Includes bibliographical references and index.

Part I. Liberal societies and the memory of God. "Keeping the world awake to God" : Benedict XVI in America -- Cultural implications of religions in public life : recuperating the deeper questions -- The dramatic nature of life : liberal societies and the foundations of human dignity -- Truth, freedom, and relativism in Western democracies : Pope Benedict XVI's contributions to Without roots -- Civil community inside the liberal state : truth, freedom, and human dignity -- Charity, justice, and the church's activity in the world : a reflection on Deus caritas est -- Does the free market produce free persons? -- Market liberalism and an economic culture of gift and gratitude -- The significance of world and culture for moral theology : veritatis splendor and the nature of the body -- The embodied person as gift and the cultural task in America -- Part II. Thinking and acting in a technological age. George Grant and modernity's technological ontology -- Liturgy and the integrity of cosmic order : the theology of Alexander Schmemann -- Living and thinking reality in its integrity : originary experience, God, and the task of education -- Religion and secularity in a culture of abstraction : on the integrity of space, time, matter, and motion -- Modernity and the nature of a distinction : Balthasar's ontology of generosity -- The given as gift : creation and disciplinary abstraction in science -- The anthropological vision of caritas in veritate in light of economic and cultural life in the United States.