Bob Novak On Jesuit Inspired Social Justice

This is an online question / answer with columnist Bob Novak. Novak is a convert to the Catholic Church in 1998. Read his thoughts on Jesuit inspired Social Justice. I have also highlighted his conversion story below.

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Toronto:

Good afternoon. Why is there such an aversion to paying taxes among conservatives -- how else can a country maintain the infrastructure and services necessary for long-term prosperity?

Robert D. Novak:

If you enjoy paying taxes so much, you're more than welcome to pick up mine as well. I think the Treasury would take a check from a Canadian.

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Kennewick, Wash.:

Why should I consider you nonpartisan?

Robert D. Novak:

Only because so many Republicans think I am a pain in the neck.

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Washington:

In the past in your column, you have referred to the poor as "losers." This is obviously counter to Catholic teaching on issues of social justice, going back to the 19th century and De Rerum Novarum. How do you reconcile your conversion to Catholicism with your conservative views on issues like social justice?

Robert D. Novak:

I follow Scripture and Catholic doctrine rather than the latest theories by the Jesuits and the like.

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Link to the full set of questions at great Catholic political blog called Gazizza, under the post entitled, Great on-line chat with Bob Novak (here).

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His conversion story.

Novak was born Jewish and attended Christian services sporadically until the mid-1960s, after which he stopped going to religious services for nearly 30 years. But Novak said the Holy Spirit began to intervene in his life. . . . The turning point, as he recounts in his book, happened when he went to Syracuse University in New York to give a lecture. Before he spoke, he was seated at a dinner table near a young woman who was wearing a necklace with a cross. Novak asked her if she was Catholic, and she posed the same question to him. Novak replied that he had been going to Mass each Sunday for the last four years, but that he had not converted. Her response — “Mr. Novak, life is short, but eternity is forever” — motivated him to start the process of becoming a Catholic through the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults. He was baptized at St. Patrick’s Church in 1998.
Link to the Get Religion blog post called, “Mr. Novak . . . eternity is forever” (here)