Interview with Ross Douthat: Catholicism, Religious Liberty, and Democracy

Introduction:

Ross Douthat visited the Tocqueville Center for Catholic Political Thought in America, April 15-16, 2024.

Douthat joined The New York Times as an opinion columnist in April 2009. His column appears every Tuesday and Sunday. He earned his BA from Harvard University. He is also a host on the weekly opinion podcast Matter of Opinion and writes film criticism for National Review. Previously, he was a senior editor at The Atlantic and a blogger on its website. He is the author, most recently, of The Deep Places: A Memoir of Illness and Discovery. His other books include The Decadent Society; To Change the Church: Pope Francis and the Future of Catholicism; Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics; Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream, co-authored with Reihan Salam; and Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class.

Q:
To start broadly: Catholicism and politics in America today — what are your thoughts? In particular, religious liberty came up during last night’s discussion. Could you talk about the state of religious liberty historically compared to today, and where you see it heading?

A:
Sure, we can start there. I think this is a case where you could argue that Catholicism has made a useful contribution to the American understanding of religious liberty—or at least that it tries to. Maybe it doesn’t always succeed, but that is sort of the attempt.

If you go back to the original arguments for religious tolerance in John Locke—maybe this came up last night, I don’t know—but he very explicitly says that religious liberty is for Protestants and not Catholics, because Catholics can’t be trusted. They owe allegiance to a foreign power. That view, I think, survives in American thinking—not in the sense that people today are suspicious that American Catholics are secretly loyal to the Pope, but in the sense that religious liberty for a lot of Americans is just thought of as purely an individual right. You have the liberty to believe whatever you want and pray however you like in the privacy of your own home. But institutions, religious associations, maybe have a much more limited sphere of liberty.

Catholicism, because it is such an institutional faith, effectively stands as a challenge to that mentality. In the best case, it corrects it and says: no, you have to have an understanding of religious freedom that’s broad enough to encompass the freedom of a Catholic hospital, a Jewish day school, or any other religious entity—not just the religious freedom of the individual people working there.

This comes up in debates like the Health and Human Services Department mandate during the Obama era, the Little Sisters of the Poor case, and a lot of the points of friction over the last 10 or 15 years. How far does religious liberty extend to institutions and religious groups, as well as to individuals? No one in the Obama administration thought that an individual nun should have to perform an abortion. But they thought that once a religious entity entered the public square, it would be subject to all kinds of state regulation. Catholicism’s history and self-understanding means that it’s always going to be pushing back against that—and, at its best, it deepens the American understanding of what religious liberty needs to include.

Q:
I’m so glad you brought up the Little Sisters of the Poor. It feels like we don’t talk about that case enough—it was such a huge moment. Building on that, would you say the Catholic Church functions as a natural barrier against government encroachments on liberty?

A:
Yes, absolutely. I think this dynamic was true historically in conflicts between liberalism and Catholicism, and today you also see it in conflicts between liberalism and Protestantism. The Church, by its nature, stands up for a kind of pluralism. It says, “Look, you can have public schools, but we’re going to have Catholic schools too.” And they’re going to be genuinely Catholic.

The Church has used the First Amendment in the U.S. in a way that has preserved the independence of Catholic institutions more effectively than in Western European countries—and especially more effectively than in Canada. In Ontario, for instance, Catholic schools are subject to much more state control, and they essentially do the same thing as a progressive public school. That is less true in the United States.

That’s partly because of the First Amendment itself, but it’s also because of how Catholicism—with its corporate nature—has interpreted and defended religious liberty. It has insisted on a more robust understanding of institutional freedom.

Q:
Tocqueville famously observed that Catholicism and democracy, surprisingly, seem to support one another in America. Beyond the question of religious liberty, do you see other ways Catholicism and democracy contribute to each other’s flourishing?

A:
I do think there’s something there. I’m not sure you can say with 100% certainty that democracy is always and everywhere good for Catholicism. But I do think you can say that American democracy provided a place where Catholicism could adapt to a culture of pluralism and religious competition more successfully than it did in Europe.

American Catholics had to be more entrepreneurial and mission-driven about their faith than Catholics in systems where the Church’s privileges were taken for granted. I think that spirit of entrepreneurship, innovation, and mission continues today.

When I was recently in Italy, talking to European Catholics from different countries, they often spoke enviously about American Catholics. They see American Catholics as more willing to start new schools, to take initiative, to change the culture around them. There’s a kind of bottom-up spirit here that’s much stronger than in many European Catholic communities.

In Europe, if you gather a group of wealthy Catholics to fundraise, everyone gives 50 euros and feels they’ve done something wonderful. In America, the mentality is: let’s raise real money, build real institutions, and act to shape the culture. That spirit of initiative—of associational life—is critical to the health of American Catholicism.

Tocqueville was right. In the context of modernity, you have to learn to work with a democratic culture. American Catholics have done that more effectively than their European counterparts, and Catholicism here has flourished as a result.

Q:
I notice that dynamic too—how much more dynamic and entrepreneurial Catholic communities are here. It seems so natural for American Catholics to just start things: new parishes, new colleges, new schools. Why do you think that spirit developed so strongly here?

A:
I think it’s partly because American Catholics had no choice. They were a minority in a predominantly Protestant country. They didn’t have the luxury of assuming their institutions would be supported by the government. They had to build and sustain their own parishes, schools, hospitals, and charities.

That necessity bred a spirit of entrepreneurship and lay initiative. And even today, you can see the fruits of it everywhere—from small new parishes buying old churches to Catholic colleges starting from scratch with almost no resources. A little delusion, a little boldness—it goes a long way. That’s one of the lessons of American history.

Q:
Catholic education remains a major feature of American Catholic life. Beyond academic advantages, do you think Catholic education specifically contributes to cultivating the political virtues needed for a healthy democratic republic?

A:
I think so. Liberal pluralist societies, like the U.S., struggle to impose strong value systems or thick metaphysical worldviews from the top down. That’s actually for the best—you can’t impose a single worldview on a country of 330 million people.

But that reality means the larger society depends more heavily on dynamic, thick micro-societies: strong religious communities, families, and schools that form people morally and metaphysically. Catholic schools, at their best, create that formation. They provide students not just with a better academic education than many public schools, but with a rich cultural and religious identity that public institutions simply cannot offer.

Unfortunately, Catholic education today faces challenges: fewer Catholics are sending their kids to Catholic schools, and many Catholic schools have become “nice private schools” without a strong Catholic identity. But the renewal efforts we’re seeing—especially in the classical education movement—are encouraging. They show that you don’t need a government imprimatur to sustain a Catholic culture. You just need a committed community willing to build it from the ground up.