Introduction:<\/p>\n
Ross Douthat visited the Tocqueville Center for Catholic Political Thought in America, April 15-16, 2024.<\/p>\n
Douthat joined The New York Times<\/em>\u00a0as 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\u00a0Matter of Opinion<\/em>\u00a0and writes film criticism for\u00a0National Review<\/em>. Previously, he was a senior editor at\u00a0The Atlantic<\/em>\u00a0and a blogger on its website. He is the author, most recently, of\u00a0The Deep Places: A Memoir of Illness and Discovery<\/em>. His other books include\u00a0The Decadent Society<\/em>;\u00a0To Change the Church: Pope Francis and the Future of Catholicism<\/em>;\u00a0Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics<\/em>;\u00a0Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream<\/em>, co-authored with Reihan Salam;\u00a0and Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class<\/em>.<\/p>\n Q:<\/strong> A:<\/strong> If you go back to the original arguments for religious tolerance in John Locke\u2014maybe this came up last night, I don’t know\u2014but 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\u2014not 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.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s broad enough to encompass the freedom of a Catholic hospital, a Jewish day school, or any other religious entity\u2014not just the religious freedom of the individual people working there.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s history and self-understanding means that it\u2019s always going to be pushing back against that\u2014and, at its best, it deepens the American understanding of what religious liberty needs to include.<\/p>\n Q:<\/strong> A:<\/strong> 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\u2014and 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.<\/p>\n That\u2019s partly because of the First Amendment itself, but it\u2019s also because of how Catholicism\u2014with its corporate nature\u2014has interpreted and defended religious liberty. It has insisted on a more robust understanding of institutional freedom.<\/p>\n Q:<\/strong> A:<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s much stronger than in many European Catholic communities.<\/p>\n In Europe, if you gather a group of wealthy Catholics to fundraise, everyone gives 50 euros and feels they\u2019ve done something wonderful. In America, the mentality is: let\u2019s raise real money, build real institutions, and act to shape the culture. That spirit of initiative\u2014of associational life\u2014is critical to the health of American Catholicism.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Q:<\/strong> A:<\/strong> That necessity bred a spirit of entrepreneurship and lay initiative. And even today, you can see the fruits of it everywhere\u2014from small new parishes buying old churches to Catholic colleges starting from scratch with almost no resources. A little delusion, a little boldness\u2014it goes a long way. That\u2019s one of the lessons of American history.<\/p>\n Q:<\/strong> A:<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n 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\u2019re seeing\u2014especially in the classical education movement\u2014are encouraging. They show that you don\u2019t need a government imprimatur to sustain a Catholic culture. You just need a committed community willing to build it from the ground up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Introduction: Ross Douthat visited the Tocqueville Center for Catholic Political Thought in America, April 15-16, 2024. Douthat joined The New York Times\u00a0as an opinion columnist in April 2009. 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To start broadly: Catholicism and politics in America today \u2014 what are your thoughts? In particular, religious liberty came up during last night\u2019s discussion. Could you talk about the state of religious liberty historically compared to today, and where you see it heading?<\/p>\n
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\u2014or at least that it tries to. Maybe it doesn\u2019t always succeed, but that is sort of the attempt.<\/p>\n
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I’m so glad you brought up the Little Sisters of the Poor. It feels like we don\u2019t talk about that case enough\u2014it was such a huge moment. Building on that, would you say the Catholic Church functions as a natural barrier against government encroachments on liberty?<\/p>\n
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\u2019re going to be genuinely Catholic.<\/p>\n
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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\u2019s flourishing?<\/p>\n
I do think there\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
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I notice that dynamic too\u2014how 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?<\/p>\n
I think it\u2019s partly because American Catholics had no choice. They were a minority in a predominantly Protestant country. They didn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
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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?<\/p>\n
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\u2014you can\u2019t impose a single worldview on a country of 330 million people.<\/p>\n