This image appears in the annual Leesburg Christmas Parade

It would appear that none of those advocating the removal of public religious imagery have actually read the First Amendment to the Constitution, which states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Allowing “free exercise” of religion in no way makes a “law respecting an establishment of religion”. In fact, it’s a mandated principle of the First Amendment — that the government stays out of the way of religious expression. No reasonable person can conclude that putting a creche and a Christmas tree and a menorah on public property — representing the major religious traditions of vast majority of Americans — establishes a state religion.

I admit, I struggle to understand atheists who want “equal time” for their “holiday” displays. Atheism is not a religion. The desire to combat the religious beliefs of a majority of Americans through public spectacle is certainly not of interest to many atheists, but those who do take up that fight seem not to see the irony of trying to have their beliefs triumph over those of other Americans. Insofar as they might prevail in forbidding any public religious display from any faith tradition, they are in effect making atheism the state “religion”. Does this double-standard not matter to them?

Locally, this has become a bigger issue over the past decade. In Leesburg, VA, the courthouse lawn has been an increasingly disputed piece of land when it comes to holiday displays. In recent years, atheists have demanded to be represented, posting signs that say things like, “Celebrating the Constitution: Keeping Church and State Separate Since 1787.” Some displays allowed under Loudoun County’s more lenient equal-access policy have become bizarre, even offensive. Last month, The Washington Times reported:

Skeleton Santa Claus hanging from a cross. A painting featuring the manger birth of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. A traditional Nativity scene. The local Jedi wishing that the Force is with our troops.

It must be Christmas in Leesburg, Va. Keeping with the historic town’s new holiday tradition, all of these scenes were erected in the yard in front of the Loudoun County Courthouse last year by community groups hoping to share their own brand of season’s greetings.

Nontraditional and provocative holiday displays have been featured on the yard since 2009, when the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors lifted a ban on courthouse displays and allowed community groups “equal access” to the grounds. And while this leaves the door open to anyone to showcase his beliefs, not everyone likes the way that different groups have been decking the grass mall.

New Loudoun County rules have attempted to curtail the more offensive displays by making it harder to maintain one. This year, the board of supervisors added a requirement that each community display have a person physically present with the display at all times.

Rick Wingrove, the Virginia director for American Atheists, criticized this move:

While Mr. Wingrove has participated in courthouse lawn holiday decorations for years, he criticized this year’s Loudoun County-sponsored displays that can stand unattended — a Christmas tree, menorah and Santa with his sleigh — as promotion of specific religious beliefs and a violation of the separation of church and state.

Leesburg District Supervisor Ken Reid was also quoted in the Times piece, and he disagreed in rather forceful terms:

“None of the religious organizations in the county have had any problem with what we’re doing,” he said. “It’s strictly this group of terrorists. They’re fanatics who basically want to stamp out religion in all public life and property.”

Reid’s comments have been highly controversial, and have garnered no small amount of media attention. In an email forwarded to me this morning, Reid indicates that he regrets his choice of words:

I have asked God for forgiveness, have consulted with my rabbi and my friends about my regrettable use of the word “terrorist group” to describe local Loudouners who seek a ban on the creche and other religious symbols from the courthouse lawn.

I never said all nonbelievers are terrorists, but atheist groups and liberal blogs across the nation are accusing me of saying that and one even said I called them “fascists.” A few have said I am part of “The Christian RIght,” because the media failed to note that I am Jewish, but have stood up for Christian and Jewish symbols on the courthouse lawn.

I spoke with Reid, and it was evident that his regret over calling opponents “terrorists” was sincere. Though he wishes he had said things differently, his criticism was directed not at all atheists, but specifically with those activists doing battle over the Leesburg courthouse lawn. He remains concerned that the media attention over his poor word choice — for which he has already apologized — is being used for political purposes, and is a distraction from what people should be focused on during this time of year.

Reid told me, “We’ve had too many years of angst and grief over these displays.” Turning the attention away from his comments and toward the meaning of the holidays taking place this December was the thrust of our conversation. “I want to let this go and make this a positive holiday Season in Leesburg.”

I don’t live in Loudoun County anymore, but I support Ken Reid and the Loudoun Board of Supervisors for allowing traditional religious displays on the Courthouse lawn, as well as their decision to tighten requirements for the types of displays being represented there. If you or people you know live in the area, you can show your support by coming to the public input session which will be held on Tuesday, December 4th at the Loudoun County Government Center Board Room, loacted at 1 Harrison Street S.E., Leesburg, VA 20175. The meeting begins at 5PM, and public input begins as early as 6PM. There is expected to be a large contingent of those opposed to the Board of Supervisor’s actions, and a show of support from people who believe in the free exercise of religion during a time of year centered around some of our holiest observances would be most welcome.

But then my mind settled on something that I often take for granted. I prayed, “Thank you, God, that I was born in the United States of America. That I’ve been given all the opportunities for success and prosperity and freedom that go along with such a happy accident of birth.”

Though we have at times had a reputation for arrogance, it needs to be said: Americans aren’t better than any other people in the world. We’ve just had the extremely good fortune of living here.

It is America that has always been exceptional. A nation that trusted its people to take the initiative to succeed in a way no other ever has, that has given them the freedom to live as they will, free of tyranny and the constraints of even the most benevolent despotism, rich in natural resources and founded upon principles rooted in the Judeo-Christian religion and the immutable dictates of natural law.

Of this unique American character, G.K. Chesterton wrote:

America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed. That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence; perhaps the only piece of practical politics that is also theoretical politics and also great literature. It enunciates that all men are equal in their claim to justice, that governments exist to give them that justice, and that their authority is for that reason just. It certainly does condemn anarchism, and it does also by inference condemn atheism, since it clearly names the Creator as the ultimate authority from whom these equal rights are derived. Nobody expects a modern political system to proceed logically in the application of such dogmas, and in the matter of God and Government it is naturally God whose claim is taken more lightly. The point is that there is a creed, if not about divine, at least about human things.

Chesterton is right. But a sobering reality has arisen from this creed about human things. John Adams famously said that “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” But that quote, taken in its full context, is even more powerful — and frightening — for its prophetic understanding of the danger that imperils our nation’s very existence today:

While our country remains untainted with the principles and manners which are now producing desolation in so many parts of the world; while she continues sincere, and incapable of insidious and impious policy, we shall have the strongest reason to rejoice in the local destination assigned us by Providence. But should the people of America once become capable of that deep simulation towards one another, and towards foreign nations, which assumes the language of justice and moderation, while it is practising iniquity and extravagance, and displays in the most captivating manner the charming pictures of candour, frankness, and sincerity, while it is rioting in rapine and insolence, this country will be the most miserable habitation in the world. Because we have no government, armed with power, capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

After this year’s election, many people are afraid that the American experiment is over. The greed that fuels a government which placates its people with health care and circuses on one hand while stealing their liberty with the other is a serious disease indeed. As de Toqueville wrote, “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.”

Even more troubling is the moral decay that makes a populace believe it has a “right” to kill its weakest and most innocent and fundamentally re-define sexual ethics, just war, and the millenia-old definition of the family is diabolical. The America my generation will hand to our children will look nothing like the one I knew as a child in the 1980s. And it is also true that the America I knew as a child looked very little like the one my parents experienced in the 1950s. We have fallen far, and we have fallen fast.

And yet, I would argue that America remains. The world is also in crisis. Economies across the globe are crumbling. Brutal governments oppress their people and forbid the exercise of liberty. The Islamic threat is, as Belloc warned, again on the rise. In America, we at least still have the freedom to stand aright and say that what we see is wrong. Unlike citizens of other nations, I do not live in fear that what I write today will land me in some hellish prison, with no recourse to justice.  Find a nation to which you would rather claim allegiance than ours. Identify a national ethos that still holds more promise than our own. Show me a flag that inspires more authentic pride in the hearts of its people, a populace that does more good for the downtrodden, both at home and abroad, a people closer yet to God’s laws — however far we may be — than ours.

We have strayed from the course, and are markedly distant from where, as a nation, we began. In the end, we may not be able to stop the decline that ends all great civilizations. But we still have a better chance than any other people to reclaim some of that greatness that we have received as a birthright, through no virtue of our own.

I’ll take that chance. I’ll keep fighting. Today I am thankful for many things. Among these for which I have the most gratitude, I am happy that I am American. I am glad that it still means something. If we all work together, we may yet see a day in which it means even more, once again.

And when the election is finally done, we’re exhausted. We don’t want to think about it again for a long time. Particularly when our “side” has lost an election, we may be especially inclined to feel defeated and discouraged.

But now is the time to start working toward what comes next. And that means that as Catholics, we need to take some time and really figure out what we want from our government. And then, we need to act to see that insofar as possible, we get candidates who support that vision. We haven’t had much of that lately, so we need to do some soul-searching.

We should all be asking ourselves certain questions:

• Do we want a bigger, more centralized government that has the power to legislate moral issues? Or should we worry that once the government has that power, it will eventually use it to legislate against the moral issues we believe in, and use this power against us?

• Do we want a government that ignores just war doctrine in its military activities and pays no heed to the Constitutional requirements to authorize war, or do we want a more humble foreign policy that both respects ethical principles and human life while still maintaining the strength we need to defend ourselves?

• Do we believe that government knows what is best for us, and should meddle excessively in our currency, in our commercial transactions, in our educational system, our healthcare, and our right to make our own choices about what is best for us and our families? Or do we believe that according to the American framework, the power comes from the people, and as such the people should have as much liberty as possible, and the principle of subsidiarity should be respected?

• Do we believe that on issues as important as abortion, that the power over whether it is legal to kill the unborn or to save them should rest in the highest, unelected branch of government, or that the people should be allowed to vote on it directly at the most local possible level, thus ensuring a debate that has the chance to change hearts and minds and carry out the will of a society that is more pro-life than not?

This list is far from complete. But the considerations I’ve mentioned are certainly critical. We have been given one presidential candidate after another who is less than the ideal, and many of us have dutifully voted for them, hoping that at least they would slow the onslaught of the creeping leftist secularism that has infected this nation and is threatening its very existence. But they can’t stop it. And if they can’t win, they can’t even slow it. And the reason they can’t win is because they don’t stand for anything sufficiently unique, compelling, or different to inspire passion, confidence, or hope. We’ve been betting on mediocrity, and we have been surprised by our mediocre results. We need desperately to rethink our strategy.

Noted Catholic writer John Zmirak made a persuasive case back in 2008 that while the Catholic philosophy of government is not inherently libertarian, in our current context, it makes more sense for Catholics to support this approach to government than the alternative:

Given our constitutional heritage and the large body of legal decisions solidifying its interpretation, on nearly any issue, Christians of any denomination should reject the assistance of the State. Our efforts to capture it, the courts have made it clear, will always fail. Any attempt to infuse the activity of the government with the moral content of a revealed religion will be rejected, in the end. Indeed, the more our own institutions cooperate with the government, the more they will be compromised; hospitals which take federal funds will be subject to secular ethics on issues like contraception, end-of-life, and even abortion. Religious colleges accepting federal grants will eventually be federalized, and so on.

It seems clear that the public sphere in America is irretrievably secular. So the only logical response of Christians must be to try to shrink it. Instead of attempting to baptize a Leviathan which turned on us long ago, we’d do much better to cage and starve the beast.

[ ... ]

This is not to endorse the universal claims of doctrinaire libertarians, and assert that every State in history has been a tyranny (except perhaps medieval Iceland). It’s not to deny that any community anywhere has the moral right to employ the State to pursue its vision of the Good. (There’s nothing wrong with Kaiser Franz Josef endowing a monastery here and there, or the Israeli government helping educate rabbis.) In many cultural contexts, the State can fruitfully employ its power to promote the faith and morals held in common by a community. But that can’t happen here. Not in America. Several of our Founders, and generations of our lawyers, have seen to that. We have no more reason to cooperate with the secular state than Irishmen have to trust the British Crown.

Our government is out of control, and we need to reign it in before we no longer have the ability to do so. If we don’t do something dramatically different, I believe we’re going to continue to lose elections. And even when we don’t lose elections, the results we’re going to get will be far from satisfying. Meanwhile, our liberty will continue to evaporate, and the America we knew will be just a nice bit of history.

It’s time for a paradigm shift in our politics. Some would argue that it’s too late, but I believe that (in the words of Ben Franklin) we still have the last vestiges of “A Republic, if you can keep it.”

So let’s keep it. If you believe we can, let’s talk about what it’s going to take. We need ideas, and then, we need actions. Let’s start now. We can’t afford to wait.

Every pro-life voter knows that Mitt Romney has a troubling record on abortion. Those of us who have chosen to support him hope that the change of heart he describes on this issue is real, and that it will translate to words and actions that will assist our cause. But he has miles to go, as some of his some of his recent comments (and subsequent clarifications) have indicated. At Crisis this morning, Austin Ruse, president of the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute (C-FAM) discusses the weaknesses Romney has in addressing the pro-life cause.

Tackling the tricky subjects of Mexico City policy, which Romney says he will reinstate, and UNFPA, which he will defund, Ruse says that these are the “bare minimum” aspects of a pro-life policy, and don’t go nearly far enough. In fact, it’s impossible to know how much effect they have in real terms.

I am not saying these things are not important to pro-lifers. They are. But they are a bare minimum. They are the lowest possible hanging fruit. What we want is for our politicians to climb the ladder and reach for the fruit on the top of the tree. Mexico City Policy and defunding UNFPA cannot replace the large bore pro-life demands such as a pro-life Attorney General, a pro-life Secretary of Health and Human Services, judges and justices who are originalists and texturalists who can be counted on the interpret the constitution in its plain meaning and not in its “penumbras” and “emanations”. And these are just for starters.

Touting these things is similar to politicians using partial birth abortion to prove they are pro-life. Partial birth abortion is a barbaric practice that crushes the skull of a child in the process of being delivered. Opposing this cannot be proof of being pro-life. Again, it is the bare minimum.

Part of the problem is that many politicians, including Romney, are strangers in the pro-life land. They do not speak the language. They are like American tourists trying to order coffee in Rome. It is a fairly easy thing to do but also easy to fumble unless you do it every day.

Romney stumbled earlier when he said he would accept abortion for the health of the mother, apparently not knowing that the health exception in Doe v. Bolton is what gave us abortion on demand in the first place. Even true-blue pro-lifer Todd Akin stumbled badly on the pro-choice gotcha question of the rape exception. Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock did, too. A few days ago he said a pregnancy from rape was the will of God.

Romney and others could do with serious drilling in Pro-Life Language 101 and they could do worse in learning from Georgette Forney and Serrin Foster, both experts in speaking the kind of pro-life language that appeals to women.

What would such language sound like from a Romney administration? Ruse suggests:

Fully catechized by Forney and Foster, Romney may no longer stumble. Asked if he has a legislative plan on abortion, Governor Romney would say, “I believe that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided and hope to see it overturned. In the meantime, both through legislation and executive appointments, my administration will help women in their time of need. My administration and I will not abandon them. We will not leave them all alone with that terrible ‘choice’.”

This is the most sophisticated pro-life language there is, and has the added advantage of being a totally foreign language to abortion advocates who prefer women to be isolated and alone in that terrifying little room at Planned Parenthood.

If Romney is elected, we need to pray and act, where possible, to see that he embrace such an approach to the pro-life issue, and that he will decide to do more than pay lip service to the single greatest evil facing our nation today.

That's a Brown Scapular She's Wearing

Inspired by my post last week on Donna D’Errico, of Baywatch and Playboy fame, my former Franciscan University classmate and Ignitum Today columnist Jared Q. Tomanek interviewed D’Errico to get more of her story.

Jared talks to her at some length about her new devotion to exploration, in particular as regards her much-publicized search for Noah’s Ark and the documentary she’s been making about another seeker of the Ark who disappeared in 2010. D’Errico speaks glowingly of her change in status. After being interviewed on Good Morning America about her search for the Ark, she was stunned to be headlined as an “explorer.” ”I’m so used to being referred to as an actress, former Baywatch ‘babe’, etc.,” she said, “that I was caught off-guard.  It’s nice to be recognized as an explorer.”

When Jared asks her to tell more about her Catholic faith, she offers an even deeper insight than we saw in the Fox News interview that was the basis of my original post:

JQ Tomanek: The Catholic grapevine heard you pray the Rosary everyday with your children.  Please explain your process and how you accomplish such a great goal.  I know many Catholic parents seek or tried (pointing my figure over at myself) that out as a goal but fall short.

Donna D’Errico:  We pray the Rosary along with our evening prayers every night as a family before bed. There’s no coercion; it’s just part of our routine by now.  At 19, my son is certainly no child.  But he never skips evening prayers.  It strengthens us as a family.

JQ Tomanek:  Ok, an easy one.  Who is your favorite saint?

Donna D’Errico:  Saint Monica.

JQ Tomanek:  I have noticed you wear a brown Scapular.  Is there a particular reason you have a devotion to this sacramental?

Donna D’Errico:  I was enrolled in the Brown Scapular years ago, and have never removed it since.

JQ Tomanek:  To end our interview, I would like to ask a question for our feminine audience.  Our culture sends us many messages of false hope.  Many of our readers are young Catholic women that struggle with many of today’s social problems like self-esteem, eating disorders, being objectified, etc.  What are some good ways to stay the course and hold onto the Faith in today’s troubled waters?

Donna D’Errico:  Pray the Rosary every day.  Attend Mass every Sunday.  Go to Confession regularly. If you do these things, you will be able to withstand and get through anything.  I know what it’s like to be led astray and fall into a life of sin.  I know how easy that is.  I’ve lived it.  I also know what it’s like to come back.

To me, this is an unflinching and incredibly impressive testimony. D’Errico still works in the TV and Film industry, which is not known for being particularly hospitable to believers. It is such a rarity to see someone with such a high public profile make such an authentic appeal for Catholicism.

D’Errico says she’s wanted to search for the Ark since she was a child in Catholic School. So when the inevitable subject of religion and questionable choices she made in the past came up, D’Errico put her perspective on things in no uncertain terms:

FOX411: Do you consider yourself a religious person?

DD: Absolutely. I don’t like the term spiritual because I think that’s a cop out. Either you’re religious or you’re not. There’s no spiritual, it’s a silly term that’s become a catchall phrase. If you’re not religious you’re not religious. What does spiritual mean? I go to Mass every Sunday and I pray the rosary every night with my kids.

FOX411: You say you went to Catholic school. Were your parents disappointed when you posed for Playboy?

DD: Listen, I’ve made mistakes and choices in my past that I wouldn’t make today. That’s a chapter in my life that I’ve closed the door on. It seems to me like another person. It’s not who I am today.

It’d be tough to live with a past like hers. Formerly married to Mötley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx, D’Errico’s reputation for being a wild girl isn’t exactly a secret. Being featured in Playboy was, by some accounts, not the greatest of her indiscretions.

But that’s what makes this story so compelling. That she goes to Mass every Sunday is impressive enough, but there are plenty of Sunday Mass-goers who then go out campaigning for pro-abortion Democrats. (For the record, D’Errico is a die-hard Ron Paul fan.) But the fact that she prays the rosary every night with her kids, that’s what really told me this is a woman who has turned her life around.

The rosary is an extremely potent weapon against spiritual darkness. It’s never been my favorite devotion, but it’s one I keep returning to because of its unmistakable and transformative power. It would be very difficult to say the rosary every day and not be changed by it. If you call on her, Mary, the model of purity and human goodness simply gets involved in your life in ways you can’t comprehend. She brings about miraculous conversions. It’s happened in my own family. She fortifies us against our sinful nature, and obtains abundant graces from her Divine Son. And she is so willing, so eager to help us if we will only ask.

I don’t know much about Donna D’Errico’s specific beliefs, or how faithful she is in her Catholicism. But I know Mary’s power, and that’s enough to tell me she’s on the right track. And I don’t think D’Errico is just spouting niceties about the Catholic religion. Have another look at her photo. That’s a miraculous medal she’s wearing.

There’s nothing more impressive to me than a good conversion (or in this case, reversion) story. Good for her, and Deo gratias.

The HHS Mandate continues to cause problems for faithful Catholics standing up for their religious liberty. There’s a battle going on this week in courts across the nation, where more than 40 dioceses or Catholic institutions are fighting just to have their arguments heard by the Federal Government.

The simultaneous filings Aug. 27 were in response to an Aug. 6 brief in which the Obama administration asked the courts to summarily dismiss the suits, saying they were premature and that the plaintiffs had no standing to challenge the Department of Health and Human Services’ mandate.

“This case is about important rights to religious freedom protected by our founders under the First Amendment, assured by Congress under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, but trampled by Defendants under haphazard rulemaking,” says the 36-page brief filed on behalf of the University of Notre Dame.

The government is arguing that because of the “temporary safe harbor” exemption granted to religious institutions, and because the mandate may change before it goes into effect, there are no grounds on which to challenge it.

Those filing briefs against the government beg to differ. The cost that they are likely to bear will be enormous, and preparations must be made now in the event that their legal challenges fail:

The University of Notre Dame argues in its brief that the federal government’s “plans to make some as-yet-undefined amendment to the U.S. government mandate does not deprive Notre Dame of its ability to challenge the law as it exists now, particularly where, as here, it is imposing both imminent and current harms.”

Included with the Notre Dame brief was a sworn deposition by John Affleck-Graves, executive vice president of the university, who said the school’s budget for fiscal year 2013 had to be finalized by October 2012.

“Before its next budget is finalized in the coming months, Notre Dame will have to make difficult decisions about whether to budget for the potential of significant fines if it cannot, for any number of reasons, comply with the mandate’s requirement that it provide the objectionable services in the next plan years,” the deposition said.

With about 4,500 full-time employees, the university could face approximately $9 million in fines annually, Affleck-Graves said. The school has already placed $1 million in reserve to pay costs and fines associated with the mandate, he said.

Notre Dame also estimates that it will spend up to $50,000 in the next two months alone for actuarial services to determine the impact of the contraceptive mandate.

In a similar brief, the Archdiocese of Washington said it could incur penalties of nearly $145 million a year, “simply for practicing our faith,” or could be forced to cancel health insurance benefits for its 4,000 archdiocesan employees and their dependents.

“Either scenario is unthinkable, and planning for such action is itself a grave burden, but in either case the mandate’s impact would be so severe that the archdiocese must begin to prepare now,” the archdiocese said in a news release.

Meanwhile, in Denver, Catholic business owners who had won a civic award had the award witheld after they won an injunction against the mandate.

Hercules Industries, a heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning manufacturer that employs 300 workers and has been in business in the Mile-High City for 50 years, was to be honored with a “Good Citizenship Award.” The laurel was in recognition of contributions to the community, including the historic restoration of company headquarters and, ironically, its “generous employee health care coverage.”

But the award was taken away after the owners of Hercules Industries, the Newland family, won the court injunction, which said that they did not have to start providing employees with coverage that included abortion-inducing drugs, contraception and sterilization. As with several companies and colleges around the nation, the family that runs Hercules claimed that the mandates force them to violate their own religious beliefs.

This is likely only the beginning of the stories we’ll be hearing about how this blatant violation of religious freedom is impacting colleges, diocesan institutions, and Catholic business owners. It’s hard to believe that this is what things have come to, but it’s indicative of where things are heading.

For several years, I’ve been increasingly tempted to identify myself as a libertarian. A growing number of Catholic intellectuals have taken this position, and the case they make is compelling. Other Catholics I know, however, vehemently oppose libertarian philosophy and candidates, pointing to manifest examples of unjust wages, the historical problems posed by the Robber Barons, child labor, and sweatshops, saying that a libertarian approach to economics would enable all of this, and worse.

I recently came across a piece by Joe Fulwiler at Catholic Exchange that asked the question, “Can Catholics Vote Libertarian?” Fulwiler, who confesses that he doesn’t “really understand Libertarianism,” nonetheless makes some bold assertions:

When I reflect upon these facts over morning coffee, I often wistfully imagine what it might be like if Catholics would only unify and bloc-vote for candidates that are both pro-life and also serious about social justice and poverty relief in all its various forms.  No such “Catholic Party” exists, but one recent morning it occurred to me that the opposite of the Catholic Party does exist.  It is a party that believes that the State should leave people alone about issues of morality and also stop asking people to contribute any significant percentage of their income to the common good.  This is a party that is socially liberal and economically conservative.  It is the Libertarian Party.

This realization prompted me to wonder, “Can a good Catholic who really follows the teachings of Christ and his Church embrace Libertarianism without offending the dictates of a well-formed Catholic conscience?”  Libertarianism is, after all, a strongly individualistic creed that is highly compatible with an atomistic society of solitary units that have little claim on one another.  The Catholic Church seems to represent the opposite extreme, because her creed requires the faithful to die to self, hand over their entire existence, and spend their lives in service of family and community.

At it’s core, libertarianism (and I’m referring to the political philosophy, not the American political party) is about promoting individual liberty and restricting the coercive power of the state. Taken alone, this is not an immoral construct. God grants men the gift of free will, and He loves us so radically that He allows us to use this gift with such unfettered liberty that we are able to choose Hell rather than Heaven. One could argue that this is a form of divine libertarianism: God does not use His omnipotence to compel us to live morally, but He instead makes clear that if we desire a happy outcome to our lives, we must choose to do so.

Catholic libertarians argue that individuals in a free society who do business in a free market have the greatest latitude to act morally. They also argue that such freedom, when actually granted, produces a prosperity unrivaled by other economic systems or political regimes. And they point out that the economics which drive their philosophy is a value-free science that observes behavioral laws that arise from human action. The law of supply and demand, for example, can be neither moral or immoral, it simply is. Noted Catholic historian and scholar Dr. Thomas Woods, Jr., writes in The Church and The Market: A Catholic Defense of the Free Economy:

Economics is a discipline that reckons with the fact of scarcity in the world, and which demonstrates to man, given his ends, how they can or cannot be achieved. Thus if our end is to improve the lot of the least fortunate, economics can tell us whether a $25/hour minimum wage will or will not achieve that end. Economics, therefore, does not presume to dictate to us what our ends should be. Neither does it attempt to claim, by being “value free,” that all values are equal, or that morality does not matter, or that all that matters is money. It is simply delineating the limits of its subject matter: it is a science whose purpose is to employ human reason to discover how man’s ends can be reached. What those ends should be is a matter for theology and moral philosophy to decide. Father James Sadowsky, S.J., professor emeritus of philosophy at Fordham University, expressed it well when he said that ethics is prescriptive while economics is descriptive. “Economics,” he says, “indicates the probable effects of certain policies, while ethics determines what one should do.” These are two very distinct things.

So if Catholic libertarians believe that the observational science of economics has proven that great freedom has engendered great prosperity, it stands to reason that a political system which provides this freedom is the one toward which they would work. In a sense, this makes libertarianism a marriage of economics and history, insofar as the tenets of the libertarian position are derived not just from theory, but from observing historical behavior in real nations and economies.

And yet, even a quasi Catholic libertarian like me wonders: in a hypothetical world where such a thing as a Catholic confessional state were possible, wouldn’t libertarianism be a proposition of dubious moral value, insofar as it would impede a correctly ordered civil government? Is government really, at essence, nothing more than force? A necessary evil? And doesn’t libertarianism fail in certain vital areas to protect the best economic interests of the nation? It is, for example, quite lax on immigration restrictions and and supportive of the very free trade that has destroyed our manufacturing sector. And isn’t the notion then men free to act morally will act morally just a bit too much like something Rousseau might say? I do worry that the libertarian view of moral actors in a free market is rooted in Enlightenment thinking, not an understanding of human concupiscence as rooted in Original Sin.

Though I have a lot more reading to do before I reach a final conclusion, all of this makes me question the objective superiority of the libertarian position. I am not a political philosopher or an economist, so take what I say for what it is – a personal observation. I don’t think there is a perfect political system in this world, and libertarianism, while it has much to recommend it, also leaves much to be desired. That said, when confronted with a secular statism like we have in America, subjectively, libertarianism may just be the right antidote to the poison that is currently killing us. Catholic writer John Zmirak puts it best:

In an American context, given our constitutional heritage and the large body of legal decisions solidifying its interpretation, on nearly any issue, Christians of any denomination should reject the assistance of the State. Our efforts to capture it, the courts have made it clear, will always fail. Any attempt to infuse the activity of the government with the moral content of a revealed religion will be rejected, in the end. Indeed, the more our own institutions cooperate with the government, the more they will be compromised; hospitals which take federal funds will be subject to secular ethics on issues like contraception, end-of-life, and even abortion. Religious colleges accepting federal grants will eventually be federalized, and so on.

It seems clear that the public sphere in America is irretrievably secular. So the only logical response of Christians must be to try to shrink it. Instead of attempting to baptize a Leviathan which turned on us long ago, we’d do much better to cage and starve the beast. We should favor low taxes—period, regardless of the “good” use to which politicians promise to put it. We should oppose nearly every government program intended to achieve any aim whatsoever. We can make exceptions here and there: We can favor the protection of innocent lives, which would cover things like fixing traffic lights and throwing abortionists into prison. But that is pretty much that.  Christian public policy should focus not on capturing the power of the State but shrinking it, to the bare minimum required to enforce individual rights, narrowly defined. Likewise, the share of our wealth seized by the state must be radically slashed, to allow for private initiatives and charities that will not be amoral, soulless, bureaucratic and counterproductive (like the secular welfare state). Instead of asking for handouts to our schools in the forms of vouchers, we should seek the privatization of public schools—which by their very nature, in today’s post-Christian America, are engines of secularism. And so on for nearly every institution of the centralized State, which has hijacked the rightful activities of civil society and the churches, and which every year steals so much of our wealth to squander on itself that we can barely afford to reproduce ourselves. (So the State helpfully offers to replace us with immigrants, but that’s another article.)

This is not to endorse the universal claims of doctrinaire libertarians, and assert that every State in history has been a tyranny (except perhaps medieval Iceland). It’s not to deny that any community anywhere has the moral right to employ the State to pursue its vision of the Good. (There’s nothing wrong with Kaiser Franz Josef endowing a monastery here and there, or the Israeli government helping educate rabbis.) In many cultural contexts, the State can fruitfully employ its power to promote the faith and morals held in common by a community. But that can’t happen here. Not in America. Several of our Founders, and generations of our lawyers, have seen to that.

Thomas Peters takes issue with my arguments against abortion politics. But I’m afraid he’s missing my point. Several of them, actually.

Thomas says that today’s SCOTUS ruling on American Tradition Partnership, Inc. v. Bullock not only demonstrates the split of the Court on First Amendment rights, but also:

illuminates one of the critical flaws in Steve Skojec’s thesis about abortion politics — that we ought to ignore things like the make-up of the Supreme Court and instead simply vote our consciences, even when we know with certitude (as we do in the case of Romney and Obama) that each politician will make very different choices when it comes to nominating candidates to the Supreme Court, etc.

Except that’s not what I said. I never advocated ignoring the makeup of the Supreme Court; I said one of the big problems is the makeup of the Supreme Court. Including a number of justices who were appointed by Republicans. To wit:

Five of the justices that decided Roe (Burger, Brennan, Stewart, Blackmun, and Powell) were Republican appointees. Similarly, five of the justices that upheld Roe in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (Blackmun, Stevens, Souter, O’Connor, and Kennedy) were also Republican appointees – with Blackmun being the only common justice between the two decisions. Nine pro-abortion Republican justices in the two major abortion cases to ever come before the Supreme Court, each time comprising the majority? Forgive me if I have little confidence that the next Republican president will pick someone who will turn the tide.

I’d like to be convinced that I’m wrong about judicial promises handed out like candy by election-year Republicans, but Thomas does nothing to dissuade me of this concern. Instead, he changes focus:

Folks like Steve then go on to argue that the important thing for us to do is to work to change the culture and be purists when it comes to who we support.

But how exactly are we supposed to change the culture if the very basic freedoms we have come to take for granted — such as the Freedom of Speech and the Freedom of Religion — are stripped by activists judges and these actions are upheld by a reconfigured Supreme Court?

We do need to change the culture. I stand by that. It’s the culture that is producing the sort of people who are appointed – not elected – to the Supreme Court, and then legislate from the bench, drawing justification from how closely their rulings are in tune with the zeitgeist. Equally concerning to me is the tendency on the pro-life side to want justices to do the exact same thing, only in support of the pro-life cause. Judicial activism is bad news no matter how you slice it, and we shouldn’t be hypocrites about it if we ever want to get out of this mess.

Does this mean that it doesn’t matter who is appointed today, tomorrow, or next year, or that we have to wait for the culture to change before we can expect (or demand) good appointees? Absolutely not. It’s not an either/or proposition. It’s both. But as I’ve pointed out, the track record on Republican appointees is less-than-stellar, and the restrictions and litmus tests placed on justices during their confirmations are so rigid, they have to be monumentally circumspect about what they believe. All of which makes it very hard to know whether you’ve got a good justice or not until there’s an important case before them, and by then it’s too late if you’re wrong. (For my money, this means that one branch of government has become entirely too powerful, and needs to have some limits imposed. But I digress.)

Spinning the wheel of fate and hoping that a left-leaning justice will retire or die while your guy is sitting in the White House is not a sane political strategy. It’s too risky (and a bit morbid) and if you’re not a big fan of the party nominee’s other policy positions, you’re betting a lot on the hope that he gets that opportunity.

Which brings me back to the question being a political purist. I believe that if we practiced a little more political purism, we would begin to shape the discussion on the sort of candidates we could expect in the future. One of the advantages of voting Republican is that you’re working with a party that understands and – ostensibly anyway – supports the free market.

And in the free market, what rules the day? Supply and demand. So if we demand candidates that better represent our interests by voting for those that espouse our beliefs, we can expect that the GOP will eventually realize that they have to supply them. Let’s face it – what matters to them more than anything (and this is true of both political parties) is that they want to win. Politics is a game of compromises, and we all know that Mr. Romney has flip-flopped his way to the top of the heap. Even his supporters admit as much. History has a way of repeating itself.

Do we really need a victory if it’s of the pyrrhic variety? Wouldn’t it be better to lose in a way that guarantees we don’t keep getting GOP candidates that are further and further to the left every time? Wouldn’t it be great to have a presidential nominee who not only is willing to appoint good justices to the SCOTUS but also has sensible, responsible, and moral policy positions? Isn’t that worth working toward?

Thomas then goes on to tackle the elephant in the article:

It strikes me as the soul of foolishness to argue that instead of fighting to elect a President who has promised to elect Supreme Court justices who respect the Constitution we should pursue a failed political strategy like Ron Paul’s “The Sanctity of Life Act” which, if passed, would –you guessed it– be challenged up to the Supreme Court and which –you guessed it– would have to be voted on by both houses of Congress, including a U.S. Senate currently controlled by a pro-abortion Democratic majority.

The “soul of foolishness” is a pretty strong statement. I think it’s also a pretty strong statement to call Ron Paul’s Sanctity of Life Act a “failed political strategy” that would be “challenged up to the Supreme Court” without substantiating that claim in any way.

First of all, say what you want about Ron Paul, but the man knows the Constitution. He may be idealistic, he may be a little awkward and squeaky, and he might have gotten picked last for kickball, but nobody takes a more constructionist approach to our nation’s foundational document. And if the man proposes legislation that will circumvent the federal courts (including the SCOTUS) from interfering with it, my money’s on him knowing what he’s doing. He’s obnoxiously constitutional, which is just what we need.

Of course, the point is valid that we don’t have the votes in Congress for the Sanctity of Life Act – right now. Then again, a big bone of contention I have is that this very fact makes me  strongly question the Republican Party’s commitment to life issues. Congressman Paul has proposed this act multiple times over the years. If the Sanctity of Life act is a “failed political strategy,” perhaps it’s because pro-life Republicans didn’t support it. As writer Laurence Vance pointed out back in 2010 in a (rather hyperbolic, but not inaccurate) defense of Ron Paul’s pro-life credentials:

The self-proclaimed pro-lifers in Congress had their best chance to do this just a few years ago and blew it. Most Republicans in Congress claim to be pro-life; some Democrats in Congress claim to be pro-life. Between the two parties enough votes could have been obtained to restrict the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court when the Republicans controlled the White House and both Houses of Congress — the period from January 20, 2001, to June 5, 2001, and again from January 3, 2003, to January 2, 2007.

If this legislation could have been passed and for some reason never even made it to the floor, I think we should all be asking ourselves why not. Why wasn’t this an effort worth making, when nothing else we’ve tried has worked? If the SCOTUS is the biggest obstruction to overturning Roe, and the SCOTUS can be circumvented, why didn’t we do exactly that? This isn’t exactly grassy knoll material, but something is amiss with the radio silence on this issue.

Thomas sums up as follows:

In short, abandoning the high ground (our Constitution and engaging the political process handed down to us by the Founding Fathers) in favor of nebulous “cultural evangelization” and “voting solipsism” as exclusive strategies is a shortcut to failure.

This statement flat out mystifies me. First, because who the heck said anything about “voting solipsism” and just what, exactly, does that mean? If I were a solipsist, I’d have made sure abortion was taken care of by now. Unfortunately, I’m not that narcissistic.

Secondly, I’m the one who is actually arguing for taking the high ground, taking recourse to the Constitution, and doing exactly the sort of thing I think the Founding Fathers would have wanted. I don’t want to play politics with abortion anymore, when almost 40 years of that has gotten us how far, again? I’d love to see an estimate on how many human lives our legislative efforts at the national level have saved. I’m certain it’s far, far less than 1.5 million annually. I bet it’s less than 1,000. God bless every life that’s been saved, but is that seriously what we’re willing to settle for? Just keep doing the same thing over and over again and crossing our fingers and hoping beyond hope that this time, it’s going to work?

For every election I can remember, I’ve heard the same thing: “You have to vote for the GOP guy. We’re this close to overturning Roe.” And George W. Bush and his two houses of Congress had a better chance than anyone has since 1973. And zip. Zilch. Nada.

McCain was not serious about the pro-life issue, and I argued as much during the last election. For which I caught much of the same flak I’m getting now. Is Romney better than McCain? Who knows. He looks a little better on paper. He comes across as a lot less manic.

But he’s also a big government moderate with problematic (or at least uninspiring) positions and history on Iran, health care, government bailouts, cap and trade, immigration, and other issues which, while not as important as right to life, nevertheless will significantly impact the future of this country. Each of these issues also have clear constitutional implications, making me question what it means when Romney promises to appoint judges who respect the Constitution. How can he do that when he doesn’t appear to respect it? Add to that Romney’s patchy background on the pro-life position – despite his apparent conversion – and my enthusiasm for the man ranks pretty low.

Could I be persuaded to vote for him? Anything’s possible, but as my Magic 8 Ball used to say, “Outlook not so good.”

Either way, I’m willing, right now, to lay it on the line. I am so confident that my arguments are sound, I guarantee that if Romney is elected, Roe will still be the status quo when he’s packing boxes and moving out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. I actually might consider voting for him just to help get him into office and prove my point.

If I’m wrong, you may scorn me with abandon. I’ll be the happiest guy eating humble pie on the Internet.

I recently heard from a source within the Department of Health and Human Services who indicated to me that people within the organization are “terrified” of what is going to happen. Not just with the mandate, which Catholics are combating eloquently in the Fortnight for Freedom. They’re afraid that the entire health care legislation will come tumbling down.

If that happens, they will lose money, staff, and jobs – hiring has been on the rise at HHS. They’ll also lose their ideological victory. It doesn’t take someone on the inside to tell you that they don’t want that to happen.

In the mean time, Catholics for Equality are worried too. Last night, they joined together in Baltimore to protest the Fortnight for Freedom effort. Why? Because they recognize that the Church continues to move away from their idea of Catholicism:

“The bishops no longer represent Catholics in the pews on so many social issues, from contraception to legal equality for LGBT people,” said Joseph Palacios, Director of the Catholics for Equality Foundation. “We also reject the bishops’ election year campaign that they are now somehow victims of religious liberty.”

According to a new report released today by the Public Religion Research Institute, 57% of American Catholics do not believe that the right to religious liberty is being threatened in America today. The report also notes that 65% of Catholics believe that most employers should be required to provide their employees with health care plans that cover contraception at no cost and that 63% believe religiously affiliated agencies should not be able to refuse to place children with qualified gay and lesbian couples.

“The bishops’ “Fortnight for Freedom” 2012 campaign is nothing more than election year political posturing,” said Phil Attey, Executive Director of Catholics for Equality. “For the past 10 years the bishops’ have earned the public branding of abusers, oppressors, and political bullies. Catholics in the pews don’t listen to them anymore and nor do political leaders … including Catholic political leaders. In order to change this political reality, the bishops need to change their branding from bully to victim. But nobody’s buying it and they’re only bringing more embarrassment to our church.”

Meanwhile, in Michigan, protesters upset over the Vatican’s recent statements regarding the Leadership Conference of Women Religious confronted a young priest over the issue. They videotaped it and put it on YouTube, but I think they wound up getting more than they bargained for:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqfpAGKzpHw

The tide is turning in the Church. Orthodoxy is on the rise, and Catholics are responding to a world that is increasingly hostile to our beliefs. Persecution is never a good thing, but it has always had a positive and unifying effect on the faithful. We won’t lie down and take it without a fight.