Is religion a right given to us by the state? Is it an opium for the masses? Is it private opinion with no role in the public sphere?

In It Is Right and Just, bestselling author Scott Hahn and Brandon McGinley challenge our idea of religion and its role in society. Hahn and McGinley argue that to answer questions over religious liberty, justice, and peace, we must first reject the insidious lie perpetuated by secular-liberal culture: that religion is a private matter.

Contrary to what political commentators and activists say, religion is not only relevant to justice and law, but is necessary for civilization to thrive. Recover the public nature of true religion, It Is Right and Just argues, and watch as a revolution unfolds.

Dr. Scott Hahn is the Fr. Michael Scanlan Professor of Biblical Theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville, where he has taught since 1990. Founder and President of the St. Paul Center, Dr. Hahn has been married to Kimberly since 1979; they have six children and nineteen grandchildren. The author or editor of over forty popular and academic books, Dr. Hahn’s works include best-selling titles Rome Sweet Home, The Lamb’s Supper, and The First Society.

Brandon McGinley is a Catholic writer and speaker based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. McGinley’s work has appeared in the Washington Post, First Things, the Catholic Herald, Plough, and The Lamp, among other venues. He is the author of The Prodigal Church: Restoring Catholic Tradition in an Age of Deception. He speaks around the country on topics ranging from Catholic family life to friendship to Church renewal. He is a 2010 graduate of Princeton University, where he met his wife, Katie. They have four young children.

“In this clear-sighted book, Hahn and McGinley make the bold claim that true religion is a matter of fundamental justice in our relationship with God, essential not only to our eternal destiny but to human flourishing here on earth. They further argue that liberal secular societies are fundamentally idolatrous, and so doomed to falsehood and collapse. Yet there is hope. For true religion can rejuvenate persons, families, communities, societies, and civilization itself.”

Jeffrey Mirus, PhD, Founder and President of Trinity Communications and Co-founder of Christendom College

“Religion, modern secularists say, is irrelevant to modern justice and law. It even poses a threat to our national life together. This lie—that religion is designed for individuals and not for societies- is busted in less than 200 pages of exquisite insight and urgency. Hahn and McGinley don’t merely demolish; they call us to rebuild, reconsider and recover the public nature of religion, ‘the virtue of virtues’ according to Thomas Aquinas. Their robust vision of Catholic truth integrates and unites what most modern thinkers have divorced and separated: Faith and reason, individual rights and the common good, the public and the private. They show how the universal call to holiness leads to the sanctification of society. In their vision, building the Church inevitably blesses the nations. This is dynamite. ‘How ought we to order our lives together?’ was Aristotle’s first political question. John Paul II answered: ‘Build a civilization of love.’ Hahn and McGinley demonstrate that it is our cult, our liturgy, that is the fountainhead for such a civilization and culture. Get this book. Read it. Enjoy it. Chew it. Pray it. Share it.”

Al Kresta, Author, President and CEO of Ave Maria Radio, and host of Kresta in the Afternoon

“Human beings are religious by nature. This is irrepressible in us. We have an innate desire to render what is due to God. Yet liberalism, first through indifference, and then through hostility to true religion, misdirects souls away from their highest good. In so doing, liberalism also misdirects civilization itself. Hahn and McGinley have given us a marvelous book which not only correctly diagnoses what ails our civilization but shows us the cure.”

C.C. Pecknold, Associate Professor of Theology, The Catholic University of America

“The privatization of faith has sickened our culture, and Hahn and McGinley and show us how many of the faithful have been infected. It Is Right and Just offers a lens through which to realign lives with true religion—that is, with Jesus Christ. I highly recommend this much needed, clear and enlightening work!”

Curtis Martin, Founder and CEO of the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS)

“Religion is meant to reconnect us to the very source of who we are: beings created by a loving creator. I hope that many are able to read this book and be guided toward a brighter future and a stronger civilization.”

Bishop Joseph Strickland, Diocese of Tyler, Texas

“Hahn and McGinley masterfully remind a spellbound secular culture of a long-forgotten, sobering fact about the Faith: it’s true, and the truth makes demands of us in private life as well as in politics.”

Michael Knowles, Host of The Michael Knowles Show at The Daily Wire

“With characteristic lucidity and plainspoken joy, Hahn and McGinley debunk the central myth of modernity—namely, the myth of ‘secularity.’ In doing so, they remind us of an essential truth: that the God of the Bible demands not just our individual devotion, but the love and obeisance of our communities.”

Sohrab Ahmari, Op-ed editor, New York Post, and author of The Unbroken Thread: Discovering the Wisdom of Tradition in an Age of Chaos

“It is already often a fireable offense to profess Christian viewpoints in public, and the State threatens to clamp down even harder, having demonized Christianity as bigotry. As a result, for Catholic thinkers who are sympathetic to aspects of political liberalism—and I include myself among such thinkers—the question is whether this situation represents the inevitably idolatrous consequence of political liberalism’s refusal to favor any tradition of divine worship, or whether it instead represents a distortion of political liberalism, which like any good thing can be distorted and abused. Hahn and McGinley weigh in with a lucid and penetrating case for the prosecution!”

Matthew Levering, PhD, James N. and Mary D. Perry Jr. Chair of Theology, Mundelein Seminary