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Is American Democracy Safe for Catholicism?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Extract

The question implies that the First Amendment's “separation of church and state,” as interpreted by the Supreme Court, is an insufficient solution to the old conflict between American democracy and Catholicism. Catholicism has become unsafe in contemporary American democracy in ways that the original constitutional arrangement, of which the First Amendment was only a part, does not help. The contemporary danger is rooted partly in the old conflict between classical liberalism and revealed religion as such. But the more proximate danger is the secular “civil liberties” regime that has been instituted by the Supreme Court since 1940. That regime permits Catholics to follow their religion in public affairs only insofar as it is in agreement with the secularism which the “civil liberties” regime both instituted and understands liberal democracy to require.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 2000

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References

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37 374 U.S. 203 and 370 U.S. 421. LEXIS finds “secular” or its cognates used 4 times in Engel and 55 times in Abington.

38 Minersville School District v. Gobitis 310 U.S. at 602 and 603.

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40 Holy Trinity Church v. U.S. 143 U.S. at 467 (1892).

41 Kepner v. U. S. 195 U.S. at 111 (1904).

42 We consider below (pp. 19–20ff.) in the next section why the political interests of the “civil liberties” regime prefer public secularism.

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52 “One is wrong in regarding the Catholic religion as a natural enemy of democracy. Rather, among the various Christian doctrines Catholicism seems one of those most favorable to equality of conditions. … Protestantism in general orients men much less toward equality than toward independence” (Democracy in America, p. 288).

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56 Murphy, Andrew R., “Rawls and a Shrinking Liberty of Conscience,” Review of Politics, 60 (1998):269.CrossRefGoogle Scholar He plausibly understands Rawls to hold that such views should be “eradicated” from the public sphere (p. 268).

57 Ibid., p. 273.

58 Goerner's, E. A. review of Political Liberalism, Review of Politics 55 (1993):715.Google Scholar The Rawls quote is from Political Liberalism, p. 254. Murphy argues that, “despite his [Rawls's] claims, this [privileging political values appealing solely to public reason] would likely rule out the theologically-laced rhetoric of Lincoln's Second Inaugural” and even “much of King's eloquent Letter from [a] Birmingham Jail” (“Rawls and Shrinking Liberty,” p. 268, emphasis in original).

59 Since only nonliberal comprehensive doctrines are excluded, Murphy goes too far in accusing Rawls of “in effect eradicating comprehensive doctrines from the public sphere” (“Rawls and Shrinking Liberty,” p. 268).

60 Audi, , “The Separation of Church and State and the Obligations of Citizenship,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 18 (1989): 279, 278Google Scholar. Greenawalt, Kent also presents this view in Religious Convictions and Political Choice (NewYork: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. 216–17Google Scholar. “The government of a liberal society knows no religious truth and a crucial premise about a liberal society is that citizens … can build principles of political order and social justice that do not depend on particular religious beliefs.” Michael J. Perry doubts that Greenawalt consistently maintains this view. See Perry, , Love and Power: The Role of Religion and Morality in American Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 22.Google Scholar

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64 Justice Potter Stewart noted (in dissent) that secularism replaces the biblical morality as the basis of public life when he that banning Bible reading establishes “the religion of secularism” (Abington v. Schempp 374 U.S. 203, 313 [1963]). This secularism is now so taken for granted by the Court that Neuhaus, Richard John could plausibly say that Romer v. Evans 116 S.Ct. 1620 (1996)Google Scholar, placed “religiously based virtue or moral judgment … beyond the pale of public discourse.” See “Religion and the Shifting Center in American Politics,” The Long Term View, 3, No.3, (Boston: The Massachusetts School of Law, 1996), 77Google Scholar. We think it more precise to say that Romer so excludes from the public sphere only nonliberal religiously based moral judgments.

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66 Democracy in America, p. 291.

67 Evangelium Vitae, chap. 1, #19.

68 “ACommon Enemy, ACommon Cause.” Speech to an interfaith audience at Wilmington, Delaware, 3 May 1948. Printed in First Things, October 1992, p. 34 (emphasis added).

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74 As we argued in section two above (p. 13).

75 Matthew 12:25, Mark 3:24–25, Luke 11:18, Revelation 16:19.

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81 Centesimus Annus, #48.

82 Evangelium Vitae, Introduction, # 3. This emphasis on a broad-based corruption of popular and elite opinion on these life matters is a recurring theme. See chap. 1, #14 and #17.

83 %Ibid., Ch. 1, #18.

84 %Ibid., chap. 1, #12.

85 %Ibid., chap. 3, #70.

86 Weigel, George suggests that the pope thinks culture is more important than politics “as an engine of historical change.” “John Paul II and the Priority of Culture,” First Things, 02 1998, p.19.Google Scholar

87 Evangelium Vitae, chap. 3, #71. Quoted from Pacem in Terris (1963) chap. 2, #61.

88 “Precisely in an age when inviolable rights of the person are solemnly proclaimed and the value of life publicly affirmed [i.e., by the Western democracies], the very right to life is being denied or trampled upon [by these Western democracies]” (Evangelium Vitae, chap. 1, #18).

89 In Evangelium Vitae, Introduction, #4, the pope distinguishes “[t]he basic principles of their Constitutions [i.e., of many countries] which protect the right to life,” from modern legislation which makes legal some practices that are against life.

90 %Ibid., chap. 1, #19.

91 Walter Berns correctly argues that the liberal American Constitution follows Locke on religious toleration and Adam Smith on the desirability of commerce and multiplicity of sects. And religious toleration “probably does depend on a way of life from which weakened belief follows as a consequence.” That way of life, he says, is commerce. Taking the Constitution Seriously Lanham, MD: Madison Books, (1987), pp. 180,173 ff.Google Scholar

92 John Paul II takes note of “those who consider such relativism an essential condition of democracy, inasmuch as it alone is held to guarantee tolerance, mutual respect between people, and acceptance of decisions of the majority, whereas moral norms considered to be objective and binding are held to lead to authoritarianism and intolerance” Evangelium Vitae, chap. 3, #70.

93 Democracy in America, pp. 255–56.