Amazon.com description: Product Description: Religion and Public Life is a collection of papers delivered at a conference commemorating the 50th anniversary of the death of Msgr. John A. Ryan, who was the most prominent and influential American advocate of the Catholic social tradition in the first half of the twentieth century. He was a rare combination of scholar, priest, and political realist. Most of his career was spent in Washington, D.C., where he was both a professor at the Catholic University of America and a principal representative of the American bishops to Congress. This collection serves as a fine introduction to Ryan's thought as well as a survey of some of the more pressing current issues in the Catholic social tradition.