Americanism Redux

This chapter investigates the use of Americanism to appropriate Roman Catholicism for the good of a nation. It recounts older Roman Catholic heresy claimed that the American political system was not at odds with church teaching, even though the United States seemed to stand for most of the social and political realities that nineteenth-century popes had condemned. It also talks about the Americanists in the nineteenth-century who argued that Vatican officials misread the United States, stating that the nation was far friendlier to Roman Catholicism than Europeans imagined. The chapter details how Americanists urged the church to update its polity to the nation's political sensibilities, a strategy that would make Roman Catholicism look less odd in the United States. It also highlights ways Americanists adapt Roman Catholicism to life in a secular, constitutional republic.

Introduction

This chapter focuses on how Roman Catholics became prominent players in conservative circles and provides an understanding on the affinity and tension between national and Roman Catholic traditions and ideals. It describes John F. Kennedy's kind of Roman Catholicism, which Americans and the press found acceptable. It also mentions John Courtney Murray, who was considered a potential breakthrough for Roman Catholicism that harmonizes church teaching with national ideals, unlike Kennedy whose electoral victory was an example of religious indifference. The chapter talks about Pope Leo XIII's 1899 condemnation of Americanism or adjustment of the church to freedom, democracy, and popular sovereignty as Roman Catholics were still laboring under papal opposition to modernity in the 1950s. It refers to John T. Noonan, Jr., who authored important books about the church's evolving moral theology.

Belonging to an Ancient Church in a Modern Republic

This chapter talks about Al Smith as the first Roman Catholic to gain the nomination for president of the United States by a major party, the Democrats. It mentions Jacques Villeré, a Roman Catholic, who became the second governor of Louisiana. It also explores the political career of Smith and Villeré, which suggests that Americans were generally comfortable with Roman Catholics holding public office. The chapter refers to Charles C. Marshall, a New York attorney and member of the Episcopal Church, who reminded Americans of the incompatibility between Roman Catholicism and American politics. It details how Marshall pointed out the conflict between Roman Catholic canon law on marriage and the secular laws governing the institution in Protestant countries such as the United States and England.

Americanism Revived

This chapter cites conservatives that regard Watergate and Richard Nixon's subsequent resignation as catastrophic. It discusses how the hopes for fusing American ideas of small government and personal liberty with traditional Christianity looked less than promising by 1975. It also refers to the mainline Protestant churches that, in the 1960s, came to terms with the mix of political reform and moral indifference in ways that were more radical than traditional. The chapter emphasizes how Protestants had yet to emerge as an identifiable political constituency as their concerns were generally too pious and moral for the urbane and worldly ethos of movement conservatives. It describes how the Roman Catholic Church was in the midst of sorting out the reforms of the Second Vatican Council while defending the papal teaching on sex and contraception.

Conclusion

This chapter discusses the trend among Roman Catholics to emphasize being “American Catholics” rather than “Catholic Americans” with emphasis on the adjective modifying the noun. It looks at David Gelertner's proposal that Americanism itself was the fourth biblical religion. It also mentions Michael Novak and George Weigel, who were responsible for an unprecedented rise in public religiosity in the United States. The chapter explores the synthesis of modern politics and conservative Roman Catholicism and neo-Americanism that became unsustainable in the first decade of the new century. It describes the Fortnight for Freedom, an annual program that became a vehicle of protest and voice of neo-Americanism.

Public Duty, Private Faith

This chapter discusses the Catholic church's concerns about Paul Blanshard and the nerve he apparently hit as Blanshard considered Roman Catholics in the United States a threat. It highlights the formation of a committee to respond to the spate of anti-Catholicism by assembling a group that consists of a political scientist, a theologian, and a philosopher to answer the charges of anti-Americanism. It also describes Blanshard's case that was alarming for Roman Catholics from different sides of the Americanist controversy. The chapter cites that the American liberal had shown bias against the church's ethical teaching, from contraception to divorce. It explains how Americanism began to lose its stigma as a heresy even while setting into motion questions about Roman Catholic identity.

Americanism for the Global Church

This chapter begins with Pope Paul VI's statement about John F. Kennedy's assassination, stating that the incident was a dastardly crime. It describes the synergy between the papacy and the White House during Kennedy's tenure that was evident well before the president's tragic death. It also recounts how John XXIII prevailed on Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev to accept a compromise that involved the United States lifting its blockade and the Soviets promising to send no more warships to Cuba during the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962. The chapter looks at Kennedy's commencement speech at American University, which is considered as a kind of eulogy for Pope John as the president announced the suspension of nuclear weapons tests and the resumption of negotiations with the Soviets. It explores the convergence of papal pronouncements about international relations that blended church teaching and American ideals.

The Limits of Americanism

This chapter highlights the emergence of the radicals, feminists, black separatists, free love advocates, and antiwar protesters who huddled under the banner of the New Left. It looks at the conflict that erupted during the 1960s, in which normative America stood for hard work, personal responsibility, individual merit, delayed gratification, social mobility, heterosexual marriage, well-defined gender roles, and national greatness. It also discusses Democrats, establishment Republicans, and conservatives that disagree about the responsibilities of the federal government and its programs. The chapter illustrates the protest culture that arose on college campuses during the 1960s and eventually found a home in the Democratic Party. It elaborates how the New Left embraced a transgressive outlook that challenged all sides of the American way.

Liberal Catholics, American Conservatives

This chapter refers to Garry Wills who expressed that the Second Vatican Council was less about religious freedom than liturgical anarchy. It discusses the reform of the Mass, by which the council launched Roman Catholicism into the agony of lost symbols and debased associations. It also conveys a theology of the sacrament that the council destroyed by introducing vernacular languages, turning the priest around to face the congregation, and placing the communion wafer in the hands of recipients. The chapter discusses liturgical reforms that liberated the priests from the years of theology learned in Latin by rote. It explains the council's reset of the church's outlook on social pluralism and secular politics as a feature that was already evident in American Roman Catholicism.

The Extremities of Defending Liberty

This chapter talks about Barry Goldwater, who regarded William E. Miller's church membership as an asset rather than a liability when he chose him as his running mate in the 1964 presidential election. It describes Miller as the grandson of German American immigrants and reared in the Roman Catholic Church. It also covers Conscience of a Conservative as the ghostwritten product of L. Brent Bozell, which identified Goldwater with the conservative movement and challenged the GOP's East Coast establishment. The chapter notes how Bozell grew up in Nebraska as nominal Protestant then converted to Roman Catholicism before enrolling at Yale University. It discusses how local circumstances, such as national origin and personal convictions, did more to color perceptions of politics than the church's social teaching.