A Catholic Crash Course in American Politics

By Auguste Meyrat But first a note: Be sure to tune in Thursday, July 11th at 8 PM Eastern to EWTN for a new episode of the Papal Posse on 'The World Over.' TCT Editor-in-Chief Robert Royal and contributor Father Gerald E. Murray will join host Raymond Arroyo to discuss Archbishop Vigano's excommunication, further Latin Mass restrictions (projected to come later this month), as well as other developments in Rome and the U.S. Check your local listings for the channel in your area. Shows are usually available shortly after first airing on the EWTN YouTube channel. Now for today's column... Last year, Pope Francis complained that the American Catholic Church has become too political. Instead of preaching the true faith, he claimed, certain clergy will use their spiritual authority to tell congregations how to vote and even weaponize the sacraments to pressure politicians into adopting certain policies. If only that were true. In reality, most priests today avoid politics, leaving most Catholics to decide public questions for themselves. This has led to a broad political divide among today's Catholics, resulting in numerous clashes between progressives and conservatives in recent years. In all likelihood, many of these political differences could be reconciled and many public scandals avoided if Catholics were better informed. They could find common ground with their brothers and sisters in Christ, vote for policies and politicians that follow Church teachings, and support initiatives that improve the material and spiritual well-being of all Americans. To this end, Catholic Vote, an organization devoted to educating Catholics on today's political issues, has published For God, Country, and Sanity: How Catholics Can Save America, a collection of essays addressing some of the controversies facing voters this election year. It has something for every reader, and better still, it's relatively short (180 pages). Overall, it's exactly the kind of book that Catholics should read if they hope to save the nation before it descends into terminal decline. In the introduction, Catholic Vote's president, Brian Burch, lays out the stakes: "Some elections are huge turning points. 2024 is one of them." This is because crime, poverty, drug abuse, illegal migration, suicide, and inflation have skyrocketed in the past few years while birthrates, church attendance, and institutional trust have plummeted. Burch makes it clear that this might be the last opportunity for American Catholics and their allies to make their voices heard and vote for change. Two profound essays from First Things veterans Rusty Reno and Matthew Schmitz follow, which analyze today's political landscape. Reno argues that both political parties have been stuck in the 20th century, subscribing to "an 'open society' and 'open economy' consensus." This approach made sense when confronting racial segregationists and communist dictatorships, but it is now undermining the very structures and ideas that enabled Americans to thrive: "our country suffers from the disintegration of moral, social, and political institutions, and the sound economic basis for middle-class prosperity has eroded." Politicians and their constituents should finally abandon the old consensus, says Reno, and adopt a "politics of solidarity" that emphasizes "stability, order, and a sense of 'home' to the American people." In "How Gay Marriage Changed America," Matthew Schmitz explains how today's gender ideology, religious intolerance, political polarization, and radicalization are the direct consequences of Obergefell v. Hodges which legalized same-sex "marriage" in 2015. According to Schmitz, this was because "Gay marriage was the first great triumph of cancel culture," giving an ongoing advantage to leftist activists willing to play dirty. Opponents of gay marriage didn't lose the argument so much as they were "silenced, fired, or forced out of important institutions." Nine years later, the same cancellers no...