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The present number offers various perspectives on a theme of great and growing significance. David Schindler develops Wendell Berry’s remark that "[t]he history of our time has been . . . the movement of the center of consciousness away from home," and argues for the "domestication" of political and economic institutions, or their transformation in light of the reality of the home.

V. Bradley Lewis suggests, through a discussion of Plato’s Laws and Victor Davis Hanson’s recently re-released book The Other Greeks, that the transformations occurring in globalization alter the perception of the natural horizon of human moral and political life, and thus pose a threat to the classical notion of natural right.

Luigino Bruni gives a testimony about the experience of an alternative approach to economics, the "Economy of Communion," which is inspired by the spirituality of Focolare, and its foundress, Chiara Lubich. Simona Beretta, an Italian economist, investigates the implications of Catholic Social Teaching for economic theory, policy research, and personal involvement in the socio-political realm.

Thomas R. Rourke draws attention to what he takes to be the incompatibility of the view of man presupposed in our present globalized economic culture with a genuine Catholic anthropology and morality. Finally, Carlos Hoevel describes the changes South America, and particularly Argentina, has undergone as a result of its increasing participation in the global economy.

In other articles, Antonio Sicari presents the global scope of Christianity that is expressed in its missionary spirit. He defends missionary activity against difficult objections by arguing that the goal and means of mission is essentially love: "Love can only be offered. It is strong and weak at the same time." Rémi Brague speculates in a lively idiom on the future of the Christian world, and asks whether this world can continue if it gets unmoored from its transcendent ground. In the second part of an article published in the Summer issue, Javier Prades discusses the God-world relation in the mysteries of creation and redemption in the light of the supreme mystery of the Trinity.

The year 2000 marks the 100th anniversary of the death of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. As a commemoration of this event, we present, in Retrieving the Tradition, a translation of one of the three brief epilogues the young Hans Urs von Balthasar wrote to thematic anthologies of Nietzsche’s writings that he himself had compiled. The particular epilogue published here discusses Nietzsche’s writings on ethics, and attempts to discern the forgotten Christian values that resonate within Nietzsche’s apparently anti-Christian ideas.

The Notes and Comments section offers two reflections. Scott H. Moore proposes the political practice of hospitality as an alternative to toleration. Robin Darling Young recalls the Church Fathers’ insight that, since the truth is a person, genuine knowledge is love, and love is ultimately the laying down of one’s life for one’s friends.

DCS