How does a Christian transition his personal values to his political beliefs?
Father Sirico: I must confess that I’m somewhat dissatisfied with the word “libertarian” in much the same way and for some of the same reasons that I’m dissatisfied with what “capitalism” (a Marxist word to begin with). It is almost inevitably the case that when these terms are employed one gets bogged down in having to make distinctions as to why for example libertarianism does not necessarily mean libertinism, or why capitalism is not state-capitalism, etc. If by libertarian you mean the belief that the political end of man is liberty, then I am comfortable (Lord Acton having employed the phrase). Further, if the political sphere is to be shrunk to administer the proper functions of government, rather than the pervasive and invasive state apparatus that we have grown accustomed to, then in the end it means to me that the libertarian idea is a modest one – not a whole philosophy of life, an aesthetic, and epistemology or a soteriology, etc., but merely a prescription on governmental i
