A Tea Party in the Catholic Church

Pope Francis celebrates Mass 

in Philadelphia 

Interesting article in the New York Times yesterday about the power of Tea Party Republicans and how through the gerrymandering of districts and the rise of a right-wing sophisticated media network they have been able not only to have achieved a powerful political machine disproportionate to their actual numbers but now actually be in a position to restructure the rules of the House of Representatives to crush opposition from both the moderate wing of their own party as well as from the Democrats.  In other words, a movement which represents the views of only between ten and fifteen percent of the American People will be able to set the course of Government for the entire nation.  History as seen this sort of thing before whether it was the coup that put the Jacobins in power during the French Revolution, the Leninist establishment of the Soviet Republic in 1917, or the rise of National Socialism in 1933 Germany.  It does not bode well for democracy when small factions can dis-integrate the balance of power.  

But this blog is not about political power struggles.  I only use this example to point out some disturbing glances behind the scenes of the visit of Pope Francis to the United States last month.  It was, in most respects, a great visit but there were some disturbing glimpses in the shadow Catholic world behind the official church.  The Liturgies, at least in New York and Philadelphia (I wasn’t able to see the Washington one) were more the sort of the liturgies with which Pope Benedict would have been comfortable.  They were beautifully done but there was a sense of pomp, even triumphalism, that seemed out of step with Francis’s style and a return to the semi-Tridentine preferences of Pope Benedict.  The music, though magnificent, was somewhat consistently “old school” without integrating so much of the contemporary music, and good contemporary music,  the Catholic Church in America is producing.  Dr. Jennifer Pascual who is the director of music at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral and Father Matthew Ernest who is Director of Liturgy for the New York Archdiocese are both deep into the Reform of the Reform model of liturgy that briefly flourished during Benedict’s reign but to which some still cling in hopes of a overturn of the more pastoral liturgical style that has emerged in most parishes in the years since Vatican II.  John Romeri, former Director of Music for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia actually resigned his post last summer because he and Archbishop Chaput simply could not come to a meeting of the minds about the public liturgies of the Archdiocese.  Archbishop Chaput, while a doctrinal conservative, prefers a more simple style of liturgical celebration over Romeri’s insistence on a very “high Church” approach to liturgy.  Dr. Romeri stayed on the planning committee for the Philadelphia Papal Mass and it showed.  It was beautiful but it didn’t speak Pope Francis and it didn’t speak the Catholic Church in the United States. 

There are many places where Reform of the Reform Directors of Music and/or Liturgy have installed themselves to create an opposition, and even an obstruction, to the simpler liturgical styles favored by the Vatican II and post-Conciliar generation of Catholic clergy and laity.  Now, I think a certain spectrum of High-Church/Broad-Church/Low-Church varieties in style is a good idea as it gives Catholics a choice of worship to fit their own spiritualities, but we have to be careful of tying legitimate variations to some sort of self-established orthodoxy or “authentic” Catholicism that sees other expressions as somehow less Catholic. 

I was happy to see the seminarians at Saint Charles give the pope such a welcome.  They sang a song of welcome that seemed to have been composed for the occasion as it mentioned Francis by name (Lord, grant health to our Holy Father, Francis…  I translate salvum fac as “grant health” though it could also be translated as “grant safety” or “grant salvation.”).  Now since the Pope is not particularly comfortable in English, maybe Latin makes some sense here, but again, I wonder.  I like Latin.  I like using some Latin music in the liturgy on occasion.  I particularly like the In Paradisium, the (Lloyd Weber)Pie Jesu, the Mozart Ave Verum Corpus.  I like the Missa de Angelis.  But if the Pope isn’t at home in English, why Latin?  Why not Spanish?  Small point, maybe I am attaching too much significance to it, but it just seemed a bit 1950’s.  And the cassocks.  The cassock, a bit like the biretta, is really a party-badge these days.  I am certainly not opposed to religious wearing their habits—in fact I would rather see religious in their habits than in clerical dress, but where secular priests used to wear cassocks nowadays, they wear black suits with a clerical collar.  Most priests I know don’t even own a cassock.  But I understand that in a variety of seminaries these days students are required to wear the cassock, at least for certain functions or on certain days.  And of course the inestimable Father Z was so generous as hit up his public to purchase birettas for the seminarians of his new diocese of Madison Wisconsin.  Talk about a loony bin of clericalism.  And far more serious, as I have mentioned in previous postings, large number of seminarians in such seminaries as Immaculate Conception at Seton Hall, Mount Saint Mary’s in Emmitsburg and even the North America College are openly contemptuous of Pope Francis and where he is leading the Church.  Feedback from Theological College at Catholic University, Saint Patrick’s Menlo Park, and the Dominican House of Studies in DC suggests an undercurrent of dissent in those seminaries as well.

All of this is just an indication that as in the Republican party, so also in the Catholic Church in the United States, there is a small faction preparing to steer the Church in a different direction than the majority of Catholics would choose.   There is no doubt that a restorationist vision is shared by a majority of younger priests and certainly of seminarians.  The clergy of 2030 will be significantly different in their ecclesiology and liturgical styles than the clergy of the past forty years.  This will only accelerate the number of America Catholics either falling away from the practice of the faith entirely or adding to the already swelling numbers going to other Christian denominations.  Groups such as the Latin Mass Society that favor a restoration of the preconciliar rites as the norm, or we might say making the extraordinary form the ordinary form, will be content as we slide away from the heady enthusiasms of the Second Vatican Council, but it bodes for a much smaller Church and not necessarily a “more faithful Church” but a Church that is closed in on itself and without mission except for self-preservation. 

While I think that overall the “Francis effect” is revitalizing the Church in the Southern hemisphere and even, to an extent, in Europe, unless there is some drastic changes in leadership now, the American Church of 2030 will find itself very idiosyncratic and isolated, a bit like some of the Orthodox Churches like the Church of Greece, that have closed in on themselves and pretty much even shoved the remainder of the Orthodox world away.  

On All of Our Shoulders III

In my last two entries I have been posting the document “On All of Our Shoulders,” a critique according to the magisterium of Vice-Presidential candidate Paul Ryan’s social philosophy by more than 150 prominent Catholic scholars and theologians.  Here is the final section.  This is neither an attack on the Romney/Ryan ticket nor an endorsement of the Obama/Biden ticket but it does shatter the lie that the Republican ticket is “the Catholic thing to do.”  There is no clear choice for a Catholic at the polls this year—or most years.  Unfortunately this is not because both parties are offering us a platform consistent with our gospel values but rather because each of the two major parties has made serious moral compromises.  In the end it is up to each faithful Catholic citizen to examine his or her conscience and prayerfully choose the candidates whom they believe will do the greater good despite the shortcomings in their platforms.  We need to pray and to trust that God’s Kingdom will prevail not through any one of us but through the balance achieved in the common voice and thus we need to profoundly respect those who with due consideration make choices different than our own.   It is time for the hysteria to end and prayerful reflection to prevail. 

Five Principles of Catholic Social Doctrine Most in Danger of Being Forgotten or Distorted

There are many principles of the Church's social doctrine that are effectively communicated and widely known. Chief among these is the dignity and sanctity of human life from conception to natural death. Although this fundamental doctrine is far from adequately implemented in our laws, there is little or no confusion about the Church's teaching on this matter. We offer here a list of principles of Catholic social doctrine—not to argue their priority over others—but because we judge these to be the most in danger of being ignored or distorted in contemporary public debate.

1.    The Catholic view of the human person is social not individual. Congressman Ryan has stated that he learned from Rand to view all policy questions as a "fight of individualism versus collectivism." [7] The Catholic Church does not espouse "individualism," but rather sees it as an error as destructive as collectivism. [8] Blessed John Paul II described "individualism" as a dimension of the "Culture of Death" arising from an "eclipse of the sense of God." [9] The human person is "by its innermost nature, a social being. ["10] We are radically dependent upon and responsible for one another. Again, in the words of John Paul II, "We are all really responsible for all." This truth of the human person is tied to the central doctrines of the Church. It reflects the very "intimate life of God, one God in three Persons." [11]

2.    Government has an essential role to play in protecting and promoting the common good. The error of individualism leads to a mistaken understanding of the role of government. For too long politicians have echoed Ronald Reagan's misleading mantra "Government is the Problem." The Catholic Church, on the contrary, because of its social understanding of the human person, considers government to be as "necessary" for human nature as the family. The state exists to "defend and promote the common good of civil society, its citizens, and intermediate bodies." [12] Thus, while the Church does not offer a specific blueprint for policy, it does view our government's action on behalf of the common good a positive good in itself.

Catholic apologists for small government repeatedly invoke a single paragraph from John Paul II's Centesimus Annus which cautions against the excesses of a "social assistance state" ignoring the decades-long papal consensus supporting social insurance and welfare systems. In the same document, John Paul described the "intervention of governmental authority" on behalf of the defenseless as "an elementary principle of sound political organization" taught by the Church for a century. [13] John Paul later stated "One can only rejoice" that "States set up social welfare systems to assist families…and pension funds for retirees." These express a sense of national "responsibility" and "solidarity." [14]

3.    The doctrine of subsidiarity both limits government and demands that it act when local communities cannot solve problems on their own. Subsidiarity has both negative and positive dimensions. Negatively, it limits overreach by government (as well as other large organizations, including corporations). Positively, the concept (which means "help" or "assistance)" requires that government act when problems cannot be solved on the local level.

Ryan has invoked subsidiarity to justify devolving management of Medicaid to states thereby ending centralization "in the hands of federal bureaucrats." At the same time, his budget cuts Medicaid by $750 billion over ten years, a policy that will cut healthcare for an estimated 14 to 27 million Medicaid recipients. [15]

The broader outlines of the budget plan will radically reduce the size of government and consequently cut funding for private and religious safety net providers such as Catholic Charities who depend upon federal grants and contracts for much of their funding. This fails the positive obligation under subsidiarity to render needed assistance.

4.    The "preferential option for the poor" demands both individual and collective action, including the acts of the state. In the words of John Paul II, the preferential option for the poor affects "our daily life as well as our decisions in the political and economic fields;" placing demands upon individuals as well as "leaders of nations." [16]

The portrayal of the Last Judgment in the Gospel of Matthew is a judgment of the nations based on how they treat the "least of these." This was the "central moral measure" applied by the USCCB in its evaluation of the Ryan budget. "The needs of those who are hungry and homeless, without work or in poverty should come first." [17]

Ryan, like Rand, sees "dependency" as our most serious problem. Thus, he describes his understanding of preferential option as "don't keep people poor, don't make people dependent on government so that they stay stuck at their station in life." [18]

It should go without saying that poverty is not caused primarily by a too generous government safety net that becomes in Ryan's words, "a hammock that lulls able-bodied citizens into lives of complacency and dependency." [19] It is much easier to cut government programs than to help people out of long-term poverty as the very mixed results of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act prove. [20] Ryan's 2012 budget achieves 62% of its designated savings from cuts to programs for low-income families and individuals while cutting the top marginal tax rate and the corporate tax rate. [21] It is impossible to justify this as a serious exercise of the preferential option for the poor.

5.    Economic forces must be reckoned among any serious account of the threats to society and human dignity. Ryan's budget resolutions speak mainly of overbearing government and free individuals acting in a private sector whose justice is never questioned. It is hard to reconcile this vision with the history of the past forty years, in which globalization has deindustrialized America and deregulation has increased the power of private corporations. At the same time, unions, which official Catholic teaching has long recognized as indispensible to the rights of workers and the common good, have been severely weakened. [22] Whatever the threat of government power, any adequate response to our challenges must address the facts of economic power as well. Modern papal social doctrine has addressed both threats since its inception.

In Caritas in Veritate, Pope Benedict XVI has offered an analysis more probing than that offered by either political party.

Benedict speaks of the loss of state power in the face of globalization and calls for the development of new forms of government engagement.

In our own day, the State finds itself having to address the limitations to its sovereignty imposed by the new context of international trade and finance, which…has altered the political power of States….[T]heir powers…need to be prudently reviewed and remodelled so as to enable them, perhaps through new forms of engagement, to address the challenges of today's world. [23]

Benedict continues the century-long papal teaching that the market alone cannot address the needs of the common good:

Economic activity cannot solve all social problems through the simple application of commercial logic. This needs to be directed towards the pursuit of the common good, for which the political community in particular must also take responsibility. Therefore, it must be borne in mind that grave imbalances are produced when economic action, conceived merely as an engine for wealth creation, is detached from political action, conceived as a means for pursuing justice through redistribution. [24]

Benedict offers a description of the temptation to reduce the social safety net that reads like an analysis of the Ryan Budget:

From the social point of view, systems of protection and welfare…are finding it hard and could find it even harder in the future to pursue their goals of true social justice in today's profoundly changed environment….[T]he market has prompted new forms of competition between States as they seek to attract foreign businesses…. These processes have led to a downsizing of social security systems as the price to be paid for seeking greater competitive advantage in the global market, with consequent grave danger for the rights of workers, for fundamental human rights and for the solidarity associated with the traditional forms of the social State. Systems of social security can lose the capacity to carry out their task, both in emerging countries and in those that were among the earliest to develop, as well as in poor countries. Here budgetary policies, with cuts in social spending often made under pressure from international financial institutions, can leave citizens powerless in the face of old and new risks. [25]

Conclusion:

The momentous challenges facing our nation cry out for the full wisdom of the Church's social doctrine. We live at time when the social indifference of libertarian thought is achieving broad cultural legitimacy and political power. This vision of the human person and society are fundamentally at odds with the Gospel and the principles of Catholic Social Doctrine. Legitimate disagreements with the Obama administration must not lead the Church to edit the fullness of its teachings for political expediency. Our political obligations as Catholics go beyond choosing a candidate for which to vote. In the words of Faithful Citizenship, "our participation should help transform the party to which we belong." [26] Ours is a moment that demands the fullness of the Church's teachings as few others have. To be truly prophetic, the Church—bishops, clergy and lay faithful—must proclaim the fullness of its message to all parties, movements, and powers.

Footnotes

7.    Address by Paul Ryan to Atlas Society "Celebration of Ayn Rand," 2005. 

8.    Catechism of the Catholic Church, #2425. "The Church has rejected the totalitarian and atheistic ideologies associated in modem times with "communism" or "socialism." She has likewise refused to accept, in the practice of "capitalism," individualism and the absolute primacy of the law of the marketplace over human labor. Regulating the economy solely by centralized planning perverts the basis of social bonds; regulating it solely by the law of the marketplace fails social justice, for "there are many human needs which cannot be satisfied by the market." Reasonable regulation of the marketplace and economic initiatives, in keeping with a just hierarchy of values and a view to the common good, is to be commended."

9.    John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, #22-23.
10.Second Vatican Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, #12.
11.John Paul II, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, #38, 40.
12.Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1882, 1910.
13.John Paul II, Centesimus Annus, #48, 10.
14.John Paul II, Address to Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, 2002.
15.Kaiser Commission On Medicaid And The Uninsured, "House Republican Budget Plan: State-by-State Impact of Changes in Medicaid Financing," May 2011. http://www.kff.org/medicaid/upload/8185.pdf
16.John Paul II, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, #42.
17."Federal Budget Choices Must Protect Poor, Vulnerable People, Says U.S. Bishops' Conference," April 17, 2012. http://www.usccb.org/news/2012/12-063.cfm.
18."Paul Ryan Says His Catholic Faith Helped Shape Budget Plan," Interview with David Brody, Christian Broadcasting Network, April 10, 2012. http://blogs.cbn.com/thebrodyfile/archive/2012/04/10/only-on-brody-file-paul-ryan-says-his-catholic-faith.aspx
19.The Path to Prosperity: Restoring America's Promise (2012 Budget Resolution), 25. http://budget.house.gov/uploadedfiles/pathtoprosperityfy2012.pdf
20."The prevalence of extreme poverty rose sharply between 1996 and 2011. This growth has been concentrated among those groups that were most affected by the 1996 welfare reform." "Extreme Poverty in the United States, 1996 to 2011," National Poverty Center, Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan, February 2012, 4. http://www.npc.umich.edu/publications/policy_briefs/brief28/policybrief28.pdf
21."Chairman Ryan Gets 62 Percent Of His Huge Budget Cuts From Programs For Lower-Income Americans," Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, March 23, 2012. http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3723
22.John Paul II, Laborem Exercens, #20, and Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate, #25.
23.Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate, 24.
24.Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate, 36.
25.Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate, 35.
26.United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, #14. http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/faithful-citizenship/forming-consciences-for-faithful-citizenship-document.cfm

On All of Our Shoulders II

Yesterday I posted the first two sections of the statement “On All of Our Shoulders,” an evaluation of the Ryan Budget proposal according to the norms of the magisterium issued by 150+ Catholic scholars and theologians.  Today I am posting the next two sections.   My point, as I wrote yesterday, is not to portray Congressperson Ryan in a negative light and certainly not to make him out to be a “ bad Catholic,” but only to demonstrate that the choice for Catholic voters in this election is not a moral “slam-dunk” in the Romney/Ryan hoop.  I believe that a Catholic can, in good conscience, vote for the Republican ticket because of its opposition to legalized abortion.  I also believe that a Catholic can look at the moral issues of the Republican Platform’s economic policies and compare them unfavorably—again, from a moral standpoint—to those of the Democratic candidates and go for the Obama/Biden ticket.  There are serious moral flaws in the projects of each party.  Ironically the Democrats seem to understand this better than the Republicans, but I think it is important that we not only look at the spectrum of issues in making our choices, but respect those who also look hard at the same moral spectrum of issues and make a different choice.  So now, back to “On  All of Our Shoulders….”

Prudence Misused

Catholic promoters of Ryan's policies often invoke "prudence" to argue that since bishops are not competent to judge the details of policy proposals, there is no properly "Catholic" problem with his policies. This distorts the authentic Catholic meaning of prudence. The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines prudence as "right reason in action." It is the virtue through which we "apply moral principles to particular cases." [2] In St. Thomas Aquinas's words, no one "can properly apply one thing to another unless he knows both the thing to be applied and the thing to which it has to be applied." [3] Thus, prudence demands both knowledge of the principles of Catholic Social Doctrine and honest attention to the details and realistic consequences of policies.
Aquinas also warned that prudence is a risky business. We are perennially tempted to use it as a cover for achieving goals contrary to our professed principles. Aquinas taught that the vice of "craftiness" often masquerades as prudence. Craftiness uses "means that are not true, but fictitious and counterfeit" to achieve its ends "whether good or bad." [4] For that reason, we must always scrutinize the principles that inspire our actions in prudential matters. Are our actions and policies consistent with the ideals we proclaim? Or would an honest assessment reveal they are guided by less laudable motives?
Prudence and Principle, Love and Truth:
The Church's social doctrine is not simply an imperative to believe in God and help the poor, for which any proposal can claim equal legitimacy by promising positive consequences. The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church states that the Church teaches specific principles of social doctrine.
These principles of the Church's social doctrine "concern the reality of society in its entirety: from close and immediate relationships to those mediated by politics, economics and law; from the relationships among communities and groups to relations between peoples and nations." [5]
A Catholic use of prudence requires evaluating the compatibility between policy proposals and these substantial teachings.
Benedict XVI expressed the true challenge of Christian prudence in his great social encyclical Caritas in Veritate: the truth of Christian love must animate all dimensions of society. Caritas is more than a generic inspiration, if love is truth, it must give specific form to our actions.
Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way. In a culture without truth, this is the fatal risk facing love. It falls prey to contingent subjective emotions and opinions, the word "love" is abused and distorted, to the point where it comes to mean the opposite.
Without truth, without trust and love for what is true, there is no social conscience and responsibility, and social action ends up serving private interests and the logic of power, resulting in social fragmentation, especially in a globalized society at difficult times like the present. [6]

Prudence and Policy

Prudence also requires consideration of the full range of options available and an honest assessment of the outcome of policy proposals. After decades of tax cuts, honesty requires considering revenue increases in addition to program cuts. Government programs are not perfect and need to be improved. Proposals to slash or eliminate programs without proposing alternatives, however, is exactly the kind of indifference Jesus condemned in the parables of the Good Samaritan and the Rich Man and Lazarus.

Footnotes

2. Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1806
3. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II-II: 47, 3 resp.
4. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II-II: 55, 3 resp.
5. Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, #161.
6. Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate, #3,4.

The Sheep Ain't Sheep Any Longer

Archbishop John Myers of Newark

Archbishop John Myers of Newark came out (pardon the pun) against the legalization of same-sex marriage in a “pastoral letter” issued this weekend and said that Catholics who disagree with Church teaching on this issue should refrain from Holy Communion.  To be fair to His Excellency, let me first reprint an account from the Associated Press that was carried by newspapers this past Tuesday, Sept 25.

More than 1 million Roman Catholics in northern New Jersey are being urged to vote "in defense of marriage and life."

Newark Archbishop John Myers released a pastoral statement today that calls on Catholics to examine how political candidates stand on abortion and "a proper backing of marriage."

Myers also says Catholics who disagree with the church's teaching on marriage should refrain from receiving Holy Communion.

Myers says his statement is not intended as an endorsement for either political party. The archbishop says he's been thinking about issuing a statement on the subject for about a year because he believes there's been a lack of clarity.

The diocese includes churches in Bergen, Hudson, Essex and Union counties.

Garden State Equality, the state's largest gay rights organization, notes recent polls have shown the majority of Catholics favor "marriage equality."

Now, first let us distinguish what is legitimately meant by “disagree with the Church’s teaching on marriage.”  The Church’s competency for definitive teaching is faith (doctrine) and morals.  It certainly may have opinions on other matters—history, law, education, sociology, anthropology, etc. but its area of competency to bind the faithful is faith and morals.  The Church has the right (and obligation) to instruct the faithful on matters of doctrine and of morals.  That the sacrament of Matrimony is contracted between one Christian man and one Christian woman each of whom is free in the eyes of the Church from previous marriages, who intend fidelity in their marriage, and who is open to the creation of new life through their marital love, is well within the Church’s competency.  Furthermore, to teach that sexual relations are gravely wrong outside the context of a marriage that conforms to the Church’s ideals of marriage (not only sacramental matrimony,  but of what the Church teaches that marriage itself is—namely the freely-entered committed-until-death  relationship of one man to one woman, neither of whom are bound by previous marriages and both of whom are committed to fidelity and open to the transmission of life) is also in the Church’s competency, though no one should be surprised when non-Catholics take a different understanding, especially when it concerns their marriages.  But it is not in the competency of the Church to declare that Catholics must hold that the civil law should enshrine its doctrines or its moral stances in the civil law.  It is not the role of the civil law to incorporate into its code the doctrinal or moral teachings of any particular religious body.  That is not to say that members of a particular religion should not be free to evangelize within their society to win a consensus of the citizenry to their point of view but few people want the opinions of any particular religious group to be imposed on a disagreeing citizenry.  In other words, my read on this issue is that while we Catholics are bound to a particular doctrine on Matrimony,  we have no obligation to support laws that impose that understanding on the larger segments of our society. A Catholic cannot be compelled to vote against a candidate or a party that supports a different understanding of marriage than that which the Church teaches.  In fact, the Catholic Church in the United States has always accommodated itself to civil marriages that do not meet its doctrinal norms and Catholics have not been punished in any way for upholding such laws.  Catholic judges not only issue decrees of divorce but often preside at marriages in which one or both parties have been previously married.  Catholic judges and other Catholic civil officials sometimes preside at marriages of Catholics who are choosing not to marry in the Church.  Why is this only a problem when the marriage is between two parties of the same sex?  Why do we want to hold Catholics to a different standard of behavior in this question?  Is it bias?  It could be.  Is it pandering to certain pressure groups?  It could be.  Is it—like the “Fortnight for Romney”—a less than subtle political endorsement?  It could be.  The one thing it is not is influening the Catholic-in-the-Pew whom the polls show are in disagreement with the Bishops on this and many other issues.  I am not saying that the bishops are wrong, I am only observing that the sheep aren’t following.  There is a need to rebuild Episcopal leadership in the Catholic Church from the ground up.   

But there is still the question of whether those who disagree with the Church’s teaching itself—not only with the matter of enshrining the Church teaching in civil law—should refrain from Holy Communion.  That is for next time.  

The Know-Nothings and Anti-Catholicism

We mentioned in previous posts that the Whig party was the anti-immigrant/anti-Catholic party. The Whigs were the liberal party and the heirs of the Enlightenment democratic heritage that valued reason about Tradition—a position that would put them into opposition with Catholicism, especially the European variety of Catholicism that had been closely tied to monarchism and absolutism in opposition to democracy. The “old-school” American Catholics of the Archbishop John Carroll variety had long ago, at the time of the American Revolution, accommodated themselves quite comfortably to the democratic ideals of the new nation, but the “new school” Catholics emigrating from Europe and brining European ideas with them were more reserved not only about American political structures but about American society in general and the American Church in particular. We start to see here in the 1830’s a fork in the path of the American Church, a fork which will allow two Catholic Churches to develop side by side with each other, a Church which will usually be broad enough to accommodate both branches in its communion but at two periods—in the final decades of the nineteenth and early decades of the twentieth and again at the final decades of the twentieth and the opening decade of the twenty-first centuries will find that communion stretched close to its point of fracture. But that is the topic for a future series of blogs. We want to stay on the topic of anti-Catholicism.
The Whig distrust of Catholics and immigrants drove the waves of Catholic immigrants into the Democratic party. At the same time, the Whig inability to achieve its political goal of preserving the ascendency of WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) political and economic power led the decline of the party. As the Whigs lost power, it was natural for another party to rise in its place to preserve the same set of ideals in opposition to the Jacksonian Democrats. Two parties would fill that vacuum. The first would fail, the second would endure.
Eventually the Republican party would emerge to balance the Democrats, but the time was not yet ripe for the Republicans. As the Whigs faded, their banner was taken up by a short-lived political alliance (it becomes a party in the 1850's) called the “Know-Nothings,” Originally not a national party but a loose-knit alliance of various local groups, in many respects like today’s Tea Party, the Know-Nothings began in New York State in 1843 as the American Republican Party. Within two years it had spread to other states and became a national organization known as the Native American Party. Ten years later it changed its name to the American party. It was only when it took on this name that it evolved from what might be called a movement into a formal political party. Its genius and its success was in organizing on the local and grass-roots level. It tended to do well in local elections, and to some extent in state elections, but was never effective in electing a President—though it did try.
Before we go further, an incident in Europe fueled the anti-Catholicism in America. In 1848 there was a revolution against the Papal Government in Central Italy—the Papal States. American Catholics often forget that for centuries the Popes had not only been spiritual leaders but also ruled a nation in central Italy. Italy, as we know it, only became a nation in 1870 when the King of Savoy, his Prime Minister Cavour, and his great General, Garibaldi, overthrew a variety of Kings, princes, Grand Dukes, and Dukes, uniting their various independent principalities into a single nation. One of the Kings overthrown and deprived of his temporal crown was the Pope—but this is some 22 years later. In 1848 a group of Italian Nationalists, drove the Pope—the newly elected Pius IX—from Rome where he fled to Gaeta outside Naples and prepared for a possible flight from Italy. (The British—strange friends (Well, not so strange when you know your history)—had a warship waiting to take him to refuge/exile should he so need. He didn’t need, as it turned out.) With the help of French troops, the rebellion was squashed and the Pope was restored. Pius had been a political liberal to this point favoring Democratic reforms. When he saw what Democratic Reforms led to—well, he wasn’t to sure about Democracy any more. The Americans saw the crushing of the Roman Revolution of 1848 as a blow to Democratic government. It reinforced their stereotype of Catholicism as monarchist and absolutist. And it made the American Nativist Party very successful. Rumor flew that the Pope planned an invasion of America to destroy our freedom even as he had destroyed the liberties of the Roman people. Today it sounds pretty silly that a papal army with the intent to invade would attack America (remember the old Peter Sellers' movie, The Mouse That Roared?) but in the 19th century many believed it. As late as the election of John Kennedy in 1960 many were convinced that the Pope had designs on this country.
The Know-Nothing Party platform was
• Severe limits on immigration, especially from Catholic countries
• Balancing what immigration there was in favor of English, Welch, Scots, and Protestant Irish
• Restricting political office to native-born Americans
• Mandating a wait of 21 years before an immigrant could gain citizenship
• Restricting public school teachers to Protestants
• Mandating daily Bible readings in public schools
• Restricting the sale of liquor
The Know-Nothings—and by the way they were called that, because when questioned about their political organization they would answer, like Sergeant Shultz “I know nothing.” Of course they didn’t have Shultz’s accent; they didn’t like Germans, or Irish, or anybody except those of British extraction. There was a secrecy to their organization and how these various local groups coordinated their efforts which actually led to their being particularly effective. In the spring of 1854 they won elections in Boston, Salem and other New England towns. That autumn they swept the state elections. (Gone was the moderation of Mayor Lyman and Edward Cutter and the Charlestown Selectmen of 1834) In Philadelphia their candidate, Robert Conrad, promised to crack-down on crime, close Saloons on Sundays, and appoint only native-born Americans to city posts. In Washington DC the Know-Nothing candidates won in a landslide. They were unsuccessful in New York—with its large immigrant population—but won a credible 26% of the vote in a four-way election. They did manage to elect both the Mayor of San Francisco and the Governor of California.
The following year they carried Chicago and the Know-Nothing Mayor, Levi Boone, barred all immigrants from city jobs, The success of the Know- Nothings led them to coalesce into a national party in 1854 as the American Party. One of the voices raised against the Know-Nothings was Abraham Lincoln who said—and given the political atmpsphere in Illinois said courageously-- As a nation, we began by declaring that “all men are created equal.” We now practically read it “all men are created equal, except negroes.” When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read “all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics” When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty—to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.
Lincoln was no particular friend of Catholicism—few politicians could afford to be at this period—but he was committed to democracy and the ideals of the Republic and he saw how the Know-Nothings threatened to undermine the basic values on which this nation was founded

I'm not sure where the image today comes from; i found it in my photo file but it is not one of my pictures. (I am pretty handy with Photoshop, but not that fancy)