"In late July, a tiny item in the Washington Post announced some surprising news: Sen. Sam Brownback, a Kansas Republican and former United Methodist best known for his opposition to cloning, converted to Catholicism on June 27. But just as notable as Brownback's conversion was the man who performed it, the Rev. John McCloskey. Brownback is the third political celebrity to convert to Catholicism under McCloskey's guidance--the other two were journalist Robert Novak and economist-commentator Lawrence Kudlow. The priest, who operates out of Washington's Catholic Information Center a couple of blocks from the White House..."
"From: Father John McCloskey, book review of American Abundance (written by Lawrence Kudlow, published by American Heritage, l997); review posted on 15 April 2004 on The National Institute for the Renewal of the Priesthood website (http://www.jknirp.com/paul.htm; viewed 24 October 2005):
Lawrence Kudlow is one of our leading political economists...
Perhaps it would be fairer and more accurate to say that there are increasingly two Americas. One group in America is made up of Bible Christians and faithful Catholics who possess standards and convictions based on the natural law, the Bible, and the teaching authority of the Catholic Church and strive to live accordingly.
The other group in America, whatever its religious affiliation, does not believe in a normative moral truth or in a God to whom they are accountable in this life and in the next according to their actions here. These are cultures in irreconcilable conflict, the culture of life and truth versus the culture of death. One claims the truth; the other claims there is no truth. Over time, one or the other must prevail. As Whittaker Chambers put it, "Economics is not the central problem of our age, Faith is."
...Kudlow has a varied background in government, Wall Street, and political journalism. He was under-secretary of the Office of Management and Budget under Ronald Reagan, one of the original supply-siders of the Eighties. After completing his time in Washington he was the chief economist for the powerhouse financial firm of Bear, Stearns on Wall Street, and then became the economic editor for the leading conservative bi-weekly National Review.
Presently he is chief economist for the American Skandia Company in Connecticut. Kudlow had a well-publicized bout with cocaine addiction for which he takes full responsibility in a scorchingly honest lengthy preface.
He acknowledges his dependence on God and his many loyal friends for his continuing recovery from the depths of a near death experience. His writings reflect a person who believes deeply in the possibility of reform and, indeed, resurrection.
Kudlow has a prose style that makes his writing accessible to the layman and shows a deep knowledge of history that reminds one of the greatest economic writer of all, the nineteenth-century Englishman Walter Bagehot.
Combined with his inside knowledge of how the economic and political world works, he provides an unmatched insight into current economic events. Old economic news is rarely interesting, but Kudlow makes it so. He is an increasingly important economic voice who effortlessly switches back and forth from the field of policy making to print and visual journalism.
In the future he may well be an important moral voice. Kudlow is a recent Catholic convert who no doubt is deepening his study of the social teachings of the Church. I hope that in the future his thought may reflect the insights of Leo XIII and John Paul II as well as Adam Smith, Hayek, and Schumpeter."
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I did not know that about Larry Kudlow, I thought he was Jewish. He is a very attractive man, not because of his looks necessarily but because of his intelligence,confidence,peace with himself and credibility. He is also serious and down to earth,plain spoken at the same time. If he says something that you disagree with, he does it in such a way that you accept it at face value, and do not feel like giving him a fat lip for being hard assed and nasty and I do not think it is even in his makeup to be that way. He is no nonsense,but decent and respectful kind of like GWB. He seems like he is at peace with himself, and now I know why. Thanks for the info, he is a treasure.