Religion and America
by Joseph Morris

Fr. Anthony Brankin’s talk to the Catholic Citizens of Illinois was brilliant, challenging, and, as I told him, a powerful punch in the gut, delivered with more love than I can recall in a long time. He is a good man and an outstanding teacher. It is clear that he is also an American patriot; one would not pour so much spirit into a demanding moral critique of one's country if one did not love it.

I am also deeply grateful to the Catholic Citizens for allowing me to sit in on their discussions and even to participate in them. I learned a lot, and I hope that I contributed a little to the conversation.

I am moved to exploit the license granted at the meeting just a little further, and to give you a fuller sense of my reaction to Fr. Brankin's argument. For what it's worth, I agree with many of the points he made along the way, but I disagree with his bottom line.

I have no quarrel with the call to Catholics to be faithful to the magisterium of the Church and to inform themselves of, and arm themselves with, the doctrines of the Church when they enter the public square.

And I will certainly admit that there are aspects of American society and culture -- "values of Americans", as distinct from what I would recognize (and promote) as "American values" -- that are abhorrent and deserve condemnation.

And I will further admit that there is a danger of hubris in being an American. We Jews have some experience with being God's chosen people. It is a role that is easily misunderstood, both by those who are chosen and those who have to live with them. It's an honor and privilege, to be sure, but it is not a free pass. It's hard work; it's dangerous; it is often unpleasant. One is chosen, not for exaltation, but, to the contrary, for service.

I do not know that God has chosen a second people -- the Americans -- to further his work in the world. But I think that the eternal glory of the American Founders, even the deists and theists among them, is that they chose God. They perceived the American people as "chosen" -- self-chosen -- not for exaltation, but to establish a novus ordo saeclorum in the political realm and, in so doing, advance the cause of what reason, no less than revelation, must teach is God's hope for humanity. Their insight was this: The world will not ready for the reign of God until people are capable of governing themselves. (Though the Messiah may tarry still, let us not be the cause of His delay!)

So I do believe that there are unique American gifts to the world, which can and should be spread to every land, and I do not think that they are incompatible in the least with Catholic (or Jewish teaching). They reduce to these:

(1) Freedom is the highest political goal. There may be higher goals -- you and I know that there are, and we agree that religion can and should define them and lead people to them -- but there is no higher political goal. And the recognition of this proposition is a powerful limit on the power of the state and, if you think about it, a bedrock guarantor of the ability of a church (or synagogue) to work God's will in the world.

(2) The choice of "convert or leave or die" is unacceptable. You may believe whatever you want, but you may not coerce the belief of anyone else; and when you want to make laws and public policy, you have to go into the public square and make your case by force of reason using the common vocabulary of reason.

These two propositions -- freedom and reason -- are the true "American values". For their political and social expression, and for our sincere efforts (however ineffectual) to realize them, we should not apologize to anyone.

And If believers (such as orthodox Catholics, evangelical Protestants, and faithful Jews, who ought to see in each other fundamental friends and allies, and not rivals, antagonists, opponents, or perils) cannot carry the day within a framework of freedom and reason, well, then, shame on us.

And it is at this point that I come back to the proposition that a Catholic is being the best American he can be when he is a faithful Catholic; that a Protestant is being the best American he can be when is a faithful Protestant; and that a Jew is being the best American he can be when he is a faithful Jew; and that we have a duty as citizens to come into the public square and fight -- acting in freedom and armed with reason -- for our principles and our values.

Although I didn't utter the name of Allan Bloom, I argued that Fr. Brankin was making the same kind of error that Bloom made -- getting most of the enemies right, but still distrusting freedom and not making the right connection (as would be made by, say, Father John Courtney Murray) between liberty and the pursuit of virtue (or even salvation). I said that one of the most fascinating moments in the Gospels (interesting reading for a Jewish boy, eh?) is Jesus' exhortation to "render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and unto God that which is God's". This is a charter of liberty, I said; it demands acknowledgment that not everything is Caesar's; it also raises the possibility, at least, that God permits that not everything be God's. The Americans, from the Founding onward, have not gotten everything right -- but we picked up correctly on freedom as the centerpiece of human politics. (That we may not know the proper boundaries of politics is a related, but distinct, question, and rightly a hardy perennial for civic education.)

Tony Brankin does us an enormous service when he demands that we confront the question, "Catholic OR American" and define those terms. But, in the end, it is a false dichotomy. I want you to be Catholic AND American; you want me to be Jewish AND American.

Being both things at once is not easy, but it's our mission on this earth. This is not God's gift to us. It is our gift to God.

Joseph A. Morris is a partner in MORRIS & DE LA ROSA, CHICAGO