While engaged in graduate studies in France, he met Allan Bloom, who introduced him to the work of Leo Strauss.
He had joined the Augustinians of the Assumption in 1944, and following graduation he attended the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum in Rome for his theological education.
I had an innate reverence for famous people, and these were extremely well-known scholars, and it offended me to hear these things said about them.
[2]He received his doctorate from the Sorbonne in 1955 and his dissertation was published (in 1959) under the title Christianisme et culture philosophique au cinquième siècle: la querelle de l'âme humaine en Occident.
Here, he contrasts Christianity with both Judaism and Islam, for whom revelation provided a law that would provide the basis for political life.If Augustine can be said to have any concerns for politics at all, it is not for its own sake but because of the moral problems that it poses for Christians who, as citizens, are willy-nilly caught up in it.
It takes it for granted that its followers will continue to live as full-fledged citizens of the political society to which they belong and share its way of life as long as they are not forced to indulge in practices that are directly at odds with their basic beliefs, as were, for example, idolatry and emperor worship.
He also held the Straussian position that the doctrine of natural human rights was a distinctively modern idea, and did not have backing in classical or medieval thought.
This set him against the camp that taught that the idea of natural human rights had medieval roots, most associated with the Cornell medievalist Brian Tierney and his students.
Finally, the third period in which he made significant contribution was his perceptive reading, commentary and more-or-less blunt criticism of the 20th century social teaching of the Catholic Church.