Exposing the Bogus Democracies

by Joseph Pearce

In the United States the progressive erosion of the rights of individual states and the consequent rise in the power of the federal government in Washington has caused widespread concern. It is a classic example of the usurpation of democratic function by the larger institution to the detriment of the democratic functions of the smaller. James Buchanan, the American Nobel Prize-winning economist, suggested at a conference on constitutional issues in Paris in 1989 that the United States had evolved into a single state not much different from other centralized states, and that the Founding Fathers could never have believed that the concept of federalism would degenerate to produce such a centralized leviathan.

In similar fashion, Europe in its movement towards federalism is proceeding along the same centralist lines as America. The changing role of the European Union is reflected in the changing of its name over the years. It began as the Common Market, then became the European Economic Community, then simply the European Community, and now it calls itself the European Union. The tendency towards tighter control from the centre is obvious and has been disguised over the years by what looks suspiciously like the artful and deceptive employment of Orwellian newspeak.

When Britons were asked to vote in a referendum on whether the United Kingdom should sign up to the Treaty of Rome they were told that they were simply joining a `common market’. Questions of sovereignty or political interference in domestic affairs were not an issue because, according to the pro-marketeers, they were voting only to join a free trade agreement that would have economic benefits. It is very likely that the electorate would not have voted to join if they were told that they would be signing away sovereignty and political power to a supra-national body based in Brussels. Since there have been no subsequent referenda, there is no democratic mandate for many of the developments in the quarter of a century since Britain joined.

When the Guardian lodged a case before the European Court of Justice in August 1994 complaining of the secrecy in which European decisions were taken, lawyers for the European Council of Ministers responded by stating to the judges that `there is no principle of community law which gives citizens the right to EU documents’. The lawyers went on to claim that the heads of national governments also had no right to insist on more openness in EU affairs because their declarations were `not binding on the community institutions’.

With so much closed government and high-level secrecy it was almost inevitable that the European Commission would eventually be rocked by financial scandal. In March 1999 the entire Commission was forced to resign after widespread fraud and corruption were exposed. Perhaps, with the timely reminder of Lord Acton’s words that `power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely’, one might have expected calls for the decentralization of power away from the Commission. Instead, less than six months later, there was a call for a massive extension of EU powers into the sphere of criminal law so that `EU offences’ such as multi-billion-dollar fraud could be tackled more efficiently. The extension of EU powers into the field of criminal law will inevitably entail harmonization of national legal procedures, signifying another step towards the European superstate. Thankfully the rejection of the centralist EU Constitution by France and the Netherlands in May and June 2005 illustrates a popular backlash against the EU macro-monster.

Similarly, a European single currency will obviously have effects far beyond the sphere of the economy. It will have to be managed centrally, which will necessitate the principal economic strategy for each member state being determined centrally. Consequently, the ability of national governments to direct economic policy in tune with the wishes of their electorates will be weakened considerably, if not actually eliminated. Although leading members of the Confederation of British Industry, which principally represents big business, called for early entry into the single currency at its annual conference in October 1999, it is significant that the Federation of Small Businesses is much less enthusiastic. The FSB has come out unequivocally against European monetary union, as its manifesto makes clear: ” The FSB is opposed to monetary union and a single currency and believes that such a move would strip the UK of a fundamental aspect of its national sovereignty.”

The fact that the CBI, the representative of big business, is far happier with developments within the European Union than is the Federation of Small Businesses is highly illuminating. It seems that big business is able to establish a modus vivendi with big government, whereas small business sees largescale government as intrusive and uncaring. Macro-economics and macro-politics can work in partnership, steamrollering the needs and aspirations of small businesses in the process. This was evident from the section on `Small Businesses and Europe’ in the FSB’s manifesto, which stressed that `the mounting burden of EU regulation has hit the small firms sector very badly’.

Clearly the macro-democracy envisaged by the European Union is diametrically opposed to any true or meaningful notion of what is democratic. The enlarged European Union of thirty states will have a population of half a billion, twice as many as the United States. It will be governed in practice, as it is now, by an unelected Commission which, if the EU’s recommendations are accepted, will be given even greater powers. Members of the European Parliament, the `democratic’ institution intended to oversee the Commission, already represent huge constituencies. Under the new proposals these constituencies will be made even larger so that a single MEP will `represent’ more than a million voters. Can such a system be called `democratic’ in any meaningful or practical sense? Is it not merely a `Democratic’ Dictatorship?

Far from relinquishing more power to an increasingly remote centre, true subsidiarity and democracy requires that many functions of society be devolved to local and regional authorities. A robust and healthy society consists of families and local communities. These are the real building blocks, the micro-models upon which wider society is built. As such, it is vital that local communities not only survive but prosper. If they are not to be swept up into ever larger conurbations, they must have access to, and control of, local amenities. For example, there should be a proliferation of small and medium-sized community hospitals capable of treating commonplace illnesses. Centralization should only be necessary for highly sophisticated and specialized medical services.

Similarly, with regard to education, there should be a proliferation of small and medium-sized schools. These should be at the heart of local communities and largely administered by them. Subsidiarity in the field of education must mean that families enjoy a large measure of control over the running of schools. Government of the education system by nationally controlled `experts’ should be replaced by government by a combination of local authorities, teachers and parents. Where the education of children is concerned parents and teachers are the real experts, not politicians or civil servants.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, politicians and civil servants beg to differ. In March 2001, the Belgian finance minister, Didier Reynders, called for an extension of power to the twelve finance ministers within the EU so that they could centrally `coordinate’ education and health spending within the euro-bloc.

These examples have been given to illustrate the genuine democratic choice facing society. On one hand there is the move towards the centrally controlled democracy of large areas. On the other there is the alternative offered by decentralized democracy. It is a choice between macro-democracies where power is distant and often serves powerful vested interests, and micro-democracies where human affairs are dealt with on a human scale. In this, as in so much else, it is a struggle between big is best and small is beautiful.

Small is Still Beautiful

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A Review of The American Myth of Religious Freedom

by Matthew Anger

Americans must face a hard truth. The state of Florida put Terri Schiavo to death.
-Pat Buchanan

"There's room to wonder whether the bishops fully understand the risk they run.... Their efforts reflect a lack of understanding as to just how delicate the balance between church and state is in regard to the Catholic church in America. The Roman Catholic church, it needs to be remembered, is quite literally an un-American institution. It is not democratic. The church's views ... are sharply at odds with those that inform the laws of American secular society. And its principal policies are established by the Vatican in Rome."
-David Boldt Philadelphia Inquirer

SUMMARY: "There is no such thing as religious freedom, and the reason that such an assertion sounds so shocking is that we have been completely formed by the American myth."

Kenneth Craycraft's American Myth of Religious Freedom offers a long overdue Catholic appraisal of Church-State relations. It also represents a paradigm shift among conservative thinkers outside those traditionalist circles that have hitherto been most vocal on this taboo subject. Craycraft is the first non-traditionalist to break ranks and enunciate a thorough and appropriately merciless critique of the whole notion of "religious liberty." The concluding remarks of the book (p.164) leave little room for second-guessing:

There is no such thing as religious freedom, and the reason that such an assertion sounds so shocking is that we have been completely formed by the American myth.

This position was arrived at by Craycraft as part of a reassessment, in the 1980s and early `90s, of the writings of John Courtney Murray, S J. Best known for his treatise, We Hold These Truths, Fr. Murray was unquestionably the prime architect of the Second Vatican Council's Declaration on Religious Liberty (Dignitatis Humanae). Given the now "mainstream" status of indifferentism in Church-State relations, it is not surprising that Craycraft's forthright discussion caused heated controversy within the neoconservative Catholic camp. This clique comprises men like George Weigel, Michael Novak, and Richard John Neuhaus, S.J. Their typically pedantic reaction merely proves how wedded the dominant Catholic bloc is to an ideology which seeks to reconcile the irreconcilables of Americanist dogma and Church doctrine.

Synopsis of the Work

The American Myth presents a closely reasoned treatise which negates decades of sentimental talk about a supposedly Christian understanding of the "religious liberty" precept of the First Amendment. Craycraft's analysis runs the gamut of recent political studies, precedent-setting court decisions, and the question of the Founders' intent, and includes discussion of Jefferson, Madison, and the formative ideas of English secularist philosopher John Locke.

The sections of the book that stand out most for their clarity and vigor are those directly treating the problem of secular American politics and ideology. Ironically, the sections which prove difficult are those which attempt an orthodox interpretation on the current Vatican response to religious liberty. Given the intellectual power of the work and its potentially pivotal role in genuine conservative thought at the turn of the Millennium, one almost hesitates to criticize The American Myth, yet the difficulties of the book cannot be conveniently shuffled aside. Nevertheless, the murky ambiguities of Vatican II are far from the most interesting or momentous aspects of Craycraft's book.

Secularization in Practice

Craycraft has a keen sense of what priorities will most impress the reader. He starts with important court decisions and well-publicized controversies over issues of traditional religion and the doctrine of “tolerance." The author presents the fruits of religious liberty. Then, having made clear the overwhelming juridical and mainstream ethical bias against orthodox belief, he traces these fruits to the source which begat them.

Among the many court cases under consideration, the most striking is the Alabama school prayer case of Wallace v. Jaffre (1985). Herein, Justice John Paul Stevens made explicit the otherwise implicit opposition of the secularist state to revealed religion. It is worth citing at length, since Craycraft deems it of tremendous importance:

The individual's freedom to choose his own creed is the counterpart of his right to refrain from accept­ing the creed established by the majority. The Court has unambiguously concluded that the individual freedom of conscience protected by the First Amendment embraces the right to select any reli­gious faith or none at all. This conclusion derives support not only from the interest in respecting the individual's freedom of conscience, but also from the conviction that religious beliefs worthy of respect are the product of a free and voluntary choice of the faithful [author's emphasis].

Craycraft says this is the key to deciphering the myth of religious liberty. Only "voluntary" creeds are "worthy of belief." It is the underlying raison d'être of Americanist religious thinking.

Adapting the terminology of Michael Sandel, who has studied national judicial activity in some detail, Craycraft explains that according to the Americanist concept of religious pluralism, individual rights stand paramount to any religious system. Liberalism not only rejects, but cannot even begin to contemplate, the idea that a person receives his religious and moral convictions from some outside agency (which, of course, would include God's direct action by means of supernatural grace). Thus Liberalism speaks of people in a free society as "unencumbered selves." In order for a religious experience to be "authentic" it must completely free and subjective. By contrast, "encumbered" selves (orthodox believers) can have no proper standing under the law, both as originally conceived in the First Amendment and as enacted in everyday court decisions. That is because the Catholic, for example, takes his moral guidance from a transcendent authority-a source which the secularist state does not acknowledge.

If the state does grant concessions (which it certainly does), these are only exceptions to the rule. They are pragmatic means of avoiding tension and maintaining the peace, and nothing else. One example is the exceptional ruling in favor of an Amish farmer in Wisconsin who violated that state's law on mandatory schooling for children up to the age of fifteen (Wisconsin v. Yoder, 1972). The sensible deduction from this case, and others like it, is that the state can permit exemptions to an essentially non­threatening sect like the Amish which does not challenge the federal policy of religious neutralization. As the late Allan Bloom observed, the majority of Americans who practice a form of nominal Protestantism have essentially "ceased to be Christian." Bloom believes, with good reason, that "most Americans who think that they are Christians truly are something else, intensely religious but devout in the American Religion."

In truth, Americans practice a religion that has little resemblance to historical Christianity and instead embodies Gnosticism, radical personal autonomy, and salvation unmediated by the Church. The result is that the majority pose no significant threat to the doctrine of the "unencumbered self," while traditional religious groups, both Catholic and non-Catholic, are marginalized. Though Craycraft does not say so, this marginalization of native Catholicism is presently carried out through neomodernist clerics and lay leaders who have effectively turned the faith into a "voluntary creed," though the faith being what it is, tensions are not completely eradicated, nor will they ever be. Hence, Craycraft notes the furor which erupted over Cardinal O'Connor's 1990 declaration in favor of excommunicating public figures who supported abortion. The media, representing the broad political consensus, charged that the Church was meddling in politics by pressuring Catholic politicians to adopt a stance in line with its teaching. Hence O'Connor was placing the Church above the democratic process and thereby acting in an un-American manner. These charges are no different in essence from the violent anti-Catholic Know-Nothingism of the 19th century. It is further proof of Craycraft's thesis. Revealed doctrine cannot be reconciled to a liberal theory which, on the one hand, claims religious freedom yet sets the standards for which religions are deserving of that freedom. Absolute and universal tolerance does not exist.

The Meaning of Myth

Perhaps no greater service can be done today than to warn Catholics against adopting the cultural constructs and language of their opponents. Sadly, it is something they have done for many generations, and most especially since the 1960s. Such intellectual compromise is a surer means of defeat than the most violent assault by external enemies. Craycraft is merely echoing the admonition of Dr. John Rao's brilliant essay "Why Catholics Cannot Defend Themselves." According to both men, conservatives are doomed to defeat when they try to "out-liberal" the liberals. The real coup takes place when the secularist forces his enemy to embrace the superficial definition of a word such as "tolerance," which has different definitions according to the object towards which it is applied. Conservatives are forced to be lenient towards liberal error even as liberals suppress traditional beliefs. The former accept pluralism at face value, as if it were really possible to achieve a sublime mediocrity in which everyone practices different beliefs yet agrees on some set of "common values" which allows them to live in peace. Of course, the inherent contradictions of such a middle-of-the road position are obvious. One can no more take a stand on a vague secular ethical consensus than one can take a stand in mid air.

Despite the manifold evidence such as Craycraft provides, people will claim that daily hostility to organized religion on the part of judicial and legislative officials is actually a betrayal of the Founders' original intention. They say that "separation of Church and State" means "liberty for religion," not "from religion." It is, supposedly, the true genius of the pluralistic philosophy. Before proceeding to prove that active secularization was the foundational intent, Craycraft discusses the point which is really at the heart of the decades-long debate over Church-State relations: the pluralist myth which makes misperception on the part of conservatives possible.

A myth, says Craycraft, can be understood in two ways. First, as the ancient idea of mythos, which is a set of rites, symbols and institutions that sustain a particular community. These things may not be absolutely true in themselves, but do point to some greater underlying truth about a society. The other definition of myth is something false and deliberately deceptive. For Craycraft the American experiment in religious liberty is a myth in both senses.

It is a myth insofar as, despite its claims, the liberal idea of religious liberty as canalized in the First Amendment is a particular and exclusive understanding of religion, a particular story of what we Americans think - or ought to think - about religion and society. And it is a myth in the more popular sense that, insofar as it claims to protect religious freedom in its full and authentic sense, it is simply not true. Rather than protect authentic freedom of religious thought and practice...the American myth has given rise to a set of symbols, rites, and institutions which always subject religion to itself, and often positively hinder religious practice....The American attempt to overcome political religious myth-making has not succeeded because it cannot succeed.

Based on this conclusion, the author categorically denies each of the following propositions: 1) the founding of the United States was essentially religious, and guided by Christian principles; 2) that even if strongly secular, the state affords an equal degree of security to religious and non-religious people alike; 3) that religious liberty is an obtainable arrangement in any society; and 4) that religious believers are best off in a regime which propagates religious indifference, or that such a regime is itself merely an enlightened product of Christianity. On the contrary, the only definition of religious liberty in American political discourse is one that marginalizes, if not eradicates as a significant presence, orthodox religious belief. The American story is not interested in explicitly persecuting Christianity. Toleration is a much more effective means, especially if the liberal regime is successful in enlisting the support of Christians.

Founders' Intent

Craycraft tells us that the drive to invalidate orthodox belief ("encumbered self") and the gradual co-option and neutralization of religion are not new developments. The two men credited for creating and nurturing this doctrine in its American context are Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Their mentor was the English rationalist philosopher John Locke.

Madison's role, though consequential, is not as well-known. As for Jefferson, it is astonishing how any conservative can contend that the man was "religious" (in the Christian understanding of the word). Devout Protestants of the day cursed the Unitarian statesman is an "atheist." Jefferson reciprocated by damning all forms of revealed religion as moribund myth-making. Of the Catholic Church in particular he spoke of meddling priests and "monkish ignorance." Suffice it to say, the lasting accomplishment of the Virginia Deist in American politics, and the one he most wished to be remembered for, was the Virginia Statute on Religious Liberty. This law was the prologue to the First Amendment.

James Madison's influence was at least as decisive is Jefferson's. He not only supported the secularist belief which underlies religious liberty but, more importantly, he used his mastery of the language to hat religious neutralization on a people which, Craycraft believes, still regarded themselves as essentially Christian. Madison advanced the secularist position in his famous Memorial and Remonstrance of 1785 (which opposed Patrick Henry's proposal of tax­-funded religious institutions) and in the columns of the influential Federalist Papers.

Craycraft notes Madison's deliberate irony on religious matters. In this he was following the lead of John Locke (whose notions of widespread "religious tolerance" included no clemency for the suffering English Catholics of his time). The making of the Americanist myth is fully at work in Madison's career. He knew that any proposition must not be too bluntly stated lest it rouse the latent opposition of the mass of icing and nominal Protestants. Therefore he carefully couched his terms so they would settle portably in his listeners' ears while still achieving be ubdmate aim. In the end, explains Craycraft, Madison's delicacy and patience won out over the short-lived opposition of his more religious-minded compatriots.

Some have stubbornly maintained that what Madison and others were aiming at was not a negation of Christianity, but simply "articles of peace" which would provide religious neutrality and avoid the sort of bloody conflicts which had so long ravaged Europe. Yet, as regards the Virginia politician's intent, there can be no doubt. If his well-known writings are not clear enough, we have access to his unpublished "Detached Memoranda" (made public in 1946). According to Craycraft, these "betray Madison's explicit hostility to institutional Christianity, and further reveal the theological and religious presuppositions behind his public documents." In his private writings he admits that he does not simply wish to "disestablish religion," but to actively curb and monitor it by taxing religious bodies so as to limit property-ownership to a bare minimum. By such means Liberalism would truly equalize religious opinions, physically as well as legally. For all of the fine distinctions between the American revolutionaries and the French, it was a scheme worthy of Robespierre.

Not Liberty But Neutralization

Madison's ideas dovetailed nicely with Jefferson's belief that the ideal moral framework is one in which there is a vast proliferation of inconsequential sects and independent churches, each competing with the next, in which there is no means whereby one body can attempt to impose orthodoxy upon another. Jefferson opined that the best way "to silence religious disputes is to take no notice of them." It is further validation of the argument that the First Amendment achieves the gentle but certain neutralization of serious religious activity. Attentive study of the Founders' actions and beliefs makes clear that "freedom of religion" did indeed mean "freedom from religion," since the predominant views of the 18th century held that the only moral system entitled to respect was one entirely "rational" and voluntary. Revealed religion does not make the mark.

As for last ditch attempts by conservative Catholics to claim some sort of secondary or indirect Christian influence through the role of men like Charles Carroll (Catholic) and Benjamin Rush (Protestant), they are examples of rather meager reasoning and irrelevancy. It may well be that Carroll sincerely viewed the First Amendment as "terms of peace," alleviating decades-long oppression of his co­religionists and permitting Catholicism to develop unhindered by political considerations. This, Craycraft points out, was the perception of many ordinary Americans, but certainly not those who shaped and implemented national policy. The actual course of American history, of which the current phase of obscene neo-paganism and overt anti-Christianity, is an inextricable part of the original plan to transform America into a deistic state.

Locke and His Doctrine of Toleration

It is important to say something about the originator of the "religious liberty" argument within the English-speaking world, if only because some would claim that there was an indirect Catholic influence on the Constitution via John Locke. The rather maddening and facile claim is that the liberal philosopher perpetuated the traditional natural law tradition, albeit under a non-Catholic and rationalistic guise. This is a clear misreading of Locke, since his idea of "natural law" is merely a reiteration of the Hobbesian "law of nature." This latter holds that man, in a "state of nature," is inherently alienated and individualistic. Civil society (and by extension, religious association) are artificial constructs developed to maintain peace and foster social utility. Locke's idea involves a categorical denial of the classical theory of morality and politics as handed down by Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas. So much for the crypto-Scholasticism of John Locke.

The clear basis for the Jefferson-Madison neutralization of Christianity resides in Locke's Letter Concerning Religious Toleration (1685). Cutting through the baroque idiom of the period, Craycraft offers a summary:

...Locke understood that orthodox Christianity (especially Roman Catholicism) is a natural enemy of the liberal regime. But since it was not possible to eliminate the political effects of such religion by force, Locke set out to do it by reason-by reducing "authentic" religion to a set of opinions whose adherents need not (indeed, must not) consider to be exclusively true. The exclusive truth that members of this regime must hold is that no religion possesses exclusive truth, or, perhaps, any truth at all. Any person or church which rejects this "truth" is a menace to the regime, and cannot reasonably expect unqualified toleration.

That is why Locke's public opposition to freedom of worship for Catholics in 1667 is not a contradiction of, but totally in keeling with, the liberal dogma of religious liberty. Because "papists" were intolerant (they practiced an esclusive creed) they could not be tolerated. They advanced a belief, contrary to liberal-Whig position, of “encumbered selves” who would have an ethical commitment prior to the state.

Noting the impossibility of unqualified tolerance in any society, Craycraft goes on to assert that Liberalism and Catholicism are actually alike in one key respect: both make claims to absolute truth. Unfortunately, many believers today feel uncomfortable with such contentions, partly out of ignorance and partly out of indifference. It is nicer to maintain that the two creeds can affect a modus vivendi, even if one condemns the increasingly “elitist" and “intolerant" stance of politically correct secularism. One likes to ignore or deny that the Church itself has always been "elitist" and "intolerant." Such terms, of course, stick in one's craw. That is because liberals have provided stilted definitions to serve their own agenda-a version of double-think whereby "anti­elitism" equals totalitarian control, and "free speech" equals social and economic censorship of undesirable views. Just to give added proof of the real intentions of liberal thought, Craycraft cites two recent exponents of Lockean "tolerance": Francis Fukiyama (The End of History and the Last Man, 1992) and Stephen Carter (The Culture of Disbelief, 1993). Both men envision a humanist republic in which "religion" plays an active role, but only so long as it is subsumed under the monistic order in which traditional beliefs, particularly Orthodox Roman Catholicism, are eliminated (Fukiyama says so openly, while Carter broadly hints at it in his condemnations of Pat Buchanan).

The Murray Dilemma

For all the concentrated force of Craycraft's study, its impact is somewhat lessened by a protracted deflection into the realm of neo-modernist confusion sown by John Courtney Murray. To his credit, Craycraft's approval of Murray is far from unqualified. For example, he criticizes the liberal priest's reading of the First Amendment as "articles of peace." It is not, says Craycraft, that Murray believed the Founders intended it to act as such, but the cleric felt that Catholics could nevertheless appropriate the language to their own ends and make use of religious freedom as if it did mean exactly that. According to The American Myth, such an optimistic theory must be held dubious at best. Unaccountably, Craycraft maintains that Murray's reasoning was essentially orthodox, even though the brief remainder of the priest's career (he died in 1967) reveals an increasing radicalization of his teaching which ended in proposing dialogue with Marxists and asserting that civil society, not the Church, was ultimate arbiter of ethical norms in the contemporary world.

It is true that prior to the Council, Fr. Murray advanced orthodox arguments in favor of the Church's preliminary claim to religious liberty ("freedom for the Church") and the obligation of individuals to respond to its call to conservation and salvation. But that merely clouds the issue. He makes assertions that, if not in open contradiction to, nevertheless tend towards a liberal humanist rendering of freedom of conscience and freedom of religion. It is the kernel of the modernist error-a theory containing both truth and error, and thus advancing error in a more subtle and unimpeded manner than would blatant heresy. To say that Murray was "conservative" relative to the liberation theologians of the 1970s is meaningless.

As noted above, Craycraft tells us that the First Amendment cannot be treated as a fundamental dictate with reference only to itself. It must be judged by an unchanging and objective standard as established by true religion. Unfortunately, Craycraft appears guilty of the very mindset he condemns when he adopts a rationale towards Murray's writing and the Council as if these things were primary sources of authority, carrying with them doctrinal status. On the contrary, one would have preferred that he had drawn the logical comparison between the deliberate irony of Dignitatis Humanae and the writings of Madison, in which radical ends are advanced in seemingly moderate and rather vague terminology.

Opportunism Rebounds

The crux of the Murrayite thesis (as contained in We Hold These Truths) can be summed up not so much as a formal rejection of the Church as repository of truth, but as a pragmatic or utilitarian compromise in the face of the reality of the pluralist society. Religious freedom "is not a per se good for Murray; it is an exigent one."

It would have made Craycraft's job far easier, and his analysis less tangential, had he simply placed Murray within the greater context of the Americanist error. Other questions, such as prudential implementation of Church policy, non-coercion (in matters of religious conversion), and natural law considerations are extremely interesting, and Craycraft does a good job handling them. Nevertheless, they are secondary to the main point of the magisterial view on Church-State relations.

Prior to Vatican II, the proper role of these relations had been explicitly enunciated in the ex cathedra statements of Gregory XVI (Mirari Vos), followed by Pius IX (Quanta Cura and the Syllabus of Errors). These pronouncements, quite unlike the tortuous language of the Council, were entirely consistent with themselves and with each other. They commanded without exception that the state has the duty to recognize and protect true religion. Further, no society can say that man has an inherent right to be indifferent to the Church's claims. But the problem in this country was not one of theory but implementation. So, rather than implement it, the theory was ignored.

The American hierarchy, which had made concessions to the First Amendment at the outset, committed itself to a "neutralist" position. In other words, they advanced Murray's expedient of pragmatism long before Murray. Compromise was a matter of convenience. It sought to put off, if not completely obviate, the unavoidable conflict between pluralism and the Catholic Faith. By the time Fr. Murray deliberated upon the matter in the 1950s, there was an underlying tension which had never been resolved and had never gone away.

Murray was honest enough to see that it could not be suppressed indefinitely and demanded a clear settlement. The old tactic of sublime apathy could not endure. The logical answer was that American thought had to be brought in line with the Magisterium. Yet Murray ingenuously sought a "third option," neither ignoring nor conforming to Catholic doctrine: he went about restating the Magisterium in a manner that appeared to justify Americanism and religious liberty. Only in this way can we begin to understand what went on, first in Murray's head, and then in the minds of the leading modernists at the Council.

On a superficial level both the Vatican and Murray said they acknowledged the legitimacy of the confessional state. Yet whether advancing the confessional state or the indifferentist one, the criterion of value offered was historical conditions, not a moral absolute. In other words, if a Catholic state already exists, that is fine, but if a non-Catholic state exists, that is also acceptable. No longer would the Vatican encourage every nation to become a Catholic state. It is, of course, merely a type of relativism which says, as Murray did indeed say, that while certain principles may be true in principle they cannot be realized in fact. Look where Murray's "pragmatism" has led us.

Unfortunately, our experience with liberal "dumbing down" inclines even the best of us to accept a false dichotomy between pragmatism and idealism, as if the former were realistic and the latter were pie-­in-the-sky. But as Chesterton quipped, "to say that a man is an idealist is simply to say that he is a man." All so-called practical approaches ultimately serve some ideal, even if that ideal is purely shallow and materialistic. The fitting conclusion, therefore, is that Murray's pragmatism does serve some principal. But it is a principal other than that of the Church, which is to "Go into the whole world and preach the gospel to every creature" (Mark 16:15). Murrayism is the handmaid of pluralism, not evangelization.

Relevancy Made Irrelevant

The almost instantaneous fall-out from the Vatican's outward abandonment of the magisterial teaching on the duties of state to religion hardly needs elaboration. Under the aegis of Dignitatis Humanae, the majority of bishops have handed the initiative to the prevailing liberal secular order and washed their hands of Catholic social teaching. It truly is a case of the fad for "relevancy" and rendering Catholicism completely irrelevant in the eyes of the world.

It is interesting that Craycraft's acceptance of Dignitatis Humanae is rather diffident. There is an unacknowledged disharmony between an integral understanding of religious liberty, which he so fearlessly articulates, and the "official" contemporary stance of the Church. The upshot is a pessimistic notion of Church-State relations that verges on a form of quietism, in which the Church must abandon its political involvement and concern itself solely with influencing society through spiritual means. Craycraft therefore makes the pat assertion that the alternative-official recognition of our religion by the state, starting with the supposedly ill-fated recognition of Christianity by Constantine in 313 A.D. must entail widespread corruption and diminution of the Church's primary role of spreading the faith. Such a view seems born more of reactive cynicism than sober historical consideration.

Even if the perfect Church-State relationship is never to be obtained, at least the effort to do so achieved a very high standard in centuries past. After all, the Spanish Catholic monarchy of the 16th century set about colonizing the New World with the conversion of souls as its stated primary intention. Whatever baser motives might have been in the minds of some Conquistadors, the fact is that millions of indigenous peoples were being baptized just at the very moment when much of northern Europe was apostatizing (and, by the way, overthrowing the social and political authority of Catholicism). Today, in compliance with the new pragmatist dictate, which accepts the pluralist state as the norm, those areas won to the Church at such great cost are falling away completely.

Final Assessment

The answers to the Conciliar dilemma and its unique non-dogmatic status have been ably dealt with by writers like Michael Davies and Romano Amerio (a Council peritus) and need not be detailed here. Nevertheless, one feels that Mr. Craycraft could have spared himself a great deal of grief if, instead of relying on John Courtney Murray as an authority on American religious liberty, he had turned to that unsung hero of anti-modernism, Msgr. Joseph Fenton.

Fr. Fenton was a determined opponent of the Murrayite view, who engaged in a running debate with the liberals in the years leading up to the Council. In a last ditch attempt to forestall the Americanist triumph, Fr. Fenton insisted that Church teaching bears not the slightest resemblance to the explanation in We Hold These Truths [by Murray].

It is not a matter of Catholic politic or of Catholic tactic, but a matter of Christian doctrine that, in itself and objectively, the state or civil society is obligated to give public and corporate worship to God, to pay to God the debt of acknowledgement due to Him because of His supreme excellence and because of our complete dependence upon Him. Under certain circumstances the payment of this debt may be impossible, but in any event it is definitely not a good or desirable thing to have any state withhold from God the payment of the debt of religion which is due to God.

The flaws noted in this review by no means negate the power of Craycraft's groundbreaking work. It is the most honest assessment of the Church-State issue to be published, outside of traditional circles, since the articles of Msgr. Fenton. The mere fact that it has seen the light of day establishes an important and precedent-setting step. Such a step, once made, cannot easily be retracted.

Despite its unfortunate ambiguity on the question of Murray and the Council, The American Myth inclines more to the traditional viewpoint than the prevailing neo-modernist one, while the chapters discussing American political and cultural concerns are irreproachable. One is inclined to agree with a colleague of Mr. Craycraft, who says that the upshot of his analysis must necessarily be "a return to the old pre-Conciliar view."


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Matthew Anger has written for traditional Catholic journals on history, politics, literature and popular culture. He was an assistant editor for the Puri­tans' Progress series, published by Angelus Press. Mr. Anger currently resides in Richmond, Virginia with his wife and four children.



SOURCES

Craycraft, Kenneth R. Jr., The American Myth of Religious Freedom. Dallas: Spence Publishing Company, 1999.

D'Elia, Donald J., The Spirits of 76: A Catholic Inquiry. Christen­dom Publications, 1983.

Fenton, Msgr. Joseph, "Doctrine and Tactic in Catholic Pro­nouncements on Church and State," American Eclesiastical Review, October 1961.

Murray, John Courtney, "Religious Freedom," Freedom and Man. New York: P. J. Kennedy and Sons, 1965.

Murray, John Courtney, We Hold These Truths: Catholic Reflections on the American Proposition. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1960.

Rao, Dr. John C., Americanism and the Collapse of the Church in the United States and "Why Catholics Cannot Defend Themselves." William Marra, 1995.

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"Tolerating" Christianity Into Irrelevance

by Kenneth R. Craycraft Jr.

In A.D. 313, the Emperor Constantine instituted a new, revolutionary tactical policy regarding the problem of Christianity in the Roman Empire: He would try to eliminate its corrosive, subversive presence by instituting the new idea of "religious freedom." He would "tolerate" Christianity into irrelevance, and enlist its support for doing so. This was the conversion of Christianity to "Christendom," and it solved a centuries-old problem. Some 1,500 years later, Christendom rededicated itself to authentic Constantinian faith when, in 1791, America's Bill of Rights was added to its fledgling Constitution. Like the original version, this new Constantinianism managed to convince Christians that their interests were the same as the interests of the state; that they had been merged in such a way that Christians need not have any fundamentally presumptive suspicion toward the state. And like the original version, this meant of which it emerges. In this case, freedom of religion was for the purpose of enlisting Christians to sanction the ends of the Emperor. And the witness of the Church against the violence of worldly power all but disappeared. Religion was now "free, " but only as defined by the regime, and on the terms the regime established for it. The cost of that freedom was that Christianity became a tool of the Empire, for the Empire to achieve its ends. The critical distance necessary for the church to stand in judgment over the Emperor collapsed. Constantine could do as he willed, secure in the knowledge that the subversive witness of Christianity had been tolerated away.

Now compare the words of Constantine, as quoted above, with these: "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports.... Reason & experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of the religious principle. 'Tis substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular govemment. The rule indeed extends with more or less force to every species of Free Government." Here is another example of a political leader recognizing and advocating religion as a tool of the regime. Not the truthfulness of one or any religion, but its usefulness, is why we want it to be "free." And, of course, that usefulness is for the aims and goals of power and empire. The dispositive implication is very dear: Religion which does not advance the good of the regime - including the regime of religious liberty which privatizes religion - is not legitimate religion. Religion has a purpose, yes: to support and further the goals of the state. But as a tool of the state, religion must be crafted and forged according to the needs of the state.

The words above are from George Washington, the Father of Our Country, in his Farewell Address. For Washington as for Constantine, "religious freedom" is part of a larger political story which imbues it with meaning and from which it cannot be extricated. Religious freedom is not the freedom of the church to name and maintain its own mission. Rather religious freedom is a "myth," invented for the purpose of telling and sustaining the story of American liberal democracy. There is no such thing as "religious freedom." There are only theories of religious freedom, advanced and protected by the regime in power, for its purposes and goals.

In one sense, this is deeply disturbing to the religious person; his religion is reduced to a tool of the regime, and thus loses the integrity of its own mission, which should include standing in judgment over the regime it has now been enlisted to support. But in another sense it is no big deal that there is no such thing as religious freedom. It is a myth, and wishing it were otherwise will not make it so. Religious freedom is but one aspect of the central audacious presumption of modem liberalism: that it has found a set of objective neutral principles, by which objective, universal judgments can be made. Thus, religious freedom is a universal good, according to liberalism, every bit as helpful to the atheist as to the priest. Religious freedom is, according to the larger liberal myth, the institution of neutral procedures, not substantive goods. But, of course, it is no such thing. "Religious freedom" is particular to the goods of the regime of which it is an invention. And as such, there is no such thing as religious freedom.

The first tenet of the liberal myth of religious freedom is the shift from an idea of the freedom of the church to the freedom of the individual. Consistent with its overall program of the atomization of human life, liberalism first tells us that authentic religious liberty is not seated in the right of a church to do as it must according to its doctrines and traditions, but rather in the right of the person to do as his conscience dictates. Where the church, acting freely, interferes with the free act of the individual conscience, the church has actually violated religious freedom, according to the liberal myth. Not only has the state no concern over the salvation of any man's soul; in the liberal myth, neither does the church. Any church which has the audacity to presume to define how its members ought to believe or act violates the American myth of religious liberty. This is most especially true when a church insists that its members act contrary to acceptable political or legal opinion. The American myth insists that private opinions - especially religious ones - are permitted public expression only within the boundaries that the myth has set. Not to obey these rulesis to risk public censure.

We see this censure, for instance, when a Catholic bishop dares to give moral instruction to Catholic politicians and expects them to obey this instruction in all spheres of their lives, public and private. A famous example occurred in 1990, when the Cardinal Archbishop of New York, John O'Connor, wrote the following in the archdiocesan newspaper, Catholic New York: "Where Catholics are perceived not only as treating church teaching on abortion with contempt, but helping to multiply abortions by advocating legislation supporting abortion or by making public funds available for abortion, bishops may decide for the common good [that) such Catholics must be warned that they are at risk of excommunication. If such actions persist, bishops may consider excommunication the only option." As a statement of church teaching, the Cardinal's words are actually notable for their circumspection and caution. He is merely voicing the rather noncontroversial point (by the church's self-understanding) that advocating doctrines contrary to the church's teaching puts one at risk of excommunication. It has long been a staple of church teaching that deliberate doctrinal deviation - the subject of the Cardinal's statement - is a far more serious matter than moral failure. Such deliberate deviation has always been a condition for being excluded from communion with the church.

But, while simply a statement of elemental church teaching, O'Connor's essay created a public and political firestorm because it violated the Ameri can myth of religious liberty. The New York Times ominously editorialized that, by suggesting that Catholic politicians ought to obey Catholic teach ing, the Cardinal is "tearing at the truce of tolerance that permits America's pluralist democracy to work." In an earlier editorial, the Times opined: "To force religious discipline on public officials risks destroy ing the fragile accommodations, that Americans of all faiths and no faith have built with the bricks of the Constitution and the mortar of tolerance."

In other words, the Catholic Church will be tolerated only insofar as it makes no demands on the consciences of its members, especially when they might exercise that conscience in the legislative chamber. ("Stop leaning on Catholic public officials now working to heal, not divide, the rest of society," orders The New York Times.) The reason is that such demands are deemed to be at odds, not simply with particular policy positions, but with the very institution of American religious liberty. The Times intimates that Catholic bishops flirt with violating the U.S. Constitution in such pronouncements as Cardinal O'Connor's. This was given clearer expression by Burt Neuborne, a law professor at New York University, as cited in the Washington Post. Cardinal O'Connor, said Mr. Neuborne, has done "more damage to religious tolerance in this society than he realizes. When you accept public office, you're not a Catholic, you're not a Jew. You're an American."

Perhaps the most hysterical response came from David Boldt of the Philadelphia Inquirer: "There's room to wonder whether the bishops fully understand the risk they run.... Their efforts reflect a lack of understanding as to just how delicate the balance between church and state is in regard to the Catholic church in America. The Roman Catholic church, it needs to be remembered, is quite literally an un-American institution. It is not democratic. The church's views ... are sharply at odds with those that inform the laws of American secular society. And its principal policies are established by the Vatican in Rome."

It goes without saying that there is a dark and vile intolerance behind these words. But while the particular expression is hostile and vitriolic, the opinion is an orthodox one in terms of the American myth of religious liberty. Boldt is correct about three things. First, America is a secular political culture which grudgingly tolerates religion only within particular boundaries, the legitimacy of which boundaries is immune from religious evaluation or judgment. Second, the Catholic Church is indeed an undemocratic institution. As such, its cardinal dogmas are not open to debate. (Not insignificantly, this is a feature which Catholicism shares with the American myth, democratic as it may claim to be.) Catholic dogma is not decided by plebiscite; and Catholic discipline is hierarchical and authoritative. Thus, third, as far as the Constitutional side of the "truce" goes, the Catholic Church (in principle, at any rate) is an un-American institution, This is not to say that it is anti-American, but rather that its self-understanding and structure are significantly different from America's that the state could proceed to protect its pursuit of domination without having to worry about the judgment of those who should have known better.

Up to A.D. 313 in the history of Christianity, the standing policy had been one of persecution. This nettlesome, fanatical Jewish sect was seen as a threat to the stability of the Empire, and therefore had to be eliminated. To be sure, the level and methods of persecution ebbed and flowed. But persecution did not work. In the words of Tertullian, "the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church." Despite, or perhaps because of, the persecution, Christianity flourished in the Empire. So after more than 250 years of expensive, tedious persecution, Constantine tried a new tack. It was hard enough to hold an Empire together without the divisive presence of these petulant Christians. But rather than try to eliminate Christians, Constantine would try to strike a bargain with them that would effectively do the same. Rather than kill them, he would try to domesticate them. He would induce them to abandon their insubordinate witness against him, by joining their interests with his own. Constantine realized that he would never get Christians to bow to him under threat of death; he knew his history well. But maybe he could accomplish the same end by tolerating them. Perhaps they would bow to him - serve his interests, aims, and goals, while subordinating their own subversive witness to his needs - if he granted them religious freedom.

He did, and it worked. The best witness of this process is not the famous Edict of Milan, important as that was. Rather the new, successful policy is exemplified by a lesser-known document, also written by Constantine in 313, and directed to Anulinus, the prefect of Carthage, granting the clergy exemption from Imperial service: "It is my wish ... that those ... who are usually called clerics be completely exempt from public duties, that they be not drawn away from the service due to the Divinity ... but may rather fulfill the service of their own law without any hindrance. For it seems that, when they render the greatest homage to the Divinity, then the greatest benefits befall the commonweal."

Now what could possibly be wrong with allowing priests to be exempt from military, police, or jury service so that they could mind the altar and parish? Surely, this was a good thing. Well, no. Before the Edict of Milan, it never would have occurred to any Christian to work for the betterment of the Empire. Now it is assumed that all will, but that the clergy will be exempt so that they can concentrate on their ministry.

But what are they now ministering? Constantine enlisted the loyalty of Christians, not out of personal piety or religious faith (he probably never became a Christian himself, despite the prayers of his mother, St. Helen), but rather out of a tactical need to subvert their witness against the violence of his regime. Now that he was "tolerant" of them, Christians, Constantine hoped, would give theological sanction (not to mention manpower) to his plan to unify the Empire against his sometime partner, the treacherous Licinius. Blood was expensive; he needed peace at home to wage war abroad. So tolerating Christians was much more effective all around than killing them. Thus, the priest bowed to the Emperor, and Christianity has never been the same.

This is because, after the Edict of Milan, the church was no longer free.

Of course, in one sense, as now in America, the church did become "free" in Rome. Now Christians could worship in public. In some cases their property was restored, and they themselves began to appropriate pagan churches and basilicas for their own liturgy. But the cost was very high, and the corruption that followed was deep and broad. For the church was no longer free in the sense that it was able to name its mission, and to delimit the power of the state. This was its consideration in the new contract. Now the mission of the church was dictated by the needs of the state, and the church's authority was subordinated to the Emperor's. Of course, there were times when the Emperor bowed to the priest. And there were times when the church was a more powerful institution than the state. But what was its mission even in those times? It was to sanction power and empire, rather than to witness to the Kingdom of God.

The "freedom of the church" was no longer defined by the church. Now it was defined by the state, and thus it was no longer freedom at all. This is because "freedom of religion," like every political value, is determined by the context out self-understanding and structure. The Catholic Church is an institution which challenges (or ought to challenge) the particular American prejudice that religious opinions may not have expression in political life if those opinions seem to undermine America's myth of religious liberty.

Now one might reply that these are merely the opinions of law professors and op-ed writers, not the expression of law. This is not entirely true, but even to the extent that it is, it does not entirely mitigate the problem. No one will deny the evolutionary process of making laws in light of the Constitution, or of reading the Constitution in an expanded or modified way according to new circumstances, or of making laws that simply are not addressed by the Constitution, though they may be repugnant to certain segments of the population. The opinions of the Times's editors, Mr. Boldt, and Prof. Neuborne all make reference to the church's violating the spirit of the Constitution. In a country where persuasion is the essence of political and legal change, and where the power of the prevailing myths is jealously guarded, one cannot assume that such opinions will not have legal force in the future.

Consider the Supreme Court case Romer v. Evans, for instance, in which a law barring special. consideration of sexual orientation in discrimination complaints was overturned, in effect making homosexuals a protected class on a par with African-Americans or women. Justice Anthony Kennedy (a Catholic) wrote that the law "seems inexplicable by anything but animus toward the class that it affects; it lacks a rational relationship to legitimate state interests." As Justice Antonin Scalia's dissent forcefully argues, Kennedy (writing for the Court) ascribes irrationality and hatred to those who hold to a moral principle which is at the heart of evangelical and Catholic sexual moral behavior. In Romer such moral opinion is excluded from the realm of legal rationality. And, of course, the position Kennedy derides is often, indeed nearly always, motivated by religious consideration. Here, such religious consideration is ruled out of court (literally!) as irrational.

Ironically, the logic of limiting the freedom of the church can easily be extended to the freedom of the individuals that the First Amendment ostensibly aims to protect. If the church may not insist that its members who are legislators oppose, say, abortion-rights legislation on religious grounds, then individuals who do oppose such legislation based upon church teaching may potentially be excluded. Consider, for example, the reaction of New York Congressman George J. Hochbrueckner to O'Connor's article: "If you follow this to its logical conclusion, you could well end up with no Catholic representatives in government. If you follow the teachings of the church, you get beaten up because you're a pawn of the pope. It's an untenable situation to put someone in." Thus, in the name of protecting individual religious liberty, individual religious liberty is abridged. It becomes fairly clear that the end at issue is not the expansion of religious liberty, but the protection of the state from religious influence.

And-this, I submit, is the real gravamen of the First Amendment religion clauses: not to protect the freedom of either the church or religious individuals, but to protect the state from influence by the church or religious individuals. So long as neither the church nor individual religious believers presume to judge the legitimacy of the regime or particular laws within the regime on explicitly religious grounds, both may enjoy tolerance; religious liberty is merely a means to the end of protecting the state. But when either church or individual presses the boundaries of the "truce of tolerance," the First Amendment's protection of the state from religious opinion will demand that the* religious opinion or activity be abrogated.

Thus orthodox Christianity, as an example, is in double jeopardy. First, it violates the spirit of the myth of religious freedom by claiming that it may discipline the consciences of its individual members. The church insists that religious freedom is freedom of the church. Second, the church insists that its faithful and obedient members must be allowed full participation in the political process even if that participation leads them to cast votes, formed by church teaching, that either affect non-Christians or undermine the state's necessary myths and rites, or both. The church violates both the end of the First Amendment and the means to achieving this end.

THE FOUR MYTHS

Four myths - here meaning things that just are not true - about the liberal myth need to be dispelled.

The first, usually propagated by religious believers, is that the American Founding is essentially religious, and that it grants the highest possible respect and liberty to religious belief, especially to orthodox Christianity; indeed that it must be seen as favoring religion over irreligion. While it cannot be denied that the populace at the time of the Founding was deeply religious, that is not the same as saying that the political and legal institutions erected at the Founding are themselves a product of religious belief (or even consistent with it).

The second myth understands the strongly secular basis of the Founding and celebrates it, but mistakenly thinks that it affords the orthodox religious person the same quality of freedom as the liberal religious or secular person. That is, those who hold the first myth argue that the Founding specifically intended to afford religious believers a strong, broad, and enduring basis for religious freedom, and that encroachment upon that is tantamount to an abandonment of the principle of religious liberty. Those who hold the second myth argue (correctly, I contend) that this view of the Founding is erroneous - that the Founding is indeed secular with secular intentions. But they are wrong to assume that, therefore, orthodox religious believers have the same political freedom and legal standing as nonbelievers or even those believers who are committed more fundamentally to religious indifference.

The third myth is that religious liberty is possible in any modem political regime. The first and overwhelming priority of any regime, including this one, is jealously to protect its principles, rituals, and institutions. One of those principles is a commitment to religious indifference.

By "religious indifference," I mean an attitude of adherence to one set of religious doctrines, but without any concomitant idea that this excludes the "truth" of competing and contradictory religious doctrines. While one might believe that religion has some value to human life, it really makes little difference what that religion is, just so long as that central notion is maintained. Religious belief which would presume to exclude the truth (defined as usefulness to the individual consistent with irrelevance to political life) of other religious belief is an exotic intruder into a realm of indifference. This is exemplified by Thomas Jefferson's quip that it neither picks his pockets nor breaks his leg how many gods his neighbor believes in. Religious opinion is not relevant to questions of politics and policy. Religious opinion that presumes to be so is, by definition, excluded from rational standing.

The fourth myth that needs to be dispelled is that religious believers are best off in a regime like this one that is so successful in propagating its myth of religious indifference; or worse, that such a regime is a product of Christianity. For Christians to assume that we have the "right" to enjoy the same liberty as everyone else is a prejudice borrowed from the alien liberal myth. And if the church assumes this prejudice it also assumes the philosophical and political story that informs it. Thus, it will find a need to give theological sanction to the very myth which has designs on marginalizing orthodox religious belief in America.

In other words, I do not believe that Christians have an interest in defending and furthering the idea of religious liberty as a political good. This is because the only regnant definition of religious liberty in American political discourse is one that has designs on marginalizing, if not eradicating as a significant presence, orthodox religious belief. The American story is not interested in persecuting Christianity to death. Toleration is a much more effective means, especially if the liberal regime is successful in enlisting Christians to give it aid and comfort.

American liberalism wants to diffuse and delegitimize Christianity as defined in any interesting way. The distinctly American brand of Romantic, Gnostic, and Pelagian Christianity does not endure against the liberal idea, but rather is a product of it. The condition of American Protestantism (and increasingly, Catholicism) is an indication of the success of the liberal myth. But even those Christian thinkers who take very seriously the claims of their faith are often unwitting participants in its undermining, when they assume that America is friendly toward them and, therefore, must be given theological sanction. Christians have no stake in the liberal argument for "religious liberty," because it is part of a larger political theory which is intent on ridding the regime of the insubordinate witness of orthodox faith.

But neither is there any other argument for religious liberty, if by that is meant the liberal myth of absolute political and legal neutrality, and thus of equivalent freedom for everyone. The choice between liberalism and religious orthodoxy is not a choice between reason and dogma; rather, it is a choice between competing dogmas. Or one could say that it is a choice between competing tradition-laden rationalities. In both liberalism and orthodox religious faith, the terms and conditions must be accepted as "reasonable" by one's interlocutor; and what counts as reasonable is precisely the same as what counts as a legitimate reason. And what counts as legitimate reasons are those assertions that are consistent with the discourse of the community by which one is formed. Christians have no stake in liberal religious liberty, because they have no stake in the tradition that makes it "rational."

The Catholic idea of religious freedom is neither interested in, nor capable of, securing the kind of undifferentiated religious liberty that liberalism (falsely) claims to have secured, because the Catholic principle recognizes that such an idea of freedom in a pluralistic political society is neither a possible nor even an ideal good to be pursued. Like liberalism, Catholicism is concerned with establishing freedom for itself, on its own terms; unlike liberalism, the Catholic idea attempts to ground derivative political-religious liberty for non-adherents in its own theology. But it makes no claim that this derivative liberty is not necessarily relativized and mitigated by the church's own precedent freedom, as granted by God. It does not claim to have a neutral principle. But this Catholic insistence that its own freedom is precedent does not, per se, distinguish it from liberalism. Liberalism, too, secures the highest level of religious liberty for its own adherents, while tolerating non-adherents within carefully constructed boundaries. The Catholic idea is simply more honest about the impossibility of securing, in principle, absolutely equivalent religious freedom for all people.

Christians have no interest in finding a political principle which facilitates disbelief in Christ; their interest is rather to induce people to believe by witnessing to the resurrection of the Christ who, Christians believe, relativizes all political theories, and who commands that people bind themselves to none - indeed that we bind ourselves to Jesus Christ alone as King. In this context Stanley Hauerwas and Michael Baxter, C.S.C., have recently concluded that we might have to leave the problem of church and state "profoundly unresolved." If a resolution implies that the theologian's task is to give theological approval to a particular regime, I would say that it is the mandate of the theologian (and the religious believer more generally) to leave the question profoundly unresolved. The history of attempts to resolve the question is the history of religious believers sacrificing the integrity of their faith to the interests of the political regime.

This is not to say that the theological vocation exempts us from struggling mightily to find a coherent philosophicalpolitical theory by which members of the City of God can understand their place amid the Earthly City. indeed it is precisely liberalism's presumption to have put all questions to rest (on its own terms and by its own rules) which compels the Christian to be highly suspicious of this "solution," and to work all the more diligently to find another more adequate theory particular to his own faith.

I conclude that there is no such thing as religious freedom, because there is no such thing as a neutral political or philosophical principle by which such a freedom can be judged. The American myth of religious freedom is as false as it is powerful.

Kenneth R. Craycraft Jr., formerly a professor of theology at St. Mary's University in San Antonio, Texas, is a law student at Duke University. He lives with his wife and five children in Durham, North Carolina. This article is excerpted and adapted from Craycraft's book The American Myth of Religious Freedom, to be published this month by Spence Publishing Company.

© 1999 New Oxford Review. All Rights Reserved. April 1999, Volume LXVI, Number 4.

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Catholic Action - An Alternate View

by John Sharpe

In a recent article featured in The Remnant, Mr. Anger and a colleague have maintained that there is, circulating within some traditional Catholic circles, a false conception of Catholic Action. Insofar as part of Mr. Anger's thesis is substantiated by a hidden criticism of my organization, the Legion of St. Louis, I feel compelled to respond.

Mr. Anger covers a lot of ground in his article, but there are some common themes which we can identify in his critique. I wish to look in detail at three themes which are central to Mr. Anger's position.

Criticism 1: Catholics who like to speak of "action" and are energetic in proposing that Catholics focus on the Social Doctrine of the Church suffer from one or all of the following: the lack of a spiritual foundation for their activities, an insufficient emphasis on the supernatural, a failure to recognize that charity is the root of action, etc.

Insofar as any Catholic lacks charity, or lacks concern for his spiritual life, or tends to have confidence in his own merits and abilities without recognizing that those come solely from God, he is to be criticized. But the essence of Mr. Anger's thesis, generally, seems to be that Catholics who talk routinely about Social Action are obviously guilty of — or unintentionally suffer from — those defects. I submit to the reader that to assume so is flawed and inappropriate for a Catholic. This for several reasons:

(1) Judge not lest ye be judged. Mr. Anger's assumption is fundamentally judgmental: it passes judgment on the intentions of fellow Catholics, implying a judgment on the intentions of those who prefer to discuss action and are interested in finding an answer to the question, "What is to be done?" Mr. Anger's critique does not proceed according to this logic: "Mr. Jones never says his Rosary, he lets his children watch rated-R movies, he ignores the lives of the Saints, and constantly discusses armed insurrection." I would concede that such a hypothetical gentleman should be blamed; I wouldn't however concede that it should be the routine business of Catholics to seek out opportunities to pass judgments on our fellow Catholics' spiritual and personal lives. Rather Mr. Anger's line of argument seems to be that because some Catholics think that the problem — how can committed, convinced, sincere traditional Catholics affect their society and their temporal surroundings — is deserving of consideration, and because those Catholics are fond of pointing out how hard it is to save one's soul in a wholly anti-Catholic environment, they are by necessity lacking a Catholic conscience, and do not themselves possess a robust spiritual life. To so assume is unfair, unwarranted, and illogical.

The result of Mr. Anger's position would be to put all active-minded Catholic laymen in the position of having to broadcast, at every turn, how holy they are, how they remember that no action can succeed without a solid spiritual life, etc., etc. Such a mindset, applied to every other walk of life, would lead to absurdity. Can I go to work every day, in order to feed my family, without being accused of "activism" because I don't leave my families empty stomachs solely in God's hands? In order to avoid the accusation of "naturalism" or an ignorance of the supernatural, do I have to announce, on my way into my office or workshop, that "I FULLY RECOGNIZE THAT MY WORKS AND ABILITIES ARE COMPLETELY GIFTS OF GOD, AND THAT I WOULD ACHIEVE NOTHING WERE I NOT FILLED WITH CHARITY!" Such a notion is ridiculous, and it is also ridiculous to accuse those who prefer to take some action to stem the tide of our eroding civilization, of being essentially opposed to the working of God's supernatural Grace and Providence, simply because the action they propose is, in fact, active!

Jean Ousset points out, in a passage (which does not lend itself to criticism of these fabled "activists," and is therefore rarely cited) of his book Action, that God respects the causality of the world, and that He normally works not miracles but rather allows events to unfold according to the processes of history and time and human relations which He has established — a notion that demands that if we want results, after we have said our prayers, we must act.

Things have indeed gone so far that if the Revolution were to triumph tomorrow, its triumph would be merited. For two hundred and fifty years (reckoned from the foundation of Freemasonry in 1717) the Revolution's waves of assaults have followed one after another, tirelessly renewed, ever more ingenious, shrewd and efficacious. It can therefore be truly said that the Revolution has merited its conquest of the world. Its cadres have known how to fight and how to persist; how to expend their efforts obstinately — and also how to open their purses when necessary...

Far from manifesting a lack of divine justice, the constant progress of Subversion shows how God respects the causality of the world He has made, by not denying the normal fruit of their labours even to the impious. For if it is true, as Psalm III declares, that "the desire of sinners shall perish," it does not follow that their inescapable divine chastisement should be to the advantage of that army which has not fought, of those "Sons of Light" who have not shone, of the "good people" (as they think themselves) about whom Pius X has not hesitated to say that through their idleness and cowardice they are, more than all others, the sinews of Satan's reign.

While Mr. Anger accuses the Catholic "activists" of forgetting supernatural charity, of turning Catholic Action into an "alternative radicalism" which operates solely on the natural and political planes, I would point out to him that a completely different interpretation of the same facts is possible, and more rational. In his magnum opus, Fr. Denis Fahey quotes a famous passage from Cardinal Journet; this passage explains both the beginning and the end of the motivation behind our discussion of action for the restoration of Christendom:

When the organization of the world is out of harmony with the supernatural end of man, scarcely anybody except the saints and martyrs can avoid mortal sin and abide in charity. But when the organization of the world is adjusted to the demands of the Divine Life of souls, then thousands of Christians can live and die in the love of God. They are strong enough to accomplish their duty in the company of others and to perform acts of heroic virtue at certain exceptional moments, but they would have been too weak to breast the frightful anti-supernatural current of a perverted naturalistic world. Charity, then, urges us to strive for the restoration of a Christian temporal order (emphasis mine).

(2) Action vs. prayer. Mr. Anger's position seems to be based upon a presumed dichotomy between action and contemplation. The assumption seems to be that to discuss action is to devalue prayer. That to suggest action is to discourage prayer. That to emphasize the need for action is to implicitly de-emphasize the need for prayer. Such an implication is also illogical, unfair, and unprovable.

Many of my friends and colleagues, who are fond of discussing a Catholic's role in the social order, routinely refer to the fact that a life of grace and spirituality should flower into action, that contemplation should lead to a practical application of the truth that one possesses. My position, and the position of those who I know who advocate Catholic Action, is the following: to suggest otherwise — to maintain that discussions of action are inherently anti-spiritual, and to conceive of a robust and healthy Faith which is not displayed and incarnated in action in the physical, temporal, socio-political world of daily life — is to condemn Catholics to a religious schizophrenia: it is to demand that Catholics make a special effort to avoid discussions of applying their Faith to the temporal order. Such an implication is, obviously, unhistorical and contrary to the teaching of the Church and the constant practice of Her faithful.1

(3) The operation of charity. Mr. Anger's position is perhaps a root of his misuse of the little word "by." He says, in the first paragraph of his article, that works of Catholic Action in the temporal order are accomplished by supernatural charity. The Thomistic position, the common-sense position, is, of course, that all actions properly performed by a Catholic are motivated and informed by charity, insofar as all actions are supposed to conduce ultimately to man's achievement of his last end, which is the Vision of God (Summa Theologica, II, ii, Q 23, Art. 7). So any time I perform any action which is moral, the action approaches perfection insofar as it is a means to my ultimate end, which is the attainment of Heaven. Thus my actions are inspired by, or motivated by, or, as St. Thomas puts it (II, ii, Q. 23, Art. 8) informed by charity; for this reason does he call charity the form of the virtues. But by suggesting that the works of Catholic Action are accomplished by supernatural charity, implying almost that charity itself is an action, Mr. Anger seems to suggest that works which are directly supernatural or have a strictly supernatural aim (such as prayer, fasting, sacrifice, etc., which have as their direct aim the sanctification of souls, rather than temporal activity which pursues man's last end indirectly) are the real or essential works of Catholic Action. Thus those who emphasize that Catholic Action is composed, principally, of social or temporal activities are somehow wrong and guilty of putting the cart before the horse.

This error is a significant one. Not only does it provide the basis for his implication that those who talk of action are anti-spiritual and misconstrue Catholic Action, but it seems to miss the entire point of the Church's Social doctrine, which we will review in brief.

Catholics like myself who are concerned with what Catholic laymen can do to salvage and restore the temporal order are motivated by a desire to help the temporal order serve the purpose for which it was ordained. Few of us are called to the cloistered religious life; most of us work out our salvation in the world, and our chances of attaining Heaven are affected greatly by what kind of world it is. This is Cardinal Journet's point. It is also Pius XI's point when he says that "...it is not rash by any means to say that the whole scheme of social and economic life is now such as to put in the way of vast numbers of mankind most serious obstacles which prevent them from caring for the one thing necessary; namely, their eternal salvation" (Quadragesimo Anno, 130). This follows from the fact that the temporal order was ordained by God as the milieu, ambience, or forum in which the majority of men are to work out their salvation. The Social Reign of Christ and the indirect authority of the Church over temporal affairs are based wholly upon this idea. St. Thomas lays out the fundamentals as follows:

Since the beatitude of heaven is the end of that virtuous life which we live at present, it pertains to the king's office to promote the good life of the multitude in such a way as to make it suitable for the attainment of heavenly happiness, that is to say he should command those things which lead to the happiness of Heaven and, as far as possible, forbid the contrary (On Kingship, 115).

This was repeated some 600 years later by Pope Leo XIII:

...civil society, established for the common welfare, should not only safeguard the well-being of the community, but have also at heart the interests of its individual members, in such mode as not in any way to hinder, but in every manner to render as easy as may be, the possession of that highest and unchangeable good for which all should seek.2

Therefore, the preoccupation that some Catholics have (myself included) regarding the nature and makeup of the social order is wholly rational and defensible. And to propose to remedy the situation by an efficacious application of the Church's Social Doctrine, through the concerted efforts of men correctly formed with the Church's Teaching on politics, economics, and society, seems not anti-supernatural, but rather overwhelmingly supernatural, since it implies a willingness to labor and to sacrifice so that all of us may more securely proceed to our eternal destiny. Such, at any rate, is the teaching of the Church.

(4) The two swords. Lastly, Mr. Anger's suggestion that the "activists" are necessarily anti- (or insufficiently) supernatural or spiritual seems to violate a principle which he expresses elsewhere in his article: the necessity of distinguishing between the spiritual and temporal powers. Those who take it upon themselves to discuss with other laymen the need for study and action in the area of the Social Doctrine are rightly reminded that they should nourish and encourage robust spiritual lives; consciousness of that spiritual duty, however, does not make them retreat-masters. The avoidance of dishing out volumes spiritual advice by those who propose social and cultural action seems to me to be a sign of wisdom: an understanding that there is a whole class of individuals more properly equipped and divinely appointed to do just that: the clerics. Failure to lecture one's fellow laymen on the spiritual life — barring the admitted usefulness of casual and informal discussions, periodic "reminders," and clear statements of understanding that the spiritual life is essential — can hardly be a smoking gun which reveals a hidden desire to spread a heretical activism and encourage ignorance of the spiritual life. It is, rather, a display of a proper respect for the division of the two powers, temporal and spiritual, and a wholly appropriate humility in not nit-picking the details of a fellow layman's personal habits by which he strives to save his soul.

To summarize: it is logical to contemplate the use of temporal means to achieve a temporal end. If we are hungry, we eat, not pray. We pray before we eat, just like we should pray before going into a battle of any kind (intellectual, physical, etc.). But to suggest that going into battle is anti-spiritual or anti-supernatural because it is not only supernatural is as ridiculous as suggesting that eating is anti-supernatural because it is not wholly spiritual. One may be permitted to wonder what degree of spirituality need be on display to satisfy the critics that Catholics interested in action do not therefore despise prayer ("O God, I give thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men..." St. Luke, xviii:2).

Criticism 2. People who demand that Catholics rouse themselves to action are simply seeking an "alternative radicalism" and an outlet for shady or inappropriate political activities, motivated by an "anti-government" spirit.

Under this criticism come two points which should be tackled separately: (1) the "activists" criticize the modern world too much, and dwell to heavily on its evils (which are always present in every era anyway), and thus they (2) tend to develop an anti-government mentality.

(1) The evils of the modern world. It seems rather meaningless to suggest that there is evil in every era of history, due to original sin, and that we therefore shouldn't get excited about it. Firstly, this omits the crucial point, which as we noted above is the essence of the Church's Social Doctrine, that the shape of society has a large bearing on man's ability to concern himself with saving his soul. Insofar as evil has always been in the world, since the Fall, it is not correct (by any means) to say that the social order has always, to more or less the same degree, condoned and permitted this evil. Leo XIII taught quite the contrary:

There was once a time when States were governed by the philosophy of the Gospel. Then it was that the power and divine virtue of Christian wisdom had diffused itself throughout the laws, institutions, and morals of the people, permeating all ranks and relations of civil society. Then, too, the religion instituted by Jesus Christ, established firmly in befitting dignity, flourished everywhere, by the favor of princes and the legitimate protection of magistrates; and Church and State were happily united in concord and friendly interchange of good offices. The State, constituted in this wise, bore fruits important beyond all expectation, whose remembrance is still, and always will be, in renown, witnessed to as they are by countless proofs which can never be blotted out or ever obscured by any craft of any enemies.3

Now, we may be able to debate, amicably and constructively, what means are best instituted to restore society to such a condition, but to suggest that the Social Doctrine is not in more vital need of implementation today then in times past is to state an untruth. Yes, Archbishop Levebvre did remind us we can err in the pursuit of virtue; and those errors should be avoided like every other error. But this same Archbishop wrote an entire book lamenting the social and public dethronement of Christ the King, in which he said that "Our Lord wants souls to be saved, doubtless indirectly, but effectively, through a Christian civil society, fully submissive to the Gospel, which lends itself to His redeeming design, which will be the temporal instrument for this." 4 No doubt Cardinal Pie, the 19th-century Bishop of Poitiers and anti-liberal crusader, who called the dethronement of Christ a crime against which "we should never cease to protest," would have objected to the notion that we should tone-down our objection to the modern world's apostasy and its essential incompatibility with the Faith.

I am all in favor of keeping our denunciations rational, balanced, and tactful. But I know of no advocate of an "active" (as opposed to one strictly "spiritual") Catholic Action that would object to those limitations. Perhaps where I differ with Mr. Anger is in my assessment that still today, within the ranks of traditional Catholicism, I am apt to run into any number of people who seem to think that having a Mass to attend, food to eat, and a "9 to 5" job, means that, all in all, things are great. Not that those aren't things to be grateful for. By all means they are. But such a mentality — with which it is certainly possible to use the Faith and the sacraments to struggle towards Heaven — tends to encourage a Catholic schizophrenia which separates the religious and personal life that one can eke out at home, from the public and social life that one is forced to live outside it. We "activists" are accused of wanting to isolate ourselves from society, of wanting to adopt a "survivalist" mentality, and yet I can imagine no mindset which is better calculated to produce disembodied Catholics, which are cut off from the realities of the world, than that which insists on a naïve "focus on the positive" kind of attitude. Because almost every aspect of society with which we come into contact on a day to day basis is radically out of order in light of the Divine Plan, and is almost incomprehensible to a Catholic absent a serious study of both "what's wrong with the world" and what would make it right. I can imagine no better way to fail in preparing our children to eventually face, understand, and react to the realities of a world outside the Catholic home which is anti-Catholic, perverse, and radically incompatible with the Christian notion of society, than to discourage a critical and honest assessment of our modern society.

Too extreme? Leo XIII called the rejection of Christ after having known Him, a crime that was both "foul" and "insane" (Tametsi, 3). The depravity of a world that had as a whole rejected Christ was even in his day well known by Catholics, though he didn't hesitate to say that the fact was "not sufficiently realized or thought about" (3). Nor did he hesitate to paint modern governments as "deceitful imitations" of government when they ignored God while managing affairs of state:

If, then, a political government strives after external advantages only, and the achievement of a cultured and prosperous life; if, in administering public affairs, it is wont to put God aside, and show no solicitude for the upholding of moral law, it deflects woefully from its right course and from the injunctions of nature; nor should it be accounted as a society or a community of men, but only as the deceitful imitation or appearance of a society (Sapientia Christianae (1890), 2).

Within traditional Catholic circles, one can find apologists for Austrian (read liberal) economics, enemies of the widespread distribution of property, apologists for the U.S. government's lawless "war on terror," and a host of others who, no doubt with the best of intentions, defend positions, behaviors, and aspects of the modern world which are indefensible when judged against, to use Ousset's phrase, the natural and Christian law. All of these things are not only contrary to the temporal common good of modern nations, but they also militate against the spirit which should prevail within society — that spirit which, as we have noted, is supposed to be a help toward salvation. Modern capitalism tells the citizen that the purpose of life is profit; it ensures that man remains a perpetual employee, rather than helping him to become an owner, which would allow him to flourish not as a robot but as a laborer imbued with the Catholic spirit of work. The foreign policy of the most powerful government in the world is without scruple in its willingness to kill and maim to maintain that system along with the corresponding liberal ideology. Is it really heretical "naturalism" or "activism" which leads some Catholics to denounce vigorously the social manifestation of intellectual errors which contravene the natural law and oppose the tenets of the Faith — errors which Pius XI referred to as "social and juridical modernism," and which he condemned "no less decidedly" than religious modernism?

The anti-liberal crusaders of the late 19th-century didn't seem to have many scruples about denouncing error in the most vigorous of terms — and it is well-known that many of the chief errors of those days were in fact the same socio-political misconceptions that we moderns suffer from. Here is one representative voice:

There is then no sin against charity in calling evil evil, its authors, abettors and disciples bad; all its acts, words and writings iniquitous, wicked, malicious...

If the propagation of good and the necessity of combating evil require the employment of terms somewhat harsh against error and its supporters, this usage is certainly not against charity. This is a corollary or consequence of the principle we have just demonstrated. We must render evil odious and detestable. We cannot attain this result without pointing out the dangers of evil, without showing how and why it is odious, detestable and contemptible. Christian oratory of all ages has ever employed the most vigorous and emphatic rhetoric in the arsenal of human speech against impiety. In the writings of the great athletes of Christianity the usage of irony, imprecation, execration and of the most crushing epithets is continual. Hence the only law is the opportunity and the truth.

But there is another justification for such an usage. Popular propagation and apologetics cannot preserve elegant and constrained academic forms. In order to convince the people we must speak to their heart and their imagination which can only be touched by ardent, brilliant, and impassioned language. To be impassioned is not to be reprehensible, when our heat is the holy ardor of truth.

...St. John the Baptist calls the Pharisees "race of vipers," Jesus Christ, our Divine Savior, hurls at them the epithets "hypocrites, whitened sepulchers, a perverse and adulterous generation" without thinking for this reason that He sullies the sanctity of His benevolent speech. St. Paul criticizes the schismatic Cretins (110) as "always liars, evil beasts, slothful bellies." The same apostle calls Elymas the magician "seducer, full of guile and deceit, child of the Devil, enemy of all justice."

...What shall we say of St. John Chrysostom? His famous invective against Eutropius is not comparable, in its personal (111) and aggressive character, to the cruel invectives of Cicero against Catiline and against Verres! The gentle St. Bernard did not honey his words when he attacked the enemies of the faith. Addressing Arnold of Brescia, the great Liberal agitator of his times, he calls him in all his letters "seducer, vase of injuries, scorpion, cruel wolf."

The pacific St. Thomas of Aquinas forgets the calm of his cold syllogisms when he hurls his violent apostrophe against William of St. Amour and his disciples: "Enemies of God," he cries out, "ministers of the Devil, members of AntiChrist, ignorami, perverts, reprobates!" Never did the illustrious Louis Veuillot speak so boldly.

Thus speaks the eminent Fr. Felix Sarda y Salvany, in Liberalism is a Sin, Chapter 20.

(2) The "anti-government" spirit. From the willingness of certain Catholics to remind their fellows of the evils of modern society, and of how and where that society fails to live up to what the Church demands, supposedly follows a spirit of disobedience and lawlessness toward lawful authority: the dreaded "anti-government" spirit.

Evidence of this spirit is apparently found in the desire of some Catholics to isolate themselves from the mainstream, to more easily preserve their Faith and minimize the influence of anti-Catholic society. Fr. Sarda seems to think that this is not a bad idea: "The first thing to do in an infected country is to isolate oneself, and if this is not possible, take all sanitary precautions against the deadly germ. Spiritual health is always endangered whenever we come into contact with Liberalism, and infection is almost certain if we neglect those precautions which prudence suggests" (Chapter 17, Liberalism is a Sin). In this country of allegedly un-precedented personal freedoms, is it not licit and wholly allowable under positive law to buy a plot of land away from the immorality, the smog, and the cable TV of the modern suburbs? Are we to expect that the Amish will be massacred or rounded up for their refusal to play the "suburban" game? And if they were, would it be their own fault for not capitulating to WalMart and rock music? Such a "Flee to the Fields" may not be an approach that suits everyone, but insofar as everyone from Richard Weaver to Mgr. Williamson to Archbishop Levebvre to Fr. Fahey to Fr. Vincent McNabb and more have praised initiatives, either speculative or practical, to return the modern family to the land, what grounds is there for suspecting of subversion and rebellion the men who contemplate this as a possible course of action? Such a suspicion, I submit, is unfair, unfounded, and untenable.

A final point under this heading would be that the government in this country, as in so many others, falls so short of the ideal on even the natural order, let alone the supernatural, that some degree of "angst," "distrust," "dissatisfaction," and "suspicion" would seem to be wholly justified. It is natural for a man, who is vir — a real man insofar as he is virtuous, to be aroused to anger at the sight of injustice. Such anger in no way implies a refusal to obey legitimate authority, or a lack of prudence in cooperating with that authority even when it is illegitimate. As Cardinal Ottaviani pointed out, the liveliness of Christians is best measured by the intensity of their reaction to injustice:

The frequency and power of crime have blunted Christian sensibility, even alas! among Christians. Not only as men, but as Christians, they do not react, do not leap to their feet. How can they feel themselves to be Christians if they are insensitive to the wounds which are being inflicted on Christianity. Life shows its existence by the sensation of pain, by the vivacity (an expressive word) by which it reacts to a wound, by the promptness and vigor of the reaction. In the midst of rottenness and decomposition there is no reaction (quoted by Ousset in Action).

To demand that Catholics turn off their natural and healthy instincts to oppose and abhor injustice when they see it, their desire to root out corruption and abuse from the civil order, and to replace it — lawfully and legitimately — with justice, mercy, and competence is to once again condemn them to a fantasy land of the utopian Catholic home full of a potential army of recruits for Catholic Action who are potentially doomed to entering the public sphere without a coherent vision both of what they want, and of what they don't want.

Criticism 3: Catholic Action is not political.

The last of Mr. Anger's major objections to an "active" Catholic Action seems to be based on the notion that Catholic Action should not seek to achieve its aims based on temporal, political activity, but on a supernatural or spiritual activity. This criticism is not altogether clear, however, for it is never stated quite as simply as we have summarized it. There are several possible interpretations, all of which warrant responses.

(1) A lack of supernatural perspective? If his complaint is that the active-minded men who are attracted to Catholic Action for its potential to engage and transform the social order tend to see things with a strictly temporal or natural — as opposed to spiritual or supernatural — viewpoint, then the answer is that if this were true, it is a valid point; but I don't think that it is true. All serious Catholics know that life is a mysterious mixture of Divine Providence and free will, and that Divine Providence will not magically drop into our laps what we might have accomplished through His power by using our free wills. Sr. Lucia knew that: "Prayer does not dispense from action." St. Pius X knew it, for he deplored the "cowardice and weakness of good men." 5 Jean Ousset knew it. Serious Catholics know, furthermore, as a matter of Faith, that whenever they do a good work, it is Christ that works through them, and God is responsible for having accomplished it. To accuse a Catholic of not believing that is to accuse him of heresy. That's an accusation which is not to be made lightly, and in this case I think it's an accusation that doesn't stick.

(2) Action in the temporal order. If the complaint is, rather, that some men believe that Catholic Action is essentially concerned with the implementation of the Social Doctrine of the Church in society through action in the temporal order, then I would personally plead guilty — maintaining meanwhile that such a charge is really no charge at all. For while in a general way Catholic Action "does not exclude anything, in any manner, direct or indirect, which pertains to the divine mission of the Church," 6 it is more accurate to define Catholic Action as St. Pius X himself has defined it:

...you clearly see, Venerable Brethren, the services rendered to the Church by those chosen bands of Catholics who aim to unite all their forces in combating anti Christian civilization by every just and lawful means. They use every means in repairing the serious disorders caused by it. They seek to restore Jesus Christ to the family, the school and society by re-establishing the principle that human authority represents the authority of God. They take to heart the interests of the people, especially those of the working and agricultural classes, not only by inculcating in the hearts of everybody a true religious spirit (the only true fount of consolation among the troubles of this life) but also by endeavoring to dry their tears, to alleviate their sufferings, and to improve their economic condition by wise measures. They strive, in a word, to make public laws conformable to justice and amend or suppress those which are not so. Finally, they defend and support in a true Catholic spirit the rights of God in all things and the no less sacred rights of the Church.

All these works, sustained and promoted chiefly by lay Catholics and whose form varies according to the needs of each country, constitute what is generally known by a distinctive and surely a very noble name: "Catholic Action," or the "Action of Catholics." 7

It should be obvious from the above that Catholic Action refers, in its specific sense, to the activities of the laity to shape society according to the dictates of the Faith — to the restoration of "Christian civilization in each and every one of the elements composing it;" 8 to making "public laws conformable to justice and amend[ing] or suppress[ing] those which are not so;" to "combating anti-Christian civilization by every just and lawful means."

A modern, orthodox cleric has defended this interpretation. In a conference on "Supplied Jurisdiction and Traditional Priests," 9 Mgr. Tissier de Mallerais has pointed out that works which are "a participation in the priestly ministry on the part of the laity" do not constitute "a movement of Catholic Action in the strict sense of the word." He goes on to say that "Catholic Action understood as a work of the laity in the temporal order, so as to bring about the reign of Christian social principles in the State...is this which St. Pius X strove especially to promote, and which can be called Catholic Action in the strict sense of the term" (emphasis mine).

Finally, it is worth noting in passing that Ousset's book Action, an authority on the subject of Catholic Action which Mr. Anger evidently recognizes, is essentially and only about action in the temporal order.

(3) The authority of the clergy. Related to Mr. Anger's notion of Catholic Action as an apostolate "fundamentally religious" is his reminder that the authority of the clergy over the action of the laity must not be considered as "insignificant" or "optional." True enough.

Though there can be no doubt that misconceptions of Catholic Action will lead to misconceptions of clerical authority. Those who fail to see Catholic Action the way Mr. Anger does (in the properly "spiritual" light), will no doubt merit the criticism that they do not sufficiently respect clerical authority. That a continuum of action and authority (i.e., spiritual vs. temporal action, corresponding to direct vs. indirect authority) exists is attested to by Mgr. Tissier de Mallerais: the more strictly "spiritual" an activity is, the more directly it falls under the direct supervision and control of the hierarchy; the more "temporal" it is, the more "tenuous" is the link with the clergy.10 But it is worth noting that the definitions above, given by both St. Pius X and the Bishop, clearly indicate that Catholic Action refers to the temporal activity of the laity to implement Christian Social Principles in the State. While the statement of Ousset that Mr. Anger cites is no doubt true — that the Christian layman has "an imperative duty to follow the teaching of the spiritual power of the Church," it is no less true that, again according to Ousset, "the priest's essential task is to teach sound doctrine, not to implement it."

The point is that if laymen share Mgr. Tissier's conviction that Catholic Action strictly speaking refers to the action of laymen to implement the Church's Social Doctrine in society, they are not to be condemned. Nor should they be condemned for holding a view that logically follows from that definition: that they should be left with a degree of freedom to develop programs for the implementation of that doctrine in the temporal order, subject of course to judgment of its conformity with Christian principles. For, as Bishop Guerry pointed out in his 1961 Social Doctrine of the Church:

Christians must apply themselves, under their own responsibility, to political, economic, and social analyses and draw their conclusions with a view to action. The social teaching of the Church is not a ready-made program which has only to be applied. Christians still have to work out a program of action which, while it refers to this doctrine, will imply ideas and applications which are the complete responsibilities of the laity.11

(4) Politics vs. parties. Mr. Anger correctly states that Catholic Action does not concern itself with party politics, but he seems to downplay the fact that it is concerned with fostering the temporal common good of the State according to Christian principles; to the restoration of "Christian civilization in each and every one of the elements composing it;" to "preparing men to act as good politicians, to work for the common good according to right principles." Accomplishing such a task demands that men become active politically, though such activity does not, obviously, imply that the Church will sanction this or that political party — this is what is meant by the notion "Catholic Action is not political." Pope Pius XI says this exactly in the passage that Mr. Anger also quoted, but including the sections that he left out:

Catholic Action is on a plane above and outside any political party. It does not intend to advance the political ideas of a party nor is it a political party. Catholics have nevertheless understood that this does not mean that they should take no interest in politics, when by politics is meant the common good in opposition to individual and particular goods...Catholic Action, while not engaging in party politics, aims at preparing men to act as good politicians, to work for the common good according to right principles...Thus, consequently, not only does Catholic Action not prevent individual Catholics from engaging in political action in order to promote the common welfare, but it imposes upon them the duty of so doing, for it obliges them to intervene in politics with a more enlightened conscience and a clearer grasp of the issues at stake (emphasis mine).12

Fr. Fahey makes the same point with his usual clarity:

Catholics must endeavor to assimilate and promote the realization of Catholic political and economic doctrine: that is the province of Catholic Action. But in order to bring about the realization of Catholic political teaching, they must nearly always enter into a political party and help to direct and guide it: in that they act on their own responsibility, except, of course, the Church commands Catholics to adopt a certain attitude in a political affair, because of a morally necessary connection with the good of souls.13

***
A personal digression — the Legion of St. Louis. Under the guise of making his point that Catholic Action is not political, Mr. Anger attacks a statement which occurs in the Vision statement of my Legion of St. Louis. I respond publicly to his criticism because he has at no time initiated a private correspondence on this issue which would have given me the opportunity to respond privately.

His issue is with my use, in the Legion's Vision statement, of the phrase "prudent yet real ideological and political war," a phrase which results from allegedly "blurry thinking" and "naïveté."

(1) The Legion does not claim to be an "officially sanctioned" organization of Catholic Action, so whether or not its statement of vision is consistent with the teaching of the Church on Catholic Action in the strict sense has little to do with whether or not Catholic men are permitted to join hands with us to fight the social and intellectual fight for a healthier, more Catholic society. Ousset's observations (in Action) on that point are germane, and are no doubt known to Mr. Anger given his familiarity with that excellent work:

What then is our sphere of action as lay people? What are our rights concerning action in the temporal sphere? Have we a right to engage in it without a "mandate," without being under the direction of the clergy?

The truth is that an ecclesiastical mandate is unnecessary to allow a layman to exercise a right, still less to accomplish an elementary duty of his life as a layman, such as to marry, bring up children, practice a profession, play his part as a citizen or serve his country in a Christian fashion. It would be quite monstrous to suggest that his being a Christian should result in the restriction of a person's freedom to exercise his rights and comply with his most elementary duties as a Christian.

If the Legion is "political" in Mr. Anger's eyes, that may make it "off-limits" for Catholics with his particular vision of Catholic Action; it would remain, however, a licit vehicle through which Catholics can take action in defense of what remains of Christian society.

(2) An examination of the facts reveals, however, that the Legion is very much organized in a way consistent with the teaching of the Church on Catholic Action. As we have noted, Catholic Action strictly speaking refers to the activities of the laity in the temporal order for the implementation of Catholic Social Doctrine. The Legion is political insofar as it works for an objective intimately connected with the temporal common good of the nation: "the permeation of society with the Faith, the molding of the Social Order according to Catholic Truth, and the reestablishment of temporal authority in its proper place in submission to, not triumph over, Our Lord" (from the Vision Statement). This aim is obviously consistent with Mgr. Tissier's notion of Catholic Action as "a work of the laity in the temporal order, so as to bring about the reign of Christian social principles in the State," and it falls under the goal which Fr. Fahey called "the province of Catholic Action": "to assimilate and promote the realization of Catholic political and economic doctrine."

If Mr. Anger took the term "politics" in the statement which he quoted ("prudent yet real ideological and political war") as a reference to partisan or party struggles, he must have missed (unintentionally, no doubt) the footnote which is printed with the Vision Statement, and which references the term "political" as follows: "(1) By 'political' we mean public and social, not participation in our modern two-party farce." So "political" is a simple adjective which indicates that our combat is for the social order, for the public good. Not political insofar as political means partisan or attached to a party. Mr. Anger obviously missed that fact.

(3) Mr. Anger also objects to my use of the term "ideological," as implying anti-Catholic and Revolutionary notions. The context in which such a phrase is used should dispel any doubt, but perhaps even more relevant is the fact that we use the word in the most common way for common Catholics. Webster's says that an "ideology" is "a systematic body of concepts, esp. about human life or culture" and "the integrated assertions, theories, and aims that constitute a socio-political program." It cannot be denied that Catholics have a clear notion of the purpose of life on earth, along with a socio-political program to implement, in order to make society conform to that purpose. Thus it is that we refer to an "ideological" struggle, for our efforts are nothing other than to make the program of the Catholic Church, the complete and integral Divine Plan for Order, as Fr. Fahey called it, better known, more thoroughly understood, and more deeply appreciated by Catholics and men of good will, that it might ultimately rise over its "ideological opponents" and impart its character and tone to the organization of society.

(4) A final point. Insofar as priestly guidance is necessary, at least indirectly, for Catholics in Catholic Action, I merely point out that Mr. Anger has not the slightest idea what kind of clerical oversight the Legion possesses, and is grossly out of line in suggesting that we are "lacking priestly guidance." This is yet another hint of the tendency to be "judgmental" when it is hardly called for.

***
There are literally millions of Catholics who could today bring their Catholicism to bear on public life; that they don't do so is not a new but rather an old problem. It was a problem for the Bishop of Poitiers, who asked rhetorically, "What is the explanation of the fact that so much charity, so much activity, so much self-sacrifice are so ineffectual and produce so little fruit in regard to the amelioration of public affairs?" He answered his own question, lamenting that,

in regard to public affairs and social order, the faithful and, in too many cases, the priests of our generation have thought that even in a Christian country, a sort of neutral attitude towards the Catholic faith could be adopted, as if Our Lord Jesus Christ had never come or had disappeared from the world...

"If we have not succeeded," he continued, "in triumphing over the revolutionary spirit which makes us a spectacle for other peoples, the evil which is sapping our strength and leading us to the tomb is that while we have the faith in private we have accepted our share of national infidelity." 14

The saintly pope who so admired Cardinal Pie himself complained of "the easy-going weakness of Catholics" which was, he said, responsible for "all the vigor of Satan's reign," 15 making it likely that he would not have objected at all to the idea that Catholics "really need to know" the Social Doctrine, in spite of Mr. Anger's assumption to the contrary. At any rate, in 1945 Pius XII said that no one can ignore the Social Teachings without danger to Faith and Morals, and the French Hierarchy declared nine years later that "one of the gravest deficiencies of the present day is the underestimation or ignorance of the social teaching of the Church." 16

We would be hard pressed to say that things have improved since 1954. But things might, if, by God's grace, we not only believe our Faith and practice our Faith, but apply it, whole and entire, to the myriad of problems we see around us. I leave the reader with the entire inspiring passage (of which Mr. Anger gave us merely certain portions) from St. Pius X, in which he details the attributes and the spirit of the true Catholic crusader: a spirit necessary to overcome the numerous difficulties of a life of Catholic Action:

...one must have divine grace, and the apostle receives it only if he is united to Christ. Only when he has formed Jesus Christ in himself shall he more easily be able to restore Him to the family and society. Therefore, all who are called upon to direct or dedicate themselves to the Catholic cause, must be sound Catholics, firm in faith, solidly instructed in religious matters, truly submissive to the Church and especially to this supreme Apostolic See and the Vicar of Jesus Christ. They must be men of real piety, of manly virtue, and of a life so chaste and fearless that they will be a guiding example to all others. If they are not so formed it will be difficult to arouse others to do good and practically impossible to act with a good intention. The strength needed to persevere in continually bearing the weariness of every true apostolate will fail. The calumnies of enemies, the coldness and frightfully little cooperation of even good men, sometimes even the jealousy of friends and fellow workers (excusable, undoubtedly, on account of the weakness of human nature, but also harmful and a cause of discord, offense and quarrels) — all these will weaken the apostle who lacks divine grace. Only virtue, patient and firm and at the same time mild and tender, can remove or diminish these difficulties in such a way that the works undertaken by Catholic forces will not be compromised. The will of God, Saint Peter wrote the early Christians, is that by your good works you silence the foolish. "For such is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish men."

©Seattle Catholic
December 13, 2002

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