A People Unprepared for a Place at the Table

Is the American experiment an exhausted project? In view of Catholics’ past and present marginalization, as well as our decline in both numbers and influence, can we expect a “place at the table” of American politics? Is there any hope for us in American political life? These are some of the questions co-editor Pieter Vree poses in his Introduction to Catholics and the American Polity: Approaches and Contestations. The 25 responses constituting this volume (save one) originally appeared in a two-part symposium in the NOR (Dec. 2024 and Jan.-Feb. 2025) and are here revised and expanded.

The above questions are not, however, the most fruitful or meaningful questions to pose to the contributors. Whether the American experiment is “exhausted” is, after all, a vague and probably premature question, which only future historians will be able to answer. As we shall discuss below, a “place at the table” of American politics is not necessarily desirable. And as for whether there is any hope for Catholics in American politics — surely, for Catholics, there is always hope.

But Vree poses a more important question. He prefaces it by pointing out that the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that “intervening directly” in the “political structuring and organization of social life” is our “vocation,” and that the U.S. bishops have declared that “Jesus calls each of us to be a leaven in society,” to “proclaim his message,” and thereby to influence the character of our nation. Vree phrases his question thus: “How are we to fulfill that vocation, given the increasing stridency of American politics, the ongoing decline in the number of our coreligionists coupled with the waning influence of the Church in public life, and the living legacy of anti-Catholicism?” Vree suggests three approaches, with which readers of the NOR are no doubt familiar: “intentional communities,” based on Rod Dreher’s Benedict Option; Patrick Deneen’s “regime change,” in which a new postliberal elite reforms American institutions according to a “common good conservatism”; and a hierarchical “integralism” that establishes Catholic social and political institutions in their place.

In his Afterword, co-editor Thomas Storck cites a more direct question raised in the original NOR symposium: “What do Catholics have to do with this polity and the experiment that it is widely held to represent? What attitude ought we to have?” He classifies the respondents into two cultural-political blocs: those who are satisfied with the philosophical premises upon which the American polity was founded, and those who hold that Catholics can never approve of them. Members of the first group — Virginia L. Arbery, Casey Chalk, and George Hawley — point approvingly to the number of Catholics in high positions in the current U.S. government. True, many liberal Catholics would argue that our current domestic and foreign policies appear no more influenced by Christian ethics than in the days of Protestant hegemony. But this is not a conflict between liberals and conservatives. Although most of the respondents to the above questions would regard themselves as conservative, the sheer variety of their views demonstrates how irrelevant — indeed, how misleading — is the liberal/conservative divide among American Catholics. As Storck points out, both liberals and conservatives adhere to basic American political principles. It is interesting that two of the non-Catholic contributors — the evangelical Hawley and the non-creedal Kan Ito — see a positive role for Catholics in American life.

Yet a small but significant minority, also represented in this book, are skeptical. They point to a deep conflict between Catholic and American (or Americanist) philosophy. They thus reach the same conclusion as the third of the non-Catholic contributors, Preston R. Simpson, who holds that the “American experiment” was never a Catholic project. “You could almost say it was an anti-Catholic project,” he writes. The Church is monarchical, he maintains, while America is democratic. A “truly Catholic society” could not be the United States as presently constituted. It would seem to follow that the only options for Catholic survival would be either withdrawal from politics or “regime change” leading to an entirely new “integralist” polity. Yet explicitly or implicitly, the overwhelming majority of the contributors reject both regime change and integralism. Indeed, only Edmund Waldstein, O.Cist., comes out with a well-grounded, foursquare defense of the latter. A few contributors favor the Benedict Option, but not as a sufficient survival strategy.

How, then, can Catholics find a “place at the table” of American politics? Or should they do so at all? James G. Hanink holds that “Catholics who understand and honor the Church’s living magisterium cannot expect to find a seat at that table.” The late Al Kresta recalls St. Paul’s injunction in Romans 12:2, “Do not be conformed to this world,” while Robert McTeigue, S.J., reminds us of the adage in Psalm 146, “Do not put your trust in princes.” And what if the “table” turns out to be the one at which Dives feasts while Lazarus languishes, or one of the tables of the vendors and moneychangers Jesus overthrows? Given the centrality of liberal capitalism to America’s identity, it is surprising that only Hanink and John C. Médaille devote substantial attention to economics and Catholic social teaching. But, in fact, the section of the Catechism Vree cites in his Introduction, calling on Catholic laymen to “intervene directly” in political and social life (no. 2442), refers to Pope St. John Paul II’s encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (1987; issued on the 20th anniversary of Pope St. Paul VI’s Populorum Progressio), specifically number 47, paragraph 6, which calls on laymen to promote social justice and peace, and number 42, which discusses the Church’s preference for the poor and the universal destination of goods. We would thus have expected the contributors to pay more attention to Catholic social teaching.

Those Catholics who do wish to sit at the table of politics cannot participate in the “political structuring and organization of social life” without adequate preparation. John M. Grondelski argues that if Catholics are to affect American society, they must first build up a critical mass of well-informed laymen. Fr. McTeigue claims that “most American Catholics couldn’t begin to have an intelligent conversation about any aspect of Church-state relations.” Storck agrees, writing that “few American Catholics have any glimmer of what the Church teaches about the shaping and reshaping of our public life or the manner in which Catholic culture differs from Protestant.” Jude Russo’s plea for a revival of Catholic education is, thus, right on point. Grondelski finds not only that American Catholic laymen are ignorant of their own philosophical and political traditions, and thus politically impotent, but that the bishops are too accommodationist, and “Catholic political naïveté is sometimes stunning.”

Assuming the Catholic laity can someday achieve the requisite level of political knowledge and skill, how should they influence American politics? Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, who grew up in communist Poland, calls for “resistance.” Edwin Dyga suggests “a steady but uncompromising reassertion of the Catholic presence in the public square” and, citing John Horvat II’s book Return to Order, recommends promoting and applying a Catholic worldview “through a rational exposition of normative policy proposals that could be acceptable to any social group irrespective of its own faith tradition.” Only Hanink and Storck mention a specific political party whose program is consistent with Catholic principles.

There are, of course, other ways for Catholics to be “a leaven in society.” Charles A. Coulombe and Storck call on Catholics to evangelize and convert the country. According to Médaille, “the answer is simply to preach the Gospel.” But we can do this “only by living it,” by expressing our love “in our politics, our businesses, and our civic lives.” Likewise, Hanink counsels shaping both politics and culture by “living the Gospel.” Warning that we must “propose, not impose,” Christopher Zehnder concludes that “our only path forward is through a personal dedication to holiness and a commitment to example, proposal, and persuasion — and, if necessary, martyrdom.” Fr. McTeigue, quoting Nicolás Gómez Dávila’s The Authentic Reactionary, proposes a strategy similar to the Benedict Option: maintaining a “counterworld within the world.” Gracjan Kraszewski invites attention to “orthodoxy and beauty.”

Despite the well-known contributions of 19th- and 20th-century European immigrants to American Catholicism (reflected in the names of several of the contributors), this book makes only a few passing references to ethnicity (by Simpson, Hanink, and Storck). As they blended into the American melting pot, German, Irish, Polish, Italian, and other Catholic immigrants lost the unique Catholic cultures of their homeland and adopted the amalgamated culture of American Catholicism — Protestant influence and all. Is this process inevitable? Is it good? And will it continue with new waves of immigrants from Latin America, Asia, and Africa? As America secularizes, will these immigrants’ natural desire to fit into society move them to abandon their faith along with their ethnic parishes? Discussing such questions would have led to an even richer book — but a much longer one.

Even those disinclined to tabulate such things will be struck by the fact that there is only one female contributor to this volume. What is more pertinent is that there is no discussion of feminism or other gender issues — likely one of the factors that distinguish American Catholicism from, say, that of Africa or Asia, and occasionally distancing it from the magisterium.

This brief overview hardly does justice to the kaleidoscopic variety of ideas and opinions in this concise volume. Whether they find their views confirmed, challenged, or overturned, readers will be stimulated and enriched by this sampler of contemporary thinking on religion and politics. Every serious American Catholic should read it.

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