Religion & Liberty

Catholic Prayer for Government

2012-01-22T22:03:00.000-08:00

We pray, Thee O Almighty and Eternal God! Who through Jesus Christ hast revealed Thy glory to all nations, to preserve the works of Thy mercy, that Thy Church, being spread through the whole world, may continue with unchanging faith in the confession of Thy Name.
We pray Thee, who alone art good and holy, to endow with heavenly knowledge, sincere zeal, and sanctity of life, our chief bishop, Pope N., the Vicar of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in the government of his Church; our own bishop, N., all other bishops, prelates, and pastors of the Church; and especially those who are appointed to exercise amongst us the functions of the holy ministry, and conduct Thy people into the ways of salvation.
We pray Thee O God of might, wisdom, and justice! Through whom authority is rightly administered, laws are enacted, and judgment decreed, assist with Thy Holy Spirit of counsel and fortitude the President of these United States, that his administration may be conducted in righteousness, and be eminently useful to Thy people over whom he presides; by encouraging due respect for virtue and religion; by a faithful execution of the laws in justice and mercy; and by restraining vice and immorality. Let the light of Thy divine wisdom direct the deliberations of Congress, and shine forth in all the proceedings and laws framed for our rule and government, so that they may tend to the preservation of peace, the promotion of national happiness, the increase of industry, sobriety, and useful knowledge; and may perpetuate to us the blessing of equal liberty.
We pray for his excellency, the governor of this state, for the members of the assembly, for all judges, magistrates, and other officers who are appointed to guard our political welfare, that they may be enabled, by Thy powerful protection, to discharge the duties of their respective stations with honesty and ability.
We recommend likewise, to Thy unbounded mercy, all our brethren and fellow citizens throughout the United States, that they may be blessed in the knowledge and sanctified in the observance of Thy most holy law; that they may be preserved in union, and in that peace which the world cannot give; and after enjoying the blessings of this life, be admitted to those which are eternal.
Finally, we pray to Thee, O Lord of mercy, to remember the souls of Thy servants departed who are gone before us with the sign of faith and repose in the sleep of peace; the souls of our parents, relatives, and friends; of those who, when living, were members of this congregation, and particularly of such as are lately deceased; of all benefactors who, by their donations or legacies to this Church, witnessed their zeal for the decency of divine worship and proved their claim to our grateful and charitable remembrance. To these, O Lord, and to all that rest in Christ, grant, we beseech Thee, a place of refreshment, light, and everlasting peace, through the same Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior. Amen.

Composed by John Carroll, Archbishop of Baltimore, in 1791. (Recommended by Ius Honorarium)

Stephen Colbert on the "De-Deification of the American Faithscape"

2011-06-05T11:48:00.000-07:00

Thaddeus J. Kozinski: "The Political Problem of Religious Pluralism: And Why Philosophers Can't Solve It"

2011-03-26T18:01:00.000-07:00

The Political Problem of Religious Pluralism: And Why Philosophers Can't Solve It
by Thaddeus J. Kozinski. Lexington Books (August 16, 2010).

In contemporary political philosophy, there is much debate over how to maintain a public order in pluralistic democracies in which citizens hold radically different religious views. The Political Problem of Religious Pluralism deals with this theoretically and practically difficult issue by examining three of the most influential figures of religious pluralism theory: John Rawls, Jacques Maritain, and Alasdair MacIntyre. Drawing on a diverse number of sources, Kozinski addresses the flaws in each philosopher's views and shows that the only philosophically defensible end of any overlapping consensus political order must be the eradication of the ideological pluralism that makes it necessary. In other words, a pluralistic society should have as its primary political aim to create the political conditions for the communal discovery and political establishment of that unifying tradition within which political justice can most effectively be obtained. Kozinski's analysis, though exhaustive and rigorous, still remains accessible and engaging, even for a reader unversed in the works of Rawls, Maritain, and MacIntyre. Interdisciplinary and multi-thematic in nature, it will appeal to anyone interested in the intersection of religion, politics, and culture.

Reviews

Reviewed by Brendan Sweetman, Rockhurst University Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. 01/28/11.

Discussions

by Kyle R. Cupp: Pluralism and the Confessional State (Vox Nova 02/01/11) | If Not a Confessional State, Then What? (Vox Nova 02/03/11).

Natural Law, Natural Rights and American Constitutionalism

2011-02-13T20:48:00.000-08:00

Natural Law, Natural Rights and American Constitutionalism - brought to you by the Witherspoon Institute, "to create an online archive containing the seminal documents of these traditions with educational resources" -- made possible through the support of the National Endowment for the Humanities and with direction from scholars associated with the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University.

Remembering John Courtney Murray, SJ

2010-12-17T05:22:00.001-08:00

50 years ago on December 12th, Time magazine featured Fr. John Courtney Murray (1904-1967) on its cover. America's James Martin remembers the occasion with a roundup of recommended reading:

If you've not heard of this great American Jesuit theologian, who was for a time prevented from writing on issues of church and state (his primary field of interest and the subject of his book We Hold These Truths: Catholic Reflections on the American Proposition whose ideas were eventually incorporated into the Second Vatican Council's "Declaration on Religious Liberty," and who was later officially "rehabilitated" by Pope Paul VI during his concelebration with the pope at a public Mass, here are pieces in America by the Msgr. Robert McElroy ("He Held These Truths"), Gregory Kalscheur, S.J. ("American Catholics and the State"), John Coleman, S.J. on what was at stake in the debates over religious liberty during Vatican II ("Religious Liberty") and Fr. Murray himself, in an article that concisely maps out his position in 1963 ("On Religious Liberty.") The time of his "silencing" is covered in Robert Nugent's new book Silence Speaks: Teilhard de Chardin, Yves Congar, John Courtney Murray, and Thomas Merton As McElroy, Kalscheur, Coleman show, his far-ranging ideas on church and state are particularly applicable today. And, as Nugent shows, the church often ends up incorporating into her teaching the very ideas that she rejected not long before. Finally, an excellent bio of Fr. Murray is here at the Murray Collection at the Woodstock Center in Georgetown.

Guy Fawkes Day

2010-11-05T21:37:00.000-07:00

Don McClarey (The American Catholic reminds us:

The idiotic anti-Catholic celebration of Guy Fawkes Day , observed each November fifth, was effectively ended in America during the Revolution in large part due to George Washington. ... Catholics always had a friend in the Father of Our Country.

Joe Hargrave: "How John Locke influenced Catholic Social Teaching"

2010-11-05T21:17:00.000-07:00

How John Locke influenced Catholic Social Teaching (Joe Hargrave, InsideCatholic.com. November 5, 2010):

It isn't often that John Locke is mentioned in discussions of Catholic social teaching, unless it is to set him up as an example of all that the Church supposedly rejects. After all, Locke is considered one of the founders of a liberal and individualist political tradition that was rejected by the papacy in the 19th and 20th centuries. However, a closer examination of both Locke's Two Treatises on Civil Government and the papal encyclical that set modern Catholic social teaching in motion, Pope Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum, reveals that Locke was not a pure "individualist" as many have assumed, nor was Rerum Novarum a categorical rejection of all things "individual." Rather, both Locke and Leo XIII craft their basic political arguments -- especially with respect to the right to private property -- based on the same assumptions about natural law, natural right, and Christian obligation.
Though it is evident from the texts themselves, the agreement between Locke and Leo is also a historical fact. In 2005, Manfred Spieker, a professor of Christian Social Thought at the Universität Osnabrück in Germany, cited the influence of Locke on three of the men who drafted the text of Rerum Novarum. ... [more]

Charles J. Chaput on "The Catholic Role in America After Virtue"

2010-09-28T22:31:00.000-07:00

Exactly 70 years ago, in 1940, Rev. John Courtney Murray gave a series of three college talks. For his theme, he chose the "concept of a Christian culture." After his death, his Jesuit brothers fused the talks into a single essay called "The Construction of a Christian Culture." It's a modest word change. But that title -- the construction of a Christian culture -- is a good place to begin our thoughts.
Most people know Father Murray for his work on Vatican II's Decree on Religious Liberty. In his 1960 book We Hold These Truths -- which has never gone out of print -- Father Murray argued the classic Catholic case for America. Like any important thinker, his work has friends and critics. The critics respect Father Murray's character and intellect. But they also tend to see him as a victim of his own optimism and a voice of American boosterism. I understand why. Over the years, too many people have used Father Murray to justify too many strange versions of personal conscience and the roles of Church and state.
But for me, Father Murray's real genius is tucked inside his words from 1940. They're worth hearing again. Father Murray said that "a profound religious truth is at the basis of democratic theory and practice, namely the intrinsic dignity of human nature; the spiritual freedom of the human soul; its equality as a soul with others of its kind; and its superiority to all that does not share its spirituality."
He said that "the task of constructing a culture is essentially spiritual, for culture has its home in the soul." As a result, "All man's cultural effort is at bottom an effort at submission to the truth and the beauty and the good that is outside him, existing in an ordered harmony, whose pattern he must produce within his soul by conformity with it."
These are beautiful thoughts. They're also true. The trouble is, they bear little likeness to our real culture in 2010. ...

Life in the Late Republic: The Catholic Role in America After Virtue, by Most Rev. Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap. Inside Catholic.com September 27 2010.

"Charles Carroll, the Catholic Founder"

2010-06-05T21:11:00.000-07:00

Catholics and the State - Recommended Blogging

2010-05-29T21:48:00.001-07:00

Joe Hargrave, blogger at (Non Nobis and fellow co-blogger at The American Catholic, has been exploring many topics with which this website has occupied itself. Readers may be interested in the following posts (and the ensuing conversations with readers):

Tea Time with Pope Leo XIII - whether or not, and to what extent, it is legitimate to resist the government?
A Distributist Manifesto - "There is a great deal of confusion about what Distributism is, what it means, what its place is in Catholic social thought, and even over who started it. This essay will attempt to address some of these confusions..."
Exploring Americanism and the Catholic Counter-Culture What are we to make of Leo XIII's condemnation of "Americanism"?
Of Christians, Catholics and Tea Parties (Part II) (The American Catholic)
Of Christians, Catholics and Tea Parties (Part I) (The American Catholic)
Culture, Religion & The Nation-State (The American Catholic)
America: More Propositional Than Some Think

What makes America exceptional? What kind of liberty is worth preserving?

2010-05-10T00:22:00.000-07:00

For the reasons already stated, today’s liberals, such as Obama and his supporters in our cultural and intellectual elites, are not fully honest about their radical autonomism. For they either can’t or won’t acknowledge its internal incoherence and its disastrous consequences, which we see all around us in the breakdown of the family and the erosion of individual liberty at the hands of the state. But conservatives aren’t being fully honest either. The conservative “movement” in America has long been an uneasy alliance of classical liberals and religious conservatives, and it has never tried to resolve that tension. It is united only in its opposition to what has come, since the New-Deal era, to be called liberalism. But without a way of at least addressing the tension creatively, conservatives are doomed to fighting a long retreat, a rear-guard action against liberalism that never really takes on that enemy at its core.
And that, in the last analysis, is why I’m uneasy about calling myself a conservative. Until conservatives can agree on the kind and meaning of the liberty that makes America exceptional, they won’t be able to agree on what’s worth conserving, and hence on an alternative to an ever-advancing but profoundly corrosive liberalism.

Michael Liccione, "What's Exceptional about Conservatism?" (Sacramentum Vitae May 9, 2010.

Q: Is the American experiment inherently anti-Catholic?

2010-03-11T23:53:00.000-08:00

In a 'must read' post, "God Bless America?" (The American Catholic March 11, 2010), Joe Hargrave tackles the perception that America is inherently "anti-Catholic", a criticism shared by both Catholic 'traditionalists' and Catholic radicals.

(And here is Joe again with "Catholic Anti-Americanism" (InsideCatholic.com April 28, 2010).

Thomas Woods vs. Thomas Storck on Capitalism, The Market and Catholic Social Teaching

2010-02-12T23:34:00.001-08:00

Catholic Social Teaching and Economic Law: An Unresolved Tension, by Thomas E. Woods, Jr. (LewRockwell.com March 22, 2002). Delivered a the 8th Austrian Scholars Conference at the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Ala. From the author:
What follows is a discussion of Catholic social thought and the question of the just wage. I have nothing but the most profound respect for the nineteenth- and twentieth-century popes, who led the Church with courage and principle. As for the concept of the just wage, however, the time has come to acknowledge, with the late Scholastics, that the just wage is the market wage. As Fr. James Sadowsky of Fordham University has argued, if a business can "afford" to pay a just wage, market competition for labor will yield one. If it cannot, then it won't. In advocating socially desirable outcomes, it is essential to study how best they can be brought about.
Morality and Economic Law: Toward a Reconciliation, by Thomas E. Woods, Jr. (LewRockwell.com March 20, 2004) The Lou Church Memorial Lecture in Religion and Economics, Austrian Scholars Conference, Ludwig von Mises Institute, Auburn, Alabama, March 20, 2004. | Audio
Economic Science and Catholic Social Teaching, by Thomas Storck. (Chronicles Magazine June 17, 2004)
On the Actual Progress of Peoples, by Thomas E. Woods, Jr. (LewRockwell.com June 22, 2004)
The Difficulties of Thomas Woods, by Thomas Storck. (Chronicles Magazine July 11, 2004)
Catholics and Capitalism, by Thomas E. Woods, Jr. (LewRockwell.com November 12, 2004)
Catholic Social Teaching and the Market Economy Revisited: A Reply to Thomas Storck, by Thomas E. Woods, Jr. (LewRockwell.com January 12, 20010). This paper appears in the current issue of the Catholic Social Science Review (vol. 14, 2009), under the heading “Symposium: The Implications of Catholic Social Teaching for Economic Science: An Exchange between Thomas Storck and Thomas E. Woods, Jr., with Responses.” [1] The Thomas Storck paper to which this one is a reply may be found here | Based on a panel discussion 03-14-09 at the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama (Audio). Responses to the exchange:
- A Response from John Médaille (full text)
- A Response from Charles Clark (full text)
- A Response from Kevin Schmiesing (full text)
- A Response from Emil Berendt (full text)
Is Thomas Woods A Dissenter? A Further Reply, Pt. 1 (01-18-10) | Part 2 (01-20-10) | Part 3 (01-22-10) | Part 4 (01-25-10). By Thomas Storck. (Chronicles Magazine)
Is Thomas Woods a Dissenter? (Response from Thomas Woods) ThomasEWoods.com. Friday February 5, 2010.

On Thomas Woods' The Church and the Market: A Catholic Defense of the Free Economy

Capitalism and Catholicism, by Thomas E. Woods, Jr. (LewRockwell.com February 14, 2005)
Economics As Science: A Catholic Defense of the Free Market, by Thomas E. Woods, Jr. (InsideCatholic.com April 29, 2008). Based on remarks delivered during the author's December lecture tour of Poland.

About the Authors

Thomas Storck has been intrigued with Catholic social thought since he first read Richard Tawney’s Religion and the Rise of Capitalism in high school. This book began a life-long interest in the social teachings of the Catholic Church.

Mr. Storck was received into the Church in 1978 and in 1983 began writing regularly on Catholic social teaching, Catholic culture, and other theological and philosophical topics. He is the author of three books, The Catholic Milieu (Christendom Press, 1987), Foundations of a Catholic Political Order (Four Faces Press, 1998) and Christendom and the West (Four Faces Press, 2000).

His work has appeared in numerous publications and websites in North America and Europe. He served as a contributing editor for Caelum et Terra from 1991 until the magazine closed in 1996 and the New Oxford Review from 1996 to 2006. Since 1998 he has been a member of the editorial board of The Chesterton Review.

Mr. Storck has taught history at Christendom College in Front Royal, Virginia, and philosophy at Mt. Aloysius College in Cresson, Pennsylvania and Catonsville Community College in Catonsville, Maryland. He holds an undergraduate degree in English literature from Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio and an M.A. from St. John’s College, Santa Fe, New Mexico, with additional studies in history at Bluffton College and in economics at the USDA Graduate School in Washington, D.C. [Source]

* * *

Thomas E. Woods, Jr., is a senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute. He holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Harvard and his master’s, M.Phil., and Ph.D. from Columbia University. He is the author of nine books, including two New York Times bestsellers: Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse. His other books include Who Killed the Constitution?: The Fate of American Liberty from World War I to George W. Bush (with Kevin R.C. Gutzman), Sacred Then and Sacred Now: The Return of the Old Latin Mass, 33 Questions About American History You're Not Supposed to Ask, How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, and The Church and the Market: A Catholic Defense of the Free Economy. His critically acclaimed 2004 book The Church Confronts Modernity: Catholic Intellectuals and the Progressive Era was recently released in paperback by Columbia University Press. A collection of Woods’ essays, called W obronie zdrowego rozsadku, was released exclusively in Polish in 2007. Woods’ books have been translated into Italian, Spanish, Polish, French, German, Czech, Portuguese, Croatian, Russian, Korean, Japanese, and Chinese. [...]

For eleven years Woods served as associate editor of The Latin Mass magazine; he is presently a contributing editor of The American Conservative magazine. A contributor to six encyclopedias, Woods is co-editor of Exploring American History: From Colonial Times to 1877, an eleven-volume encyclopedia.

See also

Can Economic Justice Be Achieved Without Law?, by Thomas Storck. New Oxford Review October 2000.
Fr. Sirico Replies (Response to Thomas Storck) New Oxford Review January 2001.
Is the Acton Institute a Genuine Expression of Catholic Social Thought?, by Thomas Storck. Social Justice Review, vol. 93, no. 5-6, May-June 2002.
Middle Ground Between Storck and Sirico?, by Joe Hargrave. The Distributist Review January 27, 2010.

Ralph McInerny (1929-2010)

2010-01-30T23:33:00.000-08:00

Dr. Ralph McInerny died on Friday, at the age of 80. Zenit reports:

Ralph McInerny was a professor of philosophy and the Michael P. Grace Professor of Medieval Studies at the University of Notre Dame.
He held degrees from St. Paul Seminary, University of Minnesota and Laval University, and had taught at the University of Notre Dame since 1955. He directed the Jacques Maritain Center from 1979 to 2006.
He was an acknowledged expert on the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, and a prolific author. He penned over two dozen scholarly books, many more scholarly essays, and over 80 novels.
He wrote the popular book series Father Dowling Mysteries, which became a successful television program starring Tom Bosley and Tracy Nelson. ...
In 1982, he co-founded Crisis Magazine with Michael Novak. The publication is now known as InsideCatholic.
In 2006, he published his autobiography titled I Alone Have Escaped to Tell You: My Life And Pastimes.

Perhaps it is fitting, that he should pass one day after the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas.

"The Writing Life" an autobiographical essay. First Things March 2006.
Curriculum Vitae
Via Joseph Bottum, memories of Dr. Christopher Kaczor at Loyola Marymount, one of his many students and a tribute from Thomas S. Hibbs of Baylor University.
Ralph McInerny (1929-2010) - Tributes from Robert Royal, Michael Novak, Bruce Fingerhut and John O’Callaghan of The Catholic Thing. February 1, 2010.
In Memoriam: Ralph McInerny (1929–2010), by Fr. Joseph W. Koterski, S. J. First Principles February 1, 2010.
Thoughts About Ralph McInerny: "A Man of Wit, Wisdom and Achievement", by Steven A. Long. Zenit. February 2, 2010.
Sketches of Ralph, by Hadley Arkes. The Catholic Thing February 2, 2010.
Ralph McInerny, philosopher and author NewScotsman.com. February 2, 2010.
What McInerny saw in Thomas, by Joseph Upton. First Things' "On The Square" February 6, 20010.
"Death of a Storyteller", by Tom Hoopes. National Catholic Register February 8, 20010.
Ralph McInerny, 1929-2010, by Joseph Bottum. Weekly Standard February 15, 2010.

George Washington and Catholics

2009-11-05T07:45:00.000-08:00

From Donald McClarey @ American Catholic, a great post on George Washington and Catholics, including his forbidding his troops to engage in "anti-popery" on Guy Fawkes Day.

Charles Carroll -- America's Catholic Founding Father

2009-07-04T20:07:00.001-07:00

Charles Carroll of Carrollton was a delegate to the Continental Congress and later United States Senator for Maryland. He was also the only Catholic to have signed the The Declaration of Independence. One of the wealthiest men in the colonies, it is reported that -- upon fixing his signature,

a member standing near observed, "There go a few millions," and all admitted that few risked as much, in a material sense, than the wealthy Marylander.

(The Life of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, 1737-1832, by Kate Mason Rowland).

A new biography, American Cicero: The Life of Charles Carroll (Lives of the Founders) (ISI) will be published in February 2010. (Tip of the hat to Carl Olson). The author, Dr. Bradley J. Birzer, was recently interviewed by the Washington Times:

Q: Carroll was the last of the signers to die. What did he have to say about America at the end of his life?
A: He was so critical of what happened to the republic after the founding. He's very critical of the democratic element in the American republic - he's worried that self-interest and greed are replacing republican virtue. So from the late 1700s, Carroll starts being called "the hoary-headed aristocrat." He starts to be seen as a relic of an older age. But after Carroll dies, there's a resurgence of his reputation. All across the country, the headlines read, "The last of the Romans is dead."
And he was one of Alexis de Tocqueville's main informants. So there are moments in de Tocqueville's Democracy in America (Penguin Classics) when he is being critical of the democratic spirit, and it seems very clear to me that he is taking that from his interview with Carroll.
Q: What does history get wrong about Carroll?
A: I'm always amazed at how much our own history, especially [in] our textbooks, tends to portray the founders as merely enlightened figures. And there's no doubt they were. But the vast majority were Christian - Franklin and Jefferson being the exceptions that so many focus on. And the American people were intensely religious, mostly Protestant, at the time of the founding. I think it's dangerous that we secularize the founding so much. We need to know the context - we need to know what inspired them to fight for liberty.

Read the whole thing.

This would make the second book published recently about the Catholic founding father, the first being Scott McDermott's Charles Carroll of Carrollton: Faithful Revolutionary (Scepter Publications, 2001).

McDermott, a circulation librarian at Vanderbilt University Divinity School, writer and convert, began studying about Carroll after he came into the Church -- In 2005, Zenit News interviewed him about his biography and Carroll's influence on the founding fathers (Part I | Part II).

* * *

I concur with the observation that the religiousity of many of our founding fathers is sadly overlooked and much neglected. Michael Novak made an important contribution to restoring a proper recognition to the religious roots of America's founding with his On Two Wings: Humble Faith and Common Sense at the American Founding (2001), followed by Washington's God, a study of the religious faith of the pre-eminent 'Father of our Country'.

Evangelical Catholicism: Pope John Paul II on Patriotism

2009-07-04T19:20:00.000-07:00

Michael Joseph (formerly of Vox Nova), his wife Katerina and several of his friends are resurrecting the blog Evangelical Catholicism.

He commemorates the 4th of July with a thoughtful reflection on the nature of patriotism as distinguished from nationalism, with recourse to John Paul II's Memory and Identity.

Well worth reading.

Richard John Neuhaus, 1936-2009

2009-01-08T09:05:00.000-08:00

From Jody Bottum:

Fr. Richard John Neuhaus slipped away today, January 8, shortly before 10 o’clock, at the age of seventy-two. He never recovered from the weakness that sent him to the hospital the day after Christmas, caused by a series of side effects from the cancer he was suffering. He lost consciousness Tuesday evening after a collapse in his heart rate, and the next day, in the company of friends, he died.
My tears are not for him—for he knew, all his life, that his Redeemer lives, and he has now been gathered by the Lord in whom he trusted.
I weep, rather for all the rest of us. As a priest, as a writer, as a public leader in so many struggles, and as a friend, no one can take his place. The fabric of life has been torn by his death, and it will not be repaired, for those of us who knew him, until that time when everything is mended and all our tears are wiped away.

Funeral Arrangements

A Funeral Mass was celebrated for Father Richard John Neuhaus at the Church of the Immaculate Conception—414 E. 14th Street, New York City—on Tuesday, January 13, 2009.
A Christian wake service in the form of a Vigil for the Deceased was celebrated at the Church of the Immaculate Conception on Monday evening, January 12.
In lieu of flowers, donations are requested for Fr. Neuhaus’ work, the Institute on Religion and Public Life, online at this page or by mail to:
Institute on Religion and Public Life
156 Fifth Avenue
Suite 400
New York, NY 10010

“When I come before the judgment throne, I will plead the promise of God in the shed blood of Jesus Christ. I will not plead any work that I have done, although I will thank God that he has enabled me to do some good. I will plead no merits other than the merits of Christ, knowing that the merits of Mary and the saints are all from him; and for their company, their example, and their prayers throughout my earthly life I will give everlasting thanks. I will not plead that I had faith, for sometimes I was unsure of my faith, and in any event that would be to turn faith into a meritorious work of my won. I will not plead that I held the correct understanding of “justification by faith alone,” although I will thank God that he led me to know ever more fully the great truth that much misunderstood formulation was intended to protect. Whatever little growth in holiness I have experienced, whatever strength I have received from the company of the saints, whatever understanding I have attained of God and his ways - these and all other gifts received I will bring gratefully to the throne. But in seeking entry to that heavenly kingdom, I will…look to Christ and Christ alone.”

Richard John Neuhaus. Death on a Friday Afternoon

Notices

Statement of President George W. Bush
Statement of House Republican Leader John Boehner
Richard John Neuhaus dies of cancer, by Victor Morton and Julia Duin. Washington Times January 8, 2009.
Fr. Richard John Neuhaus dead at age 72, by John Allen, Jr. National Catholic Reporter.
Father Neuhaus, iconic U.S. theologian, is dead at 72, by Laurie Goodstein. International Herald Tribune
Father Richard John Neuhaus Mourned, Celebrated by Cardinal Newman Society Catholic.org

Reflections

"Born Towards Dying" originally published in the February 2000 issue of First Things.
"A Second Brother Dies", by Michael Novak. National Catholic Reporter
Richard John Neuhaus, 1936-2009: A gaping hole in the public square, by Joseph Bottum. The Weekly Standard
"Death on a Thursday Morning" The Editors @ National Review (allusion to Neuhaus' Death on a Friday Morning).
Richard John Neuhaus, 1936 - 2009, by Rev. George W. Rutler. InsideCatholic.com.
Remembering Father Richard John Neuhaus, by Fr. Robert Sirico. The Acton Institute.
Richard John Neuhaus, RIP, by Ross Douhat. The Atlantic.
Richard John Neuhaus, intellectual, provocateur, blogging pioneer, dead at 72, by Gary Stern. Blogging Religiously (LoHud.com)
Alan Jacobs, The American Scene
Ramesh Ponnuru, National Review
A Priest in Full, by Brian C. Anderson. City Journal
Peter Wehner, National Review
Kevin Schmiesing, The Acton Institute
Like The Star of Bethlehem, Dies After Leading So Many to Christ Top pro-life leaders pay tribute to memory of Fr. Richard John Neuhaus: remembrances by Fr. Tom Euteneuer, President of Human Life International; Rabbi Yehuda Levin, Spokesman for the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the U.S. and Canada; Judie Brown, President of American Life League; Joseph Scheidler, President of the Pro-Life Action League and Jim Hughes, President Campaign Life Coalition, VP International Right to Life.
Father Richard John Neuhaus: A Man Animated by His Faith , by Raymond Arroyo. Wall Street Journal
Father Richard John Neuhaus: Remembering the theologian, by Michael Sean Winters. Slate. January 9, 2009.
Father Richard John Neuhaus, 1936-2009 Fr. Raymond J. de Souza, National Catholic Register.
In Memoriam: Our Friend, Richard John Neuhaus, by the writers of The Catholic Thing (Robert Royal, Ralph McInerny, Brad Miner, Michael Novak, Austin Ruse, Mary Eberstadt, William Saunders, James Schall, S.J., Michael Uhlmann and Hadley Arkes).
Richard J. Neuhaus: Remembrances by Anthony Sacramone, former managing editor of First Things.
Richard John Neuhaus: Witness to Truth, by Jordan Hylden. A First Things junior fellow remembers the man whose life was spent 'witnessing to the truth.' January 9, 2009.
In Defense of Death, by David Brooks. New York Times January 12, 2009.
Richard John Neuhaus, 1936–2009: An Honorable Christian Soldier, by George Weigel. Newsweek January 19, 2009.
EWTN's "The World Over" tribute to Fr. Richard J. Neuhaus with Raymond Arroyo. George Weigel, Michael Novak, and Joseph Bottum spend the hour reminiscing about RJN's life and legacy.
Movement Man, by Matthew Boudway. (Former editor of First Things). Commonweal January 16, 2009 / Volume CXXXVI, Number 1.
Nigeria: A Tribute to Father Neuhaus, by Sonnie Ekwowusi. AllAfrica.com. 20 January 2009.
Essay: Where is the rabbi like Richard John Neuhaus?, by David Klinghoffer. Jerusalem Post January 20, 2009.
First Things First: The life and legacy of Fr. Richard John Neuhaus National Review Online Q&A with Robert P. George. January 23, 2008.
The Radical Conservative: Richard John Neuhaus helped inspire a generation of evangelicals to participate boldly in the public square, by Timothy George. Christianity Today March 11, 2009.

* * *

The story of the modern social conservative movement is all about activism and politics, petitions and court cases, but Father Neuhaus’s great testament was about something grander: through those he inspired, through his writings, through his organizing, and through something as simple as connecting people over lunch who may share nothing in terms of what they can eat on the table but share greatly in what is unseen, Father Neuhaus fundamentally changed religious life in America forever.
This is not an exaggeration. Nor by any means is it a dismissal of anyone else’s influence - but ultimately, the changes most other conservative thought leaders have helped achieve in the twentieth century were made at the hands of other men, elected to office. Father Neuhaus did not merely inspire the intellectual undergirding of change: with God’s help, he fashioned it himself, through hard work, a gift for eloquence, and always a wry smile at the end.
The world Father Neuhaus leaves is one where evangelicals and Catholics are more united than they are divided - where the old ethnic politics and arguments have faded, and where we worship and work together in harmony. My mother, never anything but a Protestant, upon learning of this Catholic convert priest’s passing, wrote to say she paused on learning the news to sing Faure’s Pie Jesu for him. I can think of nothing more fitting.

-- From Ben Domenech, RedState.com

* * *

His conviction that abortion was the great crime of the age and his disgust with the American system’s failure to expunge the crime led to the most controversial act of his editorship, the publication of a symposium entitled “The End of Democracy?” in which he and other participants flirted with the notion that the United States had lost its legitimacy. COMMENTARY’s editors responded in part with a symposium entitled “On the Future of Conservatism,” in which various contributors argued heatedly against what they perceived to be an unacceptable radicalization of conservative discourse.
The breach was never fully healed, and yet, through it all, there was Richard, a man of great personal good cheer and bonhomie, always in possession of a terrific piece of gossip he always knew exactly when and how to drop in order to cause the biggest commotion, who somehow found the time to crank out thousands of words a month while jetting back and forth from Rome, engaging in plots and subplots and side bets. He was an exemplar of the truism that a righteous man need not be or conduct himself as though he were holier-than-thou. But in the end, his work was his life, and whether he was ministering to fatherless youths in Brooklyn or offering his considered and always highly informed opinion on the matter of stem-cell research, Richard John Neuhaus did what he did and said what he said for the betterment of humankind and for the greater glory of God.

John Podhoretz, Commentary Magazine

(More tributes are being collected by Steve Dillard @ Southern Appeal)

2008-10-22T07:33:00.000-07:00

If you haven't been visiting The American Catholic this month, here's just a taste of what you're missing:

Calling a Spade an Earth-Destroying Instrument of Destruction - Ryan reflects the reduction of political discourse to soundbytes, and appraises Obama's desire to "share the wealth."
The Dilemma of the PLCOS - Chris Burgwald explains why the Pro-Life Catholic Supporter for Obama finds himself rooting for the G.O.P.
Catacombs or the New Jerusalem? - DarwinCatholic on two mentalities in Christian approaches toward the State.
The Pro-Life Movement On The Left - Eric Brown offers his perspective on an Obama administration "rom the left side of the political spectrum."
Vote pro-life - Edward P. Koubek urges us to "do the math."
Not Just For Catholics: Pro-Life Secularism & The Preservation Of Our Republic - David Curp on why the struggle against the "culture of death" is essential for all.
Father Duffy and the Fighting 69th - Donald R. McClarey's latest in his series on Catholic Chaplains to whom we owe our thanks and remembrance.
Obama, "Joe the Plumber" and Catholic Social Teaching - a brief look at our obligations to the poor.

2008-10-08T03:47:00.001-07:00

What Is Catholic Social Teaching? A Review Essay on An Introduction to Catholic Social Teaching, by Mark Brumley. Ignatius Insight

Archbishop Charles Chaput interview on Religion and Politics

2008-09-29T20:19:00.000-07:00

Archbishop Charles Chaput is participating in an extended chapter-by-chapter interview with Peter Robinson (Uncommon Knowledge), on his new book, Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life and related topics in U.S. politics and the Church.

Politics & Catholics with Charles Chaput: Chapter 1 of 5
Archbishop Charles Chaput corrects House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has said the Catholic Church’s teachings on abortion aren’t clear. On the contrary, Chaput says the Church has long held that abortion is always and in all circumstances wrong. He also says Sen. Joe Biden’s position on abortion — that people should not impose their beliefs on the subject on others — is highly flawed.
Politics & Catholics with Charles Chaput: Chapter 2 of 5
Archbishop Chaput describes Vatican II as the “primary grace of God to the Catholic Church in the 20th century.” And yet, since Vatican II, the Catholic Church in America has suffered greatly. In particular, the numbers of Catholic seminarians, priests, and nuns have plummeted. Chaput explains why this is, and is not, a dilemma.
Politics & Catholics with Charles Chaput: Chapter 3 of 5
Archbishop Chaput describes the relationship between Jesus and Caesar, or between Catholics and the state: First, Jesus acknowledged his responsibilities to Caesar. Second, Jesus demoted Caesar, making clear that “God is God and Caesar is not.” Third, Jesus remained silent about what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God, allowing for individual determinations on the duties of citizens.
Politics & Catholics with Charles Chaput: Chapter 4 of 5
Archbishop Chaput has written that “The logic behind abortion makes all human rights politically contingent.” For example, Chaput explains that if our leaders can decide when life begins, they also can make determinations about when life should end. Overall, Chaput describes what is a coarsening of the value of life in the Western world.
Politics & Catholics with Charles Chaput: Chapter 5 of 5
Archbishop Chaput says Catholic Democrats have an obligation to change their party’s platform on abortion, just as Catholic Republicans are responsible for keeping their party pro-life. Moreover, he says the Catholic position on abortion need not be just a Catholic position, but an American position.

Benedict, Sarkozy and "Positive Secularism"

2008-09-14T22:59:00.001-07:00

A prevalent topic in Benedict's apostolic journey to France is (understandably) the role played by religion within the context of France's longstanding enforcement of secularity, or laïcité.

During a brief press conference on Friday, when asked whether "France is losing its Christian identity because of laicism" -- Pope Benedict responded in the negative:

It seems evident to me today that laicism does not contradict the faith. I would even say that it is a fruit of the faith, since the Christian faith was a universal religion from the beginning. Therefore it did not identify itself with a state and it was present in all the states. It was always clear to the Christians that religion and faith were not political, but rather they formed part of another sphere of human life. ... Politics, the state, were not a religion but rather a secular reality with a specific mission, and the two of them should be open to each other.
In this sense, I would say today that for the French, and not only the French, but also for us, Christians of today in this secularized world, it is important to joyfully live the freedom of our faith, live the beauty of the faith, and show today's world that it is beautiful to be a believer, that it is beautiful to know God; God with a human face in Jesus Christ, show that it is possible to be a believer today, and even that society needs there to be people who know God and who, therefore, can live according to the great values that it has given us and contribute to the presence of these values that are fundamental for the building and survival of our states and societies.

Later, during a meeting with French politicians at the Elysée Palace, after reminding his audience of France's Christian heritage and roots, the Holy Father again urged a rethinking of the relationship between church and state:

Many people, here in France as elsewhere, have reflected on the relations between Church and State. Indeed, Christ had already offered the basic principle for a just solution to the problem of relations between the political sphere and the religious sphere when, in answer to a question, he said: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Mk 12:17). The Church in France currently benefits from a “regime of freedom”. Past suspicion has been gradually transformed into a serene and positive dialogue that continues to grow stronger. A new instrument of dialogue has been in place since 2002, and I have much confidence in its work, given the mutual good will. We know that there are still some areas open to dialogue which we will have to pursue and redevelop step by step with determination and patience. You yourself, Mr President, have used the fine expression “laïcité positive” to characterize this more open understanding. At this moment in history when cultures continue to cross paths more frequently, I am firmly convinced that a new reflection on the true meaning and importance of laïcité is now necessary. In fact, it is fundamental, on the one hand, to insist on the distinction between the political realm and that of religion in order to preserve both the religious freedom of citizens and the responsibility of the State towards them; and, on the other hand, to become more aware of the irreplaceable role of religion for the formation of consciences and the contribution which it can bring to – among other things – the creation of a basic ethical consensus in society.

Benedict's discussion of the issue has found a sympathetic listener in the person of French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The Christian Science Monitor reports:

Unlike any French president in decades, Mr. Sarkozy sees a more open role for religion in French society. And he seized upon the conservative German pope's four-day trip to directly challenge French secularism, one of the most prized traditions of La République and a strict legal and cultural sanction against bringing matters of church and faith into the public realm.
Secularism, or laïcité, is central to the modern French identity. It's a result of hundreds of years of efforts to remove the influence of the Roman Catholic church from French institutions and reduce its moral authority. French media don't discuss religion. At offices or work, most French believers don't tell colleagues they are going to mass or church. It is seen as a private matter.
Yet here on Friday Sarkozy and his wife, Carla Bruni, broke protocol and met the pope at the airport. They hosted the pontiff at the Élysée Palace, attended a papal talk at a newly restored Cistercian monastery in downtown Paris in front of 700 intellectuals and artists – where Sarkozy openly argued that while secularism is important, it should not be a hostile force that forbids all talk of God, faith, and transcendence. Sarkozy called for a "positive laïcité" that allows religion to help forge an ethical society.

"It would be crazy to deprive ourselves of religion," remarked Sarkozy, condemning such repression as "a failing against culture and against thought" (Zenit News Service):

Religion, began Sarkozy, "and in particular the Christian religion, with which we share a long history, are living patrimonies of reflection and thought, not only about God, but also about man, society, and that which is a central concern for us today, nature."
It would be crazy to deprive ourselves of religion; [it would be] a failing against culture and against thought. For this reason, I am calling for a positive secularity," he said. "A positive secularity offers our consciences the possibility to interchange -- above and beyond our beliefs and rites -- the sense we want to give to our lives."
The president explained the areas in which this vision of secularism could take root: "France has begun, together with Europe, a reflection on the morality of capitalism.
"Economic growth doesn't make sense if it becomes it's own objective. Only the betterment of the situation of the greatest number of persons and their personal fulfillment constitute legitimate objectives.
"This teaching, that forms part of the heart of the social doctrine of the Church, is in perfect consonance with the challenges of the globalized contemporary economy. Our duty is to listen to it."
"Positive secularism, open secularism, is an invitation to dialogue, to tolerance and respect," Sarkozy acknowledged. "It is an opportunity, an encouragement, a supplementary dimension to the political debate. It is an encouragement to religion, as well as to all currents of thought."

According to the papers, Sarkozy is twice-divorced and a "lapsed Catholic", in light of which I find it most encouraging to see him taking a stand in this manner against stiff opposition from militant secularists.

Related

Pope to French Catholics: Don't be afraid Jamey Keaten. Associated Press. Sept. 12, 2008.
Sarkozy attacked over Pope's red-carpet welcome, by Ben Hall. Financial Times September 13, 2008.

Archbishop Chaput: "Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life"

2008-08-11T22:37:00.000-07:00

On August 12, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver will release his latest book - Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life, which focuses on a question of undeniable importance for Catholics in the U.S. but also around the world: What is the role of faith in the public square?

Fr. Robert Imbelli, a Boston College associate professor of Theology, gives readers an insightful and well-written review of the archbishop’s book, which will be published in L’Osservatore Romano.

Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI on the American Founding

2008-07-04T09:20:00.000-07:00

From the dawn of the Republic, America’s quest for freedom has been guided by the conviction that the principles governing political and social life are intimately linked to a moral order based on the dominion of God the Creator. The framers of this nation’s founding documents drew upon this conviction when they proclaimed the “self-evident truth” that all men are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights grounded in the laws of nature and of nature’s God. The course of American history demonstrates the difficulties, the struggles, and the great intellectual and moral resolve which were demanded to shape a society which faithfully embodied these noble principles. In that process, which forged the soul of the nation, religious beliefs were a constant inspiration and driving force, as for example in the struggle against slavery and in the civil rights movement. In our time too, particularly in moments of crisis, Americans continue to find their strength in a commitment to this patrimony of shared ideals and aspirations. ...
Historically, not only Catholics, but all believers have found here the freedom to worship God in accordance with the dictates of their conscience, while at the same time being accepted as part of a commonwealth in which each individual and group can make its voice heard. As the nation faces the increasingly complex political and ethical issues of our time, I am confident that the American people will find in their religious beliefs a precious source of insight and an inspiration to pursue reasoned, responsible and respectful dialogue in the effort to build a more humane and free society.
Freedom is not only a gift, but also a summons to personal responsibility. Americans know this from experience – almost every town in this country has its monuments honoring those who sacrificed their lives in defense of freedom, both at home and abroad. The preservation of freedom calls for the cultivation of virtue, self-discipline, sacrifice for the common good and a sense of responsibility towards the less fortunate. It also demands the courage to engage in civic life and to bring one’s deepest beliefs and values to reasoned public debate. In a word, freedom is ever new. It is a challenge held out to each generation, and it must constantly be won over for the cause of good (cf. Spe Salvi, 24). Few have understood this as clearly as the late Pope John Paul II. In reflecting on the spiritual victory of freedom over totalitarianism in his native Poland and in eastern Europe, he reminded us that history shows, time and again, that “in a world without truth, freedom loses its foundation”, and a democracy without values can lose its very soul (cf. Centesimus Annus, 46). Those prophetic words in some sense echo the conviction of President Washington, expressed in his Farewell Address, that religion and morality represent “indispensable supports” of political prosperity.

Excerpts from the White House Welcoming Ceremony Pope Benedict XVI (Apostolic visit to the United States April 16, 2008).

* * *

You represent a nation that plays a crucial role in world events today. The United States carries a weighty and far-reaching responsibility, not only for the well-being of its own people, but for the development and destiny of peoples throughout the world. With a deep sense of participation in the joys and hopes, the sorrows, anxieties, and aspirations of the entire human family, the Holy See is a willing partner in every effort to build a world of genuine peace and justice for all. ...
The Founding Fathers of the United States asserted their claim to freedom and independence on the basis of certain "self-evident" truths about the human person: truths which could be discerned in human nature, built into it by "nature’s God." Thus they meant to bring into being, not just an independent territory, but a great experiment in what George Washington called "ordered liberty": an experiment in which men and women would enjoy equality of rights and opportunities in the pursuit of happiness and in service to the common good. Reading the founding documents of the United States, one has to be impressed by the concept of freedom they enshrine: a freedom designed to enable people to fulfill their duties and responsibilities toward the family and toward the common good of the community. Their authors clearly understood that there could be no true freedom without moral responsibility and accountability, and no happiness without respect and support for the natural units or groupings through which people exist, develop, and seek the higher purposes of life in concert with others.
The American democratic experiment has been successful in many ways. Millions of people around the world look to the United States as a model in their search for freedom, dignity, and prosperity. But the continuing success of American democracy depends on the degree to which each new generation, native-born and immigrant, makes its own the moral truths on which the Founding Fathers staked the future of your Republic. Their commitment to build a free society with liberty and justice for all must be constantly renewed if the United States is to fulfill the destiny to which the Founders pledged their "lives . . . fortunes . . . and sacred honor."
Respect for religious conviction played no small part in the birth and early development of the United States. Thus John Dickinson, Chairman of the Committee for the Declaration of Independence, said in 1776: "Our liberties do not come from charters; for these are only the declaration of preexisting rights. They do not depend on parchments or seals; but come from the King of Kings and the Lord of all the earth." Indeed it may be asked whether the American democratic experiment would have been possible, or how well it will succeed in the future, without a deeply rooted vision of divine providence over the individual and over the fate of nations.

John Paul II on the American Experiment - excerpts from Pope John Paul II's words to the Honorable Lindy Boggs as Ambassador to the Holy See on December 16, 1997.

Pope Benedict's appreciation for American religious freedom

2008-04-10T07:38:00.000-07:00

[Cross-posted to Benedict in America - Chris]

"The Pope likes New York and what it stands for", asserts Jeff Israely in a rather decent article on the Roman Pontiff by the American press ("The American Pope" Time April 3, 2008), examining Benedict's relationship with the American people and his perspectives on the relationship between "church and state" within our country:

"I think he's really fascinated by the city and what it represents," says Raphaela Schmid, a Rome-based German with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, who knows him. "It's about people being two things at once, like Italian Americans or Chinese Americans. He's interested in that idea of coexistence."

Israely disputes the idea that the so-called "Vatican enforcer" harbors an antagonism toward "the democratic, pluralistic values that constitute (on our good days) the American brand":

... A survey of the 80-year-old Pontiff's writings over the decades and testimonies from those who know him suggests that Benedict has a soft spot for Americans and finds considerable value in his U.S. church, the third largest Catholic congregation in the world. Most intriguing, he entertains a recurring vision of an America we sometimes lose sight of: an optimistic and diverse but essentially pious society in which faiths and a faith-based conversation on social issues are kept vital by the Founding Fathers' decision to separate church and state. It's not a stretch to say the Pope sees in the U.S.--or in some kind of idealized version of it--a civic model and even an inspiration to his native Europe

According to Israely, during his stint as peritus during the Second Vatican Council, Joseph Ratzinger was sympathetic to the arguments of the U.S. delegation (John Courtney Murray?) in the debate over religious freedom:

Conservatives opposed [religious freedom]: states must sponsor faith, and the faith should be Roman Catholic. The Americans argued that religious liberty was morally imperative and--from experience--that in a multireligious state, Catholicism could best thrive when the government could not play favorites. The council sided with them, and Ratzinger, anticipating a world composed of jostling religious pluralities, heartily approved. In a 1966 analysis, he wrote, "In a critical hour, Council leadership passed from Europe to the young Churches of America and [their allies]," who "were really opening up the way to the future."

Israely admits that Ratzinger's appreciation for the American conception of religious freedom "did not extend to an acceptance that all roads to salvation are equal or to a license for democracy within his church" (how could it, really?) -- nonetheless:

[Benedict] came to respect the way Catholic leaders in the U.S. went about their business. A current (non-American) CDF official notes that the U.S. church is the only one that keeps a "serious" doctrinal office rather than an unthinking rubber stamp or an old-boys' club; when conflicts arise, its bishops are actually prepared to discuss them. Moreover, says Levada, "he seems to recognize that we're plain speakers. We don't hide behind words."
The Pope also admires the Americans' role as, in the words of one cleric, "intellectual first responders," especially as the country's great network of Catholic hospitals wrestles with novel problems of medical ethics. "Through the great sphere of worldly experience that the Church has in America," Benedict wrote, "as well as through her faith experience, decisive influences can be passed on." He has shown his comfort with the direct and thoroughly American approach by appointing Americans to the No. 1 and No. 3 spots in his powerful former office [The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith].

Israely cites as a prominent example of the Pope's appreciation for America expressed in Without Roots, his 2004 exchange with the president of the Italian Senate, Marcello Pera:

It bemoans the European Union's refusal to acknowledge Christianity in a draft constitution, and Pera wonders about bringing back some kind of multidenominational "Christian civil religion." In response, Ratzinger cites Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America and makes the case that America's Founding Fathers were pious men of different denominations who wrote the First Amendment prohibiting state establishment (that is, sponsorship) of religion precisely because sponsorship would stifle all non-established creeds--which they hoped would achieve full and varied flower.
Of course, no such bloom would occur if the American soil were not already faith-saturated. But Ratzinger believes in America's "obvious spiritual foundation," its natural, Puritan-instilled DNA. He is well aware that this is eroding; he thinks we watch too much TV and fears that American secularization is proceeding at an "accelerated pace." But he insists that there is a "much clearer and implicit sense" in the U.S. than in Europe of a morality "bequeathed by Christianity." He has also given earnest thought to the mechanics of this civil religion, specifying that to affect the moral consensus, it is not enough for Catholics to rub shoulders with other Christians; they must translate their concerns from doctrinal language into a "public theology" accessible to all.

As far as his Apostolic Journey to America is concerned, Israely believes Benedict will be "less interested in scolding American Catholics than in talking up 'new religious communities ... being formed who quite consciously aim at a complete fulfillment of the demands of religious life'" -- schools of burgeoning Catholic orthodoxy like Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, Calif.; Christendom College in Front Royal, Va.; and Ave Maria University in Ave Maria, Fla -- "eruptions of non-state-related religious vitality at which he thinks we excel."

There are a few points in Israely's article which betray his liberal sympathies -- as when he says "There are times when Benedict's love affair with American religious pluralism seems a bit naive, especially when it clashes with his nonnegotiable doctrinal stands" or "downplaying the idea that Catholics may legitimately balance church teaching against the demands of their conscience." But on the whole I think it worth the read. Israely closes:

John Paul II described faith and reason as the twin wings that lift the church. And yet a balanced takeoff has remained elusive. The U.S. is one of the few places where it seems to happen regularly. "America is simultaneously a completely modern and a profoundly religious place. In the world, it is unique in this," says a senior Vatican official. "And Ratzinger wants to understand how those two aspects can coexist." Almost all the things the Pope likes about us--our faith in the real value of plainspokenness, our pluralistic piety and even our wrangles around applying religiously grounded moral principles to increasingly abstruse science--can be understood in light of this quest. If he finds answers in the U.S., they could help define his papacy.
When he arrives on U.S. soil on April 15, we in the press will no doubt be parsing Benedict's every sentence for his opinions on U.S. policy or remonstrance of American morals. But the most important waves emanating from this contact may reverberate well beyond tomorrow's news cycle. John Paul II and the U.S. played as anticommunist co-leads on the 20th century stage. This Pope, more a student of global drama than an eager protagonist, knows that rising religious conflict may be the 21st century's great challenge. He also appears to sense that American power alone won't solve it--but that the power of American values still might. In rummaging through our founding precepts for a path for his own purposes, he might find something important for us to remember too.

Further Reading

Ratzinger/Benedict on "Separation of Church & State"

"A Tocquevillian in the Vatican", by Dr. Samuel Gregg:
Upon being inducted into the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques of the Institut de France in 1992, then-Cardinal Ratzinger remarked that Tocqueville's “ Democracy in America has always made a strong impression on me.“
Describing Tocqueville as “le grand penseur politique,“ the context of these remarks was Ratzinger's insistence that free societies cannot sustain themselves, as Tocqueville observed, without widespread adherence to ”des convictions éthiques communes.“ Ratzinger then underlined Tocqueville's appreciation of Protestant Christianity's role in providing these underpinnings in the United States. In more recent years, Ratzinger expressed admiration for the manner in which church-state relations were arranged in America, using words suggesting he had absorbed Tocqueville's insights into this matter.
Biblical Aspects of the Question of Faith and Politics homily delivered on 26 November 1981 for Catholic members of the Bundestag in the church of St. Wynfrith (Boniface).
Why Church and State Must Be Separate An excerpt from "Theology and the Church’s Political Stance" in Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger Church, Ecumenism and Politics: New Essays in Ecclesiology (NY: Crossroad, 1988 -- republished by Ignatius Press in 2008).
Benedict XVI on Religion and Public Life Zenit News Service Sept. 17, 2005 - which included his June 2005 remarks to Italian President Carlo Ciampi on church-state relations.
On October 17, 2005, in a letter to the president of the Italian Senate, Marcello Pera (with whom he co-authored Without Roots: Europe, Relativism, Christianity, Islam), Pope Benedict expressed his support for a "healthy secularity of the state" -- or that which guarantees "to each citizen the right to live his own religious faith with genuine freedom, including in the public realm" and includes "a commitment to guarantee to all, individuals and groups, respect for the exigencies of the common good, [and] the possibility to live and to express one own religious convictions." (The full text of the letter can be found here).
Secularity: On Benedict XVI and the Role of Religion in Society | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J. | January 9, 2007 (on Benedict's lecture to 59th Study Conference of the Union of Italian Catholic Jurists).

Ratzinger on Europe

Europe: Its Spiritual Foundation: Yesterday, Today and in the Future Inside the Vatican, June-July 2004.
"No Weighing, No Disputing, No Such Thing": Ratzinger and Europe, by Fr. James V. Schall, S.J. | August 11, 2007

Wherein lies the Kingdom?

2008-03-20T22:30:00.001-07:00

The German Jesuit Alfred Delp, who was executed by the Nazis, once wrote: "Bread is important, freedom is more important, but most important of all is fidelity and faithful adoration."

When this ordering of goods is no longer respected, but turned on its head, the result is not justice or concern for human suffering. The result is rather ruin and destruction even of material goods themselves. When God is regarded as a secondary matter that can be set aside temporarily or permanently on account of more important things, it is precisely these supposedly more important things that come to nothing.

It is not just the negative outcome of the Marxist experiment that proves this. The aid offered by the West to developing countries has been purely technically and materially based, and not only has left God out of the picture, but has driven men away from God. [p. 33]

* * *

Let us return to the third temptation. Its true content becomes apparent when throughout history we realize that it is constantly taking on new forms. The Christian empire attempted at an early stage to use faith in order to cement political unity. The Kingdom of Christ was not expected to take the form of a political kingdom and its splendour. The powerlessness of faith, the early powerlessness of Jesus Christ, was to be given the helping hand of political and military might. The temptation to use power to secure the faith has arisen again and again in varied forms throughout the centuries, and again and again faith has risked being suffocated in the embrace of power. The struggle for the freedom of the Church, the struggle to avoid identifying Jesus' Kingdom with any political structure, is one that has to be fought century after century. For the fusion of faith and political power comes at a price: faith becomes the servant of power and must bend to its criteria. [p. 40]

If we had to choose today, would Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Mary, the Son of the Father, have a chance? Do we really know Jesus at all? Do we understand him? Do we not have to perhaps make an effort, today as always, to get to know him all over again? The tempter is not so crude as to suggest to us directly that we should worship the devil. He merely suggests that we opt for a reasonable decision, that we choose to give priority to a planned and thoroughly organized world, where God may have his place as a private concern but must not interfere in our essential purposes. Soloviev attributes to the AntiChrist a book entitled The Open Way to World Peace and Welfare. This book becomes something of a new bible, whose real message is the worshiop of well-being and rational planning. [p. 41]

-- Benedict XVI (Jesus of Nazareth

The Passion narratives are the first pieces of the Gospels that were composed as a unity. In his preaching at Corinth, Paul initially wants to know nothing but the Cross, which "destroys the wisdom of the wise and wrecks the understanding of those who understand", which "is a scandal to the Jews and foolishness to the gentiles". But "the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men" (I Cor 1:19, 23, 25).

Whoever removes the Cross and its interpretation by the New Testament from the center, in order to replace it, for example, with the social commitment of Jesus to the oppressed as a new center, no longer stands in continuity with the apostolic faith. He does not see that God's commitment to the world is most absolute precisely at this point across a chasm.

-- Hans Urs von Balthasar ("The Cross - For Us" excerpt from A Short Primer For Unsettled Laymen)

2007-11-27T22:31:00.000-08:00

What Christopher Dawson Lamented in Modernity, by Jesús Colina:

SANTIAGO, Chile, NOV. 27, 2007 (Zenit.org).- When a society loses its religion, sooner or later it loses its culture. This is one of the reflections of English historian Christopher Dawson, highlighted in a book on his philosophical contribution to the study of history.
Jaime Antúnez Aldunate, editor of the Chile-based review Humanitas, is the author of "Filosofía de la historia en Christopher Dawson" (Philosophy of History in Christopher Dawson), a man he says was the best Catholic historian of the 20th century. The book is available in Spanish from Ediciones Encuentro.
In this Interview with ZENIT, Antúnez reflects on the main principles of Dawson's thought and how his reflections can be applied to modern culture. Dawson lived from 1899 to 1970.

2007-11-23T18:06:00.000-08:00

. . . Adam Smith was fond of saying that nobody has ever seen a dog exchange a bone with another dog. He meant that only humans exchange goods for mutual benefit. Capitalism is uniquely human because it lifts us above the mere struggle for survival and forces us to reflect on our capacity to alter our environment. Capitalism is guilty of making our wants seem like needs and thus turning material objects into the stuff of our salvation, but it is also realistic in acknowledging that human solidarity cannot be achieved outside the making and trading of supplies and services. For that reason, capitalism has been a helpful corrective to theologies that portray salvation as an absolutely otherworldly affair.
At its best, capitalism imagines a world where the pursuit of the good involves the making of goods in a way that affirms both individual dignity and personal responsibility. It would be a shame if Radical Orthodoxy turned out to earn its adjective—and thus its right to be distinguished from ordinary orthodoxy—by its devotion to Marxism. Affluent theologians owe it to Christians struggling in the developing world to give them the same opportunity to develop prosperous economies as our ancestors gave us.

-- Stephen H. Webb. First Things April 2007 [Review of Theology and the Political: The New Debate (Duke UP, 2007)]

"God and Caesar from Down Under"

2007-11-19T22:16:00.000-08:00

God and Caesar Seen From Down Under: Cardinal Pell Analyzes Religion's Role in Modern Life, by Father John Flynn, LC. Zenit News Service. Nov. 18, 2007.

Review of God and Caesar: Selected Essays on Religion, Politics, and Society Catholic University of America Press (October 2007). 189p.

2007-11-16T21:29:00.000-08:00

Debating the Separation of Religion and Politics, by Fr. Richard J. Neuhaus. "On The Square" First Things November 15, 2007. Excerpts from an opening statement at a debate sponsored by The Economist on the resolution: "Religion and politics should always be kept separate" with Barry Lynn of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State:

It is not true that our society is divided between a moral majority of the religious, on the one hand, and an immoral or amoral minority of the nonreligious, on the other. Atheists can have moral convictions that are every bit as strong as the moral convictions of the devout Christian or observant Jew. What we have in the political arena is not a division between the moral and the immoral but an ongoing contention between different moral visions addressing the political question—how ought we to order our life together?
This ongoing contention, this experience of being locked in civil argument, is nothing less than democracy in action. It is Lincoln and Douglas debating the morality of slavery; it is the argument about whether unborn children have rights we are obliged to respect; it is the argument over whether the war in Iraq is just or unjust. And on and on. These are all moral arguments to which people bring their best moral judgment. In short, our political system calls for open-ended argument about all the great issues that touch upon the question “How ought we to order our life together?”
The idea that some citizens should be excluded from addressing that question because their arguments are religious, or that others should be excluded because their arguments are nonreligious or antireligious, is an idea deeply alien to the representative democracy that this constitutional order is designed to protect. A foundational principle of that order is that all citizens have equal standing in the public square. [...]
As I have suggested, religion cannot be separated from politics. More precisely, religion cannot be separated from democratic politics. But I do believe that religious leaders should be more circumspect and restrained than they sometimes are in addressing political issues, and that for two reasons. The first and most important reason is that the dynamics of political battle tend to corrupt religion, blurring the distinctions between the temporal and the eternal, the sacred and the profane. So the first concern is for the integrity of religion.
The second concern is for the integrity of politics. Making distinctively religious arguments in political debates tends to be both ineffective and unnecessarily polarizing. Citizens who are religious, like all citizens, should as much as possible make arguments on the basis of public reasons that are accessible to everyone. [...]
There is a long and complicated history by which the West, and America in particular, has arrived at our commitment to freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and freedom of political action. These freedoms, as they are enshrined in the First Amendment, are all of a piece. Our history and our commitment is not shared by everyone in the world. In most dramatic contrast today are Islamic societies in which, as many see it, the brutal choice is posed between monolithic religion or monolithic secularism. We have to hope that is not the case, but that is a problem for Muslims to resolve.
Thank God, and thank the American Founders, our circumstance is very different. Ours is a pluralistic society in which, by the means of representative democracy, all citizens—whether religious, nonreligious, antireligious, or undecided—are on an equal footing as they bring their diverse and sometimes conflicting moral visions to bear on the great question of politics—how ought we to order our life together?

Pope Benedict XVI's Critique of Capitalism

2007-09-21T21:10:00.000-07:00

Earlier this summer Benedict urged the nations of the world to embrace each other in solidarity and work towards "an ever more just distribution" of wealth," warning that "It is not possible to continue using the wealth of the poorest countries with impunity, without them also being able to participate in world growth." (Zenit: "Pope Urges Just Distribution of Goods" June 1, 2007).

Benedict revisited this topic during his September 23 Angelus. Commenting on Jesus' parable of the "dishonest steward", Benedict remarked on the "equal distribution of goods":

Telling the Parable of the dishonest but very crafty administrator, Christ teaches his disciples the best way to use money and material riches, that is, to share them with the poor, thus acquiring their friendship, with a view to the Kingdom of Heaven. "Make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous mammon," Jesus says, "so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal habitations" (Lk 16: 9).
Money is not "dishonest" in itself, but more than anything else it can close man in a blind egocentrism. It therefore concerns a type of work of "conversion" of economic goods: instead of using them only for self-interest, it is also necessary to think of the needs of the poor, imitating Christ himself, who, as St Paul wrote: "though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich" (II Cor 8: 9). [...]
Catholic social doctrine has always supported that equitable distribution of goods is a priority. Naturally, profit is legitimate and, in just measure, necessary for economic development.
In his Encyclical Centesimus Annus, John Paul II wrote: "The modern business economy has positive aspects. Its basis is human freedom exercised in many other fields" (n. 32). Yet, he adds that capitalism must not be considered as the only valid model of economic organization (cf. ibid., n. 35).
Starvation and ecological emergencies stand to denounce, with increasing evidence, that the logic of profit, if it prevails, increases the disproportion between rich and poor and leads to a ruinous exploitation of the planet.
Instead, when the logic of sharing and solidarity prevails, it is possible to correct the course and direct it towards an equitable, sustainable development.

Michael Joseph of Vox Nova has conveyed his thoughts on Benedict's remarks (along with a lively combox discussion) in "The Logic of Profit and the Logic of Equal Distribution" Vox Nova Sept. 24, 2007).

To this I wanted to contribute (in what meager way I can) by exploring other addresses of Pope Benedict on the economy. . . . READ THE REST

Benedict's Address to the Latin American Bishop's Council (CELAM) - Brazil

In May 2007, Benedict made an apostolic journey to Brazil, during which he participated in the opening of the Fifth General Conference of the Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean. Speaking of the necessity to establish "just structures -- without which a just order in society is not possible," Benedict addresses the insufficient promises of capitalism and Marxism:

Both capitalism and Marxism promised to point out the path for the creation of just structures, and they declared that these, once established, would function by themselves; they declared that not only would they have no need of any prior individual morality, but that they would promote a communal morality. And this ideological promise has been proved false. The facts have clearly demonstrated it. The Marxist system, where it found its way into government, not only left a sad heritage of economic and ecological destruction, but also a painful oppression of souls. And we can also see the same thing happening in the West, where the distance between rich and poor is growing constantly, and giving rise to a worrying degradation of personal dignity through drugs, alcohol and deceptive illusions of happiness.
Just structures are, as I have said, an indispensable condition for a just society, but they neither arise nor function without a moral consensus in society on fundamental values, and on the need to live these values with the necessary sacrifices, even if this goes against personal interest.
Where God is absent—God with the human face of Jesus Christ—these values fail to show themselves with their full force, nor does a consensus arise concerning them. I do not mean that non-believers cannot live a lofty and exemplary morality; I am only saying that a society in which God is absent will not find the necessary consensus on moral values or the strength to live according to the model of these values, even when they are in conflict with private interests.
On the other hand, just structures must be sought and elaborated in the light of fundamental values, with the full engagement of political, economic and social reasoning. They are a question of recta ratio and they do not arise from ideologies nor from their premises. Certainly there exists a great wealth of political experience and expertise on social and economic problems that can highlight the fundamental elements of a just state and the paths that must be avoided. But in different cultural and political situations, amid constant developments in technology and changes in the historical reality of the world, adequate answers must be sought in a rational manner, and a consensus must be created—with the necessary commitments—on the structures that must be established.

According to John Allen Jr., Benedict's critique of capitalism comes as no surprise to those familiar with Joseph Ratzinger's earlier work (National Catholic Reporter May 13, 2007):

Benedict XVI’s stinging criticism of both Marxism and capitalism this afternoon may have caught some off-guard used to thinking of him as a consumate conservative, but it shouldn’t surprise anyone who knows Joseph Ratzinger’s history. . . .
In 1988, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger published a collection of essays under the title of Church, Ecumenism and Politics. In it, he argued that capitalism is little better than national socialism or communism, in that all three propose false idols (prosperity, the Volk, and the state, respectively). Ratzinger said that to build a humane civilization, the West must rediscover two elements of its past: its classical Greek heritage and its common Christian identity.
From the classical era, Ratzinger wrote, Europe should rediscover objective and eternal values that stand above politics, putting limits to power. Ratzinger used the Greek term eunomia to describe this concept of the good. In that sense, one could say that Ratzinger proposed a eunomic, rather than capitalist, model of Western culture.
Over the years, Ratzinger has been close to the Communio school within Catholic theology, which stresses the need for cultures to take their point of departure from the Christian gospel rather than secular ideologies. Its primary exponents have repeatedly criticized capitalism for promoting an ethos of individualism and “survival of the fittest” that is at odds with the communitarian thrust of Catholic social teaching.
Since becoming pope, Benedict has often criticized what he considers the injustices of a growing neo-liberal system of economic globalization.

Ratzinger on "Market Economy and Ethics"

The most extensive work that I could find online -- generously made available by the Acton Institute -- is Ratzinger's Market Economy and Ethics, a version of which was presented in 1985 in a symposium in Rome, “Church and Economy in Dialogue.” It was published in English under the title “Church and economy: Responsibility for the future of the world economy,” Communio 13 (Fall 1986): 199-204.

Ratzinger begins by challenging "the objection raised especially after the Second Vatican Council, that the autonomy of specialized realms is to be respected above all," including the autonomy of the free market from moral influence:

Following the tradition inaugurated by Adam Smith , this position holds that the market is incompatible with ethics because voluntary “moral” actions contradict market rules and drive the moralizing entrepreneur out of the game. For a long time, then, business ethics rang like hollow metal because the economy was held to work on efficiency and not on morality. 4 The market's inner logic should free us precisely from the necessity of having to depend on the morality of its participants. The true play of market laws best guarantees progress and even distributive justice.
The great successes of this theory concealed its limitations for a long time. But now in a changed situation, its tacit philosophical presuppositions and thus its problems become clearer. Although this position admits the freedom of individual businessmen, and to that extent can be called liberal, it is in fact deterministic in its core. It presupposes that the free play of market forces can operate in one direction only, given the constitution of man and the world, namely, toward the self-regulation of supply and demand, and toward economic efficiency and progress.
This determinism, in which man is completely controlled by the binding laws of the market while believing he acts in freedom from them, includes yet another and perhaps even more astounding presupposition, namely, that the natural laws of the market are in essence good (if I may be permitted so to speak) and necessarily work for the good, whatever may be true of the morality of individuals. These two presuppositions are not entirely false, as the successes of the market economy illustrate. But neither are they universally applicable and correct, as is evident in the problems of today's world economy. . . .
Even if the market economy does rest on the ordering of the individual within a determinate network of rules, it cannot make man superfluous or exclude his moral freedom from the world of economics. It is becoming ever so clear that the development of the world economy has also to do with the development of the world community and with the universal family of man, and that the development of the spiritual powers of mankind is essential in the development of the world community. These spiritual powers are themselves a factor in the economy: the market rules function only when a moral consensus exists and sustains them.

Ratzinger follows this with an observation about the growing attraction of Third World nations to a centralized economy by those who "identify the ground of their misery in the market economy, which they see as a system of exploitations, as institutionalised sin and injustice" -- who embrace centralization with something akin to a "religious fervor." Ratzinger summarizes the discussion as follows:

For while the market economy rests on the beneficial effect of egoism and its automatic limitation through competing egoisms, the thought of just control seems to predominate in a centralized economy, where the goal is equal rights for all and proportionate distribution of goods to all. The examples adduced thus far are certainly not encouraging, but the hope that one could, nonetheless, bring this moral project to fruition is also not thereby refuted. It seems that if the whole were to be attempted on a stronger moral foundation, it should be possible to reconcile morality and efficiency in a society not oriented toward maximum profit, but rather to self-restraint and common service. Thus in this area, the argument between economics and ethics is becoming ever more an attack on the market economy and its spiritual foundations, in favor of a centrally controlled economy, which is believed now to receive its moral grounding.

Capitalism and Marxism: Philosophical "Siamese Twins"?

Though sympathetic to this "reconciliation of economics and ethics," Ratzinger rejects the Marxist proposal. His criticism is fascinating: though it presents itself as the antithesis to the market economy, the centrally-administered Marxist economy belies the same underlying philosophical determinism as its utilitarian-capitalist neighbor:

This determinism includes the renunciation of ethics as an independent entity relevant to the economy. [In Marxism], religion is traced back to economics as the reflection of a particular economic system and thus, at the same time, as an obstacle to correct knowledge, to correct action — as an obstacle to progress, at which the natural laws of history aim. . . . It is also presupposed that history, which takes its course from the dialectic of negative and positive, must, of its inner essence and with no further reasons being given, finally end in total positivity. That the Church can contribute nothing positive to the world economy on such a view is clear; its only significance for economics is that it must be overcome.

Ratzinger notes with concern as well the typical hostility towards the Catholic faith -- citing the examples of Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, and Rockefeller in 1969, both of whom saw the Catholic majority in Latin America as an obstacle to relations with the United States and its economic expansion. Ratzinger notes the irony:

In both these remarks, religion — here a Christian denomination — is presupposed as a socio-political, and hence as an economic-political factor, which is fundamental for the development of political structures and economic possibilities. This reminds one of Max Weber's thesis about the inner connection between capitalism and Calvinism , between the formation of the economic order and the determining religious idea. Marx's notion seems to be almost inverted: it is not the economy that produces religious notions, but the fundamental religious orientation that decides which economic system can develop. The notion that only Protestantism can bring forth a free economy — whereas Catholicism includes no corresponding education to freedom and to the self-discipline necessary to it, favoring authoritarian systems instead — is doubtless even today still very widespread

Ratzinger calls for a “self-criticism of the Christian confessions," initiating a dialogue with those who manage the economy and countering the prejudice that would confine Christianity to the private realm, leaving the professional businessman to abide solely by the "laws of the market." According to Ratzinger, it is only in joining the market with a solid ethical foundation (sustained by religious conviction) that the pursuit of the common good can be accomplished. In fact, as we so often see today -- in tabloid stories of corporate scandals -- "the decline of such discipline can actually cause the laws of the market to collapse."

Ratzinger adds this note of caution to both parties [emphasis mine]:

A morality that believes itself able to dispense with the technical knowledge of economic laws is not morality but moralism. As such it is the antithesis of morality. A scientific approach that believes itself capable of managing without an ethos misunderstands the reality of man. Therefore it is not scientific. Today we need a maximum of specialized economic understanding, but also a maximum of ethos so that specialized economic understanding may enter the service of the right goals.

* * *

Depends on your definition of "capitalism"?

If Benedict criticizes "capitalism", it seems to me he is referring more accurately to neo-liberalism, the worldview which Pope John Paul II described in Ecclesia in America:

More and more, in many countries of America, a system known as “neoliberalism” prevails; based on a purely economic conception of man, this system considers profit and the law of the market as its only parameters, to the detriment of the dignity of and the respect due to individuals and peoples. At times this system has become the ideological justification for certain attitudes and behavior in the social and political spheres leading to the neglect of the weaker members of society. Indeed, the poor are becoming ever more numerous, victims of specific policies and structures which are often unjust.

and condemned as well in Centesimus Annus (in addressing the question of whether 'capitalism' could be endorsed by Catholics:

. . . The answer is obviously complex. If by "capitalism" is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative, even though it would perhaps be more appropriate to speak of a "business economy", "market economy" or simply "free economy". But if by "capitalism" is meant a system in which freedom in the economic sector is not circumscribed within a strong juridical framework which places it at the service of human freedom in its totality, and which sees it as a particular aspect of that freedom, the core of which is ethical and religious, then the reply is certainly negative.

The necessary corrective to such abuses, according to John Paul II, is "support must be given to all those who are examples of honesty in the administration of public finances and of justice," and support for "the process of democratization", which provides for greater control over potential abuses:

“The rule of law is the necessary condition for the establishment of an authentic democracy”. For democracy to develop, there is a need for civic education and the promotion of public order and peace. In effect, “there is no authentic and stable democracy without social justice. Thus the Church needs to pay greater attention to the formation of consciences, which will prepare the leaders of society for public life at all levels, promote civic education, respect for law and for human rights, and inspire greater efforts in the ethical training of political leaders”.

(Ecclesia in America, No. 57).

* * *

Michael Joseph states with conviction:

Capitalism, which Smith outlines in his magisterial Wealth of Nations, is founded upon an ethics of sentiment and want and takes on the form of exchange between parties–I give you what you want and you give me what I want. This is why Enlightment liberty must always be coupled with capitalism. If reason is not the arbitor of proper action, then all people must be free to pursue their wants according to sentiment. Toss in some J.S. Mill and Bentham in order to give capitalism the flavor of utilitarian mode–I am at liberty to pursue my wants, which I decipher from my sentiments, as long as such a pursuit works for the benefit of the majority. That is the capitalist/utilitarian ethic. . . .
[I]t is true without a hesitation that the capitalist ethic is fundamentally at odds with the entire moral tradition of the Catholic faith, and that the capitalist ethic (to use the words of Aladair MacIntyre) is a rival morality to Catholicism. Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI understood this. Of course, the Catholic defenders of capitalism never care to debate its intellectual formulation for they know it is flawed. Instead, they refer us to the “material prosperity” of free market societies in order to justify the good of capitalism. But what else is such an empirical reliance than a consequentialist defense of a system that rejects the dignity of the human person (indeed, there is no person!) and reduces societal interaction to mere exchange!

Is the "free economy" and Catholic social teaching ultimately irreconcilable? -- Michael Therrien's essay John Paul II’s Use of the Term Neo-Liberalism in Ecclesia in America challenges precisely this claim. For Therrien, neoliberalism is but one possible outcome, "depending on the moral disposition of the actors within the market." He contends:

the Church has elevated certain elements of the classical liberal agenda—and without compromise—by divorcing liberalism from its historic excesses. By situating liberalism within a Christian philosophical and theological framework, the Church has sufficiently anchored liberalism’s vision of individual liberty and human rights in a proper anthropology. This process began with Pius IX’s 1864 Syllabus of Errors, which condemned the radical elements of the liberal movement, and has continued all the way through John Paul II’s encyclical letter, Fides et Ratio. By asserting this, however, I am also recognizing that the Church has condemned the excesses and abuses of liberalism. Among these would be the errors of atomistic individualism, the absolute right to private property, the idea that law originates from the will of the people, and the rejection of legitimate authority, especially the moral authority of the Church. Yet I would suggest that these condemnations, and others, have been carefully focused on specific errors of liberalism so as not to disregard many of the key insights that liberals advanced, such as religious liberty, freedom of association, and economic liberty. Admittedly, the Church has prudently taken more than a century to develop her teaching on these matters. Consequently, the nuancing of liberalism has been gradual and slow to develop.

In like manner, says Therrien, John Paul’s condemnation of neo-liberalism is not tantamount to a wholesale condemnation of the free economy as an economic system:

Neo-liberalism simply reflects those moral dispositions that are unacceptable to the Church in the marketplace. Thus, neo-liberalism is not synonymous with the free economy, nor does the market necessarily produce these excesses even though it might appear that way. I would even suggest that this moral disposition precedes any economic system, in as much as it is part and parcel of man’s fallen nature.
This distinction between the free economy and neo-liberalism is absolutely necessary if one is to properly understand the Church’s teaching about the economic order.

On the consequences of economic reductionism -- subordinating human dignity to profit and the "invisible hand of the market" -- Therrien asks a question which I would pose to Michael Joseph (and perhaps Benedict):

Yet is this intrinsic to the free economy—insofar as the free market refers to the voluntary exchange of goods and services and the protection of property rights—or is this simply a reflection of the moral blindness of those who espouse such a minimalist view of the human person? In other words, is it impossible to admit that individuals are capable of moving beyond selfish interest when acting in the market? Or is market activity fundamentally about greed?

* * *

One can appreciate Ratzinger's recognition of the "proper jurisdiction" of theologian and economist, so to speak. To reiterate:

A morality that believes itself able to dispense with the technical knowledge of economic laws is not morality but moralism. As such it is the antithesis of morality. A scientific approach that believes itself capable of managing without an ethos misunderstands the reality of man. Therefore it is not scientific.

Or, to quote Gregory M. A. Gronbacher: "No matter how sublime the theology, it is no substitute for genuine economic knowledge, especially when the goal is to analyze economic structures in terms of their moral significance."

This advice is echoed in Benedict's May 2007 address to the Latin Bishop's Conference where, according to Benedict, the task of the Church is not so much the prescription of specific economic policy as the reaffirmation of fundamental principles which would guide our actions:

This political task is not the immediate competence of the Church. Respect for a healthy secularity—including the pluralism of political opinions—is essential in the Christian tradition. If the Church were to start transforming herself into a directly political subject, she would do less, not more, for the poor and for justice, because she would lose her independence and her moral authority, identifying herself with a single political path and with debatable partisan positions. The Church is the advocate of justice and of the poor, precisely because she does not identify with politicians nor with partisan interests. Only by remaining independent can she teach the great criteria and inalienable values, guide consciences and offer a life choice that goes beyond the political sphere. To form consciences, to be the advocate of justice and truth, to educate in individual and political virtues: that is the fundamental vocation of the Church in this area. And lay Catholics must be aware of their responsibilities in public life; they must be present in the formation of the necessary consensus and in opposition to injustice.
Just structures will never be complete in a definitive way. As history continues to evolve, they must be constantly renewed and updated; they must always be imbued with a political and humane ethos—and we have to work hard to ensure its presence and effectiveness. In other words, the presence of God, friendship with the incarnate Son of God, the light of his word: these are always fundamental conditions for the presence and efficacy of justice and love in our societies.

Catholics have responded to this call in many different ways. One way is that of the Catholic Worker, taking on voluntary poverty in solidarity with the least among us.

Then there is the Acton Institute, which according to its stated mission seeks to "to promote a free, virtuous, and humane society" by integrating "Judeo-Christian truths with free market principles." Which sounds, to me at least, not unlike what then-Cardinal Ratzinger had in mind when he spoke of joining "specialized economic understanding" with ethical discipline and religious strength, so as to properly order our economic activity.

I am reminded here of the collaboration of theologians and economists in the realtively new school of economic personalism, which upon initial reading aims to develop a "nuanced synthesis of free-market economic science and the science of moral theology grounded in a personalist anthropology" -- a laudable if not challenging task. (For starters, see "The Need for Economic Personalism" (Markets and Morality Volume 1, Number 1. March 1998).

Elsewhere:

Does the Pope Blast Capitalism?", by Fr. Robert Sirico. Responding to allegations that Jesus of Nazareth contains an indictment of capitalism.

Proud to be Catholic and American?

2007-05-28T07:32:00.000-07:00

Some of our Catholic brethren have an . . . alternate take (to put it charitably) on Memorial Day and other American holidays. Here is Michael J. Iafrate (Catholic Anarchy / Vox Nova) on Memorial Day and the Religious Syncretism of the State:

Two years ago, on the Sunday before Memorial Day, a visiting priest was celebrating Mass at my parish in West Virginia. Near the end of Mass, before he processed out of the church he wanted, in light of the upcoming holiday, to honor the soldiers who "made the ultimate sacrifice for us." All of this he said in front of a giant crucifix which, last time I checked, represents the "ultimate sacrifice" in which Christians believe and which, indeed, we had just celebrated in the Eucharistic action. As a fitting conclusion to the patriotic Mass, the congregation sang, not to Jesus, but to the country itself in the words of "America the Beautiful."
We get into a really dangerous place when we start confusing our myths and our holidays. Memorial Day honors the memory of those who gave their lives serving the United States in its military, many of them making the "ultimate sacrifice" (in the state's view) in service to the nation. That's fine. The state needs holidays like this to support its grand narrative and mythology, just like any community of persons.[2] The Church, however, has its own "sort" of "Memorial Day." In fact, our celebration of the Christian "Memorial Day" spans two days: All Saints Day and All Souls Day, November 1 and 2, respectively. These are the days that Christians celebrate the lives of those who have gone before us giving their lives specifically as followers of Christ, many of them making the ultimate sacrifice as martyrs on the way of the cross. . . .
Should not Christians at least consider resisting American holidays as a way of resisting the American mythology, the metanarrative that, as Catholic theologian William Cavanaugh says, serves as an "alternative soteriology" to the Church's story of salvation history?[3] Should we not look for opportunites to subvert the holidays of the empire in which we find ourselves, reminding ourselves of and drawing attention to the ways in which these holidays, as part of American mythology, try to shape our loyalties and practices according to the ideals of the nation-state?
When I speak or write this way, I am often asked if I am advocating a Catholic type of separatism or sectarianism. The answer is no; I am not suggesting a withdrawal from the world. Such a suggestion would deny the mission of the Church for the world. On the other hand, I don’t think the careless syncretism of patriotic Christianity is the only alternative to sectarianism. I think we need a healthy, Catholic suspicion of alternative metanaratives to our own, an ability to clearly understand the differences between the two, and the courage to let that test our celebrations and our social ethics as Catholic Christians.

Responses:

"I am Catholic, I love America, and So Should You" a lengthy, substantial response from Michael R. Denton (For the Greater Glory).
Shades of (red, white, and) blue), by Patrick O'Hannigan (The Paragraph Farmer). May 27, 2007.
Catholic Hatriotism, by Victor Morton (Coalition For Fog).

Incentives to Further Thought

On Being Catholic American, by Joseph A. Varacalli. Ignatius Insight May 2005:
. . . a brief reflection, from what I take to be an authentic Catholic sensibility, on how Catholics ought to analyze their relationship to American society and culture. Put another way, the following question might be posed: "What does American patriotism mean to the serious and devout Catholic?" Or, perhaps and more precisely, the question is: "How can American patriotism be apprehended in a manner consistent with the tenets of the Catholic faith?"
Civil Allegiance - a primer from the Catholic Enyclopedia (1917). Worth reading.
Can Catholics be Real Americans?, by Mark Brumley. Ignatius Insight November 2004.
Allegiance to God AND Country, by Dr. James Toner. ". . . too many Catholics today seem to accept the idea, not that our allegiance to the state is supreme, but that we ought to have no allegiance to the state (cf. 1 Peter 2:13-14)."

Defending the Free Market - 1948 / 2007

2007-05-27T18:31:00.000-07:00

Cartoon Defense of the Free Market Capitalism, via David Michael Phelps of The Acton Blog. "This Cold War-era cartoon uses humor to tout the dangers of Communism and the benefits of capitalism." 1948.

On that note, see the trailer for Call of the Entrepreneur, a new film by the Acton Institute. Reverend Robert Sirico, author of The Entrepreneurial Vocation, joins Michael Novak, George Gilder and other experts in exploring how entrepreneurs shape our world.

2007-05-22T10:31:00.000-07:00

Does the Pope Blast Capitalism?, by Fr. Robert Sirico. Acton Commentary. May 11, 2007:

"Pope's New Book Criticizes Capitalism" said the Associated Press. It was speaking of Jesus of Nazareth, the hot selling book that Pope Benedict XVI began writing before he was elected Pope. Now it is big news and selling in the millions.
The Boston Globe, MSNBC, Fox News, Miami Herald, and a hundred other outlets repeated the claim that the book knocks capitalism. He reportedly says that capitalism inflicts a kind of cruelty on people.
Now, in reading these stories, my first reaction was: What is meant here by capitalism? If by capitalism we mean a system where the elites own the wealth and the poor exist in a servile condition, yes, that sounds cruel. But if we mean the free economy, it is another matter entirely. The free economy (and you can call it capitalism if you want) has been the number one source of material liberation for the poor the world over.
We need only look at the last ten years in China, Eastern Europe, and Asia to see how the free economy has boosted life spans, reduced infant mortality, increased overall health, and fed millions in ways that would be unimaginable under controlled economies. The free economy is a life support system for the whole world. Could Benedict XVI really be departing from the teachings of John Paul II that economic freedom is but a part of a larger system of freedom and rights that is embraced by the Church?
What a surprise, then, awaited me when I actually received the book. . . .

Bishop Richard J. Neuhaus

2007-02-10T10:02:00.000-08:00

From First Things Blog:

Some Muslims in America are unhappy with us. And apparently they know something I don’t. This from The American Muslim:
“The most extreme and most sophisticated example of patronizing intolerance in contemporary America, because it most starkly illustrates the reversal of truth and falsehood, was Michael Novak’s seminal article in the April 2003 issue of America’s leading journal on religion in public life, First Things. Its founder, Bishop Richard John Neuhaus, a convert from Lutheranism to Catholicism, changed the environment in Washington by his enormously influential book, The Naked Public Square. This journal and its elite pundits are today the world’s most influential force in shaping policy toward the role of religion, including Islam.”
I’m waiting to hear from the Vatican on my elevation to the episcopate.

Nice joke, although I can imagine a few Catholics who would be absolutely horrified by the ecclesial appointment of a neocon. ;-)

2006-09-06T19:11:00.000-07:00

There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man. That is a perfectly simple fact which the modern world will find out more and more to be a fact. Every other basis is a sort of sentimental confusion, full of merely verbal echoes of the older creeds. … Men will more and more realize that there is no meaning in democracy if there is no meaning in anything; and that there is no meaning in anything if the universe has not a center of significance and an authority that is the author of our rights.

-- G.K. Chesterton

An "Idolization" of Democracy?

2006-08-19T22:07:00.000-07:00

"I think that, on the whole, the faith that democratic capitalism is the Answer is one that tends to characterize the neocon project."

That's Mark Shea, circa 2006, summing up the "idolatry" of the neoconservative project in his latest post.

Methinks there is more to "neoconservatism" than meets the eye, or the curt dismissal of Mark Shea. For example, here is Irving Kristol, considered the "founder" of American neoconservatism:

Though the phrase "the quality of life" trips easily from so many lips these days, it tends to be one of those cliches with many trivial meanings and no large, serious one. Sometimes it merely refers to some externals as the enjoyment of cleaner air, cleaner water, cleaner streets. At other times it refers to the merely private enjoyment of music, painting and literature. Rarely does it have anything to do with the way the citizen in a democracy views himself -- his obligations, his intentions, his ultimate self-definition.
Instead, what I would call the "managerial" conception of democracy is the predominant opinion among political scientists, socialogists, economists, and has, through the untiring efforts of these scholars, become the conventional journalistic opinion as well. The root idea behind this managerial conception of democracy is 'a political system' (as they say) which can be adequately defined in terms of -- can be fully reduced to -- its mechanical arrangements. Democracy is then seen as a set of rules or procedures, and nothing but a set of rules and procedures, whereby majority rule and minority rights are reconciled in a state of equilibrium. If everyone follows these rules and procedures, then democracy is in good working order. I think this is a fair description of the democratic idea that currently prevails in academia. One can now say that it is the liberal idea of democracy par excellence.
I cannot help but feel there is something ridiculous about being this kind of a democrat, and I must confess to having a sneaking sympathy for those young radicals who also find it ridiculous. The absurdity is the absurdity of idolatry -- of taking the symbolic for the real, the means for the end. The purpose of democracy cannot possibly be the endless functioning of its own political machinery. The purpose of any political regime is to achieve some version of the good life and the good society. It is not at all difficult to imagine a perfectly functioning democracy which answers all questions except one -- namely, why should anyone of intelligence and spirit care a fig for it?
There is, however, an older idea of democracy - one which was fairly common until the beginning of this century - for which the conception of the quality of public life is absolutely crucial. The idea starts from the proposition that democracy is a form of self-government, and that if you want it to be a meritorious policy, you have to care about what kind of people govern it. Indeed, it puts the matter more strongly and declares that if you want self-government, you are only entitled to it if that "self" is worthy of governing. There is no inherent right to self-government if it means that such government is vicious, mean, squalid, and debased. Only a dogmatist and a fanatic, an idolater of the democratic machinery, could approve of self-government under such conditions.
And because the desirability of self-government depends on the character of the people who govern, the older idea of democracy was very solicitous of the condition of this character. It was solicitous of the individual self, and felt an obligation to educate it into what used to be called "republican virtue". And it was solicitous of that collective self which we called public opinion and which, in a democracy, governs us collectively. Perhaps in some respects it was never oversolictitous - that would not be suprising. But the main thing is that it cared, cared not merely about the machinery of democracy but about the quality of life that this machinery might generate.

Shea portrays neoconservatives as treating democracy as a panacea for troubles in the Middle East -- their fault in, quoting Shea, "predicated on a sincere religious faith in a false god and that god's power to redeem and heal": overthrow a tyranny, put in a "managerial" form of democracy, and things will right themselves as long as the machinery of democracy is in place.

I think the quote from Kristol -- a neoconservative if there ever was one -- demonstrates that Kristol possesses anything but a faith in democracy as a "cure-all," as "The Answer." Kristol in this case (if I read him correctly) argues against such an idolization of democracy, a concern for establishing the "machinery" of democracy without taking into consideration the development of character that is essential for its very survival.

So when Shea characterizes "the Neocon project" as an idolatry of democracy, I have to wonder how much he really knows of Irving Kristol, the founder of neoconservatism?

You can read more of Kristol's work in Neoconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea. For a broader perspective on neoconservative thought, see The Neocon Reader (Grove Press, 2005).

At the same time, it was reading Mark's post that called to mind a passage from Building the Free Society: Democracy Capitalism and Catholic Social Teaching, edited by George Weigel, Robert Royal. (Eerdmans, 1994), a great compilation of essays -- not necessarily "neoconservative" -- on various encyclicals and conciliar documents. This from Kenneth Grasso:

There is no single notion of democracy. Rather, there are various theories, rooted in different understandings of politics and animated by divergent conceptions of nature and destiny of man. Although similar in their institutional and procedural frameworks, the democracies created by these conflicting philosophies differ greatly in their spirit and substance. In the face of the democratic revolution that is sweeping the world today, the key question becomes: Which conception of democracy is animating this revolution?
This is no academic question. History attests that democracy is a rare and delicate form of government that has eventuated more often in anarchy or tyranny than in the regime of ordered freedom it promises. Democratic institutions, as John H. Hallowell has warned, "are a means to freedom . . . but they are not identical with freedom itself." In the end, "it is the way in which they are conceived and the way in which they are used that will ultimately determine their efficacy as instruments of freedom." Not all versions of democracy are equally capable of advancing the cause of the freedom and dignity of the human person, or of providing a secure foundation for a vigorous democratic polity. "The fatality that has worked against . . . modern democracies," Maritain observed, is "the false philosophy of life" they have enshrined at the center of their public life. The direction taken by the democratic experiments of today will depend largely upon what philosophy undergirds them.

John Allen Jr. on "Mozart, Masonry and Catholicism"

2006-08-19T08:09:00.000-07:00

Read this today and couldn't resist posting -- I expect it will only be a matter of time before it is picked up by our friend(s) at ressourcement.blogspot.com.

Mozart, Masonry and Catholicism ("All Things Catholic" August 18, 2006):

In a 1996 interview, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger recalled that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart "thoroughly penetrated our souls" in rural Bavaria, in the shadow of Salzburg.
"His music is by no means just entertainment; it contains the whole tragedy of human existence," he said. As is well known, Benedict XVI tries to get in a few minutes at the keyboard every day, usually Mozart.
The pope is hardly alone in this passion.
Such disparate theological voices as Karl Barth, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Hans Küng and Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini have all penned tributes. The Protestant Barth once wrote that when he arrived in Heaven he would seek out Mozart, a Catholic, ahead of Luther or Calvin. Barth even proposed a performance of Mozart's "Coronation Mass" at a meeting of the Protestant World Council of Churches in Evanston, Illinois, an ecumenical gesture that in 1954 proved too far ahead of its time.
On this 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth, however, a nagging question concerns the extent to which Mozart's grasp of the "tragedy of human existence" was colored by the liberal and anti-clerical currents of his day, especially Freemasonry. . . .

I. Shawn McElhinney on John Carroll, Freemasonry and the American Founding Dec. 15, 2005.
Charles Carroll and the American Founding Dec. 6, 2005.
Re: "Freemasonry and America" August 23, 2005.

Damon Linker v. Fr. Neuhaus - Response & Commentary

2006-07-31T21:42:00.000-07:00

See also our compilation of reviews and discussion on Fr. Neuhaus' Catholic Matters: Confusion, Controversy, and the Splendor of Truth (Basic Books. March 2006)]

"The Christianizing of America" - Without a Doubt, by Damon Linker. The New Republic March 24, 2006.
Response: The Dangerous Neuhaus, by James M. Kushiner. Mere Commments March 24, 2006.
Response: TNR on Fr. Neuhaus, by Rick Garnett. Mirror of Justice March 25, 2006.
Discussion of Fr. Neuhaus, Damon Linker, et al. @ Amy Welborn's Open Book March 29, 2006.
Joining the Conversation The American Scene March 30, 2006.
American Theocrat, by John Wilson. Christianity Today May / June 2006.
$160,000! - Rod Dreher muses on Damon Linker's hatchet job on Fr. Neuhaus. The number refers to the advance given to him by his publishers, as relayed by Fr. Neuhaus in the latest First Things "Public Square":
A few weeks later, [Damon] told me he was thinking of writing a book about First Things and its editor in chief. He explained that the book would be a critical appreciation of the achievements of the magazine. I said I would be happy to cooperate with such a project but I didn't think there would be enough interest in the subject to elicit a large advance from a publisher. Moreover, this would be a first book by a relatively unknown writer. In early December, he told me that several publishers had indicated intense interest in the book he was proposing and that Doubleday had offered an advance of $160,000. He wanted to leave at the beginning of 2005 to start writing. Surprised but pleased by his good fortune, I congratulated him and renewed my offer to be of assistance wtih the book. I then said it might be helpful in that connection if I could see the proposal he had submitted to publishers. At this he blanched and, with obvious embarrassment, said that would not be possible. This was the first indication that he had agreed to write what in the publishing business is knowns as an "attack book," which, unfortunately, is the genre to which "The Theocons" belongs.
Theocracy, Theocracy, Theocracy, by Ross Douthat. First Things 165 (August/September 2006): 23-30. A review of American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century, by Kevin Phillips; The Baptizing of America: The Religious Right’s Plans for the Rest of Us, by James Rudin; Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, by Michelle Goldberg, and Thy Kingdom Come: How The Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America: An Evangelical’s Lament by Randall Balmer:
This is a paranoid moment in American politics. A host of conspiracies haunt our national imagination, and apparent incompetence is assumed to be the consequence of a dark design: President Bush knew about the attacks of September 11 in advance, or else the Israelis did; the Straussians took us to war in Iraq, unless the oil companies did; the federal government let the levees break in New Orleans, unless it dynamited them itself.
Perhaps the strangest of these strange stories, though, is the notion that twenty-first-century America is slouching toward theocracy. . . .

Here and There . . .

2006-07-09T16:09:00.000-07:00

An occasional roundup of links that may be of interest to our readers . . .

Separation of Church and State: Some Things Never Change - Reviewing a book by (Separation of Church and State Philip Hamburger. Harvard UP, 2004), Justin Dziowgo (Democracy of the Dead) provides a detailed history of the understanding of this term and the development of religious liberty in America.
Willmoore Kendall revisited. Enchiridion Militis June 29th, 2006. Paul J. Cella introduces us to one of his favorite conservatives.
Ten Years On: A Caelum et Terra Reader?. Featuring contributions by Thomas Storck, Maclin Horton, Dan Nichols and Robert Gotcher (among others), Caelum et Terra was born of a state of disattisfaction with the state of the Church, "the domination of faith by politics" (whether left or right), and the calumny of sectarian Catholic polemics. It is also known for its criticism of what they perceived to be a misinterpretation of Catholic social doctrine by Fr. Neuhaus, George Weigel and Michael Novak. Some of their articles are contained online here, along with their statement of purpose. The publication lasted from 1991-1996 -- Maclin Horton reflects on its history:
Looking back, ten years on, from a somewhat altered perspective, having experienced marriage, fatherhood, and a brush with death, there are things I would do differently: a little more realism, perhaps, a bit less romanticism. And I certainly wish I'd paid more attention to the neoconservatives' global political agenda instead of focusing solely on their nefarious attempt to reorient Catholic social teaching, as crucial as that battle was and is.
All in all, though, our effort was a worthy one, and I believe that Caelum et Terra has stood the test of time.
Dan Mitsui vs. Popular Culture - Responding to the release of The Da Vinci Code in American cinema, the blogger of The Lion and the Cardinal makes his case for a general abandonment of popular culture:
He should not see it.
He should not see another movie in its place.
And he should never see another movie again for the rest of his life.
And he should never watch television again, and he should never listen to popular music again.
As best he can manage.
It's really quite simple.
Gee, you think? -- In part II of the post, Daniel tackles the question of engaging and evangelizing contemporary culture having taken this approach:
We evangelize it by being a people set apart. By creating art and living lives that reflect the beauty and profundity of our faith. By making visible how much happier we are for having done so. Popular culture can warp minds, but it cannot kill the desire for truth and beauty and meaning inscribed on every human soul. Popular culture ultimately cannot satisfy - Catholicism can, but not only if it is authentic and not an imitation of something base.
Evangelizing modernism is not like evangelizing paganism. Paganism is at least natural. It is at least sane. It is at least human. You can convert a barbarian, but you cannot convert a vampire. And you certainly cannot convert a vampire by drinking his blood.
Stop drinking the vampire's blood.
Paul Zummo of The Political Spectrum -- "A thoughtful, intelligent, albeit somewhat snarky view of politics, law, and culture" -- offers a 7-Part Series on American Conservatism. (The link goes to the final discussion, on neoconservatism, with links to previous installments.
Logic, Natural Law, and Right Reason, a discussion by Jordan J. Ballor on the Acton Powerblog, with contributions by G.K. Chesterton and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
“The Eye of the Needle: Economic Lessons from the Parables" was the subject of the 2006 Lord Action Lecture, presented by the Rev. Robert A. Sirico. The Acton Institute has provided the lecture in MP3 format (10 mb mp3 file).
Would Adam Smith Approve? National Review's Larry Kudlow takes a look at the convicted Enron crooks Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling and asks the pertinent question: "Of course, we all knew they were crooks before this week’s verdict. But do they represent the moral core of American capitalism?"
Thoroughly Modern Mill - "A utilitarian who became a liberal--but never understood the limits of reason." British philosopher Roger Scruton takes a look at the 200th anniversary of the birth of John Stuart Mill, "the greatest exponent of 19th-century liberalism," and offers his usual insightful criticism of the consequences of his philosophy.
Disagree with him or not, one can but only marvel at the quality of his education:
"His home-schooling at the hands of his father, the economist and historian James Mill, was a model of rigor, causing him to read and write Greek aged 6, to master Latin aged 9, and to have acquired a thorough grounding in history and mathematics aged 10, when he began work on a history of Roman government. Mill later developed a taste for poetry, acquired a perfect knowledge of French, and, despite his agnostic upbringing, read deeply in the Bible, which he believed to be one of the two Great Books, the other being Homer.
Can, and Should, Constitutional Liberalism Survive?, by Maclin Horton Caelum Et Terra May 19, 2006:
I can probably also assume that we all agree that liberalism in its pure philosophical sense is incompatible with Catholicism, because it (liberalism) is silent, or at least pretty quiet, about fundamental questions: what is life for? how do we know what's wrong and what's right? We can probably also agree that we're watching the collapse of philosophical liberalism into nihilism, because, as Chesterton warned long ago, it was living off the inherited capital of Christianity, which is now pretty much spent.
The question, then, is whether the political apparatus produced by or at least associated with liberalism--self-government based on the rule of law--can and should survive.
Hammer & Tickle: "joke-as-resistance" to Communist nations, by Ben Lewis. Prospect May 2006: "Communism is the only political system to have created its own international brand of comedy. The standard interpretation is that communist jokes were a form of resistance. But they were also a safety valve for the regimes and jokes were told by the rulers as well as the ruled—even Stalin told some good ones."
Re-Examining Bonhoeffer "There have been few personalities throughout history who have encapsulated the theological tension within Christianity with reference to pacifism and war like Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer’s dilemma, as he watched his country descend into the horror and depravity of Naziism, speaks in a larger sense to all Christians who wrestle with matters of conscience, war, and civil resistance." Wolf offers his own theological analysis of Bonhoeffer's development from a pacifist (one completely opposed to any Chrisian involvement in politics whatsoever) to a minister in active opposition to National Socialism to the point of involvement in a plot to assassinate Hitler, asking::
Was this shift informed by a new theological understanding, or “merely” by a visceral carnal reaction to abhorrent government policies? And most important of all, who had the better of the theological question: the early Bonhoeffer (with [David] Lipscomb), or the later?

July 4th, 2006 - America's Independence Dayf

2006-07-04T12:37:00.000-07:00

Readings for the 4th of July, as the United States of America celebrates its 230th birthday . . .

"Because It's Worth Reading" -- David Michael Phelps reminds us to read the founding document of our nation.
A magnificent reflection on the principles of the Declaration of Independence is offered by Fr. James V. Schall in Do We Deserve To Be Free? On The Fourth of July, 2006 (Ignatius Insight).
"That Honorable Determination", by Christopher Flannery [The Claremont Institute]:
American children are not born understanding the principles of their country, and most American college students—if reports can be believed—are still largely unfamiliar with them when they graduate. So it is a useful tradition, as the Fourth of July comes around each year, to reflect again—and again—on the American political principles famously proclaimed on the original Independence Day, which, as many college graduates know, happened sometime in the past, possibly during summertime. Lest we seem to rest all our political expectations on the capacity of the next generation for self-government, let us admit that the grownups, as well, can benefit from an annual refresher. . . .
Citing some relevant texts from the Catechism, Joe at Deo Omnis Gloria reminds us of our obligations pertaining to Catholicism, Citizenship, & the Political Community.
Drawing from Abraham Lincoln's speech of July 10, 1858 (a rebuttal to his campaign rival Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas), and President Calvin Coolidge's 1926 address on the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Indepence, Scott Johnson (Powerline) remarks on The eternal meaning of Independence Day.
Fourth of July weekend: assimilation at the park - observations by "Neo-Neocon":
. . . If I were to have taken a poll of that group on the grass and under the tall shade trees at the park the other day, I wonder what I would have found. How many of the adults were in basic acceptance that their children would become part of American culture? How many were hoping--and taking strong steps to ensure--that their children would resist? How many of the adults were determined to learn English? How many were legal, how many illegal; how many expected a temporary stay, how many a permanent one? How many were happy to be here, how many not?
I don't know the answers. What I do know is that they looked happy--but of course, it was a lovely day, and a vacation time at that--and the children were all speaking unaccented English. And I know that the vista, to me at least, was a pleasant one, and part of what I consider to be the age-old American dream, on this Fourth of July weekend.
Americans also have the freedom to dissent. Catholic Anarchist, finds himself
"wishing customers a good holiday, consciously not saying “Happy Fourth of July.” It occurred to me later that the word holiday is, of course, shorthand for “holy day,” and I had to amend my well-wishing to “Have a good evening.” Alas, it is difficult to notice sometimes that we Christians take part in the empire’s subversion of our own theological language.
Um, yeah.
Greg Mockeridge talks about Our Founding Fathers, Reluctant Revolutionaries: "Because it is called the American “Revolution,” some seize upon this opportunity to characterize our Founding Fathers as though they are the patron saints of those who look for any excuse to just buck the establishment. Does this description fit our Founding Fathers?"
Michelle Malkin kicks off her Independence Day 2006 News & Notes with Zel Miller's Republican National Convention speech ("Never in the history of the world has any soldier sacrificed more for the freedom and liberty of total strangers than the American soldier. And, our soldiers don't just give freedom abroad, they preserve it for us here at home. . . ."); and The Anchoress has rounded up more good reading (along with a tribute to Normal Rockwell) in Jonah to Hitchens to Betsy, a 4th Round-up from The Anchoress.

. . . and a few gems from the past:

Father Tucker (Dappled Things) on What's Right about America.
I. Shawn McElhinney shares the other verses to "America, The Beautiful", including the following:
O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern impassioned stress
A thoroughfare of freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine every flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!
A bit of history behind the tune and lyrics.
Greg Mockeridge (Cooperatores Veritatis) takes a look at The Declaration of Independence from a Catholic Perspective
On a similar note, see "The Religious Heritage of American Democracy" by Joseph S. Costanzo and The Faith at the Founding, by Michael Novak First Things 132 (April 2003): 27-32, on the religion of our founding fathers and its proper place in the "American experiment."
For further meditations on the nature of freedom see Enjoying and Making Use of a Responsible Freedom, by Cardinal Avery Dulles. Religion & Liberty Volume 11, Number 5, Sept/Oct 2001) and "The Moral Foundations of Freedom", by George Weigel (Acton Lecture on Religion & Liberty. October 23, 2000); On the Nature (and Price) of Liberty, Against The Grain July 4th, 2004.

Watching the historic July 4th launch of Space Shuttle Discovery was probably the highlight of today. Fireworks pale in comparison to the thrill of watching (even if on TV) of a man-made contraption hurtling toward the starts at five times the speed of sound. Details on Discovery's crew and their mission here [.pdf format].

It seems fitting to close this post with the following words from Pope John Paul II to the American Ambassador to the Vatican in 1998 (courtesy of Phil Dillon):

"The Founding Fathers of the United States asserted their claim to freedom and independence on the basis of certain “self-evident” truths about the human person: truths which could be discerned in human nature, built into it by “nature’s God.” Thus they meant to bring into being, not just an independent territory, but a great experiment in what George Washington called “ordered liberty.”…
“The American democratic experiment has been successful in many ways; millions of people around the world look to the United States as a model in their search for freedom, dignity, and prosperity. But the continuing success of American democracy depends on the degree to which each new generation, native-born and immigrant, makes its own moral truths on which the Founding Fathers staked the future of your Republic.”
“I am happy to take note of your words confirming the importance that your government attaches, in its relations with countries around the world, to the promotion of human rights and particularly to the fundamental human right of religious freedom, which is the guarantee of every other human right. Respect for religious convictions played no small part in the birth and early development of the United States. Thus John Dickinson, chairman of the Committee for the Declaration of Independence, said in 1776: “Our liberties do not come from the charters; for these are only declarations of preexisting rights. They do not depend on parchment or seals; but come from the King of Kings and the Lord of all the earth.” Indeed it may be asked whether the American experiment would have been possible, or how well it will succeed in the future, without a deeply rooted vision of divine Providence over the individual and over the fate of nations.”

Happy 4th of July!

G.K. Chesterton: "What I Saw in America"

2006-07-04T08:04:00.000-07:00

The American Constitution does resemble the Spanish Inquisition in this: that it is founded on a creed. America is the only nation in the world that is founded on creed. That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence; perhaps the only piece of practical politics that is also theoretical politics and also great literature. It enunciates that all men are equal in their claim to justice, that governments exist to give them that justice, and that their authority is for that reason just. It certainly does condemn anarchism. and it does also by inference condemn atheism, since it clearly names the Creator as the ultimate authority from whom these equal rights are derived. Nobody expects a modern political system to proceed logically in the application of such dogmas, and in the matter of God and Government it is naturally God whose claim is taken more lightly. The point is that there is a creed, if not about divine, at least about human things.

G. K. Chesterton, What I Saw in America. (Via Eagle & Elephant).

On a Plastic America and other Abstractions

2006-06-29T22:02:00.000-07:00

Some early morning reflections in response to recent combox discussions on this blog

"America is a Plastic country. It is NOT a nation! America is a farrago. America is dysfunctional and is dying.
America was built on a "revolutionary" spirit!!! America is built on self-contradicting principles and some principles that are out-right lies. It is a dead country. Aristotle says that "A state does NOT consist of individuals that are all-a-like". Well, America is not even a state. It is a place---that is it."

W. Lindsay Wheeler, combox circa June 26, 2006.

The amusing thing about this tirade against America is that, in my own pseudo-revolutionary college years, I would have gotten such a thrill out of this manner of speaking. Wheeler may be on the opposite end of the political spectrum from William S. Burroughs, but his bitter, blatant cynicism towards America is of such a visceral nature that I confess I often have difficulty distinguishing him from those on the Left.

Now, the interesting thing is that Michael Novak -- yes, the dreaded neocon and object of vehement criticism from Wheeler, Jones, Hand and others -- once spoke himself of

". . . the hollowness of so much of American life; the vacant eyes watching television and drinking beer; the tired eyes of the men on the commuter train; the efficient eyes of the professor and manager, the sincere eyes of the television politician. Americans . . . do not know who they are, only what they are useful for; they are bored and apathetic because they are manipulated; they are violent because they secretly resent the lies they are forced to live. Unable to live with themselves, Americans level the earth, build and destroy, attempt to master matter and space and human history. Americans play God." ['A Theology for Radical Politics' 1969]

But, somewhere along the way, something happened to Michael Novak.

According to his memoirs ("Controversial Engagements" First Things April 1999) he became a neoconservative ("The term was invented as a sign of excommunication by the Catholic socialist (and my good friend) Michael Harrington"); to put it in the words of the Houston Catholic Worker, he joined Fr. Neuhaus and George Weigel in becoming advocates of "wage slavery" and "unbridled capitalism", preaching "a new gospel of wealth creation" in stubborn opposition to Catholic social teaching.

In any case, a little more than a decade after he penned his own tirade against Americans, Novak would come to reconsider his criticism, writing in 1982's The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism:

That this was a superficial, unfair, and ideological description of real Americans became clear to me when I looked more closely at my neighbors and companions, and less at literary conventions.

The headlines of the morning tabloid New York Post, for instance, might reveal signs of "materialism", the "emptiness," the "hollowness" of American life. The latest scandal of a movie star caught in an illicit affair, financial shadiness from a corporate executive on Wall Street; the faux-violent posturings of a rap star. But can I honestly take from this and extrapolate an indictment of Americans in general? How about just those I see on the subway? -- Or should we remember to locate blame within the individual subject?

From what I have observed, once you orient your posts in opposition to a stereotype, or rely on a sweeping generalization and indictment of the whole, it perverts the conversation in such a way that one is not actually engaging a person, or even his position, but a superficial caricature thereof.

I'm not asking for the cautious optimism of Alexis De Tocqueville (Democracy in America) or the appreciative reflections of Jacques Maritain (Reflections on America) -- disagree with Novak, Weigel, Neuhaus if you must. Point out the flaws of the Enlightenment pressupositions in the thought of our Founding Fathers, and the temptations of materialism, commercialism, and egalitarianism (and I will likely agree, up to a point). But is it possible to render your thoughts without succumbing to sweeping generalizations? to see beyond the portrayal of a "dead, plastic America," and recognize a nation of real people and individual citizens?

I had initially responded to Wheeler's comments with the observation that "obviously, he had not gone on a cross-country trip of America." If I may elaborate, what I had in mind was something along the lines of the book, A Walk Across America by Peter Jenkins: the chronicles of a young, bitter, disillusioned college student who -- after proclaiming his desire to "abandon America" to an elder -- was challenged to discover the country he thought about leaving, and so embarked on a literal walk across the U.S.A., meeting and staying with American citizens of every color, class and stripe along the way.

Jenkins recorded his memories in 1979 -- 5 years after I was born. I was in elementary school when my father read it to my brothers and me, but the stories and the people and, most of all, the lesson of that book has remained -- and have never seem more pertinent than when I read the bitter tirades against an empty, abstract caricature of America from the ideological left (or the right).

Jacques Maritain on "The Old Tag of 'American Materialism'" -- a section from his Reflections on America, simply too good not to be read in its entirety.
Ten Commandments for Writing a History of America, by Paul Johnson. The American Enterprise May / June 1998. "Always remember America is about people. It is a land, of course—and what a land—but it is, above all, a people, the most varied amalgam of people of all races and cultures the world has ever seen."
A Writer Treks Across America, by Michelle York. New York Times February 13, 2005. "Then, he was a loner, a vegetarian and a pacifist. Today, he is the head of a large family, the owner of a cattle farm and a supporter of President Bush and the war in Iraq." I suppose this should be read as a disclaimer for those considering embarking on such a journey? ;-)

* * *

UPDATE! (July 6, 2006)

After some consideration and reflection over the conversations that have occured in our combox over the past week, I've decided to impose upon Mr. Wheeler an involuntary vacaton from the combox.

This blog was created to facilitate discussion of the issues which concern this particular website, namely, the interaction of the Catholic Church with the "American experiment" and the founding principles of our nation.

Witnessing the exchange between Mr. Wheeler and others, it seems that Wheeler has more than clarified his thought on this subject, making it plain that in all cases he firmly repudiates both parties involved in this debate: not only the Catholic Church, but also the philosophical foundations of the very country that he presently resides in.

Needless to say this manner of repudication already places him outside the discussion, and I wonder what we can benefit by engaging him further? -- Especially when it seems that, as a fellow commentator has noted:

You are so determined to be insulted that I don't think you're actually reading (in the sense of comprehension) anything anyone writes to you. Perhaps you should consider stepping back, taking a deep breath, and taking time to reflect a little. I haven't seen anyone here write anything calculated to call forth the stream of invective with which you have doused us. You seem to take descriptions as pejoratives, and explanations as the web equivalent of walking into a bar looking for a fight.

Wheeler has shown little interest in engaging the actual content of any post so much as commandeering the combox and hammering home his own furvent and repetitive denunciations in a barrage of post after post. (And in so doing, I suspect, driving away others who might be otherwise interested in engaging in a civil conversation -- I have seen this happen too many times, and it has been the ruin of many an email list or bulletin board).

My parting recommendation to Mr. Wheeler is that in my experience, there is no more suitable a vehicle for the presentation of his opinions than a blog -- and, thanks to the blessings of modern technology, American ingenuity and unbridled godless capitalism, he can now obtain one of these new-fangled contraptions for his very own right.

A brief summary of Mr. Wheeler's objections to America can be found here; my suggestion would be that he expound upon them on his own blog (rather than hijack a combox), and those interested in engaging him at length can do so.

Washington's God by Michael and Jana Novak - Reviews and Commentary

2006-06-25T22:07:00.000-07:00

Acquired by way of a gift from a good friend, Michael and (daughter) Jana Novak's Washington's God, an investigation into the religious faith of the father of our country -- and, it would appear, that he was something more than a deist.

I have a number of books I am attempting to plow through at the moment, but expect I will not be able to resist cracking this open in the coming week. I have been anticipating this book ever since I heard about it. I expect it will be a compliment to Novak's excellent study of the religious faith and disposition of our founding fathers: On Two Wings: Humble Faith and Common Sense at the American Founding (Encounter Books, April 2003).

From the publisher's description:

Washington has long been viewed as the patron saint of secular government, but in Washington's God, Michael Novak and his daughter, Jana, reveal that it was Washington's strong faith in divine Providence that gave meaning and force to his monumental life. Narrowly escaping a British trap during the Battle of Brooklyn, Washington didn't credit his survival to courage or tactical expertise; he blamed himself for marching his men into certain doom and marveled at the Providence that delivered them. Throughout his career, Washington held fast to the conviction that America's liberty was dependent on our faithfulness to God's will and our trust in Providence.
Washington's God shows Washington not only as a man of resource, strength, and virtue, but also as a man with deeply held religious values. This new presentation of Washington-as a man whose religion guided his governance-will bring him into today's debates about the role of faith in government and will challenge everything we thought we knew about the inner life of the father of our country.

Reviews

A True Believer, by Diana Furchtgott-Roth. New York Post March 12, 2006.
Was George Washington a Christian? - "A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma". Review by Al Zambone. Christianity Today: "Books & Culture" April 3, 2006.
The Founding Believer, by Mark Tooley. The American Spectator May 2, 2006.
Washington's God: Review & Commentary by Joseph Bottum (First Things "On The Square" February 14, 2006).

Related Discussion

Washington's Faith and the Birth of America, by Michael Novak, Jana Novak. The American Enterprise May 2006.
The Founding Fathers: Solving modern problems, building wealth and finding God, by David Liss. Washington Post June 11, 2006.
"The Framers and the Faithful: How modern evangelicals are ignoring their own history", by Steven Waldman. Washington Monthly April 2006.
Founder's faith, by Shelley Widhalm. Washington Times March 26, 2006.
The Framers and the Faithful, discussion at Amy Welborn's Open Book March 18, 2006.
Washington's Sun God: Reviewing a Review, by Michael Novak. Response to The New York Sun March 7, 2006).
Washington's God: “The Beneficent Author of All the Good That Was, That Is, or That Will Be”, remarks by Jana Novak at AEI Book Forum. March 6, 2006; Who was Washington's God?, by Michael Novak. AEI Book Forum — March 6, 2006. Video of the AEI Forum on Washington's God, courtesy of the American Enterprise Institute.
Tom Ashbrook's (WBUR, Boston) interview of Washington's God author Michael Novak and Gordon Wood, professor of history at Brown University Radio interview. Monday, Feb. 20, 2006. Windows or RealAudio format (or Mp3, via Peter ("The American Moderate").
In Honor of the Father of Our Country - His Excellency, George Washington, Jay Andersen (Pro Ecclesia, Pro Familia, Pro Civitate).
Divining W.: Inside Washington’s God - National Review interviews Michael and Jana Novak. February 20, 2006.
On Providence: The Education of George Washington MichaelNovak.Net (1/17/2006)

* * *

Prayer of Valley Forge May Be Legend or Tradition or a Fact, Yet It Remains Symbol of Faith, by Gilbert Starling Jones. The Picket Post, Published by the Valley Forge Historical Society, April, 1945, No. 9.
In 1866, Henry Brueckner depicted Washington at prayer in a painting.

Pope Benedict on the pathology of "Western self-hatred"

2006-06-24T15:30:00.000-07:00

The last element of the European identity is religion. I do not wish to enter into the complex discussion of recent years, but to highlight one issue that is fundamental to all cultures: respect for that which another group holds sacred, especially respect for the sacred in the highest sense, for God, which one can reasonably expect to find even among those who are not willing to believe in God. When this respect is violated in a society, something essential is lost. In European society today, thank goodness, anyone who dishonors the faith of Israel, its image of God, or its great figures must pay a fine. The same holds true for anyone who dishonors the Koran and the convictions of Islam. But when it comes to Jesus Christ and that which is sacred to Christians, freedom of speech becomes the supreme good.
This case illustrates a peculiar Western self-hatred that is nothing short of pathological. It is commendable that the West is trying to be more open, to be more understanding of the values of outsiders, but it has lost all capacity for self-love. All that it sees in its own history is the despicable and the destructive; it is no longer able to perceive what is great and pure. What Europe needs is a new self-acceptance, a self-acceptance that is critical and humble, if it truly wishes to survive.
Multiculturalism, which is so passionately promoted, can sometimes amount to an abandonment and denial, a flight from one’s own things. Multiculturalism teaches us to approach the sacred things of others with respect, but we can do this only if we ourselves are not estranged from the sacred, from God. With regard to others, it is our duty to cultivate within ourselves respect for the sacred and to show the face of the revealed God—the God who has compassion for the poor and the weak, for widows and orphans, for the foreigner; the God who is so human that he himself became man, a man who suffered, and who by his suffering with us gave dignity and hope to our pain.
Unless we embrace our own heritage of the sacred, we will not only deny the identity of Europe. We will also fail in providing a service to others to which they are entitled. To the other cultures of the world, there is something deeply alien about the absolute secularism that is developing in the West. They are convinced that a world without God has no future. Multiculturalism itself thus demands that we return once again to ourselves.

Pope Benedict XVI - Without Roots: The West, Relativism, Christianity, Islam (February 2006)

Our Forgotten Founder

2006-06-16T22:18:00.000-07:00

Roger Kimball of the New Criterion has written a nice review essay on the Rev. John Witherspoon, a neglected force in the founding of the American experiment. Witherspoon also figures prominently in Michael Novak's study of the religious and metaphysical roots of the American experiment, On Two Wings. Kimball says just about the nicest thing you can say about an American figure: "He radiated what his contemporaries called 'presence': a personal dignity and charisma that transcended ideological differences and commanded respect." The only comparable figure I can think of in our own time is Billy Graham, who was a friend to every president no matter the party.

Fr. Neuhaus: Catholic Matters: Confusion, Controversy, and the Splendor of Truth

2006-06-15T20:35:00.000-07:00

Catholic Matters: Confusion, Controversy, and the Splendor of Truth, by Richard J. Neuhaus. (Basic Books. March 2006)

Book Reviews & Blog Discussions

Review: Catholic Matters, by Patrick Allitt The New York Times April 14, 2006.
Why Catholic Matters, by Al Kimel. Pontifications April 4, 2006.
"The Story of the World", by Oswald Sobrino. Catholic Analysis March 31, 2006.
The Literary Counter-Reformation, by Mark Gauvreau Judge. The American Spectator February 28, 2006.

TCR's Interview with Fr. Baxter

2006-05-18T13:28:00.000-07:00

Fr. Michael Baxter gifts readers a valuable and simple insight in his recent interview with TCRNews:

Q: What about the bishops’ statements on economics?
A: Same problem: primarily a policymaking approach at the expense of concrete pastoral guidance. I don’t have anything against policy statements. I am all in favor of the recommendations spelled out in Economic Justice for All. But if that is all there is to say, ordinary Catholics won’t take anything away from it.
Q: What do you mean by "concrete pastoral guidance" when it comes to, say, economics?
A: Let me give some examples. They should urge people to keep the Lord’s Day. They should challenge families to stop watching so much television, and to pay closer attention to each other. They should declare that every diocese will tithe its budget and use the money to set up credit-unions, nursing homes, and the like. They should turn old, unused rectories into houses of hospitality for the poor and the homeless; as Peter Maurin said, “we need Parish Homes as well as Parish Domes.” They should commit themselves to moving out of their fancy homes and living more like ordinary folks. My point is that the bishops should be setting forth things that ordinary Catholics, and they themselves, can actually do.

As someone who is neither a policymaker nor a theologian (not even much of a student, on some days, heh heh), I second Fr. Baxter’s suggestion to the bishops. I have never seen in print an account of the feelings a young and impressionable college student experiences after having been given a long, systematic, philosophical account of THE CRISIS OF OUR TIME, whatever it may be. The student is left inspired, but with a sense of powerlessness. “I would change the world,” he or she may think, “if only I could change the world.” But the emphasis is always on power. Fr. Baxter, however, has it right: the most effective avenue for change is the “Little Way.” And he should be aware that he is not the only one who realizes this…

2006-05-15T13:08:00.000-07:00

Why I am not. . . a 'pantagruellian', Notes from a Byzantine-Rite Calvinist April by David Koyzis. April 19, 2006:

Bertrand Russell once told the world why he was not a Christian. Now Daniel Knauss tells us why he is not a neocalvinist. Knauss is one of the angry young men at The New Pantagruel, a two-year-old web journal dedicated to the proposition that one can find one's place in the public square simply by moving to Kansas. . . .

LOL. My brother Jamie (of Ad Limina Apostolorum) just moved to Kansas, so perhaps he can put this proposition to the test.

Nature and Grace, Novak and Schindler

2006-04-29T19:06:00.000-07:00

The mode of Dr. Schindler’s critique of the so-called Murray/Whig position is largely theological, and one of the key targets of criticism is the Whig understanding of nature and grace. Professor Joel Garver provides a succinct précis of Dr. Schindler’s critique as put forth in Heart of the World, Center of the Church:

According to Schindler, this is not an interpretation and political system that is empty of theological content--this very conception of religious liberty as immunity from coercion through legal procedure presupposes a certain openness to some religious worldviews and not others (e.g., theocratic Islam). Furthermore, the theological content it does presuppose is not distinctively Christian since it posits a society that is basically neutral or indifferent in regard to God and transcendent values--but that is to say that the realm of nature (culture, society, the civil order) stands in an extrinsic relation to grace, rather than being intrinsically ordered to grace at its proper end.But is this an accurate portrayal of the Whig understanding of nature and grace?

I don't pretend to offer here a comprehensive account of the Whig position, merely two articles in which Michael Novak explains his understanding of the way grace works in nature and in history. First, from an encomium to Bernard Lonergan in the magazine Crisis (Memories of Bernard Lonergan Crisis February 1, 2003):

Let me pause to point out here that neither Aquinas nor Lonergan was imagining that there is a two-tier world, nature below like the cake and grace on top of it like the icing, or anything like that. On the contrary, both imagined that there is in reality and history only one world, all of it conceived and created in, by, and through the Divine Word, Verbum, Logos, and all of it redeemed by Him. The theory of grace and nature is a theoretical construct, designed to make sense of human experience both among those, like Aristotle, who knew nothing of the Verbum, and those like St. Augustine, who did know and wrote especially well both about the fall of human beings into sin and their need for healing. Fallen man is like an athlete who breaks his ankle: It needs to heal before he walks again -- and he is always in greater danger of reinjuring himself than he had been before he broke it. The theoretical construct of grace and nature should not be reified in such a way as to lead us to imagine two separate realities, nature here, grace “up there.” As Georges Bernanos wrote, and Yeats suggested, “Everything is grace,” and yet grace works in and through nature, which it penetrates as yeast penetrates dough.

How does grace penetrate nature? How can we see evidence of this? One great strength in the writings of Novak and Weigel is their willingness to look for concrete manifestations of their ideas in history. In an article on Jacques Maritain, Novak adopts the French philosopher’s view of the work of grace in history through non-Christian agents:

Yet Maritain does not say that Christianity exists in the world solely as the Church or the body of believers. Rather, he sees “Christianity as historical energy at work in the world. It is not in the heights of theology, it is in the depths of the secular conscience and secular existence that Christianity works in this fashion.” He is equally far from asserting that Christians brought modern democratic institutions into existence: “It was not given to believers in Catholic dogma but to rationalists to proclaim in France the rights of man and of the citizen, to Puritans to strike the last blow at slavery in America.” He gives credit — by schematic suggestion, not comprehensive detail — where credit is due: “Neither Locke nor Jean-Jacques Rousseau nor the Encyclopedists can pass as thinkers faithful to the integrity of the Christian trust.”(A Salute to Jacques Maritain The Catholic Writer: The Proceedings of the Wethersfield Institute 2 (1989))

Grace thus works even outside the visible boundaries of the church, and so, institutions that arise in cultures alien to it can nevertheless be ordered towards truth and goodness:

It is clear that Maritain considers the Christian message about the cry of the poor for justice to be a motor of human temporal life. He holds simultaneously that existing democratic ideas, traditions, and institutions were often championed in actual history by those who were non-Christians or even anti-Christian; and yet that, in building better than they knew, such persons were often generating in human temporal life important constructs whose foundations were not only consistent with Jewish and Christian convictions about the realities of ethical and political life but, in a sense, dependent on them. Pull out from under genuine democratic principles the beliefs of Judaism and Christianity about the transcendent dignity of the person and the human propensity to sin, and the existing edifice of democratic thought is exposed to radical doubt.

This is a very optimistic view. At least in theory I think it meets the demands of what Dr. Garver describes as “Schindler’s alternative”: “If we see grace as directing nature from within and drawing it to its proper, grace-given end, then the realm of nature must be seen as distinct from grace, but nevertheless, while distinct, always already situated within grace.” It’s up to more educated minds than mine to parse the theology and see if Novak and Schindler are very far part, at least on a theoretical and theological level. At first glance it seems that they are closer to each other than is commonly thought, and Novak’s fondness for Bernanos (he quotes him in many writings) is something he has in common with Dr. Schindler, who edits the Ressourcement series at Eerdmans, a publisher which also carries a book by Bernanos. In any case, I think these quotations at least add nuance to the common (and inaccurate) simplification that the Whigs see grace as a condiment which Christianizes the nature of liberal institutions.

Pope Benedict XVI on 'Church and State'

2006-04-28T14:24:00.000-07:00

The relationship between church and state and their proper jurisdictions have figured heavily in the remarks of Pope Benedict in the first year of his pontificate, as well as in his very first encyclical Deus Caritas Est. The Holy Father has advocated "a healthy secularism of the state," yet he has defended the legitimate role of religion in the moral and cultural development of the nation and the Church's role as a voice of moral conscience, reminding the state of its obligations to the common good.

Writing in his former capacity as Cardinal, the Pope has stated "the Christian is always Someone who seeks to maintain the state in the sense that he or she does the positive, the good, that holds states together." At the same time, in a lesson rooted in his childhood experience of National Socialism, he has commented on the dangers of a totalitarian state -- a state which presumes itself to be "the whole of human existence [and] the whole of human hope," insisting that "the first service that Christian faith performs for politics is that it liberates men and women from the irrationality of the political myths that are the real threat of our time."

What follows is a brief compilation of some of our Holy Father's remarks on this pertinent issue:

Pope Benedict and Alexis de Tocqueville

A Tocquevillian in the Vatican, by Dr. Samuel Gregg.^* According to Dr. Gregg, the publication of Deus Caritas Est reveals not only the influence of St. Augustine upon Benedict, but that of the nineteenth-century French social philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville:

Upon being inducted into the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques of the Institut de France in 1992, then-Cardinal Ratzinger remarked that Tocqueville’s “Democracy in America has always made a strong impression on me.”
Describing Tocqueville as “le grand penseur politique,” the context of these remarks was Ratzinger’s insistence that free societies cannot sustain themselves, as Tocqueville observed, without widespread adherence to “des convictions éthiques communes.” Ratzinger then underlined Tocqueville’s appreciation of Protestant Christianity’s role in providing these underpinnings in the United States. In more recent years, Ratzinger expressed admiration for the manner in which church-state relations were arranged in America, using words suggesting he had absorbed Tocqueville’s insights into this matter.
What has this to do with Deus Caritas Est? The answer is that Benedict XVI has taken to heart Tocqueville’s warnings about “soft-despotism.”

* * *

Recently added to the archives of Cardinal Ratzinger Fan Club we find two earlier writings of Cardinal Ratzinger:

Biblical Aspects of the Question of Faith and Politics A homily that was delivered on 26 November 1981 in the course of a service for Catholic members of the Bundestag in the church of St. Wynfrith (Boniface) in Bonn. (LewRockwell.com):
Christian faith has destroyed the myth of the divine state, the myth of the state as paradise and a society without domination. In its place it has put the objectivity of reason. But this does not mean that it has produced a value-free objectivity, the objectivity of statistics and a certain kind of sociology. To the true objectivity of men and women belongs humanity, and to humanity belongs God. To genuine human reason belongs the morality that is fed by God’s commandments. This morality is not some private affair; it has public significance. Without the good of being and doing good there can be no good politics. What the persecuted Church laid down for the Christian as the core of its political ethos must also be the core of any active Christian politics; it is only when good is done and recognized as good that a good human social existence can thrive. To bring to public acceptance as valid the standing of morality, the standing of God’s commandments, must be the core of responsible political activity.
Why Church and State Must Be Separate excerpt from "Theology and the Church’s Political Stance" in Church, Ecumenism and Politics (NY, Crossroads, 1987). Ratzinger notes that "the origin and the permanent foundation of the Western idea of freedom" lies in the "separation of the authority of the state and sacral authority":
From now on there were two societies related to each other but not identical with each other, neither of which had this character of totality. The state is no longer itself the bearer of a religious authority that reaches into the ultimate depths of conscience, but for its moral basis refers beyond itself to another community. This community in its turn, the Church, understands itself as a final moral authority which however depends on voluntary adherence and is entitled only to spiritual but not to civil penalties, precisely because it does not have the status the state has of being accepted by all as something given in advance.
Thus each of these communities is circumscribed in its radius, and on the balance of this relation depends freedom. . . .
Benedict goes on to suggest something which might be brought to bear on the recent attempt to establish constitutional democracy in the Middle East and the necessity of preserving the Christian foundations of Europe:
The modern idea of freedom is thus a legitimate product of the Christian environment; it could not have developed anywhere else. Indeed, one must add that it cannot be separated from this Christian environment and transplanted into any other system, as is shown very clearly today in the renaissance of Islam; the attempt to graft on to Islamic societies what are termed western standards cut loose from their Christian foundations misunderstands the internal logic of Islam as well as the historical logic to which these western standards belong, and hence this attempt was condemned to fail in this form. The construction of society in Islam is theocratic, and therefore monist and not dualist; dualism, which is the precondition for freedom, presupposes for its part the logic of the Christian thing. In practice this means that it is only where the duality of Church and state, of the sacral and the political authority, remains maintained in some form or another that the fundamental pre-condition exists for freedom.
Where the Church itself becomes the state freedom becomes lost. But also when the Church is done away with as a public and publicly relevant authority, then too freedom is extinguished, because there the state once again claims completely for itself the justification of morality; in the profane post-Christian world it does not admittedly do this in the form of a sacral authority but as an ideological authority – that means that the state becomes the party, and since there can no longer be any other authority of the same rank it once again becomes total itself. The ideological state is totalitarian; it must become ideological if it is not balanced by a free but publicly recognized authority of conscience. When this kind of duality does not exist the totalitarian system is unavoidable.

* * *

Some Remarks in the First Year of Pope Benedict XVI's Pontificate

Back in September 17, 2005, Zenit News Service published an article on Benedict XVI on Religion and Public Life, which included his June 2005 remarks to Italian President Carlo Ciampi on church-state relations.
On October 17, 2005, in a letter to the president of the Italian Senate, Marcello Pera (with whom he co-authored Without Roots: Europe, Relativism, Christianity, Islam), Pope Benedict expressed his support for a "healthy secularity of the state" -- or that which guarantees "to each citizen the right to live his own religious faith with genuine freedom, including in the public realm" and includes "a commitment to guarantee to all, individuals and groups, respect for the exigencies of the common good, [and] the possibility to live and to express one own religious convictions."
The full text of the letter can be found here.
On November 19, 2005, Benedict XVI conveyed the Catholic Church's respect for civil authority:
Benedict XVI explained to the bishops of the Czech Republic that in her work of evangelization, the Church doesn't seek to meddle in the sphere of public authority.
"The Christian community is a grouping of people with their own rules, a living body that, in Jesus, exists in the world to bear witness to the strength of the Gospel," the Holy Father told the bishops in Rome for their five-yearly visit.
"It is, therefore, a group of brothers and sisters who have no goals of power or selfish interest, but who joyfully live the charity of God, which is Love," he added.
"In such a context, the state should have no difficulty in recognizing in the Church a counterpart that in no way prejudices its own function at the service of citizens."

Dr. Samuel Gregg is Director of Research at the Acton Institute and an Adjunct Professor at the John Paul II Pontifical Institute for Marriage and the Family within the Pontifical Lateran University. He is author of several books on Catholic social doctrine including Challenging the Modern World: Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II and the Development of Catholic Social Teaching (2003) and On Ordered Liberty (2003), a critique of 'the liberal tradition' in its many forms.

Does This Count As Irony?

2006-04-23T18:30:00.000-07:00

In the Preface to Tan Publishers' edition of Don Felix Sarda y Salvany's Liberalism Is A Sin, a brief story is recounted about the reception that the book received upon its initial publication in Spain in 1886:

"A Spanish Bishop of a Liberal turn instigated an answer to Dr. Sarda's work by way of another Spanish priest. Both books were sent to Rome, praying the Sacred Congregation of the Index to put Dr. Sarda's work under the ban. "

Needless to say, the work was not banned. But is it ironic that self-styled liberals (if, indeed, this Bishop considered himself one) would ask that a book against liberalism be placed in the Index?

Then again, an appreciation of the virtues of certain liberal ideas and institutions does not mean that you are also automatically opposed to the CDF. For example. Fr. Neuhaus and George Weigel, two men often referred to as liberals of a "neo" variety, both defended Cardinal Ratzinger's work during his tenure at the CDF. The writers of Commonweal and the National Catholic Reporter are liberals too, though I guess of a different variety, and if I am not mistaken, they have made different assessments about the work of the CDF in the last few decades. But the question above is an interesting one.

The Jeffrey Hart Debate - American Conservatism at a Crossroads?

2006-04-22T18:57:00.000-07:00

Jeffrey Hart is an English professor at Dartmouth College. A speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan and an editor of the National Review (the longest serving NR editor after William F. Buckley), Hart is author of The Making of the American Conservative Mind: National Review and Its Times, the authorized history of the National Review and the forthcoming "The American Conservative Mind Today."

On December 25, 2005, the Wall Street Journal published the final chapter of The American Conservative Mind Today, titled The Burke Habit: Prudence, skepticism and "unbought grace".

Hart presents an "assessment of the ideas held in balance in the American Conservative Mind today," -- "a synthesis . . . based on what American conservatism has achieved and left unachieved since [Russel Kirk's The Conservative Mind (1953)].

The synthesis, according to Hart, consists of a number of elements: resistance to "hard utopianism" (ex. communism's attempt to fashion "The Perfect Man and Perfect Society") and "soft utopianism" ("benevolent illusions, most abstractly stated in the proposition that all goals are reconcilable" -- ex. World Peace, multiculturalism, pacifism and Wilsonian global democracy); the validity of the nation state and the merits of constitutional government (aiming at government "not by majorities alone but by stable consensus," together with "mutual restraint among the branches").

Hart includes the advocacy of free market economics in his consensus, established by virtue of its supremacy over socialism. At the same time, however, he adds a word of caution:

the utopian temptation can turn such free-market thought into a utopianism of its own -- that is, free markets to be effected even while excluding every other value and purpose . . .

Hart mourns the neglect of Beauty ("Beauty has been clamorously present in the American Conservative Mind through its almost total absence") and the GOP's lack of concern for proper stewardship of the environment ("embarassingly . . . left mostly to liberal Democrats"), or, with regard to the role of religion, calling for "a recovery of the great structure of metaphysics, with the Resurrection as its fulcrum, established as history, and interpreted through Greek philosophy."

Hart also rails against the "Hard Wilsonianism" of the Republican Party, fueled by President Bush's desire to secure peace through the establishment of democracy:

No one has ever thought Wilsonianism to be conservative, ignoring as it does the intractability of culture and people's high valuation of a modus vivendi. Wilsonianism derives from Locke and Rousseau in their belief in the fundamental goodness of mankind and hence in a convergence of interests.
George W. Bush has firmly situated himself in this tradition, as in his 2003 pronouncement, "The human heart desires the same good things everywhere on earth." Welcome to Iraq. Whereas realism counsels great prudence in complex cultural situations, Wilsonianism rushes optimistically ahead.

The faux-"conservativism" of the GOP, says Hart, serves as "an example of Machiavelli's observation that institutions can retain the same outward name and aspect while transforming their substance entirely."

Hart's editorial strikes all the right notes (indeed, much of what he says has a certain affinity to Rod Dreher's crunchy-conservatism). I imagine his critique would likely warm the hearts of a few of our friends . . . if not for the fact that Hart's criticism of the Republicans extends to their defense of the "right to life":

[Abortion] has been a focus of conservative, and national, attention since Roe v. Wade. Yet abortion as an issue, its availability indeed as a widespread demand, did not arrive from nowhere. Burke had a sense of the great power and complexity of forces driving important social processes and changes. Nevertheless, most conservatives defend the "right to life," even of a single-cell embryo, and call for a total ban on abortion. To put it flatly, this is not going to happen. Too many powerful social forces are aligned against it, and it is therefore a utopian notion.
Roe relocated decision-making about abortion from state governments to the individual woman, and was thus a libertarian, not a liberal, ruling. Planned Parenthood v. Casey supported Roe, but gave it a social dimension, making the woman's choice a derivative of the women's revolution. This has been the result of many accumulating social facts, and its results already have been largely assimilated. Roe reflected, and reflects, a relentlessly changing social actuality. Simply to pull an abstract "right to life" out of the Declaration of Independence is not conservative but Jacobinical. To be sure, the Roe decision was certainly an example of judicial overreach. Combined with Casey, however, it did address the reality of the American social process.

* * *

Needless to say, there have been a number of responses to Jeffrey Hart's editorial:

Jeffrey Hart on 'the conservative mind' The New Criterion: "Armavirumque" Dec. 27, 2005. James Panero provides some background on Hart and posts a link to an essay, Lessons from Jeffrey Hart, "on the Hart School [of Conservatism] and its influence on young staffers in the Reagan administration."
The American Mind Today, by Stephen Bainbridge. Dec. 27, 2005. Prof. Bainbridge has the interesting observation that "what Hart doesn't discuss here is the possibility that the United States is not a nation-state but rather a state-nation."
Jeffrey Hart on 'the conservative mind': the response The New Criterion: "Armavirumque" Dec. 28, 2005. James Panero rounds up responses to Hart's article from National Review's blog "The Corner" by Peter Robinson, Jonah Goldberg and Ramesh Ponnuru (start here and scroll up). While agreeing that "Hart is always worth reading," both Goldberg and Ponnuru find fault with Hart's curious take on abortion.
Also weighing in by email to the NRO is Fr. Gerry Murray , of New York city's St. Vincent de Paul parish and a former alumni of Dartmouth. Responding to Hart's criticism that "Simply to pull an abstract 'right to life' out of the Declaration of Independence is not conservative but Jacobinical," Murray counters
There is nothing abstract about an unborn human being, and likewise the metaphysical laws that govern human life are not abstractions, but rather the solid ground that makes a just society possible. My right not to be killed, without justification, at the discretion of another person is no an abstraction, it is the fundamental condition of the existence of any justly ordered community of persons. What is an abstraction is Roe, in which unborn human are not persons, and the killing of such non-persons is legally sanctioned and protected by the state against any interference.
Babies before birth are people, and to treat them in any other way requires entrance into the horrible world of evil ideas (lies) that result in evil (unjust) actions. The Roe justices that gave us abortion would have liked the country to march into that world with them; they have been and will be unsuccessful as long as we do not concede the fight.
Fr. Murray's letter is reproduced in full here, together with a response Jeffrey Hart's response (New Criterion: "Armavirumque" Dec. 29, 2005).
Resonding to Fr. Murray, Hart takes a cheap shot at Fr. Neuhaus and First Things critique of "judicial activism" (as documented in The End of Democracy Spence Publishing Company, 1997):
Some years ago, as I recall, Father Richard Neuhaus asserted in his magazine First Things that because of legal abortion the United States "regime" is illegitimate. That's right, "illegitimate." Of course this easy chair insurrectionary, this Jacobinical priest, did not become a genuine insurrectionary such as John Brown. Neuhaus knew only too well that the real insurrectionary John Brown received justice at the end of a rope. Neuhaus did not even go to prison, for, say, refusing to pay taxes. Thoreau had gone to prison over the Mexican war.
Hart's comments drew a response from Fr. Neuhaus (First Things: On The Square, Dec. 30, 2005):
Oh dear. “Easy chair insurrectionary,” “Jacobinical priest.” And here I always thought of Jeffrey as a friend. At least he has always been very cordial when we met in the company of friends. . . .
What was thought to be a radical idea at the time–and what Jeffrey Hart apparently still thinks is an impermissibly radical idea–is that we could reach a point, if the judicial usurpation of politics continued unabated, at which the American political order would be morally illegitimate and democratic government effectively ended.
To deny the possibility that the American polity could descend into a form of tyranny, in this case judicial tyranny, is, I believe, a form of national hubris, and precludes the possibility of any rational consideration of what is meant by the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate government.
(The New Criterion "Armavirumque" Dec. 30, 2005). Ryan M. Schwarz thinks that: "As a longtime admirer of both Hart and Neuhaus (and, in the spirit of full disclosure, a former parishioner of Neuhaus' in his Lutheran days), I've quite enjoyed reading this little dustup . . . It does appear, however, that the participants are talking past each other just a bit."
Hart responded yet again to Neuhaus, protesting that, with respect to abortion, he was conducting Analysis, not Advocacy (New Criterion: "Armavirumque" Dec. 31, 2005): "The demand [for a "right" to abortion] will probably increase as a result of the successful women's revolution. Again, that was analytical. No one has challenged that analysis." Hart also disputed Neuhaus' rendition of events:
Richard Neuhaus understates what actually happened in his magazine First Things in 1999. First Things ran five (commissioned) articles under the overall heading "The End of Democracy?" (He now says that some people thought the question mark unjustified -- that is, they thought democracy in fact had ended with Roe vs. Wade!
Walter Berns and Gertrude Himmelfarb removed their names from the masthead of First Things. Mr. Berns protested that the magazine was "close to advocating not only civil disobedience but armed revolution."
The spirit of Che Guevara must have been near at hand.
Robert Bork objected to Neuhaus's observation that we "have reached the point where conscientious citizens can no longer give moral assent to the existing regime."
Yet Neuhaus nevertheless gave moral assent to the laws that protected his own rights and liberties.
Why Edmund Burke would have taken issue with Jeff Hart, by Roger Kimball. (New Criterion: "Armavirumque" Dec. 31, 2005). The managing editor of the Criterion responds to Hart's suggestion that the normalization of abortion reflects the achievement of "the women's movement":
The "privatization" of abortion--that moral metamorphosis according to which abortion would henceforth be regarded not as an enormity but as liberating "choice"--was part of the cultural revolution of the 1960s. In this sense, I believe, the normalization of abortion represented not the fulfillment of the woman's movement but its most terrible subversion. It seduced many women--many men, too--into believing that ending a life was a legitimate, often a "courageous" expression of personal freedom.
I was surprised--a little shocked, even--to find Jeff colluding with this idea by citing with apparent approval the Sixties euphemism according to which abortion is rebaptized as a woman's taking control of her "reproductive capability." What abortion really means is annulling reproductive capability in the name of a spurious notion of personal autonomy. There is something Orwellian about the fact that the slogan "reproductive freedom" has turned out so often to mean "freedom from reproducing." . . .
Jeff stresses, with some exasperation, that he is offering a political analysis, not a blueprint for his ideal society. I do not see that that changes the fundamental issue, though. In a democratic polity, political power is (at least in theory) widely distributed. Political power is the power to determine to some extent the shape of society. It is not the power to define morality, which precedes and guides political power. If voters in some society voted to make murder legal, that would not mean that murder would henceforth be morally OK. The fact that Adolf Hitler was duly elected by democratic franchise in 1933 illustrates one of the limits of that emollient epithet, "democracy."
as well as Hart's portrayal of Burke has having resigned himself to the consequences of the French Revolution (suggesting in like manner we make our peace with the new order lest we appear 'perverse and obstinate'"):
Jeff attempts to enlist Burke in a policy of resignation. But few figures in the annals of conservative thought are less likely accomplices in such an enterprise. Jeff seems to argue that because Roe v. Wade enjoys the sanction of popular sentiment (if it does enjoy that sanction, which some would dispute), it therefore ought to be accepted. "Facts of the social reality have changed a great deal," Jeff reminds us, "and actual people make actual decisions within the actuality they inhabit." Well, does the fact that a certain practice is popular legitimate it? Burke had it right, I think, when he warned in An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs (1791) that "the votes of a majority of the people, whatever their infamous flatterers may teach in order to corrupt their minds, cannot alter the moral any more than they can alter the physical essence of things."
On January 2, 2006, Fr. Neuhaus reponded further to Jeffrey Hart:
Jeff writes: “Robert Bork objected to Neuhaus’s observation that we ‘have reached the point where conscientious citizens can no longer give moral assent to the existing regime.’” Stubborn fact: I never said that, and I rather doubt that Robert Bork ever said that I said that. I said that, if the judicial usurpation of politics, as exemplified by Roe, continued unabated, we could reach a point at which the American polity would become an illegitimate regime. The manifest purpose of the symposium was to contribute to abating the judicial usurpation of politics. Those with a greater respect for facts than Jeffrey Hart has exhibited in these exchanges are invited to press the “Search” button above and read the entire symposium in order to find out who said what.
On January 3, 2006 Jody Bottum weighs in on Hart vs. Neuhaus, Kimball, et al. (First Things "On The Square"). Bottum notes that "The Republicans’ adoption of the pro-life cause was one of the great moves in American political history," howbeit an adoption that occured almost by default when the Democrats enthusiastically rushed headlong to become the political lobby of NOW and Planned Parenthood. "The day the party abandons its pro-life platform is the day the pro-lifers stay home on election day—and the Democrats start to win again," challenges Bottum, "Is this what Jeffrey Hart wants? The decadent luxury of a purer, though powerless, party?"
At the same time, says Bottom, Hart's criticisms have provoked in their own way a necessary evaluation of the relationship between conservatism and the pro-life cause ("We seem to need to go through this kind of brouhaha every so often, if only to get the argument straight once again"):
One of the primary works of the pro-life movement has been the long, slow assembling of the intellectual argument against the killing of the unborn (a point made well by Slate.com’s William Saletan in his interesting 2003 book Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War). And these occasional outbreaks of conservative disenchantment with the pro-life movement help us remember the intricacies of that argument—and its relation to deep structures of politics. . . .
Hart is surely right that [conservative opposition to abortion] shares little of the conservative temperament. Fortunately, the modern pro-life movement in the United States is not dominated by its sentiment, in the political sense of the word. Its commitments remain instead radically above and below all that: a philosophical belief in the dignity of the human person asserted by Western civilization and (very approximately) embodied in the American experiment, on the one hand, and a practical association with mostly Republican politicians, on the other hand.
This looks like sufficient conservatism to me. But give Jeffrey Hart his due: If conservatism is fundamentally a political sentiment, a temperament that accepts and defends the world as given, then the pro-life position now, three decades after Roe v. Wade, is not conservative but radical.

Additional Commentary on the Jeffrey Hart Debate

Synthesizing a Running Debate: Hart's New Conservative Consensus, by Marc at Spinning Cleo Dec. 28, 2005: "What follows is an experiment in which I attempted to "liveblog" a running commentary and debate amongst different bloggers across different blogs about different aspects of the same topic. . . . This post encompasses comments made during the course of approximately 36 hours of blog debate and (due to sanity reasons!) was terminated at around 8pm, EST on 12/28/2005."
Con-fusion: Prudence and Principle in Contemporary Conservatism, by Joseph Knippenberg, professor of politics and blogger at No Left Turns. The American Enterprise. Knippenberg finds some disjuncture between Hart's call for "a recovery of the great structure of metaphysics, with the Resurrection as its fulcrum" and his pragmatic concession to the demand for abortion:
While Hart hasn’t given us much to go on, there seems to be a tension between his religion, which is universal and metaphysical, and his politics, which is grounded in particularity and concrete social facts. If the former is not supposed to have any influence on the latter, if the sphere of religion is supposed simply to be separate from the sphere of politics, then why mention religion at all in an essay on the conservative movement?
I assume that Hart is not a mere separationist, simple-mindedly insisting upon the privacy of religion and banishing it from the public square. Religion is necessary and important and perhaps even true, capturing something of the human condition, addressing some of our deepest needs. If that is the case, then it will inevitably affect our attitude toward political life, albeit not necessarily in a straightforward or predictable way. It will challenge our subjection to seemingly inexorable material forces. It will call us away from our interests to our principles, to “the better angels of our nature.” But if it potentially has this effect, then it might at some point militate against a regime that permits abortion on demand during the first trimester.
The Metaphysics of Conservatism TCS Daily. January 12, 2006. Edward Feser of Right Reason subjects Hart's article to philosophical analysis, finding him to be an example of Anti-Realist conservatism (one who "does not really oppose liberal measures per se, but only their overhasty and excessively disruptive implementation").
Hart to Hart, by Amy Welborn. Discussion of Hart's article by the readers of Amy Welborn's blog Open Book. (Rod Dreher, a frequent contributor and author of Crunchy Con, notes "I'm probably closer to Jeff Hart's view on the abortion question than my own side's," noticing as well Hart's criticism of contemporary conservatism "for making a fetish of the free market" and neglect of Beauty.

Can I quote you on that? ;-)

2006-02-11T11:59:00.000-08:00

"The ethos of [Catholic colleges and universities] is so drenched in capitalism as to lead one to conclude, in darker moments, that the shepherding being done at these schools is the kind that raises sheep not for the Church, but for the market. But, of course, resisting capitalism is a problem we face not only in our schools. It is a problem for everyone everywhere."

* * *

"I would still like to see every rich person hanged from the nearest lamp post."

Todd R. Flanders, Liberty and the Virtue of Prudence: A Catholic Perspective. Journal of Markets & Morality Volume 2, Number 1. Spring 1999.

According to Flanders, the source of the first post is "a rising Catholic theologian in a recent lecture at a major Catholic university, who requested not to be quoted by name.

The second quote is attributed to "a prominent Thomist ethicist (in a quasi-jocular manner) when asked what values, as a Catholic convert, he retains from his Marxist days" . . . none other than Alasdair MacIntyre, during a 1996 question-and-answer session in Boston.

Fr. Robert Sirico @ Theology on Tap (Rome, Italy)

2006-02-05T22:18:00.000-08:00

Fr. Robert Sirico recently headed a "Theology on Tap" in Rome:

. . . Here in Rome, Theology on Tap has been gaining momentum ever since it was started last year. Last Thursday, a particularly interesting talk demonstrated even greater values to Theology on Tap than just getting young people to talk about God in the pub instead of just sports or movies.
Father Robert Sirico, president of the Michigan-based Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, opened the 2006 lectures with the provocatively titled talk, "Can a Rich Man Go to Heaven?"
With hundreds of business students arriving that week to get their dusting in humanities, the talk couldn't have been better timed. The aptly-named Scholars Lounge in Rome was packed.
Father Sirico approached the scriptural question with scriptural answers. He reminded the young people of Genesis, the creation of the world and that God deemed it "good." He spoke of Adam and Eve and the dignity of human work. He reminded a rapt audience of how "God takes the material world seriously." So much so that the Redemption took place in the material world.
With a few well-delivered phrases, Father Sirico knocked down the barriers between business students and theologians, and he then went to on to find common ground for the politically left or right. Elucidating the dangers of "canonizing the poor while demonizing the rich," Father Sirico also warned against "Calvinism on steroids" policies, which imply that attainment of wealth is a sign of God's favor.
In one of the most engaging moments of the evening, Father Sirico waxed autobiographical, revealing that briefly in his youth he had worn tie-dye and dreamed of redistributing wealth. The crowd, their jaws dropped in wonder, stared at the starry-eyed socialist turned captain of a Catholic think tank.
The discovery of Father Sirico's remarkable transformation also answered the question that had brought everyone to the pub that night -- "with God all things are possible."

Source: "Strong Brew, Theologically", by Elizabeth Lev. Zenit News Service. January 26, 2006.

Michael Novak's Memories of JPII; New Website by Rocco Buttiglione

2006-01-29T08:26:00.000-08:00

From Michael Novak's website, remembrances by the Catholic philospher on his friendship with the Pope, with some great stories: discovering his mutual "Polish" ancestry"; the underground publication of The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism by the movement Solidarity, and meetings over dinner to discuss economics and Catholic social doctrine:

One night in the autumn of 1991 I was invited to have dinner with the Holy Father. It would be difficult to describe my excitement. I think I barely said a word at dinner, set for just five of us, as I recall: the Pope, his two secretaries, my Italian friend Rocco Buttiglione, and me. Rocco and I were planning a seminar on the free society, to help bring young Americans and Eastern Europeans together. He had been a friend of Karol Wojtyla for years, ever since their mutual philosophical work in Poland, well before the young bishop/philosopher was elected Pope. Rocco and the Pope did most of the talking — and joshing — that evening. The Pope did ask me what I would recommend as the best way to help the millions of poor whom he had just seen in Latin America. I don’t recall his being terribly convinced by my three points, telegraphically put forth. They had much to do with micro-enterprises, and changing education and the law to favor the starting of many small businesses. (Today I note with pleasure that, for instance, India and China between them have raised more than half a billion people out of poverty since 1980. So it can be done, where enterprise is permitted and rewarded.)
I do recall praising the Pope for the good words he had put into his recent letter-to-the-world, Centesimus Annus. As we were leaving, he told me he liked very much the article of mine that had been translated in the Polish Catholic paper Tygodnik Powszechny just that week. It had been translated from my lecture in London, on the theme of the shift in the Pope’s understanding of “capital” from Laborem Exercens (1981) and the 1991 letter ten years later. You understand my thought very well, he said generously — words that have warmed my hear ever since, in many a cold and difficult season.
In Laborem Exercens, he linked capital solely to things, to matter. In Centesimus Annus he pointed to the capital fostered within the human subject: human capital, in the form of knowledge, know-how, invention, and other fruitful economic habits. The virtues he listed are not unlike the habits Max Weber had pointed out in The Protestant Ethic, but with a new, original emphasis upon the creativity of the human person, made in the image of the Creator. A neat emphasis for a Pope living so near the Michelangelo ceiling of the Sistine chapel.
From many more meetings with the Pope, I have the impression that he was skeptical about my hopes for a creativity-informed and law-abiding capitalism, but interested. He and his secretaries used to press me quite hard, and test me and my friends, on this and other issues. We used to have lunch or dinner with him, not every year, maybe an extra time or two in a given blessed year, and nearly always on his days off, when there was a little more time and he had on his calendar no one more important or long-ago-scheduled.

"To the best of my knowledge," Novak recalls, "we at Crisis were the first to put the name "John Paul the Great" in print." I remember the publication of the Crisis Magazine special edition years ago -- 1997, to be exact -- with the cover proclaiming him "John Paul The Great." I still have it. It's a great issue, with stirring tributes by a host of Catholic authors. Worth getting if you can.

Novak's friend, the Italian Minister of Culture Rocco Buttiglione has started a new webpage -- www.pensarecristiano.org -- which tanslates as 'Thinking Christian.'

The Catholic news Agency blog Catholic Outsider has the details behind this fascinating figure, "Formed by the movement Communione e Liberazione and its late Founder, Msgr. Luigi Giussani, key advisor in the writing of Centesimus Annus," published in Crisis and by the Acton Institute . . .

WHAT?!? a member of 'Communion and Liberation' fraternizing with dreaded Catholic neocons and proponents of liberalism?

Say it is not so! ;-)

Kevin Tierney on Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum

2005-12-18T09:22:00.000-08:00

Kevin Tierney has published a six-part commentary on Leo XIII's social encyclical Rerum Novarum:

In many respects, this was the Catholic Churches answer to socialism. While it had been touched in various fashions before now, it was here Leo XIII provided a point by point rebuttal to the socialists on the issues of private property, class distinctions, and the role and nature of government. After doing this, he broke new ground in treating at length the way the Catholic Church views the relationship between capital and labor, employee and employer. There are few works in the Church that have had as profound an impact as Rerum Novarum. So profound is this impact, in 3 instances various Popes paid tribute to this specific work. On the 25 year anniversary of the encyclical Pius XI released Quadragesimo Anno, John XXIII paid glowing tribute to it in Mater et Magistra, and finally on the 100th anniversary of the work, John Paul II released Centesimus Annus. Despite the fears of Leo XIII on the nature of some labor unions (in that they were subtly Masonic or blatantly Anti-Catholic) he endorsed the principle of labor unions, and if a good lot for workers could be achieved through them, he favored it. Unfortunately, today his teaching is not received by the Church. In all too many areas, the "social justice" movements that have come into being, in many ways, are no different than the socialism Leo XIII condemned with his eloquence. Calling this to mind, I have attempted to offer a commentary on Rerum Novarum that sets the record straight on social concerns. The following will be that commentary.

Rerum Novarum, Part I
Rerum Novarum, Part II
Rerum Novarum, Part III
Rerum Novarum, Part IV
Rerum Novarum, Part V
Rerum Novarum, Part VI

I. Shawn McElhinney on John Carroll, Freemasonry and the American Founding

2005-12-15T21:02:00.000-08:00

"On the Subject of America's Founding With Christopher Blosser and David Jones" -- Part I; Part II; Part III -- by I. Shawn McElhinney. Rerum-Novarum.

Shawn revisits (and critiques) the thread How Charles Carroll Influenced U.S. Founding Fathers on David Jones' La Nouvelle Theologie Nov. 2, 2005 -- a two-part interview with Scott McDermott on the Catholic Signer of Declaration of Independence , which evolved into a debate over the alleged Masonic membership of the Carroll family (including Daniel Carroll and his brother, John Carroll, appointed first bishop of the United States by Pope Pius VI on 6 November, 1789.

See also John Carroll and the American Founding, another collection of links at Religion & Liberty Nov. 6, 2005.

McElhinney calls into question David Jones' line of reasoning that Bishop Carroll's "resistance to apply this automatic excommunication in the United States is evidence of the close relationship Masonry had with the Carroll family. It would have resulted in his own brother being excommunicated," which he believes to be a rather uncharitable reading of events in light of the historical account of how they occurred.

Latest Archived Issue of Journal of Markets & Morality Vol. 7, No. 2

2005-12-14T21:54:00.000-08:00

The contents of the Vol. 7, No. 2, Fall 2004 issue of the Acton Institute's Journal of Markets & Morality have been made available on their website, including much which may be of interest to our readers:

"The Influence of Kant on Christian Theology: A Debate About Human Dignity and Christian Personalism", an exchange between Derek S. Jeffreys and Robert Kraynak concerning his critique of liberalism, with special attention to Kraynak's use of "Kantianism to caricature and undermine personalism."
Reviews of Wealth, Poverty and Human Destiny, edited by Doug Bandow and David Schindler; On Ordered Liberty: A Treatise on the Free Society, by Dr. Samuel Gregg;
"Is There Only Secular Democracy? Imagining Other Possibilities for the Third Millennium", by George Cardinal Pell, an abbreviated version of an address given to the Acton Institute on October 12, 2004.

View the full contents of Vol. 7, No. 2; view the contents of the current issue (available to subscribers). Thanks to Jordan Ballor for the update.

A Prayer for Government, by Bishop John Carroll

2005-12-08T18:16:00.000-08:00

A Prayer for Government, by Bishop John Carroll (circa 1791-1798). (Posted to Rerum Novarum by I. Shawn McElhinnney.

NOTE: See also Tracking the Ever-Elusive Neocon, a two-part correspondence with a reader who responded to his inquiry on the subject.

Fr. Neuhaus & Caleb Stegall - A Brief Exchange

2005-12-03T12:19:00.000-08:00

Natural Law, the Death Penalty, and Political Theology: An Editorial Response to First Things, by Caleb Stegall. The New Pantagruel Vol. 2, No. 3, Summer 2005. Analyzing the recent correspondence of First Things editor Jody Bottum and editor-in-chief Fr. Richard J. Neuhaus, Caleb Stegall observes a disjuncture of positions:

So what’s going on at First Things? In sum, Bottum contends that accepting the modern state requires the abandonment of any political theology and the concurrent abandonment of natural law in favor of the positive law. Bottum does accept the modern state and therefore is compelled, by intellectual honesty, to abandon man’s experience under nature and within a cosmic narrative, at least in its political form. Neuhaus, on the other hand, contends that to abandon political theology altogether is social suicide, resulting in politics as naked power grabs and constant warfare by other means, and he prescribes as a remedy a renewed attention to natural law.
If it is true that a demythologized modern state has no room for political theology or natural law as Bottum says, and if it is true that a state without a political theology will devolve into raw power politics, either in the open or more likely hidden behind lip service paid to positive law, as Neuhaus says, then the sheer circularity of their contradictory conclusions is dizzying. The fact that Bottum and Neuhaus are so hung up in this intellectual feedback loop is useful for what it reveals: namely, that despite all the valiant efforts of the First Things crew over the years, the modern public square really is naked–which is to say, shorn of any real political theology or mythology–and will always remain so. Better to abandon the liberal project altogether, at which point a penitent, Christian, political theology will again be possible.

Fr. Neuhaus offers a rather curt response here:

Stegall’s is an interesting argument, and he raises a few questions deserving of detailed attention. But that is for another time. Very briefly, what he calls the demythologized modern state is not capable of bearing “the story of the world,” namely, the gospel of Jesus Christ. No state is. That is the mission of the Church. I am not at all sure that we should want the kind of “political theology” that Mr. Stegall apparently has in mind. The goal, rather, is a secular state in a confessional society in which government is democratically held accountable to the moral truth to which the Church bears witness.
While Mr. Bottum and I decline the invitation to fight, it should be noted that the New Pantagruel, while not as Rabelaisian as the title may suggest, is a lively Internet quarterly well worth a look.

(Well, let's hope for more substantial engagements in the future).

Weigel on 'A Realist Sensibility' - Necessity & Caution

2005-12-02T13:24:00.000-08:00

A realist sensibility is an essential component of the intellectual furniture of any Christian analyst or practicioner of international politics who would observe, in that dangerous arena, the first principle of sound medicine: first, do no harm. Idealism untethered to an Augustinian sense of the limits of human perfectability can erode into romanticism, and the bill, ultimately, will be paid in human lives and suffering. Neither the defeat of Nazi totalitarianism or the collapse of Marxism-Leninism has invalidated the enduring importance of the realist sensibility.
But realism absolutized carries its own dangers. It can lead to a prematurely foreshortened view of the possible. It can obscure the potential for good that arises from the ideas and activities of individuals and movements who work "off the headlines" of diplomacy and commerce, and whose impact cannnot be readily calculated according to the standard realist weights and measures of military power and economic capability. An absolutist form of realism can bifurcate the worlds of politics and morality by creating the false (and, in classic Catholic moral terms, unacceptable) image of international public life as an "amoral" arena. Finally, by minimizing the fact that, while it is certainly true that man sins, it is equally true that it is man who makes the judgement that he sins, absolute realism can blind itself to the opportunities for incremental improvement in the human condition that do exist because of the tug of conscience.

George Weigel, "Pacem In Terris: The Human Rights Revolution"
From Building a Free Society: Democracy, Capitalism and Catholic Social Teaching
edited by George Weigel, Robert Royal. Eerdmans Pub Co (October 1994).

Thanksgiving 2005

2005-11-24T22:05:00.000-08:00

"...WHEREAS it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me "to recommend to the people of the United States a DAY OF PUBLIC THANSGIVING and PRAYER, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:" NOW THEREFORE, I do recommend and assign THURSDAY, the TWENTY-SIXTH DAY of NOVEMBER next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation..."

From the Thanksgiving Proclamation of George Washington, President of the United States. October 3, 1789. Source: The Massachusetts Centinel, Wednesday, October 14, 1789.

[Thanks to Padre of the "Not So Quiet" Catholic Corner].

"Geneological Jitters"

2005-11-18T19:46:00.000-08:00

Geneological Jitters" and "Geneological Jitters Redux", from the blog Endlessly Rocking, on the criticism of modernity or perhaps characterization thereof as a unique event and a look back at a 'golden age' of synthesis.

(Much to ponder -- thanks to Chris Burgwald for recommending this post).

Fr. Sirico on Dario Antiseri and the Debate on Relativism

2005-11-15T06:24:00.000-08:00

[The following was conveyed to me by a representative of Istituto Acton in Rome, regarding the recent debate on relativism prompted by Sando Magister’s blog on Dario Antiseri (Disputed Questions. A Catholic Philosopher Argues for Relativism, by Sandro Magister. L'Espresso Nov. 3, 2005)]:

Statement by Rev. Robert A. Sirico:
It appears that a number of friends associated with the Acton Institute in Italy have recently entered into a vigorous and interesting discussion about the various meanings of relativism. I thought it might be of use to your readers to have my own reflections on that matter as well.
One of the insights of the Austrian school of economics has been to clarify the subjective nature of prices in a market economy operating relatively freely, along with the critical information and economic coordination that result from such free prices. One need not look far to see the deleterious effects in societies that attempt to regulate or controls prices.
Such economic subjectivism, which is rightly utilitarian in nature, ought not, in my assessment, to be confused with moral norms (virtues) which are objective in their nature and morally binding on the conscience for all people by virtue of the common nature with which they are endowed in their creation - whether or not people recognize their origin in God.
This access to moral truth by use of reason, often referred to as the Natural Law, is predicated on the belief that the human mind is a normatively reliable tool of cognition. It does not follow, however, that reason is infallible, much less that an apprehension of moral truth justifies in principle the use of coercion to force others to conform to its demands. "Christian truth is not of this kind," the Second Vatican Council reminds us.
In his pre-conclave address, the then Cardinal Ratzinger spoke of the threat of "a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires."
There is considerable room for a genuine plurality of views and disagreement among faithful Roman Catholics. Nonetheless, my own view is to affirm the condemnation of relativism as defined by the Holy Father, a condemnation that echoes the statements of the Magisterium on this matter as found in authoritative teaching documents such as Evangelium Vitae (no.20, no.70) and Veritatis Splendor ( no.1, no.48, no.84, no.101, no.106, no.112), and which, in addition to such authoritative pronouncements, I also find intellectually compelling.
I also wish to add that, as a corporate body, the Acton Institute is not engaging in this debate about relativism and no views expressed by any of the participants should be regarded as the position of the Acton Institute.
Rev. Robert A. Sirico
President, Acton Institute

Making Sense of Schindler: Good Diagnosis: What about the Prescription?

2005-11-14T06:50:00.000-08:00

NOTE: This is continuation of my earlier posts "On Liberalism: Discussion w. Chris Burgwald" [Pt. 1] and Religious Convictions and Public Discourse [Pt. 2], addressing his post on the proposition 'Liberalism is the Death of God'. Chris' post was itself part of a series elaborating on David Jones' '[Points of] Disagreement with Novak', to which I responded here. The use of religious language in public debates and the problem of pluralism was the focus of an exchange btw/ Chris Burgwald and Santiago in the comments to his post. What follows are some extended reflections on these issues, put down over the course of the past week -- CB

For those who don't have access to Heart of the World, Schindler's article "Religious Freedom, Truth & American Liberalism: Another Look at John Courtney Murray" (Communio Winter 1994) provides his essential disagreement with Fr. John Courtney Murray's understanding of the First Admendment in juridical terms:

The claim of constitutional indifference (that is, neutrality) is tied, in the case of Murray, to his interpretation of the religion clauses of the First Amendment as "articles of peace." And this interpretation is reinforced by his definition of religious freedom first in negative terms, as an immunity (from coercion). But what happens if it can be shown that the religion clauses, whenever they actually mean anything, always imply someone's "articles of faith"; and if it can be shown, further, that a religious freedom defined first in negative terms already presupposes a theory of religion different from one which would define religious freedom first in positive terms, in terms of the person's positive relation toward God?
What I propose to argue is that the constitutional indifference toward religious truth which Murray defends turns out already to imply the beginning of the substantive (i.e., theoretical-societal) indifference which he otherwise decries. Any attempt at a purely formal definition of religious freedom will in fact always-already import a definite content of religion. Failure to recognize this suffices to distinguish one's approach to religious freedom, and indeed to political community, as already unacceptably liberal.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but apart from Neuhaus' responses in "The Public Square" and the expanded argument defending the 'liberalism' of John Paul II there isn't a lot of substantial engagement with Heart of the World to be found online or in print -- The other reviews being those by Michtell Kalpakgian (An Integrated Catholic Worldview, Homiletic & Pastoral Review. March 1998); Chrisophe Potworowski (Review in The Thomist, 1997); and Fr. Joseph Komonchak (Missing Person Commonweal Sept. 12, 1997).

Komonchak does note some weaknesses in Schindler's approach:

Let me offer some methodological and substantive comments. Schindler’s method typically searches for a sentence or two thought to represent his opponent’s starting point, from which, he believes, even if by “unintended logic,” must follow certain untenable conclusions. Thus, to take the instance I know most about, what Murray said about religious freedom being first negative-immunity from coercion-and being based upon the autonomy of the person is thought to imply an abstract notion of human nature which neglects that the first truth about the person is human nature’s positive orientation toward supernatural fulfillment in God. But such a view overlooks the moment of receptivity that must precede, condition, and direct all “autonomous” human activity. From the inadequacies of that starting-point follow, logically, all the consequences that have led to the corruption of the American experiment into “the culture of death.” That Murray’s writings contain many indications that belie Schindler’s description of it passes largely unnoticed. The result is a curious abstraction in the argument, logic replacing genuine dialogue and dialectic.
A second methodological problem is that, unlike those whom he criticizes, Schindler is most often content to remain at the level of first principles, where he thinks the real battle should be waged, and to leave the practical political, economic, or academic implications of his own position hazy. Even when one might agree that perhaps the starting-point should be more christological or Trinitarian, still what follows from this? How does one get at least part of the way from this exalted or primordial vision toward a different polity, economics, or university? And what mediates such necessary moves? Schindler’s remarks on Catholic universities do move a bit toward answering such questions, but when it comes to politics and economics, he is frustratingly vague.

My preference would be to see Weigel and Novak respond (William L. Portier referred to Weigel's Soul of the World as "a preemptive strike at another book that appeared later in 1996 from the same publisher"), and -- given Komonchak's criticisms -- more engagement by those Jesuit scholars who are well-versed in Murray's writings. Perhaps Kenneth Grasso might weigh in at some point (I read Grasso's article "Beyond Liberalism: Human Dignity, the Free Society, and the Second Vatican Council," this past week, with criticisms of liberalism circa. 1995 that were reminiscent of Schindler circa. 1997 -- for example, as when he asserts "it became apparent that the very rejection of teleology entailed by liberalism's nominalism and rationalism was incompatible with the affirmation of the type of objective and universally obligatory moral order whose existence early liberals had taken as axiomatic").

Dr. Schindler objects to a feigned moral/religious "neutrality" put forth by a certain kind of liberalism. Granted, any nation-state will inevitably have to make hard decisions concerning the public regulation of morality (the definition of marriage; sexuality, biological/medical ethics, etc.), and such cannot help but be made by appeal to a moral, if not religious, tradition. Even the Declaration of Independence was grounded in a conception of natural law with appeal to "the laws of nature and natur's God." On this note, even Irving Kristol -- that nefarious grand wizard of the Neocon Cabal -- criticizes the notion of a purely "managerial" democracy, pointing out that the affirmation of democracy itself presupposes a discussion -- Fr. Murray might say consensus -- of 'the good life' and a life worth pursuing.

I think that Fr. Neuhaus and Dr. Schindler (the AT's and WT's) are roughly on the same page regarding the pernicious effects of secular liberalism and it's "value-free" facade (Neuhaus takes umbrage at the notion that he has "uncritically baptized American democracy," pointing out his book The Naked Public Square which anticipates Schindler's criticism). As Santiago pointed out, the question persists as to whether the Church can align itself with liberal institutions while repudiating a liberal ideology which now engulfs Europe, and much of America.

For conservatives (Russell Kirk) this is a matter of "reappropriating and revitalizing the liberal tradition." For Neuhaus, Weigel, Novak and others, there is the added necessity of bringing the liberal tradition into engagement with the "internal criticism" of John Paul II, calling recognition to a proper understanding and grounding of the individual. Again, Fr. Neuhaus' reflection on the liberal critique of Centesimus Annus:

There is no more common criticism of the liberal tradition than that it is premised upon unbridled "individualism." [Centesiumus Annus] speaks of the "individual" and even of the "autonomous subject" (13), but most typically refers to the "person." Citing the earlier encyclical Redemptor Hominis, John Paul writes that "this human person is the primary route that the Church must travel in fulfilling her mission . . . the way traced out by Christ himself, the way that leads invariably through the mystery of the Incarnation and Redemption." He then adds the remarkable statement, "This, and this alone, is the principle which inspires the Church's social doctrine." (53)
This, and this alone. He writes, "The Church has gradually developed that doctrine in a systematic way," above all in the past century. Very gradually, we might add without disrespect. In the later encyclical Veritatis Splendor, John Paul pays fulsome tribute to modernity and its development of the understanding of the dignity of the individual and of individual freedom. Individualism is one of the signal achievements of modernity or, if you will, of the liberal tradition. Nor should we deny that this achievement was effected in frequent tension with, and even conflict with, the Catholic Church. One important reason for such conflict, of course, was that the cause of freedom was perceived as marching under the radically anticlerical and anti-Christian banners of 1789. It is a signal achievement of this pontificate that it has so clearly replanted the idea of the individual and of freedom in the rich soil of Christian truth from which, in its convoluted and conflicted development, it had been uprooted. Only as it is deeply rooted in the truth about the human person will the flower of freedom flourish in the future.
It is a mistake to pit, as some do pit, modern individualism against a more organic Catholic understanding of community. Rather should we enter into a sympathetic liaison with the modern achievement of the idea of the individual, grounding it more firmly and richly in the understanding of the person destined from eternity to eternity for communion with God. The danger of rejecting individualism is that the real-world alternative is not a Catholic understanding of communio but a falling back into the collectivisms that are the great enemy of the freedom to which we are called. As CA reminds us, "We are not dealing here with humanity in the abstract, but with the real, concrete, historical person." The problem with the contemporary distortion of the individual as the autonomous, unencumbered, sovereign Self is not that it is wrong about the awesome dignity of the individual, but that it cuts the self off from the source of that dignity.

The "Augustinian-Thomist" response, inasmuch as I understand it -- and I'm somewhat at a loss here, as I have yet to read Kraynak or Rowland -- is varying degrees of skepticism and pessimism regarding the "salvagability" of constitutional democracy, given that the very seeds of corruption were planted at America's founding (some would say by virtue of their involvement in Freemasonry). Some approaches go so far as to advocate a kind of anarchism (the "Christian anarchism" of Ammon Hennacy, for example -- I confess in more radical years I was captivated by the religiously-inspired anarchism of Leo Tolstoy and Jacques Ellul). Others, like Alexander MacIntyrem are resigned to sit out the presidential elections, convinced that "when offered a choice between two politically intolerable alternatives [Bush's conservatism, Kerry's liberalism], it is important to choose neither."

In Heart of the World, Schindler affirms Vatican II's unequivocal rejection of integralism (the absorption of the world into the Church). He also maintains that "de Lubac's organic-paradoxical theory of nature and grace does not imply any dynamic for uniting the Church juridically with the state, at least not in the present world." At the same time, however, he maintains that

"[T]he fuller burden of communio ecclesiology, in its "worldly" implications . . . is destined for the transfiguring espousal with Jesus Christ: the espousal is meant to include human beings, not only in their individual but in their social nature as well: in their nature as extended into culture and hence into academic, political, economic structures and institutions. This espousal is meant also to include cosmic entities" [p. 20]

But Schindler qualifies this only a few pages later by adding that

"The transfiguration of creatures entailed by their espousal will of course be complete in the next life, and will be realized in this life (by human beings) only by undergoing the patient suffering, crucifixion, and death that is the way of Christ's own eucharistic offering. Transfiguration, in other words, is not a simple process of ever-increasing integration in Christ that occurs without radical discontinuity . . . a communio ecclesiology simply insists that we recognize the invitation to such transfiguration has nonetheless been extended to all creatures (proportionately, analogously) from the beginning of their existence and in a way that affects every aspect of their existence.

For an author who takes such great care in articulating his diagnosis of liberalism's ills, like Fr. Komonchak, I as a reader was personally hoping for -- but left wanting -- some genuine political or economic prescriptions.

* * *

Pope Benedict XVI: 'American Model' Worth Salvaging?

Lastly, as Santiago recently brought to my attention, Cardinal Ratzinger in November 2004 expressed his personal preference for the 'American model' over the European in terms of approaching religious pluralism:

. . . In comparing U.S. and European attitudes to diverse religions, Cardinal Ratzinger added: "I think that from many points of view the American model is the better one," while "Europe has remained bogged down in caesaropapism."
"People who did not want to belong to a state church, went to the United States and intentionally constituted a state that does not impose a church and which simply is not perceived as religiously neutral, but as a space within which religions can move and also enjoy organizational freedom without being simply relegated to the private sphere," he explained.
On this point, "one can undoubtedly learn from the United States," as it is a "process by which the state makes room for religion, which is not imposed, but which, thanks to the state, lives, exists and has a public creative force," the cardinal said. "It certainly is a positive way."

-- Cardinal Ratzinger Commends U.S. Model of Laicism Zenit News Service. Nov. 25, 2004.

Likewise, on October 17, 2005, Pope Benedict XVI expressed his support of a "positive secularity" in government:

In a letter to the president of the Italian Senate, Benedict XVI called for a "positive secularity" that omits any kind of hostility between religion and the state.
The "positive secularity" of which the Pope speaks guarantees "to each citizen the right to live his own religious faith with genuine freedom, including in the public realm." [. . .]
The Holy Father clarified that secularity must become "a commitment to guarantee to all, individuals and groups, respect for the exigencies of the common good, [and] the possibility to live and to express one own religious convictions."
According to the Bishop of Rome, the fundamental rights of the human being "are not created by the lawmakers, but are inscribed in the very nature of the human person, and refer back, in the last analysis to the Creator."
"Therefore," he added, "a healthy secularity of the state seems legitimate and advantageous, in virtue of which the temporal realities are governed according to norms that are proper to them, to which those ethical instances also belong that have their foundation in the very existence of man."

* * *

I've been sitting on these comments for the better part of the week and could probably revise them a third time over. However, time's a-wastin' and given Chris Burgwald's intention to expound on the additional criticisms of David Jones, we'll definitely have more opportunities for blogging on these subjects.

Monstrous mess that it is, I turn it over to my readers for their consideration.

Religious Convictions and Public Discourse (Discussion w. Chris Burgwald)

2005-11-14T06:41:00.000-08:00

NOTE: This is continuation of my earlier post "On Liberalism: Discussion w. Chris Burgwald", addressing his post on the proposition 'Liberalism is the Death of God'. The use of religious language in public debates and the problem of pluralism was the focus of an exchange btw/ Chris Burgwald and Santiago in the comments to his post on liberalism. What follows are some extended reflections in response to these issues, put down over the course of the past week -- CB

Regarding Chris' mention of the Enlightenment desire to construct 'a public morality' without any reference whatsoever to religion, and acceptable to anyone with the basic ability to think" -- one of the questions that I was prompted to ask: wither the concept of natural law as a medium for communication between Christians and non-Christians?

On one hand, natural law is rooted in religion (there can be no 'law' without a lawgiver). But at the same time, isn't it posited that by human reason we have the ability to know the requirements of natural law without the explicit assistance of divine revelation? While there is no question that many Christians are deficient in bearing witness to the Good News and the call to evangelize, does it necessarily follow that engagement in public discourse is not worthy of our time unless one's position on this or that issue is given explicit grounding on religious convictions? -- Fr. Neuhaus is resistant to this notion, and for good reason:

Schindler says the NWN gang, following Murray, claim that they are engaged in public discourse and therefore must make their arguments accessible to all reasonable persons, irrespective of their theological convictions or lack thereof. That, according to Schindler, is just the problem. A full-bore, undiluted presentation of Catholic truth is unapologetically aimed at converting people to that truth. He asks, "Would not an ethic that held less demand for conversion have a greater chance for widespread success?" He does not deny that, but simply responds by quoting Balthasar that "success is not a Gospel category."
So much for the task of trying to construct a comprehensive public discourse based upon reason and moral law. Attempting that is a liberal delusion, according to Schindler. It is worse than futile; it inevitably results in a betrayal of the fullness of the truth. Schindler's position is in key respects a Catholic version of the position of R. J. Rushdoony and the theonomists among Calvinists and of Stanley Hauerwas in his more intemperate moments. In their view, a genuinely public discourse is an oxymoron. Although they may use the same words, between Christian and non-Christian (maybe, for Schindler, between Catholic and non-Catholic) there is no commensurable discourse. The Catholic intellectual should simply bear witness to the fullness of truth in the hope of converting others to it. Although he denies it, Schindler is, like the theonomists, disposed toward a monism that cannot abide the pluralism that is history before the End Time.

NOTE: On this issue, I recommend the following for further consideration:

God’s Reasons: Do appeals to religious authority have a role in public policy debates?, by Robert P. George. McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University and author of Clash of Orthodoxies: Law, Religion and Morality in Crisis (Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2001). Dr. George strikes me as a good example if any of a Catholic who wields the natural law tradition effectively in engaging non-Catholics/non-Christians in policy debates in the public square.
Christian Conviction & Democratic Etiquette, by George Weigel. First Things 41 (March 1994): 28-35. Weigel asks: "How do we talk the talk? How, that is, do we talk so that moral judgments born from Christian religious conviction can be heard and thoughtfully considered by all Americans-or at least by those Americans willing to concede that moral judgment plays a crucial role in the public policy process?"
An example of this issue comes into play was the 2004 Presidential elections. As you might recall, John Kerry never tired of defending his "pro-choice" stance on grounds that while he was a Catholic, with respect to the question of abortion (and human cloning and embryonic stem-cell research), he would as a matter of principle refrain from "imposing" religious convictions on the general public. In April 2004, George Weigel weighed in on this matter as follows:
"What belongs to everyone, since this is a national candidacy, is the responsibility to make clear that when Kerry says the Church's pro-life teaching is a sectarian position which cannot be imposed on a pluralistic society, he is willfully misrepresenting the nature of the Church's position -- by suggesting that this is something analogous to the Catholic Church trying to force everyone in the United States to abstain from eating hot dogs on Fridays during Lent."
"This is simply false. The Church's pro-life teaching is something that can be engaged seriously by anyone. You don't have to believe that there are seven sacraments to deal with this, you don't have to believe in the primacy of the bishop of Rome to engage this position. You don't even have to believe in God to engage this [pro-Life] position because it's a position rooted in basic embryology and in basic logic, and anybody can engage that."
Q: Is this a suitable and legitimate mode of reasoning for a Catholic in public debate? What would David Jones or Chris Burgwald say? What would Schindler say?

On "Liberalism" - Discussion w. Chris Burgwald

2005-11-14T06:39:00.000-08:00

Chris Burgwald picks up on the conversation begun at La Nouvelle Theologie with the first in a series of posts elaborating on the reasons for disagreement with Michael Novak (together with Fr. Neuhaus, George Weigel, and Fr. Sirico). The first of these posts to Veritas is on the proposition: "The death of God for our times, for our culture, for us, is Liberalism".

The 'liberalism' which is condemned by Chris and David Jones (and those whom I'll refer to as 'The Schindler camp') is "characterized by the autonomy of the individual, which results in the individual as the primary focal point of every form of discourse: political, social, cultural, religious, etc," citing as an example the inordinant emphasis on "rights talk" in public discourse, on unrestrained human autonomy or individualism.

At the risk of stating the obvious, but there is nothing to be deplored in the mere affirmation of human rights -- George Weigel has recounted a story from the early 1980's, when Sir Michael Howard, Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford, suggested in a conversation that there had been two great twentieth-century revolutions: the first the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 (culminating in failure); the second the ongoing "evolution of the Catholic Church into the world's premier institutional defender of human rights," especially under the pontificate of Pope John Paul II.

In Memory and Identity, Pope John Paul II -- no shrinking violet when it comes to criticism of liberalism -- praised as "the positive fruit of the Enlightenment" the ideals of liberty, equality, fraternity, and a better understanding of human rights: the rights of man as well as of nations, "to maintain their own culture and exercise political sovereignty." He oberves the significant proximity of the French Revolution (July 14, 1789), the proclamation of the Polish constitution (May 3, 1791) and the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America (July 4, 1776), and the "stimulating synthesis of the relation between Christianity and the Enlightenment" as found in the documents of the Second Vatican Council.

So, I think it is important to note the recognition of legitimate human rights by the contemporary Catholic Church, even as these are distinguished from the illusory rights born of a false notion of human autonomy (the disasterous judicial reasoning behind Roe v. Wade comes readily to mind).

Chris goes on to add that "individualism is not the only feature of liberalism: the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre is well-known for his critique of what he calls "the Enlightenment project."

MacIntyre uses this term to describe the attempt by Enlightenment philosophers to construct a 'public morality' accessible to reason alone, i.e. without any reference whatsoever to religion and acceptable to anyone with the basic ability to think. (MacIntyre convincingly demonstrates how such a project is an ultimately futile one.) This, too, tends to define liberalism broadly understood.

In "Beyond Liberalism: Human Dignity, the Free Society, and the Second Vatican Council" (pp. 29-58. Catholicism, Liberalism, and Communitarianism, Rowman & Littlefield, 1995) Kenneth L. Grasso reminds us that if we understand liberalism in the broad sense to consist of that which is "supportive of constitutionalism, limited government, the rule of law, etc., over and against absolutism," it would not be inappropriate to describe the political teaching of the Second Vatican Council as liberal -- what John Courtney Murray described as "a political commmitment, however discrete, to constitutional government" -- a "preferential option" for constitutional democracy (Grasso, p. 30).

But the other kind of liberalism -- that which emerged in the seventeenth century and became constitutive of modern Western thought, which Grasso summarizes as "that theory of man and society that combines a methodological rejection of teleology with an emphatic rejection of any notion of natural or God-given goals," is rightly to be condemned. It is this form of liberalism that is characterized by "a view of human beings as essentially sovereign wills ["unencumbered selves"], subject to no order of obligations not of their own creation, subject to no order of human ends that obligate independent of, and prior to, an act of free consent to strive for these ends." (Grasso, p. 45).

Chris goes on to note that liberalism in the sense he describes it "encompasses the vast majority of political discourse in our country today; virtually all of those people who describe themselves as liberal and conservative are actually liberals in this broad sense." He explains why it is considered the 'death of God' in modern times:

Now, why is liberalism understood in this sense the death of God for our times? Because of its amazing capacity to create and sustain (false) antagonistic dualisms, e.g. faith and reason; body and soul; church and state; religion and life. Note well: I'm certainly not denying that each element of each pair of terms is distinguishable from the other -- that's obviously true. My point here is that liberalism doesn't merely distinguish between (for example) faith and reason: rather, it puts them in opposition to one another at a fundamental level.
What we're talking about here is secularism: the view that denies religion's intrinsically pervasive nature. Secularism tries to create the "naked public square," i.e. to make religion a purely private matter without bearing and impact on the public life of a nation. I would argue that secularism is one of the logical consequences of liberalism, in spite of the fact that some liberals (e.g. conservative liberals) might themselves be vociferous opponents of secularism. In other words, there is a logic of liberalism which inexorably works itself out, whatever the positive and good intentions of individual liberals.

I find that definitions are key to this discussion. "Liberalism," as Fr. Neuhaus wryly notes in his response to Dr. Schindler, "is a wonderfully pliant term." It runs the gambit from the the laissez-faire economic liberalism (condemned by Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum) to the libertarianism "which remains in the largest part a thought experiment for college sophomores of all ages" -- and one has only to take a survey of the many varieties of liberalism through the ages to notice the distinctions between them.

A number of the sources I have mentioned this past week in the context of our discussion here and at La Nouvelle Theologie concern those scholars who demonstrate that the thought of our founding fathers on the interaction of 'faith and reason', 'church and state,' 'religion and life' is a far cry from the secularism of contemporary liberals. While the experience of strife between religions motivated them to establish a boundary between 'church and state', their writings reveal that they did not see them in mutual opposition. (Indeed, they would likely be rolling in their graves at the antics of the ACLU). Likewise, they demonstrate that the founding principles of this nation have far more in common with Catholic tradition than some today would care to admit.

Among such resources cited are: Fr. Hunter ("Catholics and the Republic"), Fr. John C. Rager ("Catholic Sources of the Declaration"), the reflections of Fr. John Courtney Murray, the contemmporary research of Michael Novak (On Two Wings: Humble Faith and Common Sense at the American Founding), and -- thanks to David Jones for the introduction -- Scott McDermott (on the person of Charles Carroll, the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence). Novak's On Two Wings stands out as one of the best compilations of the founders' real thought on religion in public life -- one that he "wanted to write for some forty years," if not for his ignorance, "convential (but mistaken) wisdom" and the many "erroneous perceptions . . . unconsciously drunk from public perception." I heartily recommend it.

* * *

There are two articles by Fr. Neuhaus which were written in response to the criticism of Dr. Schindler in Heart of the World:

Schindler's Complaint First Things 74 (June/July 1997): 68-86.
The Liberalism of John Paul II First Things 73 (May 1997): 16-21.

In the latter post, Neuhaus expresses a concern with the sweeping condemnation of liberalism and its implications for Catholic engagement in the public square:

"The burden of the present book," he writes, "is to suggest that liberalism cannot so easily claim the moral authority of Catholicism, and, at the same time, to indicate why an increasing liberal hegemony throughout the world should be viewed not altogether with favor but, on the contrary, with a certain alarm." Well, yes, if, like Schindler, one puts the worst possible construction on liberalism' meaning the American founding, liberal democracy, and market economics. And that is what Schindler tends to do. Liberalism is condemned tout court as a dogmatic system premised upon radical individualism, the autonomous self, calculated self-interest, and human creativity as opposed to receptivity to God's grace. In sum, Schindler starts out by agreeing with those who construe the liberal tradition -- and its chief historical instantiation, the American experiment -- along rigorously secularist and un-Christian (maybe anti-Christian) lines. Those of us who defend the "Murray Project" might easily turn around and charge Schindler with selling out the American store to the enemies of the faith. I am not about to join him in giving up the argument and letting Laurance Tribe or the ACLU define the meaning of liberal democracy.

Both essays are well worth reading, addressing the conflicting understandings of liberalism and the Catholic Church's engagement with the liberal tradition in the thought of John Paul II (particularly in Centesimus Annus (which Neuhaus rightly points out is not so much a document on economic questions as it is about the nature of the free society).

As there is too much in Neuhaus' dual response to simply recount in the space of this blog, I recommend reading them with Chris Burgwald's post in mind, along with the recent discussions with David Jones and company.

Next Post: Religious Convictions in Public Discourse

Against a 'Managerial' Conception of Democracy

2005-11-12T22:35:00.000-08:00

Though the phrase "the quality of life" trips easily from so many lips these days, it tends to be one of those cliches with many trivial meanings and no large, serious one. Sometimes it merely refers to some externals as the enjoyment of cleaner air, cleaner water, cleaner streets. At other times it refers to the merely private enjoyment of music, painting and literature. Rarely does it have anything to do with the way the citizen in a democracy views himself -- his obligations, his intentions, his ultimate self-definition.
Instead, what I would call the "managerial" conception of democracy is the predominant opinion among political scientists, socialogists, economists, and has, through the untiring efforts of these scholars, become the conventional journalistic opinion as well. The root idea behind this managerial conception of democracy is 'a political system' (as they say) which can be adequately defined in terms of -- can be fully reduced to -- its mechanical arrangements. Democracy is then seen as a set of rules or procedures, and nothing but a set of rules and procedures, whereby majority rule and minority rights are reconciled in a state of equilibrium. If everyone follows these rules and procedures, then democracy is in good working order. I think this is a fair description of the democratic idea that currently prevails in academia. One can now say that it is the liberal idea of democracy par excellence.
I cannot help but feel there is something ridiculous about being this kind of a democrat, and I must confess to having a sneaking sympathy for those young radicals who also find it ridiculous. The absurdity is the absurdity of idolatry -- of taking the symbolic for the real, the means for the end. The purpose of democracy cannot possibly be the endless functioning of its own political machinery. The purpose of any political regime is to achieve some version of the good life and the good society. It is not at all difficult to imagine a perfectly functioning democracy which answers all questions except one -- namely, why should anyone of intelligence and spirit care a fig for it?

Irving Kristol, from: "Pornography, Obscenity and the Case for Censorship" The Neocon Reader pp. 175-176. (Grove Press, 2005)

Welcome - 'Democracy for the Dead' (new blog)

2005-11-12T12:28:00.000-08:00

It's one of the pleasures of blogging to stumble across another which shares similar interests -- in this case, to discover that one is not alone in pondering the Catholic Church's relationship with 'The American Experiment' in constitutional democracy, the relationship of church and state, Catholics in political life, etc. In this case, it's the collective blog "The Democracy of the Dead":

As G.K. Chesterton said in his masterpiece entitled Orthodoxy, "[tradition] is the democracy of the dead." This site is dedicated to analyzing politics, culture, and religion through the voices of those still living and those who have departed but left us their wisdom.

It is my pleasure to welcome them to the blogroll, and I look forward to corresponding with them in the future.

Some posts from their archive

Brian Logue on "Neoconservatism" Oct. 18, 2004.
Justin Dziowgo asks "Is Distributism Hopelessly Romantic?" June 15, 2005.
Dan Berthiaume posts a comment by Christopher Dawson on the United States July 5, 2005.
Mark Jahnke asks Natural Law: How far can it extend? Sept. 27, 2005.
Justin Dziaowgo links to Scott McDermott's interview on Catholicism and the American Constitution Oct. 13, 2005, and a reader's correspondence on the same topic in Catholicism and America, Continued Oct. 22, 2005.
Dan Berthiaume on the "American Consensus" of John Courtney Murray. Nov. 11, 2005.

Briefly: Recommended reading on 'Christianity and Democracy'

2005-11-07T15:24:00.000-08:00

W. Lindsey Wheeler comments on my blog:

"How absurd is this:
[Citing Neuhaus]: "Democracy is a relative good, but it is superior to other orders because: 1) it is the form of government that, under the conditions of modernity, best accommodates the Christian understanding of human dignity;"
And then Chris you agree. Show me in Scripture where democracy is approved. Scripture approves only two forms of government--monarchy and mixed goverment (a republic, politeia).
I can not believe what I am reading. Why doesn't the church teach from its own Religious Divinely Inspired Writings?
Chris please Plato saw democracy as a disease of men. When their character becomes corrupt, democracy is the sign of that corruptness. Democracy breaks down righteousness and is the product of egalitarianism.
After constantly posting this Link: The Classical definition of a republic, is it all for nought?
Here is the scripture:
"...remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth (Politeias) of Israel,..." New Testament, Eph., 2.12
"But our commonwealth (Politeuma) is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,..." New Testament, Phl., 3.20
Tell me what is going on? Democracy is sign of the degeneracy of the people? Is not the Catholic Church about teaching the TRUTH? Why do you Chris continue to advocate democracy????? Why?

First, as to the distinction btw/ 'republic' and 'democracy', I refer you to I. Shawn McElhinney's post , on the oft-quoted remark by Benjamin Franklin, in which he observes that the structure of our government is moreso that of a republic than a strict democracy. I'll also wager that Fr. Neuhaus, for his talk of democray, is certainly aware of this distinction as well.

Second, there is more to Catholic tradition than an appreciation of Plato, and in matters of politics and economics (as well as other issues of morality) the Church isn't necessarily confined to a reading of the Scriptures, but the breadth of Catholic tradition over the centuries and the teaching authority of the Church.

To observe what Catholic tradition has to say with respect to constitutional democracy, I'd refer you to the many authors found on this website, among them George Weigel, Kenneth L. Grasso, Father John Courtney Murray (but of course), the relevant documents of the Second Vatican Council and papal encyclicals.

Among the readings the following might be worthwhile:

Centesimus Annus: on the hundredth anniversary of Rerum Novarum Pope John Paul II, May 1, 1991.
'The Catholic Human Rights Revolution' and "Religious Freedom: The First Human Right"; "Catholicism and Democracy, the Other Twentieth Century Revolution" (pp. 7-50, Freedom and its Discontents: Catholicism Confronts Modernity;
"Catholicism and Democracy: Parsing the Other Twentieth Century Revolution"; "Centesimus Annus: the Architecture of Freedom" and "Veritatis Splendor: Moral Truth and the Democratic Prospect" - Chapters 6-8, Soul of the World: Notes on the Future of Public Catholicism (Eerdmans, 1996).
Liberalism, Democratic Capitalism, and the Catholic Human Rights Revolution, by Kenneth L. Grasso (a good articulation of John Paul II's criticism of secular liberalism as expressed in Centesimus Annus, if any). Faith and Reason Winter 1991.
The Liberalism of John Paul II, Fr. Richard J. Neuhaus. First Things 73 (May 1997): 16-21.
Christianity and Democracy formal statement of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD).

I am confident that my readers will be able to provide numerous additional recommendations on this topic as well.

* * *

Elsewhere in the comments W. Lindsey Wheeler wonders:

. . . the author does not respond and nobody else does either--why is that because we know we are promoting error? or are we too cowardly to address the situation? Or are we too high and mighty (too elitist) to respond?

I get between 12-20 commments a day on my various blogs, as well as various petitions of this or that nature. I work a vigorous day job and have much to occupy my evenings besides the internet, including a good amount of reading. Consequently, the time I do spend is particularly precious, and my friends' blogs generally receive preferential treatment. However, as my fellow readers know, if they find W. Lindsey Wheeler's comments worthy of response they are certainly invited to do so -- commenting on this blog is, of course, open to all save that they do so in civil fashion.

(A word of advice: call it the 'Fr. O'Leary Syndrome', but posting as many as 10 verbose comments in succession to a single post is a good indication that one might avail himself of a wonderful new device that is the fruit of modern technology: the blog). =)

What makes a 'Neocon'?

2005-11-06T09:00:00.000-08:00

The term 'neoconservative' was originally identified with a group of early (predominantly Jewish) liberals "mugged by reality": former Trotskyites who had become disillusioned with Communism and the increasing radicalism and anti-Americanism of the Left. Some of the more recognizable of these are Irving Kristol (editor of the now-defunct The Public Interest), Norman Podhoretz (Commentary) and William Kristol (The Weekly Standard). (A good documentary on the early years of Irving Kristol is PBS' "Arguing The World, covering the 'New York Intellectuals' Irving Kristol, Irving Howe, Daniel Bell, and Nathan Glazer).

In a very loose sense, Catholics like Fr. Neuhaus and Michael Novak might be described as 'neoconservative' in that they were likewise active on the left during the 60's, and experienced profound reorientations in their perspectives on certain political issues over the years (Fr. Neuhaus worked with Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. during the Civil Rights era, and in 1965, joined Heschel and John Bennett in founding "Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam"; Michael Novak describes his break from the Left in "Controversial Engagements" First Things 92 April 1999: 21-29).

Over the course of recent decades and especially in the 90's, the term 'neocon' has come to be used by the left and especially the "antiwar" movement to refer to practically anybody and everybody supportive of the foreign policy of the Bush administration in Iraq, or stretched even further -- as in the contension of Dr. J.P. Hubert that "virtually all of the "hot-button" issues of our day are either significantly impacted or controlled by neoconservative ideology including American foreign and domestic policy" ("The New Stealth World View").

Given the twists and turns in the understanding of 'neocon' over the decades, it is my contention that when the 'neocon' label is liberally applied without proper clarification or qualification, it easily becomes an impediment to the discussion and only adds to readers' confusion.

This is especially the case when whole groups of individuals, publications, or organizations are lumped together, as when the Zwicks issue a mass-condemnation of "Neuhaus, Weigel, Novak, Sirico, The American Enterprise Institute, the Ethics and Public Policy Center, the Acton Institute and First Things Magazine" in their article "Pope John Paul II condemns neoliberalism in Ecclesia in America, as social sin that cries to heaven" (Houston Catholic Worker Vol. XIX, No. 2, Mar.-Apr. 1999). (The Zwicks furthermore assert that "Neoliberalism is known in the United States as neoconservatism," a spurious charge addressed by Michael Therrien in his essay John Paul II’s Use of the Term Neo-Liberalism in Ecclesia in America").

I hope my readers will pardon this lengthy preface, because I am concerned here by David Jone's use of the term "neocon" in a recent post to Nouvelle Theologie, linking to the latest piece by Italian journalist and 'Vatican specialist' Sandro Magister on Italian Catholic philosopher Dario Antiseri(Disputed Questions. A Catholic Philosopher Argues for Relativism Nov. 3, 2005). David's post is titled "An Italian Neocon", with the following remarks:

[Antiseri] is criticizing, at bottom, Benedict XVI's positions on relativism, nihilism, and the natural law. In this article, it cites his affinity with American thinkers like Novak, Sirico and Neuhaus. Does this surprise anyone? It shouldn't considering this American camp of Whig Thomists have contradicted the last two Holy Fathers on many, many points.

David is well aware that I've criticized the use of the label 'neocon' in the past. Addressing Dr. Hubert's use of the term 'neocon' and his reference to a 'Straussianl' cabal allegedly pulling the strings of the Bush administration, I remarked that:

would be beneficial to "tighten up" his case (as well as a guide to further discussion) by coming to a more concise definition -- that is to say, laying out specific criteria by which one can accurately identify a "neoconservative" and/or a "Catholic neoconservative" -- including a substantiated list of "neoconservative principles" operative in U.S. economic/foreign policy.

So, it should come as no suprise to David that lumping Antiseri and Novak, Neuhaus and Weigel together as "neocons" would bug me to no end. =)

Magister alleges that Antiseri's writings are "read and appreciated in the United States, where he is in the company of Catholic thinkers like Michael Novak, Robert Sirico, and Richard J. Neuhaus." I find this curious, as a specific Google query for his name reveals total of 455 English results in Google). While he is compared to Neuhaus, Novak, a search of First Things' entire online archive for the author comes up with nary a mention. A search of the website for the Acton Institute comes up with a great deal more results, most in Italian.

Antiseri is, however, cited favorably on Lew Rockwell's blog, which purports to be "anti war, pro-market" and is quite fond of the Austrian (or Vienna) school of economics.

Antiseri was also involved in a panel discussion/presentation of book by Luigi Guissiani (L’io, il potere, le opere [The Self, Power, Works]). And back in September 2003, Antiseri reported on the research of scholars like Oreste Bazzichi and Alejandro A. Chafuen (Faith and Liberty. The Economic Thought of the Late Scholastics), questioning the thesis of Max Weber that the spirit of capitalism originated in Reformation-era Calvinism, and which rather can be traced to various works of thought and practices in the Middle Ages (especially that of the Franciscans [!]).

But does all or any of this make Antiseri a "neocon"? -- and given the lack of qualification, is it in any way helpful to the discussion? If Antiseri is a neocon, and if Neuhaus, Sirico and Novak are likewise neocons, should we then impute the dissenting philosophical critique of Antiseri to the rest of them? On the contrary, it seems that the very application of the label obfuscates the content of Antiseri's article and the positions of Fr. Neuhaus, Sirico and company themselves.

I think if David Jones were to honor my recommmendation in coming up with a clear and comprehensible list of 'defining characteristics' or indicators of neoconservatism, it would be a greater challenge than he had anticipated.

* * *

On a side note, perhaps it was the translation, but I found Antiseri's piece rather abstract -- thus far, with the exception of this brief discussion on BrothersJudd, it's gotten precious little attention in blogland (I guess John Allen Jr. is the greater draw among religious bloggers).

Perhaps in time Neuhaus, Novak and Sirico will rush to the defense of their neoconservative comrades-in-arms.

Charles Carroll and the American Founding

2005-11-06T00:05:00.000-08:00

How Charles Carroll Influenced U.S. Founding Fathers -- David Jones posts links to a two-parter by Scott McDermott on the legacy of Charles Carroll, the lone Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence. McDermott recently completed a biography of Carroll (Charles Carroll of Carrollton Faithful Revolutionary, and recently gave a talk to the Thomas More Society of Dallas, TX on the subject ("Guest lecturer reminds of America's Catholic Roots", by Monica Tomutsa. University of Dallas News Nov. 2, 2005).

As readers familiar with David's blog have come to expect, the talk of America's founding has again awakened the issue of the founding father's relationship to Freemasonry, including that of Daniel Carroll and his brother, John Carroll, the first Catholic Bishop of the United States. See the comments for ongoing discussion, particularly a detailed exchange between David Jones and Tim Taylor on the Masons (with some minor contributions by yours truly).

How Charles Carroll Influenced U.S. Founding Fathers - Part I | Part II. Interview w. Scott McDermott. Zenit News Service. Nov. 1-2, 2005.

The following articles were recommended to me in connection with this topic (pertaining more to the philosophical and religious roots of the American founding than Freemasonry itself):

"Catholics and The Republic", by Reverend Father Christopher Hunter. The Angelus SSPX Feb. 1987, Vol. X, No. 2.
"Catholic Sources of the Declaration of Independence by Rev. John C. Rager The Catholic Mind. XXVIII, no. 13 (July 8, 1930).
Building the Foundations for the Free Society: Finding Common Ground in the Political Theory of Saint Robert Bellarmine and John Locke, by James Maldonado Berry. Christendom College. 2002 Lord Acton Essay Competitition.
"The Declaration of Independence from a Catholic perspective", by fellow blogger Greg Mockeridge.

Responding to David Jones' "Disagreement with Novak & other Whig Thomists"

2005-11-05T23:30:00.000-08:00

David Jones has posted his "Disagreement with Novak & other Whig Thomists" (Oct. 21, 2005):

A friend asked the following question to me.
"Can you articulate in one short paragraph your core disagreement with the thinking of [Michael] Novak? I want your words, not a list of books I should read. Just a succinct expression of your disagreement."
My response was the following seven points.
1. The death of God for our times, for our culture, for us, is Liberalism.
2. Democracy is the not the best form of government.
3. Capitalism is not the best form of economics.
4. Novak does not adequately deal with the centrality of the nature-grace question, which directly impacts humanity and therefore our culture. He therefore uses a poor ontology (onto-logic) of the prudence required to deal with the political and economic practices and structures of modern-day society or man.
5. The War in Iraq is unjust. It did not meet the Just War criteria.
6. Big business destroys or lessens our humanity.
7. St. Thomas Aquinas is no Whig.

David's comments (or, rather, assertions) are very succinct indeed, although having "chewed on them" a little I think I'd prefer clarity and precision over ambiguity, even if it means for David to take some time to develop and "flesh out" his position in a series of posts.

Nevertheless, as he wishes for a response, what follows is a modified form of my email to him and one of our mutual friends, excerpted from prior correspondence and slightly revised (and posted in the comments to the post in question):

1) "The death of God for our times, for our culture, for us, is Liberalism"

To which one is compelled to ask: What kind of liberalism? What kind of liberty? As we know, the term itself can refer to a broad range of positions with often conflicting philosophies:

[T]he word liberalism is a wonderfully pliant term. It is used to label a range of philosophical and religious positions, many of which have little in common. Both the political theorist John Rawls and the economist Friedrich Von Hayek are commonly described as liberals. Yet, it is difficult to imagine two individuals whose views on many matters are more opposed to each other. . . . it makes little sense to ask whether a set of proposed practices are "liberal" or, for that matter, "conservative." Reasoned inquiry should ask whether an idea is reasonable and threfore true, or unreasonable and thus untrue.

-- Dr. Samuel Gregg [introduction, On Ordered Liberty].

Further reading on the ambiguities of the term "liberalism':

Maciej Zieba: "The Liberalism That We Need, First Things 40 (February 1994): 23-27.
Michael Therrien: John Paul II’s Use of the Term Neo-Liberalism in Ecclesia in America. Delivered at the Pontifical College Josephinum April 8, 2000.
Fr. Neuhaus: The Liberalism of John Paul II First Things 73 (May 1997): 16-21.

David / Schindler / AT's see liberalism as very much wedded to postmodernism [death of God, absence of meaning, nihilism] -- WT's contend for a liberalism rightly criticiqued by the Church, achieved in part by a recovery of the original vision of our founding fathers.

Here's one distinction: for philosophers like Alisdair MacIntyre (After Virtue -- another good book), David Schindler, etc., the Enlightenment is done and over with. As MacIntyre points out in Whose Justice, Which Rationality we're in a fragmented age of conflicting worldviews, even to address concepts like "Reason", "Truth," "Justice," et al. is to deal with clashing understandings and interpretations derived from conflicting traditions.

Postmodernism reigns supreme, so the battle is squarely that of postmodernism/nihilism/relativism vs. Christianity. Novak's attempt to even research and present the original vision of our founding fathers (On Two Wings) is an exercise in futility, because -- they would say -- who really cares at this point?

The WT's see the inclination toward postmodernism as stemming from the academies and intellectuals (remember in the questions at the end of On Two Wings (pp. 111-113) where Novak ponders how we got from there to here? -- the secular interpretation of America's founding challenged by Novak's research didn't happen out of nowhere. He speaks of the "Europeanization of American intellectual life" and a concerted effort in the late 40's and 50's to systematically secularize American life and the interpretation of our nation's founding.

Allan Bloom's Closing of the American Mind -- another must-read -- describes the decay of the universities during the latter twentieth century as the infection of relativism sets into academia. Camille Paglia (a militant feminist) is sometimes fun to read because despite her antipathy towards Christianity she stands clearly opposed to her colleagues obsession with European postmodernism (Derrida, Foucault, etc.) and the loss of even a basic knowledge of the bible.

Dr. Schindler maintains that this is not simply the universities' fault -- that America itself, the midwest, the 'red states', everybody -- is hopelessly infected by the malaise of liberalism / relativism. We're not so "religious" a nation as we appear. There is some truth to this, but I think they tend to go overboard in their criticism and are under-appreciative of the distinctly positive elements in American life or the liberal tradition upon which it is founded . . . yes, even here in New York. ;-) [Note: Michael Therrien's piece on neo-liberalism responds in part to Dr. Schindler's criticisms, as well as those of the Houston Catholic Worker].

"Democracy is not the best form of government."

In one of the final chapters of George Weigel's Soul of the World: Notes on the Future of Public Catholicism he discusses the transition of the Church's relationship with democracy from hostility to internal critique -- see my post presenting Weigel on this very topic, blogged some weeks ago.

My own response here to David would be "relative to what?" -- It's worth noting that in Ecclesia in America which was recently cited by David/Hand, JPII conveys his preference for democratic institutions. I would imagine that Pope Benedict harbors a similar preference. This is not to say that our present form of democracy is the most acceptable -- the Acton Institute published an excellent essay by Cardinal Pell in Markets & Morality (Vol. 7, No. 2) titled "Is there only secular democracy? Imagining other possibilities for the Third Millenium"; the article is not yet available online, but it's worth the read.

Fr. Neuhaus did a three part series a couple years back in First Things ("The Public Square" Oct.-Dec. 1999), in which he presented 10 propositions on Catholicism and democracy:

. . . A fourth proposition is this: Democracy is and always will be unsatisfactory. Winston Churchill is often quoted as saying that "democracy is the worst system of government known to man, except for all the others that have been tried." That is not everything that can be said for democracy, but it is a not unimportant thing to be said. For the Christian, and indeed for every human being who aspires to live in the truth, the only satisfactory order is the Kingdom of God promised in the eschatological consummation of history. All our politics, including democratic politics, is, at most, penultimate. The state functions in the sphere of the penultimate. The church points to and anticipates the ultimate, the Kingdom of God. Christians live in both spheres and therefore are, in the words of the second century Letter to Diognetus, "resident aliens" in any earthly city.
Although all are unsatisfactory, all orderings of the earthly city are not equal. Democracy is a relative good, but it is superior to other orders because: 1) it is the form of government that, under the conditions of modernity, best accommodates the Christian understanding of human dignity; 2) it best fosters and protects the exercise of basic human rights; 3) it provides an enlarged sphere for the exercise of personal responsibility and the pursuit of the common good; 4) in its economic dimension, it best accords with human creativity and approximate justice; and, most important, 5) it is institutionally open to the future, including the ultimate future that is the Kingdom of God. On the last point, there is a great advantage in a political system that is transparently conducted by, and held accountable to, distinctly ungodlike human beings who freely avail themselves of their freedom to air their discontents with the system. This is a valuable prophylactic against the temptation to deify democracy or mistake it for the Kingdom of God. [SOURCE]

I would personally agree with Neuhaus' take, which I think is a solidly Catholic take on democracy. I think that those who wish to establish something otherwise -- even an integration of Catholicism with the state or variations thereof -- do so in ignorance of the lessons of history. And I think any reasonable alternative must take into account the reality of a pluralistic culture: America's founding and model was born of that reality -- Catholics and Protestants and Jews and agnostics and atheists in close proximity, neighbors, friends -- like it or not, we're stuck with each other. How do we then live?

3. Capitalism is not the best form of economics.

Again, relative to what? -- I think at some point we should bring in distributism into the conversation, as that appears to be the proposal of Stephen Hand, Thomas Storck and friends. (David has posted some links on this subject already). But nevertheless, here we can ask the same question: "what kind of capitalism"? -- As we can see, both Novak and JPII qualify their endorsement, and -- the WT's would maintain -- they tend to cohere.

Schindler faults capitalism and Novak's take because the proposal that we ought to act out of "enlightened self interest" runs counter to communio theology, in that it does not adequately manifest Christian spirituality and self-sacrifice.

David Schindler: "There is a single basic spirituality for all Christians, and Mary is the model of that spirituality. . . . for Christians, economic life, like all other aspects of life, must be formed from within the liberation effected by God in Jesus Christ" -- exactly how does economic life manifest Christian liberation? [Heart of the World p. 92]

Novak maintains a recognition of legitimate self-interest in contrast to avarice; his understanding of economics, and how business ought to work, is derived from an appreciation of Adam Smith and Alexander Tocqueville; "self-interest rightly understood". Here's the difference:

Adam Smith:

"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from the regard of their own self-interest. We address ourselves not to their humanity [philanthropy] but to their self-love, and never talk to them of their own necessities but to their advantages."

Thus the baker bakes a good loaf of bread because that is the way to ensure profit. The good both of the product and of the other (the potential consumer) is thus intrumentalized in the baker's self-interest.

David Schinder in Heart of the World, on Adam Smith's "baker":

A baker trying to live out his Christianity in his life as a businessperson, to imbue the reality of his economic life with the Gospel - in a word, to live in the spirit of the "new" liberation theory and praxis indicated in Centesimus Annus - would thus attempt to order profit differently from the way suggested by Smith. He would seek first to make a loaf of bread that was intrinsically good - in terms of its taste and health-producing qualities and the like - and he would seek to do this from the beginning for the sake of being of service to others in society, of enhancing their health and well-being. To be sure, he would recognize profit as a necessary condition of his continuing ability to provide this service to others. He would recognize that he was realizing his own good in this service to others. But that is just the point: his legitimate concern for profit, and his own "self-interest," would be integrated from the beginning and all along the way into the intention of service.

[See further elaboration on this point by Kevin Miller and relevant citations from Heart of the World.

I'm still pondering with this critique of Novak, because while it makes sense on paper, I'm not sure Novak / Smith are entirely wrong in their observation and judgement of what occurs.

Common sense dictates that it is indeed, in the merchant's "self interest" to please his customers, to build a good, reliable product, to behave with integrity and honesty. Novak would argue that these are indeed moral virtues and worth lauding -- and that the practice of business insofar as it contributes to the cultivation of integrity, honesty, fairness -- is worth promoting. Schindler, I think, would likely say this is all very well and good, but in the end it is simply not enough -- because business as so conceived fails to embody a distinctly Christlike spirit of "other-centered love."

Putting it in personal terms . . . sometimes when I come home from work I give my friend Ali a call. He's the owner of a Pakistani-Indian restaurant, with whom I'm good friends. I've eaten there enough (dine-in and delivery) that he knows exactly what I like. Now, while Ali and I are good friends, in the preparation and fulfillment of my order I suspect he is acting in his own "self-interest", that is to say: in preparing the food and/or instructing his staff, I daresay his chief motivation would be: earning a profit = paying the bills = feeding his wife and son (who I often see at the restaurant).

For Ali to act with this motivation in mind -- I would not necessarily condemn this basic matter of interest as a bad thing.

Here's my point: can we say that the baker in Adam Smith's case is acting purely to his own advantage? Or that my friend Ali is acting purely for the sake of profit? -- I'm not going to deny the fact that there are those who are motivated by greed and an improper sense of self-love, as one can witness by the financial scandals we read about in the paper and tales of luxury and extravagance, but it is also the case that a merchant, in running his business, does so out of consideration not for the dollar alone but for the welfare of his family.

In response to Schindler's philosophical critique, I would have to ask whether this manner of "self-interest" and Schindler's Christlike selflessness (characterized by a desire to make "an intrinsically good" plate of food "in service to others") is truly an 'either/or' matter or possibly "both/and"? Are they mutually exclusive, or can one indeed act with legitimate self-interest?

Is it not the case that when we scrutinize the "self-interest" of the businessman we see a mixture of self-regard and concern for family? That making a profit is desired not for profit itself but for other ends in mind -- in the case of my friend Ali: paying the bills, making a living, raising his child, providing roof and shelter for his family. In this light Ali's "self interest" would have more in common with Schindler's "other-centered love" than Schindler himself suspects, and what appears at first glance.

4. Novak does not adequately deal with the centrality of the nature-grace question, which directly impacts humanity and therefore our culture. He therefore uses a poor ontology (onto-logic) of the prudence required to deal with the political and economic practices and structures of modern-day society or man.

Don't have time to unpack this now but again, I believe this is found in Schindler's Heart of the World. At the same time, I think David could do well to flesh this out in his own words (less-abstract) and make it his own argument, posting it to his blog in his own words.

5. The War in Iraq is unjust. It did not meet the Just War Criteria.

While David merely asserts but fails to substantiate his argument, I think we've debated this ad nauseum. Granted, certain parties see the neocon's support of the war as part and parcel of their "Americanism" and wilfull disobedience to Rome -- Neuhaus, Novak, Weigel, "cafetaria catholics" no better than the rest. Other parties disagree (and not just the 'neocons').

The difficulty here is that the just war debate and Iraq include their own range of authors and background reading -- for instance, the work of just war scholar James Turner Johnson (who is coming out with what appears to be an excellent book on this very topic), Weigel's Tranquillitas Ordinis: The Present Failure and Future Promise of American Catholic Thought on War and Peace (1987) is also a must-read (in my opinion); also required to really debate this intelligently is an extensive knowledge of foreign relations and U.S. - Iraqi - Middle East history, et al. . . . in other words, a body of material which, I think, does not bear directly upon the "Augustinian-Thomist / Whig - Thomist" debate. Unless David is prepared to make the claim that ressourcement theology entails a specific stand with respect to the foreign policy of the Bush administration, I think that given the scope of this blog the war in Iraq is of a lower priority than other issues.

However, "warblogger" that I am, one may find this topic discussed on my blog Just War?, as well as my compilation of sources (pro/con) on this subject.

Finally, that said, Novak wouldn't have been my first pick as exponent of the Catholic just war analysis of Iraq.

6. Big business destroys or lessens our humanity.

Given that these comments are made with relation to the person of Michael Novak, I wonder whether David here is implicitly agreeing with the Zwicks' characterization of Novak as an "Enron apologist"?

7. St. Thomas Aquinas is no Whig.

David states the obvious, and neither Michael Novak nor Lord Acton would maintain that Aquinas was literally a "Whig." Novak discusses this at length pp. 120-123 of On Two Wings what Acton meant by this:

"Aquinas is called the first Whig because of the centrality he gave to human liberty in nature and history. The human person, he thought, is the most beautiful creature in all creation, the only one created as an end in itself. In his or her liberty the person is made in the image of the Creator. Aquinas further saw that the political power arises from the consent of the governed. . . . he also taught the traditional vision of limited government, limited both by moral law and by constitutional devices such as the mixed regime, and that justice sometimes demands that a tyrant be deposed."

Novak goes on to discuss the canonist appropriation of Aquinas' thought in the development of the idea of natural right as presented in Brian Tierny's study The idea of Natural Right: Studies on Natural Rights, Natural Law, and Church Law 1150 - 1625 -- for Tearney, to suggest that modern rights theories are derived entirely from Hobbes [and Enlightenment philosophers] ignore "the history of the concept of jus naturale before the seventeenth century."

I haven't read Tierny's book, nor have I (yet) read Rowland's Culture and Thomist Tradition after Vatican II -- which David recommends and is certainly on my reading list, after I purchase Kraynak -- but suffice to say the suggestion that Aquinas "was the first Whig" calls for further clarification. As David points out, I've dealt with this question in my post Aquinas: First Whig? (Religion and Liberty [blog] Sept. 21, 2005).

Dr. Samuel Gregg: "Pope Benedict on Morality, Economics and the Market"

2005-10-25T11:55:00.000-07:00

Dr. Samuel Gregg, Director, Center for Economic Personalism, addresses Benedict XVI's thought on the issue of the market economy in a recent article "Morality, Economics and the Market in the Thought of Benedict XVI", Economic Affairs, (2005-09-01) [.pdf format]:

. . . But does any of this suggest that Pope Benedict XVI has ever been or is likely to be an outspoken supporter of the market economy? The answer to this question is 'no'. As a theologian and Vatican official, Ratzinger has always recognised that, within the limits established by the principles of Catholic social teaching (e.g. the dignity of the person, the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity etc.), the precise configuration of the economy or the degree of government intervention in the economy are matters for prudential judgement by Catholics. One cannot repeat enough that Catholics are free to disagree among themselves about those matters that the Church identifies as being within prudential judgement territory. This embraces the vast majority of economic questions. Thus, because he is content to let Catholics discuss prudential matters among themselves, it is not surprising that very few direct discussions of economic matters are found in Ratzinger's writings.
A rare exception to Ratzinger's reticence to examine economic questions in any detail is a 1986 article entitled 'Church and Economy' [Communio 13, no. 3 (1986): 199-204]. Keeping in mind the context and time of the article, it provides a number of interesting insights into Ratzinger's thoughts about economic issues.
The first point to note is that Ratzinger underlines the failure and counterproductive effects of development programmes promoted by Western aid agencies and governments throughout the developing world (Ratzinger, 1986, p. 200). He goes on to suggest that new economic ideas will need to be considered if the developing world is to escape material poverty. If one recalls that much of the world in the 1980s still believed in the efficacy of such programmes (which even many on the political left now disown), it is possible to view Ratzinger as one of that relatively small number of intellectuals (secular or religious) who were willing to question the redistributionist orthodoxy that reigned in many political, government and church circles.
The most significant part, however, of Ratzinger's 1986 article was its analysis of some of the philosophical questions raised by free-market economies. Importantly, at no stage does Ratzinger question the market's superior wealth-creating capacities. Indeed, he stresses that market economies have facilitated much prosperity throughout the world (Ratzinger, 1986, p. 201). Rather, Ratzinger devotes his attention to the moral, cultural and philosophical assumptions that may or may not underpin such economies. Ratzinger is, for instance, quite critical of what he describes as the deterministic tendencies that underlie the thought of some free-market advocates (Ratzinger, 1986, pp. 200-201). He argues that it is a mistake to assume that market exchanges in themselves provide sufficient moral validity for the nature or outcome of the exchange. The fact that an action is efficient or maximises utility is not, to Ratzinger's mind, sufficient to qualify it as morally good. Morality, to his mind, is not defined by utility. The market, in other words, does not somehow 'create' morality. Nor does the market render the demands of the moral life superfluous, and Ratzinger criticises those business figures who think and act as if it does. Significantly, Ratzinger notes that the tendency to substitute morality with economics is equally characteristic of Marxist thought in so far as figures such as Lenin accepted that 'there is in Marxism no grain of ethics, but only economic laws' (Ratzinger, 1986, p. 202). The expression of anti-determinist and anti-utilitarian views is hardly novel for an orthodox Catholic theologian. Indeed, many free-market promoters would join Ratzinger in insisting that the moral life cannot be reduced to economic analysis or market transactions. Many free-market supporters would also support Ratzinger's opposition to those who regard economics as the lens for understanding everything. Like all ideologies, 'economism' is deeply reductionist and thus anti-human in its implications.
Ratzinger further notes, as a historical irony, that many people dissatisfied with 'economistic' approaches have tended to embrace centrally planned economies as a way of attempting to bring moral guidance to economic life. This is despite the fact, as Ratzinger notes, that 'it is a fundamental error to suppose that a centralised economic system is a moral system in contrast to the mechanistic system of the market
None of this, however, is to suggest that Ratzinger believes that economics can be safely ignored. On the contrary, Ratzinger concludes his article by stressing that economics, as an intellectual discipline, enjoys a legitimate autonomy of its own. He even states that 'a morality that believes itself able to dispense with the technical knowledge of economic laws is not morality but moralism. As such it is the antithesis of morality' (Ratzinger, 1986, p. 204). He immediately adds that 'a scientific approach that believes itself capable of managing without an ethos [i.e. the demands of morality] misunderstands the reality of man. Therefore it is not scientific' (Ratzinger, 1986, p. 204). Synthesising these points, Ratzinger states that 'today we need a maximum of specialised economic understanding, but also a maximum of ethos so that specialised economic knowledge may enter the service of the right goals' (Ratzinger, 1986, p. 204). One suspects that those familiar with the commentaries of many Catholic intellectuals on economic matters will recognise that, on the basis of his 1986 article, few have come as close as Ratzinger to integrating an authentic Catholic approach to the moral life with an appreciation for the real technical knowledge yielded by modern economics into particular problems. It is a grave error, Ratzinger believes, for those thinking about how to address poverty to ignore what economics tells us about poverty. He is, however, insistent that economics in itself is not capable of determining the correct moral response to problems. Though a powerful instrument of analysis that can tell us how to do certain things, economics qua economics is incapable of telling us whether we ought to do certain things.

Our Holy Father was interviewed recently by Zenit News Service on the person and legacy of Pope John Paul II, in which he remarked:

. . . Initially, in speaking of the Pope's legacy, I forgot to mention the many documents that he left us -- 14 encyclicals, many pastoral letters, and others. All this is a rich patrimony that has not yet been assimilated by the Church.
My personal mission is not to issue many new documents, but to ensure that his documents are assimilated, because they are a rich treasure, they are the authentic interpretation of Vatican II. We know that the Pope was a man of the Council, that he internalized the spirit and the word of the Council. Through these writings he helps us understand what the Council wanted and what it didn't. This helps us to be the Church of our times and of the future.

Given his specific interest in realizing the thought of his predecessor, it seems to me that the Holy Father will likely draw from the riches of John Paul II's encyclical Centesimus Annus, with its commentary on economic affairs and liberal and socialist philosophy, especially in issuing a necessary corrective to neoliberalism along with a qualified approval of the "market economy" or "free market." It seems to me that Pope Benedict XVI is very much of the same mind as his predecessor on these matters.

Dr. Samuel Gregg concludes:

. . . In a 2002 speech, for instance ["Eucharist, Communion and Solidarity" L'Osservatore Romano, 13 November, 2002], he reminded his audience of the evils committed in the name of the atheistic 'Marxist socialist system' (Ratzinger, 2002, p. 8). Ratzinger then added: 'It is undeniable that the liberal model of the market economy, especially as moderated and corrected under the influence of Christian social ideas, has in some parts of the world led to great success' (Ratzinger, 2002, p. 8). The then future pope went on to suggest that the absence of such moral-cultural forces in market systems could have profoundly damaging effects, especially in developing nations. Hence, he insisted that the 'globalisation in technology and economy' needed to be accompanied by 'a new opening of conscience', so that individuals become more conscious of the global demands of Christian morality (Ratzinger, 2002, p. 9).
Here again we see that Ratzinger did not dispute or disparage the market's superiority in wealth-creation. Nor does he engage in knee-jerk anti-globalisation rhetoric. Rather, his concern remains with the moral-cultural context in which free enterprise and free exchange live, move and have their being. On this basis, we can safely assume that any combination of a market economy with cultures predominantly shaped by variants of libertinism, materialism and utilitarianism is going to worry Benedict XVI as much as it concerned John Paul II.
Given, however, that these are cultural rather than economic problems per se, it seems reasonable to suggest that Pope Benedict is unlikely to be insisting that the state ought to be the institution to address such matters. Certainly the Catholic Church does not teach that moral problems, be they 'personal' or 'social', somehow enjoy an automatic immunity from the law or state authority. Nevertheless, Ratzinger has insisted throughout his writings that any society's moral-culture is primarily shaped by individuals, families and civil associations, especially the Church. Nor should we underestimate the effects of Ratzinger's experience of the state-worship promoted by Nazi totalitarianism, not to mention his very Bavarian Catholic consciousness of the Kulturkampf (literally 'culture-struggle') waged against the Catholic Church in Germany by the Bismarckian state in the wake of German unification in 1871.
As many know, the founder of Western monasticism, St Benedict, is credited even by many non-believers as saving Western civilisation from the chaos that followed the Roman Empire's collapse. In a similar fashion, attention to renewing the sources of Western culture is likely to be a priority in Benedict XVI's pontificate. To this extent, the papacy's attention to economic questions under Pope Benedict is likely to be focused upon the relationship between the market and culture, an area that, until John Paul II, remained relatively unexamined by Catholic social teaching. If in doing so, Benedict XVI continues to make the same careful distinctions that he did as the theologian and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, there is every reason to hope for thoughtful contributions to thinking about economic subjects from the new pope. Above all, we can expect the character of any such contributions to be neither 'right' nor 'left', but rather distinctly Catholic.

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Dr. Gregg is Director of Research at the Acton Institute and an Adjunct Professor at the John Paul II Pontifical Institute for Marriage and the Family within the Pontifical Lateran University. He is author of several books on Catholic social doctrine including Economic Thinking for the Theologically Minded (2001), Challenging the Modern World: Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II and the Development of Catholic Social Teaching (2003) and On Ordered Liberty (2003).

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Market Economy and Ethics translated by Stephen Wentworth Arndt, and republished by The Acton Institute -- courtesy of Dr. Johannes Stemmler, secretary emeritus of the BKU (Federation of Catholic Entrepreneurs) and secretary of Ordo socialis in Köln, Germany. This article appeared previously in English under the title "Church and economy: Responsibility for the future of the world economy," Communio 13 (Fall 1986): 199-204.
Pope John Paul II Memorial Page, Acton Institute for the Study of Religion & Liberty.
Review Essay: Challenging the Modern World: John Paul II/Karol Wojtyla and the Development of Catholic Social Teaching, by Gregory R. Beabout (Markets & Morality Vol. 4, No. 2, Fall 2001): "[Samuel] Gregg's work, which flows out of his doctoral research at Oxford under the direction of John Finnis, is perhaps the most careful scholarly effort in English to date that aims to show the influence of Wojtyla's prepontifical writing on the social encyclicals produced by John Paul II."