mailer and George Plimpton. Its aim is to answer the question: What explains the fact that a grown man is depressed when his favorite team loses? It explores the mythic dimensions of baseball, basketball, and football, the three sports invented by Americans for Americans. Novak’s favorites: in football, Notre Dame; in baseball, the Dodgers (Brooklyn once, now Los Angeles); in basketball, Duke.
1977—Awarded his second LL.D., this time from Stonehill College. Also receives an L.H.D. from Sacred Heart University.
1978—Washington-based American Enterprise Institute chooses Novak to become its resident scholar in religion and public policy, a position he continues to hold. Johnstown, Pennsylvania names him Man of the Year. The Guns of Lattimer, a history of an 1897 coal strike in Pennsylvania in which 19 Slavic immigrant miners were killed and another 31 seriously wounded by a sheriff’s posse which was later cleared of all charges, is published, as well as The American Vision, Novak’s first effort to distinguish the three great social systems of the free society: polity, economy, and culture.
1979—His syndicated column, “Illusions and Realities,” becomes a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Named religion editor at the National Review, a position he holds until 1986, and begins an regular column, “Tomorrow and Tomorrow,” that appears monthly. Receives an L.H.D. from Muhlenberg College. Novak launches a series of five summer institutes jointly sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute and Syracuse University (later Notre Dame) to explore new questions about religion and economics.
1980—Chiefly on foreign policy and economic grounds, Novak supports Ronald Reagan over Jimmy Carter in the presidential campaign, as a “Reagan Democrat.” By now, Novak is broadly identified with the “neoconservative” camp, former leftists now critical of the left.
1981—In January, named as U.S. Ambassador to the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations. His collected speeches, Rethinking Human Rights I, from the 37th Session of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, is published. Receives L.H.D.s from Boston University and D’Youville College. He is presented with the Friend of Freedom award by the Coalition for a Democratic Majority. U.S. Catholic bishops begin drafting a controversial letter questioning the validity of American nuclear policy, a letter to which Novak’s opposition later plays a significant role.
1982—The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism is hailed by reviewers as “the best treatment of the moral and religious basis of capitalism since Adam Smith.” The book asserts that capitalism is “a necessary but not sufficient” condition for democracy. Founds a new quarterly, This World and a new monthly, Catholicism in Crisis (later shortened to Crisis). Rethinking Human Rights II, from the 38th Session of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, is published.
1983—National Review devotes entire issue to “Moral Clarity in the Nuclear Age,” a lay letter drafted by Novak and signed by a committee of one hundred, challenging the first draft of the American Catholic bishops’ letter on nuclear policy. The bishops emphasized the morality of certain weapons, while the lay letter emphasized the crucial role of politics: Change the politics of the U.S.S.R. and the whole problem changes. Confession of a Catholic, a book of reflections on each item of the Nicene Creed, criticizes trendiness and accommodationist tendencies, especially with respect to radical feminism, presenting arguments, for example, why the Nicene Creed speaks of “God the Father” and why, at the incarnation, the Messiah came as a male, not a female. Critics say Novak is becoming a neoconservative in theology as well as in politics. Named to the George Frederick Jewett Chair of Public Policy Research at the American Enterprise Institute. Receives an L.H.D. from New England College.
1984—Although he had already served for two years, confirmed by the U.S. Senate to join the Board of International Broadcasting, the governing body of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. Named as a member of the State Department monitoring panel for UNESCO. Becomes a vice chairperson for the Lay Commission of Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy. Together with the commission, Novak drafts Toward the Future, a powerful endorsement of the interplay between Catholicism, capitalism, and economy. The report stands in stark contrast to a soon-to-be-released American bishops’ first draft (of three) criticizing the American economic system. Awarded the George Washington Honor Medal from the Freedom Foundation. Receives an L.H.D. from Rivier College. Freedom With Justice published.
1985—Se1ected by President Ronald Reagan as a member of the Presidential Task Force of the Project for Economic Justice. Presented the Award of Excellence, Religion in Media, at the 8th Annual Angel Awards. Named as the first U.S. member to the Argentine National Academy of Sciences, Morals and Politics. The struggling Polish liberation movement, Solidarnosc, publishes an underground edition of Novak’s The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism. It is followed by other editions in Latin America, Czechoslovakia, Italy, France, Germany, South Korea, and China.
1986—For Marquette University and AEI, Novak establishes the Working Seminar on Family and American Welfare Policy. He is named as a Council Scholar for the Library of Congress, a position he continues to hold, and is also appointed as U.S. Ambassador to the Experts Meeting on Human Contacts of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe—an extension of the Helsinki Accord negotiations. Chosen by Slovak immigrants to receive the Ellis Island Medal of Honor at ceremonies for the hundredth anniversary of the Statue of Liberty. Publishes two long monographs, Human Rights and the New Realism, delivered at Harvard, and Character and Crime, delivered at Catholic University. Will It Liberate? Questions About Liberation Theology questions the folly of recommending socialism for societies in Latin America, and offers an alternative more likely to help the poor.
1987—Becomes a visiting W. Harold and Martha Welch Professor of American Studies at Notre Dame (as a commuter) for the autumn semesters of 1987 and 1988. Presents public lectures at Notre Dame for the 200th Anniversary of the U.S. Constitution, “How to Make a Republic Work.” Meanwhile, named director of social and political studies at AEI. Receives an L.H.D. from Marquette University. The report on the Working Seminar on Family and American Welfare Policy, New Consensus on Family and Wefare, drafted by Novak, is highly praised by left and right and widely credited with influencing the Welfare Reform Act of 1988. Installation as Knight of Malta, K.M.G.
l988—During fall semester at Notre Dame, presents monthly public lectures on the ongoing presidential campaign. To Novak’s delight, Notre Dame wins national football championship. Taking Glasnost Seriously, his memoir from the Helsinki negotiations in 1986, published. Delivers centennial lectures at Pontifical Catholic University of Santiago, Chile.
1989—Forbes magazine begins running Novak’s column, “The Larger Context.” Free Persons and the Common Good published.
1990—Becomes a contributing editor of First Things magazine. Honorary degree as Maestro Visitante from La Universidad Popular Autonoma del Estado de Puebla, Mexico.
199l—Pope John Paul II issues Centesimus Annus, his call for “a business economy, a market economy, or simply free economy,” and many observers note echoes of Novak’s writings. This Hemisphere of Liberty, a collection of Novak’s lectures in Latin America, rethinks arguments for capitalism and democracy in classic Catholic terms, calling Thomas Aquinas “the first Whig.” Accredited as Honorary Professor of Universidad de Guyo in Mendoza, Argentina.
1992—Margaret Thatcher presents Novak with the annual Anthony Fisher Prize for his The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism. Leads first in series of summer institutes on The Free Society for Eastern European students, Liechtenstein.
1993—In February, becomes editor-in-chief of the monthly journal Crisis. Delivers the Hayek lecture in London, sponsored by the Institute for Economic Affairs. The Catholic Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, exploring the moral underpinnings supporting a free market system, published. The book challenges the long-held notion that the Protestant work ethic is at the heart of capitalism and, instead, offers a “catholic ethic” (small “c”)—stressing creativity and community—as a better guide to understanding business, as well as solving problems of poverty, race, and ethnicity. In addition, the book opens up the question of “cultural ecology,” that is, the sort of culture necessary to make a free society work. Honorary doctorate from Universidad Francisco Marroquin, Guatemala.
1994—Michael Novak awarded the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion.
