John Paul II is too liberal; and "the corrosive effects of American culture"

National Catholic Reporter ^ | 8/22/2003 | John L. Allen

[sinkspur]

And now the last time, for your lists.

[Loyalist]

PING

[NYer]

Last time, sink? Is this a duel to the death?

[As you well know...]

Interesting piece, sinkspur. Thanks.

However, I, for one, can't let your boy get away with this one

Witness his proud claim that Christianity actually shaped the core tenets of liberalism in his August 17 Angelus address: “The Christian faith gave form [to Europe], and some of its fundamental values in turn inspired ‘the democratic ideal and the human rights’ of European modernity,” the Pope said.

The Pope did no such thing. First of all, Allen doesn't define "liberalism" here and, secondly, the Pope is speaking of CHRISTIAN FAITH which is not equivalent to Liberalism, no matter how one defines it, and who is Allen to say what the "core tenets" of such a political construct as "Liberalism" means from day to day.

Whatever it does mean, liberalism certainly does not mean the protection of the individual against the ever-growing Leviathan State.

[St.Chuck]

Very interesting reading. Thanks for posting this.

[Thorondir]

Goad and bait and goad and bait and dodge and cry and obfuscate.

Why? What is the purpose of one who throws a CLAIM of clergy in everybody's face while disparaging Popes Leo XIII and ST. Pius X, and the Holy Catholic Church before VII, while jumping for joy at the striking down of a sodomy law in TX, and praisng the removal of the Ten Commandments from American public life and supporting homosexual priests, and disparaging the Church for failing to ordain married men and saying that "Rome is the problem"?

Is there a central purpose behind all of this? There sure seems to be.

Please forgive me if I seem paranoid, and please forgive me if I am just too much of a party-pooper to laugh and dance with the forces of evil. I am sick of it. I am sick of the diabolical charade and perversion and lies.

From now on, my brother, if the thread is nothing more than another of the goadmaster's opportunistic attacks, don't bother pinging me to it.

Dominus tecum

[Maximilian]

This is a brilliant analysis. John Allen gets better every time he writes. There is an emerging fault line here which may be below the surface today, but which will grow more visible as time goes on. Alasdair Macintyre is usually ahead of his time, so his critique of Western culture is likely to be prescient. One fact that should have been mentioned in the article: Macintyre was formerly a Marxist, that's why his attitude of opposition to bourgeois culture comes naturally to him.

First Things has published numerous articles on all the topics mentioned. They've written a lot about Alasdair Macintyre and the revival of Thomism. They've been very pro "Whig Catholics" Weigel and Novak. And for a while there was a running feud between Neuhaus and Schindler. First Things has an excellent search engine:

http://www.firstthings.com/menus/search.html

[nickcarraway]

Wow, this is the best and certainly most interesting article Allen ever wrote. He does his best to hide the best part by burying it under the part about the Pope etc.

One issue with the article, though, is that he uses the term ``liberalism'' in too different contexts. On one hand it means, what we would call liberalism today, i.e. the politics of Ted Kennedy. But he obviously refers to classical liberalism too, which many people on this site would agree with- though they wouldn't agree with the former.

[nickcarraway]

Thanks for posting this.

[Maximilian]

I think this article is actually making some very relevant points. John Allen's articles have not been your typical left-wing tripe as you would expect from the NCR. Now he is getting even better. First he points out that the pope is fundamentally liberal in a way that previous popes, even liberal ones like Paul VI, were not. Then he makes a very sophisticated analysis of liberal Western culture. Well, if he doesn't make it himself, at least he refers readers to where they can find it: Alastair Macintyre, David Schindler, et al. Have Catholics sold their birthright for a mess of pottage by embracing liberal enlightenment thought and politics? This question was buried under the tide of victory in WWII, but now it is coming back to the fore.

[nickcarraway]

Whatever it does mean, liberalism certainly does not mean the protection of the individual against the ever-growing Leviathan State.

See, that's the problem. Modern political liberalism doesn't mean protection of the individual against the state. But classical liberalism certainly does. After all, Hobbes who gave us the Leviathan was an important influence on those classical liberals, like Locke.

[Maximilian]

he uses the term ``liberalism'' in too different contexts

The point of people like Schindler is that they're not very different like you think. Once you've accepted Hume, Locke, etc., then you've bought into a system that leads inevitably to where we are today with Teddy Kennedy. Kennedy, after all, is not an original thinker. Today's liberals are the inevitable product of some kind of process. How did we get to where we are today?

[nickcarraway]

It's an important question.

[Maximilian]

Hobbes who gave us the Leviathan was an important influence on those classical liberals, like Locke.

I wonder if you aren't mis-reading Hobbes. He was in favor of the Leviathan. He believed that only power and authority could hold the state together. Liberalism, even classical liberalism, and the exercise of power have always gone together.

[nickcarraway]

Once you've accepted Hume, Locke, etc., then you've bought into a system that leads inevitably to where we are today with Teddy Kennedy. Kennedy, after all, is not an original thinker.

Is it inevitable? Today's ``liberals''' ideas are almost a complete refutation of the Locke's et al. Now, that doesn't mean that Catholics should accept Hume, Licke et al.

[As you well know...]

Amen. But, it is even worse as "liberalism" is more of an emotive state than a set of identifiable principles.

[As you well know...]

I am trying to remember the name of the Spaniard who wrote "Liberalism is a sin"

U remember?

[nickcarraway]

More to the point, is their an ``approptiate'' system for Christianity to exist in? It existed in the Roman Empire, which was at times as hostile as possible. Chritianity has to be active in society, and yet separate from it. Would Christianity be better under communism? Probably not. Does that mean capitalism automatically benefits Christians? Probably not completely. Classical liberalism shouldn't be construed as a ``Christian government.'' But might it perhaps be the best system Christians can hope for? The government, society are not supposed to be subsitutes for Christian culture, but maybe they are the least hostile? What are the alternatives?

Of course, some would say living under Roman Empire style repression makes for a better quality of Christain. Maybe they have a point.

[Maximilian]

Is it inevitable?

That's a good question, and it's the one that occupies the minds of "conservatives" (those that have minds). Was it inevitable that the enlightenment experiment (of which America is unquestionably the preeminent example) would degenerate into the decadence we see today? Or could we have maintained certain enlightenment principles if we had taken a different path in 1861, in 1901, in 1917, in 1931, etc.

The question being raised by these critics, however, is very different from that which would occur to "classical liberals." They are asking instead whether the "inevitability" question is just an intra-necine affair among fellow descendants of the French Revolution, and whether Catholics should stay totally out of the fray because we don't accept ANY of those principles.

Hume was a radical skeptic after all. From a Catholic perspective, is it possible to build any kind of Catholic civilization whatsoever upon that kind of foundation? Hasn't there always been an oil/water incompatibility between enlightenment thought and Catholicism?

At least up through WWII the Church always maintained that there was. But starting with JXXIII and Vatican II, the Church suddenly decided that being opposed to enlightenment principles put you on the losing side of history, and that it was time to jump on the bandwagon. But seeing in hindsight what has happened to Western civilization in the 40 years since then, it looks very much like "buying into the top of the bubble."