George Weigel, in The Washington QuarterlyFor Democracy (Autumn 1989), 1800 K st. N.w., Washington, D.C. 20006.

It seems entirely natural today to find the Catholic Church in the forefront of the struggle for human rights everywhere from Poland to South Korea. In fact, writes Weigel, the president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, the Church's "conversion" is relatively re- cent, and it is not without problems.
As late as 1864, Pope Pius IX rejected out of hand i...