These same neo-conservative warhawks are the ones that perpetuate the myth that the Unted States was founded as a Christian nation, or that most of the Founding Fatherd were themselves Christians. They cannot accept that Americanism, as both a religious and political ideology, is irreformably imcompatible with and hostile to the Catholic religion.
This isn't so if one understands that the founding of the United States is Providential irrespective of the questionable religious beliefs of the its founders. Orestes Brownson wrote quite prodigously about the compatability between the American commonwealth and Catholicism in the mid- to late- 19th century. Actually he wrote quite prodigously in general and was compared quite favorably with his contemporaries John Henry Newman and Juan Donoso Cortes- yet he's largely unknown by contemporary Catholics.
http://orestesbrownson.com/
I've read the work of Brownson and, if his writings are to be believed, despite his conversion to the Catholic faith he remained a committed Americanist for the remainder of his life. His contention that the formation of the American nation was Providential is true only in the sense that God governs all things, as the Vatican Council decreed in its third session:
Everything that God has brought into being he protects and governs by his providence, which reaches from one end of the earth to the other and orders all things well. All things are open and laid bare to his eyes, even those which will be brought about by the free activity of creatures.
The Council of the Vatican, Sess. III, c. I
However, it is the constant teaching of the Church that those acts which are sinful are not of God's will, though not contrary to His will, in that it is the secondary result of His will in establishing in man his most noble attribute, free will, the exercise of which is perverted by sin and consequently is the cause of all earthly suffering. Here, one may be tempted to argue that because God has endowed man with free will, then surely the state which enshrines personal liberty as its putative foundation must be in accord with Catholic principles, as Brownson himself contends:
What are called religious establishments are needed only where either the state is barbarous or the religion is sectarian. Where the state, in its intrinsic constitution, is in accordance with catholic principles, as in the United States, the church has all she needs or can receive. The state can add nothing more to her power or her security in her moral and spiritual warfare with sectarianism, and any attempt to give her more would only weaken her as against the sects, place her in a false light, partially justify their hostility to her, render effective their declamations against her, mix her up unnecessarily with political changes, interests, and passions, and distract the attention of her ministers from their proper work as churchmen, and impose on them the duties of politicians and statesmen.
Orestes Brownson, American Republic, 1866
Now, it is important to note that Brownson goes to great pains to try and segregate America's formal constitution from his conception of its unwritten, or intrinsic constitution. Indeed, he seems to be deliberately vague in contrasting the extrinsic and intrinsic Constitution. However, he fails to understand that whatever attributes this constitution imparts in the area of sovereignty between people and nation, it is the
formal Constitution by which the exercise of that sovereignty, in the formation of government and the legislation of law, is discharged. Secondarily, the public or civil morality is the sum of these laws.
One may be tempted to argue that it is merely the abuse of the democratic organ which has allowed this group or that group to pass laws which are contrary to the morality engendered by natural and divine law, but one need only to read the Constitution of the United States to know that that is untrue. An examination of the first Amendment to the Constitution is enough to see that such abuse is the manifestation of the America's civil law itself, rather than a perversion of it. The quote from
American Republic extols the freedom of religion, so permitted by the Establishment clause of the first amendment, and contends that such establishments are necessary only where states are barbaric or sectarian. One must question whether he was being disingenuous or merely incredibly stupid in suggesting this. As I stated previously, law is the expression of the civil morality of a nation. Consequently, in the case of a republic like the United States, law is an expression of the prevailing morality of the body politic, in that it elects legislators whose views most conform to their own, and they in turn legislate the laws. Since it is then possible, by simple means of the democratic process, that any sufficient non-Catholic majority may impose upon Catholic laws which are contrary to their morality, how can one class that as anything other than institutionalized sectarian violence? More to the point though, the Establishment clause is the civil codification of the heresy of indifferentism condemned by HH Gregory XVI, in that it permits the exercise of any religion so long as civil morality, which is to say lawfulness according to civil statutes, is maintained. The fundamental errors of this are two:
1.) It denies the divinely-intended place of primacy afforded by natural and divine law to the Catholic religion, within the establishment of law. In so doing, it espouses the equality of all religion.
2.) It espouses naturalism, in that it separates morality from its only true source, which is the exercise of the Catholic religion, and suggests that man can better himself, and his relationship with State and fellow-citizens by means other than the unity of the Catholic faith.
Lastly, as I've said many times regarding the tyranny of democracy, the very nature of civil morality under such a system is antithetical to the Christian religion in that it intrinsically declares the source of civil morality, which necessarily affects the individual morality of its citizens, to be contingent on time and the constituency of the body politic, and therefore subjective. This is incompatible with the truth of the holy religion of "Jesus Christ, yesterday, and today; and the same for ever." (cf. Heb. XIII, 8)
Topic: Patriotards....... (Read 2969 times)