In this episode of The Open Door, panelists Thomas Storck, Andrew Sorokowski, and Christopher Zehnder interview Dr. Virginia Arbery & George Hawley on a book co-edited by Pieter Vree and Thomas Storck entitled Catholics and the American Polity: Approaches & Contestations.
"Anti-Catholicism is one of the distinguishing marks of American history. Today, as the Church's institutional influence wanes, anti-Catholicism is once again surging. Yet Catholics mustn't retreat from civic engagement, for the Catechism says that 'intervening directly' in the 'political structuring and organization of social life' is our 'vocation.' How are we to accomplish this? Three theories have gained prominence: integralism, regime change, and the 'Benedict Option.' In this book, twenty-five thinkers grapple with the questions of whether Catholics have a 'place at the table' of American public life and how we might fulfill our vocation vis-à-vis the structuring and organization of the same." -PIETER VREE
"What is America-a nation, a proposition, an experiment? And if a proposition or an experiment, how does America relate to the Church's own robust tradition of political thought? Is it something that a Catholic can or ought to make his peace with? This timely collection of essays highlights a range of opinion, from enthusiastic acceptance of a propositional Americanism to an equally strong rejection of such. Catholics who have not closely examined the philosophical or theological roots of American tradition or the implications of our own Church's thought, will find in this volume more than one helpful starting point for their own pondering on what it means to be both Catholic and American in the twenty-first century." -THOMAS STORCK
Contributors Virginia L. Arbey - Casey Chalk - Will Hoyt - George Hawley - Kan Ito - A. James McAdamsPreston R. Simpson - Mark Barrett - Charles A. Coulombe - Christopher BeitingKarl Keating - Gracjan Kraszewski - Jude Russo - Marek Jan Chodakiewicz - Christopher ZehnderJohn M. Grondelski - James G. Hanink - Edmund Waldstein, O.Cist. - Thomas Storck - Edwin DygaRobert McTeigue, S.J. - Jason M. Morgan - Thaddeus Kozinski - John C. Médaille - Al Kresta
https://www.amazon.com/Catholics-American-Polity-Approaches-Contestations/dp/1998492583/
"Anti-Catholicism is one of the distinguishing marks of American history. Today, as the Church's institutional influence wanes, anti-Catholicism is once again surging. Yet Catholics mustn't retreat from civic engagement, for the Catechism says that 'intervening directly' in the 'political structuring and organization of social life' is our 'vocation.' How are we to accomplish this? Three theories have gained prominence: integralism, regime change, and the 'Benedict Option.' In this book, twenty-five thinkers grapple with the questions of whether Catholics have a 'place at the table' of American public life and how we might fulfill our vocation vis-à-vis the structuring and organization of the same." -PIETER VREE
"What is America-a nation, a proposition, an experiment? And if a proposition or an experiment, how does America relate to the Church's own robust tradition of political thought? Is it something that a Catholic can or ought to make his peace with? This timely collection of essays highlights a range of opinion, from enthusiastic acceptance of a propositional Americanism to an equally strong rejection of such. Catholics who have not closely examined the philosophical or theological roots of American tradition or the implications of our own Church's thought, will find in this volume more than one helpful starting point for their own pondering on what it means to be both Catholic and American in the twenty-first century." -THOMAS STORCK
Contributors Virginia L. Arbey - Casey Chalk - Will Hoyt - George Hawley - Kan Ito - A. James McAdamsPreston R. Simpson - Mark Barrett - Charles A. Coulombe - Christopher BeitingKarl Keating - Gracjan Kraszewski - Jude Russo - Marek Jan Chodakiewicz - Christopher ZehnderJohn M. Grondelski - James G. Hanink - Edmund Waldstein, O.Cist. - Thomas Storck - Edwin DygaRobert McTeigue, S.J. - Jason M. Morgan - Thaddeus Kozinski - John C. Médaille - Al Kresta
https://www.amazon.com/Catholics-American-Polity-Approaches-Contestations/dp/1998492583/
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to WCAT radio your home for authentic Catholic programming.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Welcome to the Open Door. My name is Andrews Zarkowski
and I will be serving as your host today. To
begin our program, I will ask my colleague Thomas Stork
to recite an opening prayer.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
And the Father, So Lois Spirit, Amen, Come, Lois Spirit.
Fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle them to
the fire of your love. Send forth your spirit and
they shall be created. And you're showing you the face
of the earth. Let us spray or gold by the
light of the Holy Spirit. It destroyed the hearts of
the faithful. Grant that by the same Holy Spirit we
may be truly wise and never enjoys constellations through Christ
(00:44):
our Lord, Amen, and follows Loise Spirit.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
Amen.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Our format today will be a bit different from the
usual because our regular host Thomas Stork and our co
host Christopher Zender fact be among our guests. This is
because the topic of today's program is the new book
Catholics and the American Polity, published this year by Rocha Press.
(01:12):
And for those who are on video, here is the book.
This is how it looks. A Roca Press is at Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
A roka spelled ar Uca. Catholics and the American Polity
Approaches and Contestations is edited by Peter Free and around
(01:34):
Thomas Stork and in fact Thomas's co editor is co
editor and Christopher is a contributor, so for that reason
they are our guests. Also among the contributors to this
book are today's other two guests, Virginia Arbury and George Hawley.
(01:55):
Virginia Arbury is Associate professor of Humanities at Yo Faming
Catholic College in land Or, Wyoming. George Holly is Associate
professor of political science at the University of Alabama. Welcome
both of you to Open Door. In his introduction to
(02:18):
Catholics and the American Polity, co editor Peter Ree notes
that it is the vocation of late Catholics to intervene
directly in political structuring and organization of social life, and
to influence the character of our nation. How he asks,
are we to fulfill that vocation given the stridency of
(02:41):
American politics, Catholic decline, and the legacy of American anti Catholicism.
He suggests three strategies, the benedict option of which most
of you have probably heard regime change integralism. The twenty
(03:03):
five contributors to the volume comment on these and various
other approaches. But before disgusting discussing strategies, there is a
fundamental threshold question that we must ask, and I would
like each of you to try to answer it. The
question may be posed as follows. It is common for
(03:26):
Americans to speak of their country as something more than
simply a country. For example, teachers just one among probably
hundreds of examples. Daniel Webster stated it cannot be denied
but by those who would dispute against the Sun, that
with America and in America, a new era commences in
(03:48):
human affairs. Now just try substituting any other country here
for America, and you see how strange it sounds. If
this is our self understanding, then it seems that we
regard America as more than just a country. Is this
(04:08):
a self understanding that Catholics can agree with? If not,
as citizens of this country, how are we to adopt
ourselves to this ideology which seems to regard the United
States as something qualitatively unique in human history. I would
(04:30):
like each of our guests to take about three minutes
to comment on this issue, Let's start with Professor Armory.
Speaker 5 (04:38):
Thank you, Andrew. I would begin by saying that one
way to approach a country's self understanding is through its myth.
As my teacher Eric Voglan put it, a myth is
a whole account of a people's action in history, what
(05:01):
it's called to do, and every people, if it has
a self understanding at all, must root its identity in
this national story. As a thinker, I'm very fond of
le and Cass says in his book on Exodus. Without
a national story, there is no people. And so I
(05:25):
think to look at what America's claims are and to
understand them is not ideological but in fact, as be
speaking of vocation, we have to look at what our
story is, and our self understanding is rooted as Wilmore
Kendall said years ago in the Exodus story, that mega
(05:49):
story our self understanding. Though we might shun the Puritan legacy,
though Orestes Brownson and other Catholics have not, that self
understanding was rooted in the idea of freedom from England,
movement from a wilderness experience of purification and endurance with
(06:11):
the help of God. Consensual politics understood is covenancial politics,
and the hope that when they found the so called
Promised Land, they'd be able to be faithful to the
world established in the revelations of Israel in the New Land,
that they would be faithful to their covenant and be
(06:34):
a city upon the hill. That story was one that
was going to be placed, at the suggestion of Benjamin
Franklin of all people, as the Seal of the United States,
Moses crossing the Red Sea leading in faith the people
of Israel to what they didn't know what it would
(06:55):
be like, the Promised Land. The other possibility, the other story,
the other narrative that shapes us, is that of the Eneid,
a people who've lost through the destruction with the will
of the Gods, what they had before, but who are
called to found something new, a regime ordered in liberty
under law. And that story is a story of toil,
(07:19):
of sacrifice, of conviction that with the help of God
they could make a new order that would affect all
of humanity. So I don't think that the purpose, the
predication of this conference this morning that to have a goal,
to have a world historic mission. To understand that as
(07:43):
an ideology is maybe the right point of departure. I
would say it's the wrong point of departure. As Topfel
said when he entered this country, the national feeling of
having a purpose, a purpose that would stand for all peoples,
not just for themselves, is what makes America unique. He said,
(08:06):
It's more than America. America is more than it's all
self understanding. And the other Frenchman that I think of,
you know, and there is Father bou Bouget, the French Dominican,
who when he came to America in the mid twentieth
century said the same thing. I see here not an ideology,
(08:26):
but a people with a vocation comparable to that of Israel,
Rome and now the United States.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Thank you, Thank you. Professor Holly.
Speaker 6 (08:40):
Would you like to comment, Yeah, this is such an
interesting question. What I would say is it, are self
understanding are myth of what it means to be an American?
I think it's a myth in the sense in one sense,
and that it's simply sort of an inaccurate way of
thinking about ourselves. Else when we discussed especially early America,
(09:03):
as though it was just one thing. If we think
a lot of our self understanding is really rooted in
a sort of narrow element of British North America, the
specific sort of Puritan experience with the you know, it's
it's covenant based theology and approach to politics and society.
But that was not you know, all of what British
(09:24):
North America looked like. You know, the the Puritan vision
of Protestant theocracy was very different from you know, William
Penn and his different variety of Protestant society, his Quaker view,
which was different from what we saw in the founding
of Virginia, which obviously, you know, was overwhelmingly Anglican. But
(09:44):
let's not pretend that they were motivated by anything other
than economics. But I would say so that this pluralism
has actually been a strength for the United States. I
would argue that, you know, we didn't really become this
overwhelmingly religious society really until the Second Great Awakening. I'm
(10:06):
fairly convinced by the empirical evidence suggesting that at the
age of the American Revolution we were not especially pious
as a country, despite whatever the intentions were of the
original Puritan founders. But it was precisely in this period
of extraordinary religious pluralisms around the turn of the eighteen hundreds,
(10:26):
during the Second Great Awakening period, when we had an
extraordinary amount of religious competition, and in a sense, when
we'd started to see these different groups, these different most
predominantly Protestant Catholics as well, were actually being forced to
compete in sort of the free market of religion. And
that was really when what came to be a turning
point in American life. And so I really wanted to
(10:47):
emphasize that religious pluralism, religious tolerance, religious diversity has not
been at odds with.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
The goal of.
Speaker 6 (10:59):
Creating at least a somewhat pious society. At least we're
going to compare ourselves to our contemporaries in Europe, both
then and today. And so I really think that this
is something that Christians, whether Catholic were Protestant, should should emphasize.
And this is something I would also note that I
think Tokeville was getting at as well with his strong
(11:19):
argument that the degree to which clergy stayed aloof at
least somewhat from partisan politics also helps to explain the
strength of religion in the United States. And I think
that this is a conversation that needs to sort of
be re engaged in but I can elaborate on that further,
(11:40):
but I'll posit there for the time being.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Thank you, Thomas Well.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
I agree with Virginia that the mythos that she sketched
out as a very, very powerful in shaping the American understanding,
even among people who explicitly reputed you any kind of Christianity.
But I have to admit to be very troubled by
the idea that the United States has or could have
(12:13):
a universal mission. I don't. It seems to me this
is a confusion between the Church and a mere political entity,
and it escapes me how a political entity could have
such a mission, especially speaking as a Catholic, an entity
(12:33):
that is overwhelmingly Protestant in its population and more importantly
in its culture and its intellectual life has been extremely Protestant,
and Catholics have basically adapted to that. And this is
why it seems to me that the gigantic amount of
(12:56):
Catholic immigrants in the nineteenth century, even in the first
third of the twentieth century, if we had understood our
mission better, we would have seen it was to change
America culturally as well as in terms of individual religious commitment.
Change America culturally, so that we embraced a different myth,
(13:18):
a myth that was more in keeping with that was
in keeping with a Catholic understanding of how nations are
and how a nation cannot possibly take the place of
the Church. And George and your contribution to the volume,
you indicated you quoted another writer to the effect that
(13:38):
up into the mid fifties, Catholics who had a very
distinct understanding of themselves apart from the rest of the population.
You recall that quote, I'm sure, and I thought that
was very true, and you said, we've lost that, and
we even even in his heyday it wasn't as strong
as it could have been and should have been. But
(13:58):
totally now we've lost it completely, and so we've been
swallowed up in the various versions of the myth. And
I'm using the myth in the pejorative sense there of
that both the conservative block and the liberal block both
of myths about this country, and I would say that
neither myth is compatible with a royal Catholic understanding of
(14:24):
politics or culture.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Okay, thank you Christopher, the return.
Speaker 4 (14:32):
Thank you, Andrew. I find it interesting.
Speaker 7 (14:36):
I'm happy doctor Holly had brought up the diversity of
the American founding in terms of the actual colonization that
it was not simply we're not all descendants of the Puritans.
We're not all descendance of the Mayflower. My family came
a lot later. They were Conterman Lutheran immigrants who missionnized
the Chippewa. So yeah, I think that's very important and important,
(14:59):
especially because look at the Puritan establishment. It's much it's
very many ways similar to what would have been what
the Catholic establishment was in other parts of the world.
It was actually founded upon a revealed religion. It was
not pluralistic by any means, but it was proposed a
certain doctrine that one want to follow. I speak in
my essay of the United States having a civic religion,
(15:22):
and it might seem a strange thing to say, but
when we consider that any human proposition of human affairs
actually does carry implicit within it some theological assertions. Even
if the will he deny God, we're making making a
theological assertion. If we say that we can have a
(15:43):
social order that could be sound and and order to
the common good without a revealed religion, we're making a
theological assertion. So Mike, my sense of of is that
the American who of the religion actually does make a
(16:04):
proposition about civil society which is not in accord with
the traditions of the Catholic Church. And I think that
those traditions are found in the nineteenth century cycond goals
and even in the Second Vatican Council and in the
current Catechus with the Catholic Church.
Speaker 4 (16:21):
Okay, thank you.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Now, I'd like to invite you to, you know, perhaps
ask questions of each other or comment further on each
other's presentations, if you could just raise your hand so
that I don't have you all speaking at once. Okay,
Virginia's first.
Speaker 5 (16:40):
Well, I'll response, since I was first to set down
a template here of myth, I'm influenced by the great
deal of historical research. Pitch my marks to my remarks
to you, George, the biblical influence, the influence of the
(17:00):
meeting houses, of the sermons. And yes, it's true there
were many different regional elements that entered into discussions of
what the revolution should be, of what the founding should be,
but all of them recurred to a biblical root. I
didn't say, I don't mean to suggest that there was
(17:22):
a great deal of piety, there was a falling off
and a reconnection, and a falling off and a reconnection,
and hence the great awakening. But the self understanding comes
from that code of command given by a creator who
gives us a law in concord with our natures to
(17:47):
owe to him our authority to rule ourselves. That consensus
comes from his authority. Those principles don't come from Protestantism.
They come from Catholicism. They come from Peter Damien in
the eleventh century, from John Fortescue in the fifteenth century.
The whole idea of the volks popely is prior to Protestantism,
(18:11):
and to the extent that the Protestant different hues of
it throughout America. That common religion that the Federalist papers
talk about, with its various offshoots, to the extent that
it understood itself as a people that could govern itself
in moderation under ordered liberty, those roots come from Catholicism.
(18:32):
They're not ex me hello with Protestantism. So I'll end that,
And so I hope that covers partly what you said, Christopher,
and also partly what you have said Andrew, I mean
not Andrew George.
Speaker 7 (18:47):
Sorry, Christopher respond to that, Yeah, I mean it's true
that in Protestantism one finds it much of Catholicism. If
they didn't find Catholicism and right, there would not be Christianity.
I think that's certainly the case. My problem, partisically with
(19:09):
the American proposition is not that it evoked God or
even an idea of the special destiny set up by God.
My problem is is that it's agnostic about God. It
doesn't have any sense of what teachings about God, who
he is, what he does, how he's interacted with humanity,
what he demands of us. None of those teachings are
(19:32):
considered to be authoritative. Every person is allowed to form
his own concept of God or have no concept of
God whatsoever.
Speaker 5 (19:40):
Yeah. If you look at the fundamental documents from the
earliest period, the Massachusetts Body of Liberties, it's straight out
of Deuteronomy. If that's not an indication of what man's
secondary place is to divine authority, I don't know what is.
Speaker 4 (19:56):
I don't think you understand what I'm saying here. My
point is that does not come down it might be
Christian in its influence in its form of basic formulation.
But nevertheless, it's not any particular Christian. In fact, it's
not really important to the American system that there be
a real view of religion or any particularly religion is correct.
(20:17):
It's the only thing that is important is that, at
least in the Felon in the early century, the early
part of the United States history, is that there be
a belief in God. But I don't think a belief
in God is sufficient for an understanding of I mean,
you know, even scripture. I mean scripture.
Speaker 7 (20:34):
Is we differ so much in our interpretations of the
scripture Protestants and Catholics and even Orthodox that.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
We're not actually.
Speaker 7 (20:45):
By evoking God and even evoking scripture, we're not coming
down the side of any particular religion. It's not important
to the American system that there be any particular religion
which is revealed.
Speaker 5 (20:56):
It's important that we forge a greet about how to
live the good life and how to be friends. That's
the political project, which is different than a theological project,
and how to live the good life together. Given the
pluralism that George pointed to, requires that we have the
right ordered relationship, the right hierarchy, so God, family, parents
(21:22):
over children, community, protecting those subsidiary institutions, but answering through
consensus to what the law is that moderates our differences.
It maybe doesn't define one brand of Christianity, but that
kind of consensus is Yes, it's a kind of as
John Courtney Murray puts into articles of peace, that we
(21:46):
have to forge in order to live together. Politically, we
can't hold a country to the standards of complete theological orthodoxy.
We can only expect, as your opening remarks suggests it, Andrew,
what can be done as a community as far as
possible towards the good.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
Yeah, but it seems to be that Virginia, that there's
one thing to say, Okay, in order to coexist, we
need to accept certain modes of behavior. Okay, that's arguable,
but that's not what I understood you to be saying,
and that's certainly not what the American myth has been saying.
(22:29):
We're celebrating ourselves as a webster quote that incremated, a
new error has begun in mankind, and that seems to
me just nonsense. And that you know that can be
that quote can be multiplied through many, many, many other coaches.
I'm sure you're aware. And so there's a difference between saying, okay,
we have to get along, and a difference is saying
(22:51):
we are the effigy of mankind.
Speaker 5 (22:57):
Well, the fact that we're committed to liberty is a
major accomplishment. That we understand that Aristotelian point of departure
when he talks in ethics, that we, in fact, in
exercising our reason, can choose to live virtuously or viciously,
(23:18):
and that possibility that pulls was central to how we
shaped our regime. Now, that might not be the highest standard.
It's not a standard that will absolutely get us to heaven,
but it will make it possible for a well ordered
regime that protects our liberties and choosing and aims. For
those of us, say who are Catholic and have that
(23:40):
gift of the repository of the full faith, it gives
us the opportunity to raise up the understanding of what
the end of the human life is. And so I
think that's a great good. It's a great good in
this world to have a regime committed to liberty under
moderation that comes from believing that there's a code of
(24:01):
behavior that comes from God and that we know it
in the natural law. That's pretty good considering the history
of regimes in the West or in the East, it's
pretty good.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (24:14):
I would just like to do a quick response or
perhaps quest for clarification from Thomas. I thought was he
said something I thought was quite interesting, and there's something
implied there I want to make sure I'm properly understanding.
And as you remember from my contribution, I argued that
sort of explicit anti Catholicism has really sort of diminished
(24:35):
in American life, and I list some reasons why I
think that's the case. But I thought Thomas was in
a way implying that one of the reasons why Catholics
are no longer viewed as threatening is because they've become
less threatening, that they've become so thoroughly assimilated into Americanism that,
you know, saying you're a Catholic rather than a Protestant
(24:55):
is perhaps as superficial as saying you prefer PEPSI rather
than coke. And I just want to make make sure
that I am properly understanding that, because I think that's
a very interesting argument. If I'm properly inferring what you're saying.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
Yes, yes, precisely exactly. Yeah, we're we're not regarded as
anything different, and so there's no reason to be afraid
of us anymore.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Yes, okay, any more comments on this, Yes, Christopher, Yeah,
I'm minded.
Speaker 7 (25:26):
In another context, Tom's aquinas says, man comes to truth
after much time, with much mixture error, without divine revelation.
So divine revelation he holds out. And the Church has
said this too, Sine revelation he holds out as necessary
even for coming to know natural truths we bring up
(25:46):
for a marriage, for instance, marriage in the institution of
the family, Well, one of the moral questions is do
we allow divorce or not? And that's a very important
question needs to be answered. But we have we have
our society in the United States proposes no source of
that by which we can actually come to an agreement
(26:08):
upon that, which would that we come to the truth
about that, except our own unaided intellect, which would come
to truth only after much time, with much mixture of error.
Speaker 4 (26:20):
I would the proposal seems to be.
Speaker 7 (26:24):
Doctor Arberry's proposal seems to be that it's not really
important that the Church be there as a moral guide
for society, that the churches exists as a moral guide
for individuals, and those individuals in turn influence society, but
that society doesn't have to recognize the true faith, and
so we can have a perfectly good social order without
(26:44):
the church.
Speaker 5 (26:45):
Well, the Reformation has already happened. I don't know how
we can even make the presupposition that it should have
been Catholic from the beginning, because the conditions weren't there.
I mean, this is just prudence. We have people that
aren't Catholic except a few in Maryland and a few
who tried to do it in Massachusetts, and we're driven out.
(27:07):
You know this, This is this is pie in the
sky thinking that we should be in charge, we can be.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
Interest I'm not arguing we should be.
Speaker 7 (27:19):
I'm not an integralist, so I mean, my esday I
actually come out against any.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
Okay.
Speaker 7 (27:26):
My point simply is is that whether it's the only
thing we can do or not, I think it is
the only thing we can do right now. Religious tolerance
is the only thing in our social which is possible.
But that shows there's something inherently degraded, I mean wrong
about our social worker. It's not something we can hold
up as an ideal but precisely what Leo the thirteenth said,
(27:48):
And there's a deeturnum, or we cannot hold up the
United States as the example of what society should be
in terms of relation to religion. So I mean true,
I mean I could be born with a crippling But
I could be born crippled. But I don't call that
(28:09):
as a good thing. It's the only thing I can
do being crippled. I can't function any other way except
in the matter of cripple. But yet I have to
recognize that it's a demerit. It's a problem for me.
Not a moral problem, obviously, but yet still something which
is deficient in me. I think we have to recognize
it that it's deficient in the American that's deficient in
the American system too, in which ms in terms of
(28:29):
its relation to God, in terms of relations to religion.
Speaker 5 (28:33):
You know, I wish Christopher. I don't know what some
of the rest of you think about polities that say
were in a world where there was uniformity of faith
under the authority and traditions of the Catholic faith. But
if we look back to them, the great critics of
living under a medieval polity where all were one are
(28:56):
Dante our Shawcer, we have Probleroblems when we have a
complete unanimity of both church and state and a unanimity
of faith, because people are fallen and that fallen nature
has to be accommodated somehow politically. And add to that
(29:18):
the fact that we have diverse understandings of what's that
Christian revelation is. And we get to sixteen twenty and
sixteen thirty and on through those early periods of America,
and I think we have to think of our obligation
as Catholics as revering what's good about the legacy, as
(29:41):
fractured as it was at the time of our pre
founding and founding, and to work toward perfecting that goal
of ordered liberty as best we can as communities of faith,
which many of the contributors to this volume volume have
said so beautifully right, the way that we associate ourselves
together in order to influence not only our own spiritual
(30:06):
formation but the countries. I mean, that's our job. We
have to restore all things in Christ. But I think
we're doing so in a country which is pretty good,
and I think the best in human history, and I
would die for it. I think we have to have
that kind of commitment to this country. And if we
don't as Catholics, if we're setting ourselves up as the
(30:28):
harshest critics, I think we do serious damage to the
possibilities for good politically and spiritually in this country.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Well, if a Catholic hold, which we certainly ought, that hole,
the faith that's preached by the church is the food
Church is the true faith, the faith of Jesus Christ
and the Apostles, then obviously part of our mission is
to convert our foul countrymen as well as the best
(30:59):
of the world. And if we did manage to convert
our fallow countrymen, first of all, this religious pluralism that
you seem to think highly of Virginia would disappear. And
then secondly, if somehow we became all mostly Catholics in
this country, I think it would occur to us, Huh,
(31:20):
why should the government pretend that the Catholic of faith
is just irrelevant to the welfare of the country if
in fact all the citizens are the great majority thereof,
are convinced otherwise, it seems to be a contradiction to say, yeah,
as a private citizen, I'm a Catholic, but as a
(31:41):
public citizen, I'm an agnostic. And that's what America is
saying and has always been saying. Maybe the early puritance,
but otherwise are the national ethosis that as we take
part in public life, we have to pretend that there's
no true religion.
Speaker 5 (32:02):
I think you've polarized things and restating it. I'm sorry
to say, Thomas. I think we're as Catholics, we're citizens,
and we don't separate our private life from our public life.
We say, as much as we can, through rhetoric and persuasion,
(32:24):
change the discourse to the highest plane possible. That's our obligation.
That doesn't mean we separate the two. And I privately
hold one thing like John F. Kennedy and publicly say whatever.
I have to hold the public good to the highest
standard possible. But I have to be able to be heard.
I have to be able to persuade. So I have
(32:45):
to be aware of my audience. And that requires that
I not that I compromise, but that I think of
a way to be heard. And I don't think this
polarized rhetoric of the Catholics versus the deviant way of
Protestantism and its political path is fruitful. I don't think
(33:07):
it's fruitful. I don't think it'll achieve any ends. You
can hypothesize about what it would be if we were
all Catholic. Well, I wouldn't personally want to live under
some of the Catholic rulers that we've had in the past.
Maybe I would like to. I would love to have
had Charles of Austria, that holy holy man who's talked
about in the book and one of the authors of
(33:32):
his life, but even he was shoved out. We have
to do what we can with the order that we're
born into. And I think if we don't love the
order we're born into in its best features, we can't
change it. You can't be heard as an antagonist. You
have to be heard as a fellow citizen in friendship.
Speaker 7 (33:57):
Think it's interesting that you keep want to drag down
medieval Europe as a kind of a great mistake, and
I mean, I think it's I think it's actually astounding
because we would not you would not have the American
family even without Medieval Europe, the Catholic Church. And I
mean you bring up Dante. Dante's quarrel was not against
(34:20):
the confessional state. Dante's quarrel was again had to do
with the rich relations of emperor and pope, based upon
a kind of totalitary notion in his own head of
how things should be going, how should have behaved.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
So I do you, what would you think it a good.
Speaker 7 (34:37):
Thing if if America became Catholic and and the government
recognized the authority of the Catholic Church. It's a hypothetical,
I understand, but I think it's a it's a hypothetic
and clarified thought.
Speaker 5 (34:52):
I mean, I think we, as Augustine did when he
lived under Page in Rome, you you have to keep
in front of our view as citizens of the Kingdom
of God, that we're aiming to the City of God,
that we're aiming to, that we're in the city of Man,
(35:12):
and until then, until the perfection of the afterlife, we
have to work within. I don't think that there ever
will be a Catholic state here. I just it won't
happen in my lifetime. But I think is more likely
to happen as persecution and martyrdom, like Cardinal George says,
(35:34):
and in that regard, we will sanctify ourselves. But in
the meantime, we should defend the sources of America that
are both biblical and rooted in natural law, and which
can form in their essence to what the Church has
always upheld as central to political life, friendship under the
(35:58):
authority of God.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
But that's not what the Church is always upheld the
Church Leo thirteenth was very clear that when the state
tolerated error, even that was a defect that was only
excusable because of circumstances. So I don't think, I mean,
the Church is pretty clear that the ideal is not
(36:21):
what you were saying. The ideal is a Catholic state. Frankly, now,
I know that I agree with you. It's impossible here.
It's impossible. I don't foresee it ever happening here. But
that's not as Christopher said, that's not the point. The
point is is it a good thing? And that will
help clarify our thinking and perhaps restrain our celebration of
(36:43):
what I see as a rather flawed polity.
Speaker 8 (36:47):
I go back to Pulp Galacious before Leo at thirteen,
who said two swords there are the temporal and the spiritual,
and the state. Yes, should listen to the spiritual authority
when it is in spiritual matters. But the church and
its members should obey the laws of the state as
long as they do not conflict with the order of God.
(37:11):
And I think Geen that understands that.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
But that's of course, but that's not That's not the
point I was trying to make. The point was that
LEO is pretty clear and I don't I don't have
I could easily, but I'll have them out my fingertips
right now, that the state has a duty to recognize
the true religion.
Speaker 5 (37:32):
M hmm, well, I mean absolutely.
Speaker 3 (37:36):
Speaking, and we're speaking, you know, absolutely speaking.
Speaker 5 (37:39):
So do you think Tom, did you go by Thomas
or Tom Tom Thomas Thomas? Do you think that until
the state does that, we should be malcontents and critique it?
I mean, should we just be sitting here saying the
United States is flawed because it doesn't recognize the Church's
(38:01):
authority over it. And that's what kind of engagement is
possible with that proviso? I can I could agree, you know,
theoretically with LEO the thirteenth, but practically what does that mean?
Speaker 3 (38:17):
Well, it would depend I mean, as you're probably aware of,
people like Paul Blanchard back in the late forties said well,
Caltholics are taking advantage of the of the tolerant and pluralism,
but when they get in charge, they're going to impose
a Caltholic state. Well there's some trick to that, but
it's not exactly why Blanchard thought. But yeah, I don't
(38:40):
think we should hide. I don't think we should hide
what we believe. But on the other hand, we don't
have to ground hitting people in a hiddle with it
all the time either.
Speaker 6 (38:51):
George pa I admit I am an outlier on this
call in for two reasons. One as the as the
Protestant group, and also my background is not in a
philosophy or theology, but as an empirical social scientist. So
my question that I always have when people say we need,
you know, to fundamentally rethink, you know, the foundations of
(39:13):
American government, I always my question is always comes to
who provides the better model. No one on this call
has done so, but I've known a number of you know,
Orthodox Catholics who have spoken admiring of people like say
Francisco Franco, who did you know, uh, you know, create
a kind of superficial Catholic Spain that survived to his lifetime,
(39:34):
and then as soon as the thumb came off the scale,
they began a really shocking, you know, a rapid secularization.
And so I guess my question would be, you know,
to the extent that we have an existing model of
somebody who has gotten it right in say, the last
two hundred years, who had who whether Catholic or Protestant,
(39:55):
or whoever, has done a better job than the United
States and trying to create the type of social order
that we would like to see, and that I think
until that question is answered, it feels all very abstract
to me.
Speaker 7 (40:09):
Well, to a certain way, it is abstract because the
question one has to first ask in political theory is
what is what is the nature of the state, what.
Speaker 4 (40:21):
Is its purpose or end?
Speaker 7 (40:23):
And how do we The next questions, of course, of
how do you realize that, what is the relationship of
the state to God? What is the relationship of the
government to the people. All those different questions have to
be answered, and they might not actually fit any particular
regime when you get the right answer, but it's important
for the clarification of thought in order to have that
correct and to be in not to be an error
(40:45):
about things. Morality applies not just to individuals. It's a
certain tendency I think. I see you think of morality
as particular. Sexual morality applies to individuals, it applies also
to our life in common are the social life is mad.
So if we're going to have know what's right and wrong,
(41:06):
we have to know what's right and wrong, not simply
for each individual. We have to know what's right and
wrong for the state. And so we have to when
you first answer that, when you when you address that question,
that's going to be abstract in a certain sense. And
I can't I'm not propose to you what there was not.
I don't think there's been a good Catholic state in
the past couple two d years or so. But historically,
(41:29):
I mean that's it's because of lots of different reasons.
There's a lot of different reasons why that was the case.
And Tranco of Spain was not united as a Catholic
place was. It was divided between Catholics and non in
any case is anti Catholics. So his mode of trying
to produce uniformity was wrong in my opinion, and I
would not propose I would not propose anything, any kind
(41:51):
of violent Catholic takeover this country. I agree that we
ought to work in the system as it is. We
have to affirm the Constitution. We have to be an
example to our fellow citizens of true patriots. But it
doesn't mean in the same time we have to talk
the Nithols.
Speaker 5 (42:13):
I knew those folks just by the way. I'm old
enough to know Willielmson and the Bozell's. I taught some
of the Bozell children. I remember when they came back
from Spain and they wore red capes and they were
going to learn everything. You know the Triumph magazine. Oh,
I just I love them all. I love them all.
(42:35):
But it was a joke. It was not anything that
was going to change America or remind America of what
it could be, or should have been, or ought to be.
It didn't make any difference except as a kind of
lovely lore that you would talk about over Scotch and cigarettes.
It's just we have to preserve what's decent. We can't
(43:00):
expect a kind of world in which what we have
is unanimity. At this point. We can convert, we can
do all those things. But I think we really ought
to understand our constitution. That's our job as Catholics right
now is to hold people to the constitution, all of them, Trump,
(43:23):
the left, everybody. And that's our job because it's a
pretty good constitution and it conforms to an understanding of
the right order of the soul. It understands what possible politically.
That's our job. And I love that we study the
social encyclicals. We do it here. We would love for
(43:45):
those things to be instantiated in our regime, but we
have little to say. It seems to me at the
table as Catholics, if we don't first understand the form
and appreciate it for what it is.
Speaker 4 (44:00):
I must must protest.
Speaker 5 (44:02):
I think this morning.
Speaker 7 (44:06):
Well, it's fine, I don't mind people being ornery, and
I must say, George over here is the only person
with good manners.
Speaker 4 (44:12):
He raises his hand.
Speaker 5 (44:14):
Oh, I'm just not used to doing that anymore.
Speaker 7 (44:20):
But I do think you make a character of our
position by making us like the Bozell children coming back
with red capes. That's not what we're proposing at all.
In fact, what I propose in my essay in the
book is something very different or anything like that. And
people want to know what that is. They can buy
the book. But I think you're not You're not actually
(44:40):
engaging what we're really saying. I think neither Tom nor
I and certainly not George here are saying we have
to just go all nineteenth century on people, that we
have to go with Franco on people. I think we're
saying we do have to engage as society as it is,
but that we are at the same time have to
have the writ underst what the society is and what
(45:01):
it's good. I mean, it seems to me if we
understand the nature of human society, what's good for human society,
then we're going to have a better idea of how
to actually help direct our own society. We have an
idea of the good in the end, and so that
requires that we have to be realistic about the country too,
that it's not the city on the hill. I think
(45:25):
I think it's a kind of appalling to think our
country is a city in the hill, given so many
things that have happened, especially in the past year, that
we and our foreign policy, I think we have a
Catholic sense would redirect our our try to redirect our
elected officials from many of the policies which have been
(45:46):
pursued not just in the past year, but for the
past twenty thirty, forty fifty years even more. And yes,
that requires, first of all, a true understanding of what
the whole point the existence of what the state is
ordered to, what is the common good. It's not my
position would be, it's not word, it's liberty, it's order
(46:06):
to the common good. So that's what I'm I think
we're trying, I guess I'm trying to get across, is
that we have to understand things in their essence first
before we can actually act properly.
Speaker 3 (46:21):
What I find in troubling mostly, and I try to
be brief here, is it seems to me, Virginia, you're
saying two things and not distinguishing between them. One is
saying we have to by the Constitution and in order
to get along with our fellow citizens, and I would
agree with you on that. And the other is you're
(46:42):
as you're extolling the Constitution as being in accord with
human nature and basically extolling the American project as being
kind of enough potheosis of human nature. Those are two
different assertions, and it seems to have been they require
two different kinds of arguments in order to justify them.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
Yes, Virginia, please thank you.
Speaker 5 (47:05):
Andrew. I apologize. I'm writing a book on decorum, so
I feel chastened.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 4 (47:15):
I was talking about the common me too.
Speaker 5 (47:17):
I'm sorry. I really I agree with everything you said, Christopher.
I think, you know, at base, if we don't have
the right anthropology, if we don't understand, uh, the order
of the soul and the relation of the soul is
as imprinted with the image of God. If we don't
understand those things, we can't have a good regime. But yes,
(47:40):
and it's true as well Thomas, that one would have
to show how the Constitution conforms to this right order
the soul, and I think it does. I've studied it
quite a bit. I think it conforms to natural law,
and it shows the difference between the few and the many,
the higher parts of the soul the lower, moderating both
the ambition of the few and the appetites of the many.
(48:03):
It has a structure that looks to the kind of
harmony in friendship that is a good political end. So
you know, yeah, I think we have to have the
right anthropology.
Speaker 3 (48:17):
We have to have the right.
Speaker 5 (48:19):
Understanding of what our relationships should be socially, and ultimately
there has to be a telos as well. And I
don't think liberty, if I could make a little correction
in my understanding, at least to Christopher, I don't think
liberty is at odds with the common good. I think
liberty is of the essence of the human good, but
(48:41):
it has to be rightly ordered so that it serves
the common good.
Speaker 2 (48:47):
George Howling.
Speaker 6 (48:48):
Since Virginia brought up Bazill, I want to see what
people their thoughts are on Bizell's great sort of antagonist
within the conservative movement, which would be Frank Meyer, who
also he waited till his deathbed, but did ultimately become
a Catholic. And his rejoinder to people like Bizill was
that we really shouldn't that we should actually consider liberty
(49:09):
a key element of the good and the virtuous life,
because the key piece of his fusionist philosophy was that liberty,
unless it is chosen freely, is not excuse me, virtue,
and that is not chosen freely is not true virtue.
It can only be life under totalitarianism, and so you
cannot actually get to a good and virtuous society unless
(49:31):
you have one in which there is at least a
certain baseline of individual liberty. Is that considered at odds
with Catholic teaching. I'm asking that just out of curiosity,
because again I'm not coming out.
Speaker 2 (49:42):
Of okay, Christopher.
Speaker 7 (49:44):
First, I want to clarify when I when I criticize
liberty as the end of the social I'm not saying
liberty is not Is it not in any way.
Speaker 4 (49:55):
Important for the common good? Yeah?
Speaker 7 (49:59):
But I would look upon it if you mean by
liberty individual self determination, If you mean by liberty that
which I think is what our countrymen actually mean when
they say liberty. What we're saying that that individual self
determination is an instrumental good. It's important, for instance, to
give your children a certain amount of liberties they learn
how to be virtuous. You don't want to be constantly
(50:21):
telling them what to do. They should be able to
make choices. That's a way of becoming virtuous. But if
you have a but liberty as considered as an end
the purpose of human life, at least the purpose of
social life is I don't think it's in accord with
least traditional Catholic philosophical tradition of politics. Okay, thollas, Yeah,
(50:43):
whether we fly to Georgia.
Speaker 3 (50:45):
I think that the way this question is commonly put
is in fact in fallacy, because it implies that there
is either some kind of thetalitarian regimentation or a kind
of a liberty. The way Christopher was talking in the
name way, everyone's comings up with his own ideas. But
(51:06):
in the Caunthol, in a well ordered Catholic state, it
was not that way at all. It was that the
state would well, of course, restricting or prohibiting extreme evils,
as as Saint Thomas said, it would guide, It would
guide a person toward better things. It wouldn't take a
neutral stance on these things. So to say that we
(51:29):
either have to have a totalitarian regime of some kind
or a liberal regime is a false economy. There are
many things in many ways in between of handling this,
and I personally it seems to me that the constant
invocation of liberty by Americans is the highest local good
(51:49):
is is simply an error. The highest good is justice,
not at liberty. And I find it puzzling that Catholics
would would join in the constant invocation of liberty.
Speaker 2 (52:06):
Could I raise something. Oh I'm sorry, Virginia, you got
something to Two of the essays in this book Catholics
and the American Policy deal at some length with economics,
but only two, which I find a bit surprising. But
isn't that an important part of what Catholics should be
(52:27):
talking about when they participate in American politics and any
comments on that. I mean, the church's social teaching has
a lot to say about economics.
Speaker 3 (52:38):
Well, that's that's one of the one of the I
think it was Thomas Molnar said that when America's talking
about liberty, what they ruined me is the liberty to
get rich, and that's hardly in accord with any kind
of Catholic tradition.
Speaker 2 (52:52):
Oh yeah, Virginia, I believe you have.
Speaker 5 (52:55):
Well, we just keep throwing down bombs to each other,
don't we. We can know every one of these paths.
That could have a lively conversation. But on the point
of liberty and economics too. Our earliest understanding of liberty
(53:15):
tethers it to duty. It does not have an open
ended self determination as its definition. Winthrop gives us a
definition that then is taken up by John Paul the
Second that liberty is to do what one ought, not
to do what one list, and that kind of liberty
(53:37):
immediately grounds our choices in the direction and guidance that
you're talking about, Christopher on economics, I'm very concerned about many.
Speaker 3 (53:48):
Of the.
Speaker 5 (53:51):
Well, shall we say, evils of corporate America and this
great divide between the rich and the poor, and many
of the things that John Madai and others, my friend
from graduate school, you know, talk about, and we have
to address those, and we have to address them, you know,
(54:11):
with the guidance of the Church, and it's one of
the things we teach at our college. But on the
other hand, I don't think the solution, and this is
another direction. I don't know if we want to go here,
is distributivism or in any way limiting to the point
that we would discourage private property, the possibility of industriousness
(54:35):
and initiative and all those things that Sam greg and
others at the act and Institute talk about. I mean,
it's a fine line here. I don't know exactly. I'm
not an expert, but I recognize the problem of injustice,
but I also see the virtue of letting people have
the ability through their diverse faculties and unequal faculties, as
(54:58):
Madison puts it in number ten too, to acquire property.
But but it is a problem, and I think Catholics
have to do a better job addressing it.
Speaker 7 (55:07):
Christopher, did you have a comment on that or yeah too,
just briefly, Yeah, liberty is to do it went on,
But that's not what our society thinks it is. And
and in terms of proposing as the end of society
and the purpose of government is to assure the ratest
amount of liberty possible with consideration considerable consideration of the
(55:33):
public order, is not I mean, that's I don't think
that's it's an all sound. That's a it's a it's
a it's a it's a ordering is to say that
the private good is pre eminent over the common good.
In terms of the economic questions, I think the economic
social teaching of the Catholic Church is one of the
(55:55):
best ways we can actually engage our fellow citizens the
United States, because the Church actually proposes things not necessarily
based upon diviner relation, but guided by diviner relation and
understanding what natural law is on these matters. The Church
makes so many good proposals and important proposals that it's
that should be our contribution. Unfortunately, it's often not our
(56:16):
contribution because we're so caught up in one side or
the other, either leftist or ritis for conservators or liberals,
and we're not looking at the actual fount of wisdom here,
which would be the Catholic social teaching.
Speaker 2 (56:31):
I believe we're getting towards the end of our time,
Is that right? Any final comments from anyone? Now, thank
you very much for your.
Speaker 3 (56:42):
I would love to hear what George says witnessing a
number of Catholics and contentions and contestations here.
Speaker 6 (56:52):
Oh, you know, being old stock, you know pure it's
an American going way back. I am not pretty much
a big fan of American capitalism and do not see
it in any way at odds with fundamental Christian teachings.
But I'm coming from a very different theological perspective. Thus,
I don't know that it would be a particularly fruitful
(57:13):
debate to begin engaging in that in our last thirty seconds.
Speaker 3 (57:18):
No, I would think more just a sociological comment on.
Speaker 6 (57:22):
Catholics, oh, about the status of Catholics. I mean, oh,
I mean the argument that I made is that I
think you know, Catholics have made great strides over the
last two hundred years, and I just think that they
should be proud of the role that they play in
the American life, and particularly on the American right, where
they've essentially created the post war American conservative movement.
Speaker 5 (57:46):
Yeah, I mean I knew Russell Kirk. I loved him.
I loved his guidance about the roots of the American order,
and he's celebrated those British roots, those Roman roots. And
in no way could you call him a deviant Catholic
or less than Catholic. I mean, he and Kendall and Buckley.
(58:09):
To them, we owe a kind of what I would
say participatory Catholicism that has shaped intellectually a good anthropology
from which to understand America.
Speaker 2 (58:25):
Very well, well, thank you very much to all of you.
I think this shows how much diversity of opinion there
actually is among Catholics and certainly among Christians on these issues.
And again we recommend that you read the twenty five
contributions to Catholics in the American Polity and you will
see what a broad spectrum of opinion there really is. There.
(58:49):
Can I ask Thomas to say a closing prayer.
Speaker 3 (58:53):
Yes, we'll say Hail Mary's or lady the name of
Father's and spirit. I mean heil Mary, full of grace,
laws with the blesser of the among women, and blessed
is the fruit of life of Jesus, Oi Mary, Mother
of God. Brayfuss.
Speaker 4 (59:07):
There is now our death. Amen, whisper. Thank you very much,
all God bless thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 5 (59:19):
George, thank you so much. Thomas Christopher, Thomas, George Nice
to Meetchell Nice for.
Speaker 1 (59:28):
Hello, God's Beloved. I'm Annabel Mosley, author, professor of theology
and host of then Sings My Soul and Destination Sainthood
on w c AT Radio. I invite you to listen
in and find inspiration along this sacred journey. We're traveling
together to make our lives a masterpiece and with God's grace,
(59:50):
become saints. Join me Annabel Moseley for then Sings My
Soul and Destination Sainthood on w c AT Radio. God
bless you. Remember you are never alone. God is always
my friend.
Speaker 2 (01:00:10):
Thank you for listening to a production of WCAT Radio.
Please join us in our mission of evangelization and don't forget.
Love lifts up where knowledge takes flight
You're listening to WCAT radio your home for authentic Catholic programming.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Welcome to the Open Door. My name is Andrews Zarkowski
and I will be serving as your host today. To
begin our program, I will ask my colleague Thomas Stork
to recite an opening prayer.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
And the Father, So Lois Spirit, Amen, Come, Lois Spirit.
Fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle them to
the fire of your love. Send forth your spirit and
they shall be created. And you're showing you the face
of the earth. Let us spray or gold by the
light of the Holy Spirit. It destroyed the hearts of
the faithful. Grant that by the same Holy Spirit we
may be truly wise and never enjoys constellations through Christ
(00:44):
our Lord, Amen, and follows Loise Spirit.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
Amen.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Our format today will be a bit different from the
usual because our regular host Thomas Stork and our co
host Christopher Zender fact be among our guests. This is
because the topic of today's program is the new book
Catholics and the American Polity, published this year by Rocha Press.
(01:12):
And for those who are on video, here is the book.
This is how it looks. A Roca Press is at Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
A roka spelled ar Uca. Catholics and the American Polity
Approaches and Contestations is edited by Peter Free and around
(01:34):
Thomas Stork and in fact Thomas's co editor is co
editor and Christopher is a contributor, so for that reason
they are our guests. Also among the contributors to this
book are today's other two guests, Virginia Arbury and George Hawley.
(01:55):
Virginia Arbury is Associate professor of Humanities at Yo Faming
Catholic College in land Or, Wyoming. George Holly is Associate
professor of political science at the University of Alabama. Welcome
both of you to Open Door. In his introduction to
(02:18):
Catholics and the American Polity, co editor Peter Ree notes
that it is the vocation of late Catholics to intervene
directly in political structuring and organization of social life, and
to influence the character of our nation. How he asks,
are we to fulfill that vocation given the stridency of
(02:41):
American politics, Catholic decline, and the legacy of American anti Catholicism.
He suggests three strategies, the benedict option of which most
of you have probably heard regime change integralism. The twenty
(03:03):
five contributors to the volume comment on these and various
other approaches. But before disgusting discussing strategies, there is a
fundamental threshold question that we must ask, and I would
like each of you to try to answer it. The
question may be posed as follows. It is common for
(03:26):
Americans to speak of their country as something more than
simply a country. For example, teachers just one among probably
hundreds of examples. Daniel Webster stated it cannot be denied
but by those who would dispute against the Sun, that
with America and in America, a new era commences in
(03:48):
human affairs. Now just try substituting any other country here
for America, and you see how strange it sounds. If
this is our self understanding, then it seems that we
regard America as more than just a country. Is this
(04:08):
a self understanding that Catholics can agree with? If not,
as citizens of this country, how are we to adopt
ourselves to this ideology which seems to regard the United
States as something qualitatively unique in human history. I would
(04:30):
like each of our guests to take about three minutes
to comment on this issue, Let's start with Professor Armory.
Speaker 5 (04:38):
Thank you, Andrew. I would begin by saying that one
way to approach a country's self understanding is through its myth.
As my teacher Eric Voglan put it, a myth is
a whole account of a people's action in history, what
(05:01):
it's called to do, and every people, if it has
a self understanding at all, must root its identity in
this national story. As a thinker, I'm very fond of
le and Cass says in his book on Exodus. Without
a national story, there is no people. And so I
(05:25):
think to look at what America's claims are and to
understand them is not ideological but in fact, as be
speaking of vocation, we have to look at what our
story is, and our self understanding is rooted as Wilmore
Kendall said years ago in the Exodus story, that mega
(05:49):
story our self understanding. Though we might shun the Puritan legacy,
though Orestes Brownson and other Catholics have not, that self
understanding was rooted in the idea of freedom from England,
movement from a wilderness experience of purification and endurance with
(06:11):
the help of God. Consensual politics understood is covenancial politics,
and the hope that when they found the so called
Promised Land, they'd be able to be faithful to the
world established in the revelations of Israel in the New Land,
that they would be faithful to their covenant and be
(06:34):
a city upon the hill. That story was one that
was going to be placed, at the suggestion of Benjamin
Franklin of all people, as the Seal of the United States,
Moses crossing the Red Sea leading in faith the people
of Israel to what they didn't know what it would
(06:55):
be like, the Promised Land. The other possibility, the other story,
the other narrative that shapes us, is that of the Eneid,
a people who've lost through the destruction with the will
of the Gods, what they had before, but who are
called to found something new, a regime ordered in liberty
under law. And that story is a story of toil,
(07:19):
of sacrifice, of conviction that with the help of God
they could make a new order that would affect all
of humanity. So I don't think that the purpose, the
predication of this conference this morning that to have a goal,
to have a world historic mission. To understand that as
(07:43):
an ideology is maybe the right point of departure. I
would say it's the wrong point of departure. As Topfel
said when he entered this country, the national feeling of
having a purpose, a purpose that would stand for all peoples,
not just for themselves, is what makes America unique. He said,
(08:06):
It's more than America. America is more than it's all
self understanding. And the other Frenchman that I think of,
you know, and there is Father bou Bouget, the French Dominican,
who when he came to America in the mid twentieth
century said the same thing. I see here not an ideology,
(08:26):
but a people with a vocation comparable to that of Israel,
Rome and now the United States.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Thank you, Thank you. Professor Holly.
Speaker 6 (08:40):
Would you like to comment, Yeah, this is such an
interesting question. What I would say is it, are self
understanding are myth of what it means to be an American?
I think it's a myth in the sense in one sense,
and that it's simply sort of an inaccurate way of
thinking about ourselves. Else when we discussed especially early America,
(09:03):
as though it was just one thing. If we think
a lot of our self understanding is really rooted in
a sort of narrow element of British North America, the
specific sort of Puritan experience with the you know, it's
it's covenant based theology and approach to politics and society.
But that was not you know, all of what British
(09:24):
North America looked like. You know, the the Puritan vision
of Protestant theocracy was very different from you know, William
Penn and his different variety of Protestant society, his Quaker view,
which was different from what we saw in the founding
of Virginia, which obviously, you know, was overwhelmingly Anglican. But
(09:44):
let's not pretend that they were motivated by anything other
than economics. But I would say so that this pluralism
has actually been a strength for the United States. I
would argue that, you know, we didn't really become this
overwhelmingly religious society really until the Second Great Awakening. I'm
(10:06):
fairly convinced by the empirical evidence suggesting that at the
age of the American Revolution we were not especially pious
as a country, despite whatever the intentions were of the
original Puritan founders. But it was precisely in this period
of extraordinary religious pluralisms around the turn of the eighteen hundreds,
(10:26):
during the Second Great Awakening period, when we had an
extraordinary amount of religious competition, and in a sense, when
we'd started to see these different groups, these different most
predominantly Protestant Catholics as well, were actually being forced to
compete in sort of the free market of religion. And
that was really when what came to be a turning
point in American life. And so I really wanted to
(10:47):
emphasize that religious pluralism, religious tolerance, religious diversity has not
been at odds with.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
The goal of.
Speaker 6 (10:59):
Creating at least a somewhat pious society. At least we're
going to compare ourselves to our contemporaries in Europe, both
then and today. And so I really think that this
is something that Christians, whether Catholic were Protestant, should should emphasize.
And this is something I would also note that I
think Tokeville was getting at as well with his strong
(11:19):
argument that the degree to which clergy stayed aloof at
least somewhat from partisan politics also helps to explain the
strength of religion in the United States. And I think
that this is a conversation that needs to sort of
be re engaged in but I can elaborate on that further,
(11:40):
but I'll posit there for the time being.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Thank you, Thomas Well.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
I agree with Virginia that the mythos that she sketched
out as a very, very powerful in shaping the American understanding,
even among people who explicitly reputed you any kind of Christianity.
But I have to admit to be very troubled by
the idea that the United States has or could have
(12:13):
a universal mission. I don't. It seems to me this
is a confusion between the Church and a mere political entity,
and it escapes me how a political entity could have
such a mission, especially speaking as a Catholic, an entity
(12:33):
that is overwhelmingly Protestant in its population and more importantly
in its culture and its intellectual life has been extremely Protestant,
and Catholics have basically adapted to that. And this is
why it seems to me that the gigantic amount of
(12:56):
Catholic immigrants in the nineteenth century, even in the first
third of the twentieth century, if we had understood our
mission better, we would have seen it was to change
America culturally as well as in terms of individual religious commitment.
Change America culturally, so that we embraced a different myth,
(13:18):
a myth that was more in keeping with that was
in keeping with a Catholic understanding of how nations are
and how a nation cannot possibly take the place of
the Church. And George and your contribution to the volume,
you indicated you quoted another writer to the effect that
(13:38):
up into the mid fifties, Catholics who had a very
distinct understanding of themselves apart from the rest of the population.
You recall that quote, I'm sure, and I thought that
was very true, and you said, we've lost that, and
we even even in his heyday it wasn't as strong
as it could have been and should have been. But
(13:58):
totally now we've lost it completely, and so we've been
swallowed up in the various versions of the myth. And
I'm using the myth in the pejorative sense there of
that both the conservative block and the liberal block both
of myths about this country, and I would say that
neither myth is compatible with a royal Catholic understanding of
(14:24):
politics or culture.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Okay, thank you Christopher, the return.
Speaker 4 (14:32):
Thank you, Andrew. I find it interesting.
Speaker 7 (14:36):
I'm happy doctor Holly had brought up the diversity of
the American founding in terms of the actual colonization that
it was not simply we're not all descendants of the Puritans.
We're not all descendance of the Mayflower. My family came
a lot later. They were Conterman Lutheran immigrants who missionnized
the Chippewa. So yeah, I think that's very important and important,
(14:59):
especially because look at the Puritan establishment. It's much it's
very many ways similar to what would have been what
the Catholic establishment was in other parts of the world.
It was actually founded upon a revealed religion. It was
not pluralistic by any means, but it was proposed a
certain doctrine that one want to follow. I speak in
my essay of the United States having a civic religion,
(15:22):
and it might seem a strange thing to say, but
when we consider that any human proposition of human affairs
actually does carry implicit within it some theological assertions. Even
if the will he deny God, we're making making a
theological assertion. If we say that we can have a
(15:43):
social order that could be sound and and order to
the common good without a revealed religion, we're making a
theological assertion. So Mike, my sense of of is that
the American who of the religion actually does make a
(16:04):
proposition about civil society which is not in accord with
the traditions of the Catholic Church. And I think that
those traditions are found in the nineteenth century cycond goals
and even in the Second Vatican Council and in the
current Catechus with the Catholic Church.
Speaker 4 (16:21):
Okay, thank you.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
Now, I'd like to invite you to, you know, perhaps
ask questions of each other or comment further on each
other's presentations, if you could just raise your hand so
that I don't have you all speaking at once. Okay,
Virginia's first.
Speaker 5 (16:40):
Well, I'll response, since I was first to set down
a template here of myth, I'm influenced by the great
deal of historical research. Pitch my marks to my remarks
to you, George, the biblical influence, the influence of the
(17:00):
meeting houses, of the sermons. And yes, it's true there
were many different regional elements that entered into discussions of
what the revolution should be, of what the founding should be,
but all of them recurred to a biblical root. I
didn't say, I don't mean to suggest that there was
(17:22):
a great deal of piety, there was a falling off
and a reconnection, and a falling off and a reconnection,
and hence the great awakening. But the self understanding comes
from that code of command given by a creator who
gives us a law in concord with our natures to
(17:47):
owe to him our authority to rule ourselves. That consensus
comes from his authority. Those principles don't come from Protestantism.
They come from Catholicism. They come from Peter Damien in
the eleventh century, from John Fortescue in the fifteenth century.
The whole idea of the volks popely is prior to Protestantism,
(18:11):
and to the extent that the Protestant different hues of
it throughout America. That common religion that the Federalist papers
talk about, with its various offshoots, to the extent that
it understood itself as a people that could govern itself
in moderation under ordered liberty, those roots come from Catholicism.
(18:32):
They're not ex me hello with Protestantism. So I'll end that,
And so I hope that covers partly what you said, Christopher,
and also partly what you have said Andrew, I mean
not Andrew George.
Speaker 7 (18:47):
Sorry, Christopher respond to that, Yeah, I mean it's true
that in Protestantism one finds it much of Catholicism. If
they didn't find Catholicism and right, there would not be Christianity.
I think that's certainly the case. My problem, partisically with
(19:09):
the American proposition is not that it evoked God or
even an idea of the special destiny set up by God.
My problem is is that it's agnostic about God. It
doesn't have any sense of what teachings about God, who
he is, what he does, how he's interacted with humanity,
what he demands of us. None of those teachings are
(19:32):
considered to be authoritative. Every person is allowed to form
his own concept of God or have no concept of
God whatsoever.
Speaker 5 (19:40):
Yeah. If you look at the fundamental documents from the
earliest period, the Massachusetts Body of Liberties, it's straight out
of Deuteronomy. If that's not an indication of what man's
secondary place is to divine authority, I don't know what is.
Speaker 4 (19:56):
I don't think you understand what I'm saying here. My
point is that does not come down it might be
Christian in its influence in its form of basic formulation.
But nevertheless, it's not any particular Christian. In fact, it's
not really important to the American system that there be
a real view of religion or any particularly religion is correct.
(20:17):
It's the only thing that is important is that, at
least in the Felon in the early century, the early
part of the United States history, is that there be
a belief in God. But I don't think a belief
in God is sufficient for an understanding of I mean,
you know, even scripture. I mean scripture.
Speaker 7 (20:34):
Is we differ so much in our interpretations of the
scripture Protestants and Catholics and even Orthodox that.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
We're not actually.
Speaker 7 (20:45):
By evoking God and even evoking scripture, we're not coming
down the side of any particular religion. It's not important
to the American system that there be any particular religion
which is revealed.
Speaker 5 (20:56):
It's important that we forge a greet about how to
live the good life and how to be friends. That's
the political project, which is different than a theological project,
and how to live the good life together. Given the
pluralism that George pointed to, requires that we have the
right ordered relationship, the right hierarchy, so God, family, parents
(21:22):
over children, community, protecting those subsidiary institutions, but answering through
consensus to what the law is that moderates our differences.
It maybe doesn't define one brand of Christianity, but that
kind of consensus is Yes, it's a kind of as
John Courtney Murray puts into articles of peace, that we
(21:46):
have to forge in order to live together. Politically, we
can't hold a country to the standards of complete theological orthodoxy.
We can only expect, as your opening remarks suggests it, Andrew,
what can be done as a community as far as
possible towards the good.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
Yeah, but it seems to be that Virginia, that there's
one thing to say, Okay, in order to coexist, we
need to accept certain modes of behavior. Okay, that's arguable,
but that's not what I understood you to be saying,
and that's certainly not what the American myth has been saying.
(22:29):
We're celebrating ourselves as a webster quote that incremated, a
new error has begun in mankind, and that seems to
me just nonsense. And that you know that can be
that quote can be multiplied through many, many, many other coaches.
I'm sure you're aware. And so there's a difference between saying, okay,
we have to get along, and a difference is saying
(22:51):
we are the effigy of mankind.
Speaker 5 (22:57):
Well, the fact that we're committed to liberty is a
major accomplishment. That we understand that Aristotelian point of departure
when he talks in ethics, that we, in fact, in
exercising our reason, can choose to live virtuously or viciously,
(23:18):
and that possibility that pulls was central to how we
shaped our regime. Now, that might not be the highest standard.
It's not a standard that will absolutely get us to heaven,
but it will make it possible for a well ordered
regime that protects our liberties and choosing and aims. For
those of us, say who are Catholic and have that
(23:40):
gift of the repository of the full faith, it gives
us the opportunity to raise up the understanding of what
the end of the human life is. And so I
think that's a great good. It's a great good in
this world to have a regime committed to liberty under
moderation that comes from believing that there's a code of
(24:01):
behavior that comes from God and that we know it
in the natural law. That's pretty good considering the history
of regimes in the West or in the East, it's
pretty good.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (24:14):
I would just like to do a quick response or
perhaps quest for clarification from Thomas. I thought was he
said something I thought was quite interesting, and there's something
implied there I want to make sure I'm properly understanding.
And as you remember from my contribution, I argued that
sort of explicit anti Catholicism has really sort of diminished
(24:35):
in American life, and I list some reasons why I
think that's the case. But I thought Thomas was in
a way implying that one of the reasons why Catholics
are no longer viewed as threatening is because they've become
less threatening, that they've become so thoroughly assimilated into Americanism that,
you know, saying you're a Catholic rather than a Protestant
(24:55):
is perhaps as superficial as saying you prefer PEPSI rather
than coke. And I just want to make make sure
that I am properly understanding that, because I think that's
a very interesting argument. If I'm properly inferring what you're saying.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
Yes, yes, precisely exactly. Yeah, we're we're not regarded as
anything different, and so there's no reason to be afraid
of us anymore.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Yes, okay, any more comments on this, Yes, Christopher, Yeah,
I'm minded.
Speaker 7 (25:26):
In another context, Tom's aquinas says, man comes to truth
after much time, with much mixture error, without divine revelation.
So divine revelation he holds out. And the Church has
said this too, Sine revelation he holds out as necessary
even for coming to know natural truths we bring up
(25:46):
for a marriage, for instance, marriage in the institution of
the family, Well, one of the moral questions is do
we allow divorce or not? And that's a very important
question needs to be answered. But we have we have
our society in the United States proposes no source of
that by which we can actually come to an agreement
(26:08):
upon that, which would that we come to the truth
about that, except our own unaided intellect, which would come
to truth only after much time, with much mixture of error.
Speaker 4 (26:20):
I would the proposal seems to be.
Speaker 7 (26:24):
Doctor Arberry's proposal seems to be that it's not really
important that the Church be there as a moral guide
for society, that the churches exists as a moral guide
for individuals, and those individuals in turn influence society, but
that society doesn't have to recognize the true faith, and
so we can have a perfectly good social order without
(26:44):
the church.
Speaker 5 (26:45):
Well, the Reformation has already happened. I don't know how
we can even make the presupposition that it should have
been Catholic from the beginning, because the conditions weren't there.
I mean, this is just prudence. We have people that
aren't Catholic except a few in Maryland and a few
who tried to do it in Massachusetts, and we're driven out.
(27:07):
You know this, This is this is pie in the
sky thinking that we should be in charge, we can be.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
Interest I'm not arguing we should be.
Speaker 7 (27:19):
I'm not an integralist, so I mean, my esday I
actually come out against any.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
Okay.
Speaker 7 (27:26):
My point simply is is that whether it's the only
thing we can do or not, I think it is
the only thing we can do right now. Religious tolerance
is the only thing in our social which is possible.
But that shows there's something inherently degraded, I mean wrong
about our social worker. It's not something we can hold
up as an ideal but precisely what Leo the thirteenth said,
(27:48):
And there's a deeturnum, or we cannot hold up the
United States as the example of what society should be
in terms of relation to religion. So I mean true,
I mean I could be born with a crippling But
I could be born crippled. But I don't call that
(28:09):
as a good thing. It's the only thing I can
do being crippled. I can't function any other way except
in the matter of cripple. But yet I have to
recognize that it's a demerit. It's a problem for me.
Not a moral problem, obviously, but yet still something which
is deficient in me. I think we have to recognize
it that it's deficient in the American that's deficient in
the American system too, in which ms in terms of
(28:29):
its relation to God, in terms of relations to religion.
Speaker 5 (28:33):
You know, I wish Christopher. I don't know what some
of the rest of you think about polities that say
were in a world where there was uniformity of faith
under the authority and traditions of the Catholic faith. But
if we look back to them, the great critics of
living under a medieval polity where all were one are
(28:56):
Dante our Shawcer, we have Probleroblems when we have a
complete unanimity of both church and state and a unanimity
of faith, because people are fallen and that fallen nature
has to be accommodated somehow politically. And add to that
(29:18):
the fact that we have diverse understandings of what's that
Christian revelation is. And we get to sixteen twenty and
sixteen thirty and on through those early periods of America,
and I think we have to think of our obligation
as Catholics as revering what's good about the legacy, as
(29:41):
fractured as it was at the time of our pre
founding and founding, and to work toward perfecting that goal
of ordered liberty as best we can as communities of faith,
which many of the contributors to this volume volume have
said so beautifully right, the way that we associate ourselves
together in order to influence not only our own spiritual
(30:06):
formation but the countries. I mean, that's our job. We
have to restore all things in Christ. But I think
we're doing so in a country which is pretty good,
and I think the best in human history, and I
would die for it. I think we have to have
that kind of commitment to this country. And if we
don't as Catholics, if we're setting ourselves up as the
(30:28):
harshest critics, I think we do serious damage to the
possibilities for good politically and spiritually in this country.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
Well, if a Catholic hold, which we certainly ought, that hole,
the faith that's preached by the church is the food
Church is the true faith, the faith of Jesus Christ
and the Apostles, then obviously part of our mission is
to convert our foul countrymen as well as the best
(30:59):
of the world. And if we did manage to convert
our fallow countrymen, first of all, this religious pluralism that
you seem to think highly of Virginia would disappear. And
then secondly, if somehow we became all mostly Catholics in
this country, I think it would occur to us, Huh,
(31:20):
why should the government pretend that the Catholic of faith
is just irrelevant to the welfare of the country if
in fact all the citizens are the great majority thereof,
are convinced otherwise, it seems to be a contradiction to say, yeah,
as a private citizen, I'm a Catholic, but as a
(31:41):
public citizen, I'm an agnostic. And that's what America is
saying and has always been saying. Maybe the early puritance,
but otherwise are the national ethosis that as we take
part in public life, we have to pretend that there's
no true religion.
Speaker 5 (32:02):
I think you've polarized things and restating it. I'm sorry
to say, Thomas. I think we're as Catholics, we're citizens,
and we don't separate our private life from our public life.
We say, as much as we can, through rhetoric and persuasion,
(32:24):
change the discourse to the highest plane possible. That's our obligation.
That doesn't mean we separate the two. And I privately
hold one thing like John F. Kennedy and publicly say whatever.
I have to hold the public good to the highest
standard possible. But I have to be able to be heard.
I have to be able to persuade. So I have
(32:45):
to be aware of my audience. And that requires that
I not that I compromise, but that I think of
a way to be heard. And I don't think this
polarized rhetoric of the Catholics versus the deviant way of
Protestantism and its political path is fruitful. I don't think
(33:07):
it's fruitful. I don't think it'll achieve any ends. You
can hypothesize about what it would be if we were
all Catholic. Well, I wouldn't personally want to live under
some of the Catholic rulers that we've had in the past.
Maybe I would like to. I would love to have
had Charles of Austria, that holy holy man who's talked
about in the book and one of the authors of
(33:32):
his life, but even he was shoved out. We have
to do what we can with the order that we're
born into. And I think if we don't love the
order we're born into in its best features, we can't
change it. You can't be heard as an antagonist. You
have to be heard as a fellow citizen in friendship.
Speaker 7 (33:57):
Think it's interesting that you keep want to drag down
medieval Europe as a kind of a great mistake, and
I mean, I think it's I think it's actually astounding
because we would not you would not have the American
family even without Medieval Europe, the Catholic Church. And I
mean you bring up Dante. Dante's quarrel was not against
(34:20):
the confessional state. Dante's quarrel was again had to do
with the rich relations of emperor and pope, based upon
a kind of totalitary notion in his own head of
how things should be going, how should have behaved.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
So I do you, what would you think it a good.
Speaker 7 (34:37):
Thing if if America became Catholic and and the government
recognized the authority of the Catholic Church. It's a hypothetical,
I understand, but I think it's a it's a hypothetic
and clarified thought.
Speaker 5 (34:52):
I mean, I think we, as Augustine did when he
lived under Page in Rome, you you have to keep
in front of our view as citizens of the Kingdom
of God, that we're aiming to the City of God,
that we're aiming to, that we're in the city of Man,
(35:12):
and until then, until the perfection of the afterlife, we
have to work within. I don't think that there ever
will be a Catholic state here. I just it won't
happen in my lifetime. But I think is more likely
to happen as persecution and martyrdom, like Cardinal George says,
(35:34):
and in that regard, we will sanctify ourselves. But in
the meantime, we should defend the sources of America that
are both biblical and rooted in natural law, and which
can form in their essence to what the Church has
always upheld as central to political life, friendship under the
(35:58):
authority of God.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
But that's not what the Church is always upheld the
Church Leo thirteenth was very clear that when the state
tolerated error, even that was a defect that was only
excusable because of circumstances. So I don't think, I mean,
the Church is pretty clear that the ideal is not
(36:21):
what you were saying. The ideal is a Catholic state. Frankly, now,
I know that I agree with you. It's impossible here.
It's impossible. I don't foresee it ever happening here. But
that's not as Christopher said, that's not the point. The
point is is it a good thing? And that will
help clarify our thinking and perhaps restrain our celebration of
(36:43):
what I see as a rather flawed polity.
Speaker 8 (36:47):
I go back to Pulp Galacious before Leo at thirteen,
who said two swords there are the temporal and the spiritual,
and the state. Yes, should listen to the spiritual authority
when it is in spiritual matters. But the church and
its members should obey the laws of the state as
long as they do not conflict with the order of God.
(37:11):
And I think Geen that understands that.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
But that's of course, but that's not That's not the
point I was trying to make. The point was that
LEO is pretty clear and I don't I don't have
I could easily, but I'll have them out my fingertips
right now, that the state has a duty to recognize
the true religion.
Speaker 5 (37:32):
M hmm, well, I mean absolutely.
Speaker 3 (37:36):
Speaking, and we're speaking, you know, absolutely speaking.
Speaker 5 (37:39):
So do you think Tom, did you go by Thomas
or Tom Tom Thomas Thomas? Do you think that until
the state does that, we should be malcontents and critique it?
I mean, should we just be sitting here saying the
United States is flawed because it doesn't recognize the Church's
(38:01):
authority over it. And that's what kind of engagement is
possible with that proviso? I can I could agree, you know,
theoretically with LEO the thirteenth, but practically what does that mean?
Speaker 3 (38:17):
Well, it would depend I mean, as you're probably aware of,
people like Paul Blanchard back in the late forties said well,
Caltholics are taking advantage of the of the tolerant and pluralism,
but when they get in charge, they're going to impose
a Caltholic state. Well there's some trick to that, but
it's not exactly why Blanchard thought. But yeah, I don't
(38:40):
think we should hide. I don't think we should hide
what we believe. But on the other hand, we don't
have to ground hitting people in a hiddle with it
all the time either.
Speaker 6 (38:51):
George pa I admit I am an outlier on this
call in for two reasons. One as the as the
Protestant group, and also my background is not in a
philosophy or theology, but as an empirical social scientist. So
my question that I always have when people say we need,
you know, to fundamentally rethink, you know, the foundations of
(39:13):
American government, I always my question is always comes to
who provides the better model. No one on this call
has done so, but I've known a number of you know,
Orthodox Catholics who have spoken admiring of people like say
Francisco Franco, who did you know, uh, you know, create
a kind of superficial Catholic Spain that survived to his lifetime,
(39:34):
and then as soon as the thumb came off the scale,
they began a really shocking, you know, a rapid secularization.
And so I guess my question would be, you know,
to the extent that we have an existing model of
somebody who has gotten it right in say, the last
two hundred years, who had who whether Catholic or Protestant,
(39:55):
or whoever, has done a better job than the United
States and trying to create the type of social order
that we would like to see, and that I think
until that question is answered, it feels all very abstract
to me.
Speaker 7 (40:09):
Well, to a certain way, it is abstract because the
question one has to first ask in political theory is
what is what is the nature of the state, what.
Speaker 4 (40:21):
Is its purpose or end?
Speaker 7 (40:23):
And how do we The next questions, of course, of
how do you realize that, what is the relationship of
the state to God? What is the relationship of the
government to the people. All those different questions have to
be answered, and they might not actually fit any particular
regime when you get the right answer, but it's important
for the clarification of thought in order to have that
correct and to be in not to be an error
(40:45):
about things. Morality applies not just to individuals. It's a
certain tendency I think. I see you think of morality
as particular. Sexual morality applies to individuals, it applies also
to our life in common are the social life is mad.
So if we're going to have know what's right and wrong,
(41:06):
we have to know what's right and wrong, not simply
for each individual. We have to know what's right and
wrong for the state. And so we have to when
you first answer that, when you when you address that question,
that's going to be abstract in a certain sense. And
I can't I'm not propose to you what there was not.
I don't think there's been a good Catholic state in
the past couple two d years or so. But historically,
(41:29):
I mean that's it's because of lots of different reasons.
There's a lot of different reasons why that was the case.
And Tranco of Spain was not united as a Catholic
place was. It was divided between Catholics and non in
any case is anti Catholics. So his mode of trying
to produce uniformity was wrong in my opinion, and I
would not propose I would not propose anything, any kind
(41:51):
of violent Catholic takeover this country. I agree that we
ought to work in the system as it is. We
have to affirm the Constitution. We have to be an
example to our fellow citizens of true patriots. But it
doesn't mean in the same time we have to talk
the Nithols.
Speaker 5 (42:13):
I knew those folks just by the way. I'm old
enough to know Willielmson and the Bozell's. I taught some
of the Bozell children. I remember when they came back
from Spain and they wore red capes and they were
going to learn everything. You know the Triumph magazine. Oh,
I just I love them all. I love them all.
(42:35):
But it was a joke. It was not anything that
was going to change America or remind America of what
it could be, or should have been, or ought to be.
It didn't make any difference except as a kind of
lovely lore that you would talk about over Scotch and cigarettes.
It's just we have to preserve what's decent. We can't
(43:00):
expect a kind of world in which what we have
is unanimity. At this point. We can convert, we can
do all those things. But I think we really ought
to understand our constitution. That's our job as Catholics right
now is to hold people to the constitution, all of them, Trump,
(43:23):
the left, everybody. And that's our job because it's a
pretty good constitution and it conforms to an understanding of
the right order of the soul. It understands what possible politically.
That's our job. And I love that we study the
social encyclicals. We do it here. We would love for
(43:45):
those things to be instantiated in our regime, but we
have little to say. It seems to me at the
table as Catholics, if we don't first understand the form
and appreciate it for what it is.
Speaker 4 (44:00):
I must must protest.
Speaker 5 (44:02):
I think this morning.
Speaker 7 (44:06):
Well, it's fine, I don't mind people being ornery, and
I must say, George over here is the only person
with good manners.
Speaker 4 (44:12):
He raises his hand.
Speaker 5 (44:14):
Oh, I'm just not used to doing that anymore.
Speaker 7 (44:20):
But I do think you make a character of our
position by making us like the Bozell children coming back
with red capes. That's not what we're proposing at all.
In fact, what I propose in my essay in the
book is something very different or anything like that. And
people want to know what that is. They can buy
the book. But I think you're not You're not actually
(44:40):
engaging what we're really saying. I think neither Tom nor
I and certainly not George here are saying we have
to just go all nineteenth century on people, that we
have to go with Franco on people. I think we're
saying we do have to engage as society as it is,
but that we are at the same time have to
have the writ underst what the society is and what
(45:01):
it's good. I mean, it seems to me if we
understand the nature of human society, what's good for human society,
then we're going to have a better idea of how
to actually help direct our own society. We have an
idea of the good in the end, and so that
requires that we have to be realistic about the country too,
that it's not the city on the hill. I think
(45:25):
I think it's a kind of appalling to think our
country is a city in the hill, given so many
things that have happened, especially in the past year, that
we and our foreign policy, I think we have a
Catholic sense would redirect our our try to redirect our
elected officials from many of the policies which have been
(45:46):
pursued not just in the past year, but for the
past twenty thirty, forty fifty years even more. And yes,
that requires, first of all, a true understanding of what
the whole point the existence of what the state is
ordered to, what is the common good. It's not my
position would be, it's not word, it's liberty, it's order
(46:06):
to the common good. So that's what I'm I think
we're trying, I guess I'm trying to get across, is
that we have to understand things in their essence first
before we can actually act properly.
Speaker 3 (46:21):
What I find in troubling mostly, and I try to
be brief here, is it seems to me, Virginia, you're
saying two things and not distinguishing between them. One is
saying we have to by the Constitution and in order
to get along with our fellow citizens, and I would
agree with you on that. And the other is you're
(46:42):
as you're extolling the Constitution as being in accord with
human nature and basically extolling the American project as being
kind of enough potheosis of human nature. Those are two
different assertions, and it seems to have been they require
two different kinds of arguments in order to justify them.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
Yes, Virginia, please thank you.
Speaker 5 (47:05):
Andrew. I apologize. I'm writing a book on decorum, so
I feel chastened.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 4 (47:15):
I was talking about the common me too.
Speaker 5 (47:17):
I'm sorry. I really I agree with everything you said, Christopher.
I think, you know, at base, if we don't have
the right anthropology, if we don't understand, uh, the order
of the soul and the relation of the soul is
as imprinted with the image of God. If we don't
understand those things, we can't have a good regime. But yes,
(47:40):
and it's true as well Thomas, that one would have
to show how the Constitution conforms to this right order
the soul, and I think it does. I've studied it
quite a bit. I think it conforms to natural law,
and it shows the difference between the few and the many,
the higher parts of the soul the lower, moderating both
the ambition of the few and the appetites of the many.
(48:03):
It has a structure that looks to the kind of
harmony in friendship that is a good political end. So
you know, yeah, I think we have to have the
right anthropology.
Speaker 3 (48:17):
We have to have the right.
Speaker 5 (48:19):
Understanding of what our relationships should be socially, and ultimately
there has to be a telos as well. And I
don't think liberty, if I could make a little correction
in my understanding, at least to Christopher, I don't think
liberty is at odds with the common good. I think
liberty is of the essence of the human good, but
(48:41):
it has to be rightly ordered so that it serves
the common good.
Speaker 2 (48:47):
George Howling.
Speaker 6 (48:48):
Since Virginia brought up Bazill, I want to see what
people their thoughts are on Bizell's great sort of antagonist
within the conservative movement, which would be Frank Meyer, who
also he waited till his deathbed, but did ultimately become
a Catholic. And his rejoinder to people like Bizill was
that we really shouldn't that we should actually consider liberty
(49:09):
a key element of the good and the virtuous life,
because the key piece of his fusionist philosophy was that liberty,
unless it is chosen freely, is not excuse me, virtue,
and that is not chosen freely is not true virtue.
It can only be life under totalitarianism, and so you
cannot actually get to a good and virtuous society unless
(49:31):
you have one in which there is at least a
certain baseline of individual liberty. Is that considered at odds
with Catholic teaching. I'm asking that just out of curiosity,
because again I'm not coming out.
Speaker 2 (49:42):
Of okay, Christopher.
Speaker 7 (49:44):
First, I want to clarify when I when I criticize
liberty as the end of the social I'm not saying
liberty is not Is it not in any way.
Speaker 4 (49:55):
Important for the common good? Yeah?
Speaker 7 (49:59):
But I would look upon it if you mean by
liberty individual self determination, If you mean by liberty that
which I think is what our countrymen actually mean when
they say liberty. What we're saying that that individual self
determination is an instrumental good. It's important, for instance, to
give your children a certain amount of liberties they learn
how to be virtuous. You don't want to be constantly
(50:21):
telling them what to do. They should be able to
make choices. That's a way of becoming virtuous. But if
you have a but liberty as considered as an end
the purpose of human life, at least the purpose of
social life is I don't think it's in accord with
least traditional Catholic philosophical tradition of politics. Okay, thollas, Yeah,
(50:43):
whether we fly to Georgia.
Speaker 3 (50:45):
I think that the way this question is commonly put
is in fact in fallacy, because it implies that there
is either some kind of thetalitarian regimentation or a kind
of a liberty. The way Christopher was talking in the
name way, everyone's comings up with his own ideas. But
(51:06):
in the Caunthol, in a well ordered Catholic state, it
was not that way at all. It was that the
state would well, of course, restricting or prohibiting extreme evils,
as as Saint Thomas said, it would guide, It would
guide a person toward better things. It wouldn't take a
neutral stance on these things. So to say that we
(51:29):
either have to have a totalitarian regime of some kind
or a liberal regime is a false economy. There are
many things in many ways in between of handling this,
and I personally it seems to me that the constant
invocation of liberty by Americans is the highest local good
(51:49):
is is simply an error. The highest good is justice,
not at liberty. And I find it puzzling that Catholics
would would join in the constant invocation of liberty.
Speaker 2 (52:06):
Could I raise something. Oh I'm sorry, Virginia, you got
something to Two of the essays in this book Catholics
and the American Policy deal at some length with economics,
but only two, which I find a bit surprising. But
isn't that an important part of what Catholics should be
(52:27):
talking about when they participate in American politics and any
comments on that. I mean, the church's social teaching has
a lot to say about economics.
Speaker 3 (52:38):
Well, that's that's one of the one of the I
think it was Thomas Molnar said that when America's talking
about liberty, what they ruined me is the liberty to
get rich, and that's hardly in accord with any kind
of Catholic tradition.
Speaker 2 (52:52):
Oh yeah, Virginia, I believe you have.
Speaker 5 (52:55):
Well, we just keep throwing down bombs to each other,
don't we. We can know every one of these paths.
That could have a lively conversation. But on the point
of liberty and economics too. Our earliest understanding of liberty
(53:15):
tethers it to duty. It does not have an open
ended self determination as its definition. Winthrop gives us a
definition that then is taken up by John Paul the
Second that liberty is to do what one ought, not
to do what one list, and that kind of liberty
(53:37):
immediately grounds our choices in the direction and guidance that
you're talking about, Christopher on economics, I'm very concerned about many.
Speaker 3 (53:48):
Of the.
Speaker 5 (53:51):
Well, shall we say, evils of corporate America and this
great divide between the rich and the poor, and many
of the things that John Madai and others, my friend
from graduate school, you know, talk about, and we have
to address those, and we have to address them, you know,
(54:11):
with the guidance of the Church, and it's one of
the things we teach at our college. But on the
other hand, I don't think the solution, and this is
another direction. I don't know if we want to go here,
is distributivism or in any way limiting to the point
that we would discourage private property, the possibility of industriousness
(54:35):
and initiative and all those things that Sam greg and
others at the act and Institute talk about. I mean,
it's a fine line here. I don't know exactly. I'm
not an expert, but I recognize the problem of injustice,
but I also see the virtue of letting people have
the ability through their diverse faculties and unequal faculties, as
(54:58):
Madison puts it in number ten too, to acquire property.
But but it is a problem, and I think Catholics
have to do a better job addressing it.
Speaker 7 (55:07):
Christopher, did you have a comment on that or yeah too,
just briefly, Yeah, liberty is to do it went on,
But that's not what our society thinks it is. And
and in terms of proposing as the end of society
and the purpose of government is to assure the ratest
amount of liberty possible with consideration considerable consideration of the
(55:33):
public order, is not I mean, that's I don't think
that's it's an all sound. That's a it's a it's
a it's a it's a ordering is to say that
the private good is pre eminent over the common good.
In terms of the economic questions, I think the economic
social teaching of the Catholic Church is one of the
(55:55):
best ways we can actually engage our fellow citizens the
United States, because the Church actually proposes things not necessarily
based upon diviner relation, but guided by diviner relation and
understanding what natural law is on these matters. The Church
makes so many good proposals and important proposals that it's
that should be our contribution. Unfortunately, it's often not our
(56:16):
contribution because we're so caught up in one side or
the other, either leftist or ritis for conservators or liberals,
and we're not looking at the actual fount of wisdom here,
which would be the Catholic social teaching.
Speaker 2 (56:31):
I believe we're getting towards the end of our time,
Is that right? Any final comments from anyone? Now, thank
you very much for your.
Speaker 3 (56:42):
I would love to hear what George says witnessing a
number of Catholics and contentions and contestations here.
Speaker 6 (56:52):
Oh, you know, being old stock, you know pure it's
an American going way back. I am not pretty much
a big fan of American capitalism and do not see
it in any way at odds with fundamental Christian teachings.
But I'm coming from a very different theological perspective. Thus,
I don't know that it would be a particularly fruitful
(57:13):
debate to begin engaging in that in our last thirty seconds.
Speaker 3 (57:18):
No, I would think more just a sociological comment on.
Speaker 6 (57:22):
Catholics, oh, about the status of Catholics. I mean, oh,
I mean the argument that I made is that I
think you know, Catholics have made great strides over the
last two hundred years, and I just think that they
should be proud of the role that they play in
the American life, and particularly on the American right, where
they've essentially created the post war American conservative movement.
Speaker 5 (57:46):
Yeah, I mean I knew Russell Kirk. I loved him.
I loved his guidance about the roots of the American order,
and he's celebrated those British roots, those Roman roots. And
in no way could you call him a deviant Catholic
or less than Catholic. I mean, he and Kendall and Buckley.
(58:09):
To them, we owe a kind of what I would
say participatory Catholicism that has shaped intellectually a good anthropology
from which to understand America.
Speaker 2 (58:25):
Very well, well, thank you very much to all of you.
I think this shows how much diversity of opinion there
actually is among Catholics and certainly among Christians on these issues.
And again we recommend that you read the twenty five
contributions to Catholics in the American Polity and you will
see what a broad spectrum of opinion there really is. There.
(58:49):
Can I ask Thomas to say a closing prayer.
Speaker 3 (58:53):
Yes, we'll say Hail Mary's or lady the name of
Father's and spirit. I mean heil Mary, full of grace,
laws with the blesser of the among women, and blessed
is the fruit of life of Jesus, Oi Mary, Mother
of God. Brayfuss.
Speaker 4 (59:07):
There is now our death. Amen, whisper. Thank you very much,
all God bless thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 5 (59:19):
George, thank you so much. Thomas Christopher, Thomas, George Nice
to Meetchell Nice for.
Speaker 1 (59:28):
Hello, God's Beloved. I'm Annabel Mosley, author, professor of theology
and host of then Sings My Soul and Destination Sainthood
on w c AT Radio. I invite you to listen
in and find inspiration along this sacred journey. We're traveling
together to make our lives a masterpiece and with God's grace,
(59:50):
become saints. Join me Annabel Moseley for then Sings My
Soul and Destination Sainthood on w c AT Radio. God
bless you. Remember you are never alone. God is always
my friend.
Speaker 2 (01:00:10):
Thank you for listening to a production of WCAT Radio.
Please join us in our mission of evangelization and don't forget.
Love lifts up where knowledge takes flight
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