Pope John Paul II, in his tumultuous visit to the United States, had spoken of

economic matters in a way that prompts WFB to ask "whether the Pope, as a student, did any work in economics, and if so, who on earth were his teachers?" Mr. Steinfels and Father O'Hare both hold that, as Father O'Hare expresses it, "[The Pope] did not speak primarily as an economic expert. He spoke primarily as a moral teacher,... insisting again and again that we should not lose sight of the primacy of the human person in any social, economic, or political system." But to Mr. Steinfels's assertion that "it is a mistake to separate the human-rights concerns of the Pope from the material or economic rights," because the different sorts of rights are "interlaced," Mr. Buckley maintains that "if you don't have economic freedom you don't have many other freedoms." And we're off on a high-energy discussion of the intersection of political and economics.