The apogee of collaborationist Catholicism, alongside its more radical co-religionists, was undoubtedly the day of my birth: November 8, 1960. It was the day John F. Kennedy was elected president. He had already paid the price of admission to the Oval Office with a speech before the Houston Ministerial Association the previous September 12, in … Read more
Editor’s note: This article first appeared in the January 1991 print edition of Crisis Magazine. Nothing is deader than dead politics, we have been told. Why, then, revive the political essays of the philosopher, polemicist, and Catholic publicist Orestes Brownson (1803-1897)? Because the questions raised by Brownson confront us still. The “American Idea,” much discussed … Read more
Historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., among others, thought highly of Orestes Brownson—indeed, Russell Kirk, who led the Brownson revival in the last century, placed him “in the first rank of American men of ideas,” and his work is of more than historical interest. Reflections on American society as good as Tocqueville? Check. Addressing a devastating critique … Read more
Not all religious people are conservatives; and not all conservatives are religious people. Christianity prescribes no especial form of politics. There have been famous radicals who were devout Christians—though most radicals have been nothing of the sort. All the same, there could be no conservatism without a religious foundation, and it is conservative people, by … Read more
“The thesis we propose to maintain is, therefore, that without the Roman Catholic religion it is impossible to preserve a democratic government, and secure its free, orderly, and wholesome action.” Orestes Brownson wrote these words in an 1845 essay titled “Catholicity Necessary to Sustain Popular Liberty.” It is impossible to imagine anyone saying these words … Read more
An original copy of the United States Constitution is on display in the rotunda of the National Archives Building in Washington, D.C. Alongside the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, it rests in a preservative display case filled with argon. When the building closes for the night, the case moves onto a conveyance system … Read more
Except for a few saints and possibly a handful of bishops, Orestes Brownson and Isaac Hecker were the two most interesting American Catholics of the 19th century. They were certainly the most intellectually interesting and, in the long run, the most influential. The matters they agreed on, and especially those they disagreed on, are crucial … Read more