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

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

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

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

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

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"

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"

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"

Catholics and the State - Recommended Blogging

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?

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.