Catholic conservatives have a problem in the US

By far the most widespread types of fideism on offer in America are Protestantism, Catholicism and atheism. Which of the three is most attractive to Americans inclined towards conservatism?

Agnosticism and deism are quite popular too, but I regard them as similar to atheism and Protestantism respectively. So which of the three?

Any conservative would sweep atheism aside instantly and contemptuously. But what of the other two? The choice seems clear-cut.

Unlike Protestantism, Catholicism derives its inspiration not only from revelation, but also from the historical, apostolic and ecclesiastical tradition embodied in doctrinal and papal authority.

The past speaks loudly and eloquently to Catholics, which, for conservatives, makes it the most obvious alternative not only to modern secularism but also to Protestantism. As St John Henry Newman put it, “To be deep in history is to cease being Protestant.” Or a Left-winger, one is tempted to add.

The same goes for the aesthetic appeal of conservatism: most great composers of the past (though not the greatest one, Bach) were Catholics, as were all Renaissance artists. Above all, Catholic architecture, especially but not exclusively ecclesiastical, is more appealing to cultured conservatives than any other.

Conservative Protestants and Left-wing Catholics do exist, but in both cases they represent a triumph of natural inclinations and political beliefs over religion. Conservative Christians, particularly cultured ones, reach out to Catholicism tropistically.

For several decades starting from 1955, the nexus of American conservative revival was National Review, a bi-weekly magazine describing itself as a “journal of conservative thought”. It would have been more accurate to describe it as a journal of Conservative Catholic thought.

Not only its founder and guiding light, William F Buckley, but most of its editors and regular contributors were either cradle Catholics or converts to Catholicism. The latter group included, among others, Russell Kirk, Whitaker Chambers, Brent Bozell, Willmoore Kendall, Jeffrey Hart, Martin Liebman, Richard John Neuhaus, Clare Boothe Luce, Frank Meyer – indeed, the NR masthead of that time reads like Who’s Who in American Catholic conservative thought.

The same tendency is observable in England: cultured conservatives, especially writers, have always tended to convert to Catholicism from Anglicanism, but not the other way around. Just offhand one could name Cardinals Newman and Manning, Pugin, Chesterton, Evelyn Waugh, Muggeridge, Bishop Nazir-Ali et al.

Getting back to the US, it’s fairly obvious that Catholicism offers a natural home to American conservatives. Their problem is that America doesn’t offer a natural home to Catholics – neither at present, nor, emphatically, in the past.

The original 13 colonies were founded by English Puritans, for whom the Anglican Church wasn’t Protestant enough and ‘papism’ was the work of the Devil. They and other Puritan dissenters vowed to build a sort of Protestant heaven on Earth.

That undertaking immediately produced aggressive hostility to Catholicism. In 11 of the 13 colonies, Catholicism was against the law, and Catholic proselytism and public worship were capital crimes. ‘Papists’ were legally forbidden from holding public office, carrying firearms or serving on juries.

Of the 56 signatories to The Declaration of Independence, only one, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, was a Catholic, with most of the rest Protestant deists. Spread of Catholicism was one of George III’s offences listed in that document.

The wording doesn’t seem overtly religious. George III is accused of “abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies.”

In fact, this was a direct reference to the 1774 Quebec Act, according to which much of today’s American Midwest was transferred to the jurisdiction of that predominantly Catholic province. The Act was tantamount to a spread of ‘papism’, and righteous Americans were aghast.

Later, in the 19^th century, anti-Catholic sentiments were boosted by nativist ones, with large groups of Catholic immigrants arriving from Italy, Ireland and Poland. That animosity quickly became murderous, with mob violence rampant. The burning of a Massachusetts convent in 1834 and the 1844 Philadelphia riots, in which many were killed, were the better-known but far from the only outbursts.

Catholics continued to suffer legal restrictions and, even after those were removed, they found it hard to get ahead in politics. The first Catholic president, John F Kennedy, had to overcome widespread and vociferous accusations of divided loyalties. He was only elected after swearing that his loyalty to the country superseded his loyalty to the Pope.

To this day large swaths of the US population believe that there is something un-American about Catholicism and, on historical evidence, they have a point. But now you understand the dilemma constantly goring Catholic conservatives with its horns.

As conservatives, they are American patriots. As Catholics, they are supposed to be agents of a foreign power. For, to an extent to which Christianity continues to play any role in modern life, the country remains predominantly and aggressively Protestant, sectarian Protestant for the most part.

Such is the background to the ongoing conflict between President Trump and Pope Leo XIV. The pontiff condemned the US-Israeli war on Iran as being contrary to Christian, specifically Catholic, doctrine. Trump responded by telling the Pope not to pry into matters outside his remit.

I rather agree with Trump on this one, but that’s not the point. American Catholic conservatives fear that there is more to the argument than its intrinsic value. Yet again connotation comes before denotation.

It would be an exaggeration to say that Trump is motivated by Puritan sentiments. He isn’t much of a Christian, and even his MAGA fans wouldn’t describe him as a Puritan.

But the very fact that a US president finds himself in an open conflict with the Vatican must be worrying to American Catholics. They fear this may light the blue touchpaper of dormant anti-Catholic resentment, with ‘papist’ again becoming the swearword it has been for much of US history.

P.S. Alas, some Catholics readily accept Pope Leo’s take on Catholic doctrine. The other day I caught a glimpse of Piers Morgan, himself a Catholic, interviewing that objectionable woman, Marjory Taylor Greene, on the subject of the papal-presidential debate.

Greene used to be a MAGA fanatic, but she has turned against Trump over his interventionist foreign policy. Morgan tried to sit on the fence, but found that seat uncomfortable. Trying to defend Leo’s position, he said that any pope would be against war as a matter of Catholic doctrine.

Now, I don’t know whether Morgan is a good Catholic, but he is obviously an ignorant one.

Here’s a short, far from complete, list of popes who inspired or called for military action. Chronologically: Leo IV, Alexander II, Gregory VII, Urban II, Eugenius III, Gregory VIII, Innocent III, Innocent IV, Julius II (‘the Warrior Pope’).

And closer to our own time, Pope John Paul II didn’t object to a violent overthrow of communism in some Eastern European countries.

I daresay those pontiffs had a surer grasp of Catholic doctrine than Pope Leo XIV (and even Piers Morgan) has.