“In an unprecedented and rightly-described revolutionary act, the United States of America lays claim to the first major country in all of human history to design a godless government, i.e. one officially indifferent to religion, both natural and revealed. Established by the Constitution of 1788, it is, at the federal level, unconcerned with the rights of God, His Divine Son Jesus Christ, or any duties towards religion or a church — never mind the only true one.”
A Critique Born of Love
We hope by now, after having produced numerous essays that have been well-received at The Journal of American Reform critiquing modern errors, our readers will be no less enthusiastic when we turn our critical eye to our beloved country, the United States of America. Surely, the animating philosophy and spirit of one’s own homeland can and must be compared with sound philosophy and Catholic doctrine. In fact, to the extent there is divergence, the identification and correction of the error would be nothing other than true patriotism, the instinctive, noble and necessary love of one’s country.1
Consider how you would judge a doctor who, so as not to further trouble his patient, allowed a deadly cancer to spread? If the same doctor were to repeatedly prescribe a program which lead to worsening of the poor man’s condition, would he not be considered insane? How, we ask, can anything other than the cure, radical yet entirely safe, approved by the best medical authorities be withheld — especially as the patient careens towards certain death?
As we have stated before, for America to be truly good, let alone great, our governmental, cultural and national life must substantially cohere with Catholic social teaching, given the State is bound to receive the supreme moral law from the only Church established by Jesus Christ. Yet modern man is impressed with America; he marvels at her “liberties”, vigorously defending them as sourced uniquely in the authority of the people and their consent. All of this, ostensibly, is to free man from the “tyranny” of religious dogma, the State getting “mixed-up” in religion and the supreme horror, the “oppression” of man’s sacred, inviolable right to say and publish whatever he pleases.
But has anyone ever asked what God thinks about the same. . . surely that matters more?
The Hidden and the Open Enemy
While it may seem, at first, that the United States government is not hostile to Catholicism, which is true in a very real sense, we know that the undeclared enemy, the hidden one, is more dangerous — not less — than he who has honestly and openly declared himself as such. Consequently, the Deceiver often finds more success in corrupting souls and societies through the use of what St. Paul denounced (2 Cor. XI, 26) as “false brethren”, who if sincere, are more dangerous.
As will be argued in this essay, most of the leading American “Founding Fathers” — a convenient term which sanitizes what would otherwise be called a revolutionary cadre of politicians, philosophers and diplomats2 — fall into this category of the “hidden enemy”. Perhaps with this in mind did Pope Leo XIII in his 1895 encyclical letter Longinqua, describing the state of Catholicism in America, issue the following pastoral warning:
For the Church amongst you, unopposed by the Constitution and government of your nation, fettered by no hostile legislation, protected against violence by the common laws and the impartiality of the tribunals, is free to live and act without hindrance. Yet, though all this is true, it would be very erroneous to draw the conclusion that in America is to be sought the type of the most desirable status of the Church, or that it would be universally lawful or expedient for State and Church to be, as in America, dissevered and divorced (emphasis added).3
This pontifical warning in mind, rather than recognizing the American system of “religious freedom” and the federal government’s indifference to religion as an objectively deplorable situation,4 since, among other things, the following Catholic doctrine on Church-State relations is rejected:
The (indirect) subordination of the State to the Church5
The duty of the State and civil rulers to restrict the liberty of thinking and publishing in religious and moral matters6
The necessity of the State, qua State, to worship God in the true (Catholic) religion7
The duty of civil rulers to publicly honor and obey Christ8
Both the “Liberal Catholics” of then and now continue to deny the aforementioned conclusion or, if they are forced to admit it, recognize no objective duty — much less the urgent need — to remedy it, defending instead the ideal of a free and independent Church in a free State.9
What is not being contested, however, is the practical expediency of tolerating the separation of Church and State in America, which was the same judgement made by Pope Leo XIII.10 Right now, as Cardinal Ottaviani made clear in his public law theses, this imperfect condition:
[I]s to be tolerated by Catholics only for a time, namely until matters can be brought to the point where the legitimate order of relations between both societies can be vindicated and profitably restored to practice; hence it is clear that the duties of Catholics are greater for the protection of the rights of the Church, and that they ought to contend more vigorously for them in a separated State, than where the normal relation of harmony between both powers prevails.
Until the corporate conversion of our country, motivated primarily by the conversion of our leaders, this condition will remain a practical necessity; that is, the most expedient way to vindicate the social rights of God and the Catholic Church.
At the turn of the twentieth century, in the year 1900 to be exact, this was precisely the same conclusion reached by Mr. Jules Paul-Tardivel. He was the tireless French-Canadian defender, albeit born in America, of the rights of the Catholic Church and the public prerogatives of her Divine Founder. In light of this, it is worth recalling his writing previously featured at our Journal:
Keeping with his struggle we must continue to oppose “Liberal Catholics”, who at that time were known as Americanists forming an “Americanizing” school of thought and activism. Always observant, Tardivel ably captured the contours of the now, “neo-Americanist” mindset:
The State placing all religions, true and false, on an equal footing is not, in their eyes, a system that must, by force of circumstance, be adopted in the United States to avoid a greater evil; it is the very perfection, both theoretical and practical, of the relations that should exist between the two orders. No matter how much the popes speak, the Americanists still do not understand the Church’s doctrine on this point, and imagine and proclaim that the Catholic religion has never had and could never have a more enviable position than the one it occupies in the United States.
As is clear from the foregoing recapitulation of Catholic doctrine, at most the Church can tolerate the public profession of a false religion, as an evil to be patiently endured for the sake of the common good. However, it is always a matter of toleration, choosing not to punish or repress evil — never the ideal relationship between Church and State, nor in objective conformity with the demands of Divine Revelation (Cf. Immortale Dei, 1885), nor even with Natural Law (Cf. Libertas, 1888).
The American Experiment Is Over, and Has Failed
The American experiment has decidedly failed. We will not dwell on the sad state of our country, nor attempt to prove it with a detailed demonstration. We merely remind the reader that to state uncomfortable truths is different from relishing in the misfortune of our country, something that would be especially tragic had we laid a good foundation. Alas, in all humility, our country is proof that (Prov. XVI, 8) “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall”. What we are experiencing now — namely, the rule by foreigners and women; manifest and countless violations of the Natural Law enshrined in public law; unceasing and mass immigration of alien peoples; public moral ruin; universal indifference to religion and moral apathy; hostility for Christian-infused law — can all credibly be seen as the Divine punishment for sin. Whether that be our own sins, those of our ancestors or those of our beloved country, each of these can, in view of the suffering of Christ, bring solace and provide true consolation.
This is obvious enough in the year of Our Lord 2026. However, what is not readily apparent is that our country was always destined to fail, and for a few, very specific reasons. This continues to be our animating concern at The Journal of American Reform, in an ongoing effort to correct the fundamental defects of the founding and provide a positive program for radical (radix, radic — ‘root’, ‘at the root’) change, in the best sense of the word.
American failure was predictable, and it was obvious and encoded in the very founding, not only in the governmental documents, but in the governmental spirit and principles of our revolutionary politicians. Passing over the serious occult presence in America from its beginning, along with our Revolution, both of which will be explored in due time, this introductory critique will focus on our country’s most prized possession, namely the United States Constitution. For nearly every American, Catholics are no exception, the thought of criticizing the Constitution is not something that is conceivable, much less entertained. One could be forgiven for listening to our political discourse and thinking, basically, the American founders were in possession of a certain infallibility, an immunity from the possibility of error, which curiously only belongs to the head of Christ’s Church, the Roman Pontiff.
As alluded to above, many Catholics have, shamefully, not been an exception. Rather they were and are fixated on subordinating Catholic doctrine to revolutionary doctrine, all in a misguided attempt to prove their American bona fides. For these men, they will sacrifice the truth, or perhaps withhold it, so long as they can avoid being called “un-American”. Forgetting, among other things, that Church and State are bound by Natural Law and Divine Revelation to be in harmonious union, that the State is bound to recognize and worship God in the true religion, the [in]famous Americanist Bishop, John Ireland, once declared at a 1913 Address delivered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin that:
Would we alter, if we could, the Constitution in regard to its treatment of religion, the principles of Americanism in regard to religious freedom? I answer with an emphatic No (emphasis added).11
Mind you, this was after the formal condemnation of Americanism and its principles, which contained the grave warning of Pope Leo XIII against those who were tempted to believe:
[T]hat, in order to more easily attract those who differ from her, the Church should shape her teachings more in accord with the spirit of the age and relax some of her ancient severity and make some concessions to new opinions. . . They contend that it would be opportune, in order to gain those who differ from us, to omit certain points of her teaching which are of lesser importance, and to tone down the meaning which the Church has always attached to them. . . [and] who conceive and would have the Church in America to be different from what it is in the rest of the world (emphasis added).12
Undeterred, Bishop Ireland had allowed himself to be swept up in the cult of the Constitution. For too many Catholics, past and present, the same is true and they similarly run afoul of this timely papal correction. The hegemony of our secular schools and liberal culture have done their work—and have they done it well.
The Godless Constitution
In an unprecedented and rightly-described revolutionary act, the United States of America lays claim to the first major country in all of human history to design a godless government, i.e. one officially indifferent to religion, both natural and revealed.13 Established by the Constitution of 1788, it is, at the federal level, unconcerned with the rights of God, His Divine Son Jesus Christ, or any duties towards religion or a church — never mind the only true one.
In what cannot be overstated, this arrangement represented a substantial departure from the dominant political and theological economy of the ancient world, the medieval world — which we know as Christendom — and even from those regimes that ushered in early modernity. Prior to our revolution, civil authority, in one form or another, consistently understood itself as bearing responsibility for religion, including the public duties, rites and recognition owed to it: in the world before Caesar, in the imperial order he bequeathed, under Constantine, and even within the political arrangements influenced by the Protestant Revolution.
While the earlier government under the 1777 Articles of Confederation gave credit to the “Great Governor of the World”,14 eerily similar to the “Great Architect of the World” of Freemasonry, the Constitution stooped lower, omitting not only the vaguest, most impersonal language for God, but altogether any mention of God. Had mention of “God” been made, the most Holy Name of God, Jesus Christ, would also need to be invoked, ensuring that the Deity was exclusively identified with the Christian God. To give an idea of the general indifference to the supernatural at the Constitutional Convention, it is worth remembering that the motion for a Fourth of July sermon and daily prayer were both quietly ignored.15 Moreover, the only time the Constitution made mention of religion was Article VI, where far from being promoted, religion is rather “decoupled” from civil authority, ensuring that profession of the Christian faith is unable to be be made a requirement of holding federal office in America.
ARTICLE VI. — [N]o religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.
As mentioned above, unlike some of the colonies which had State religions (Maryland and Massachusetts), the U.S. Constitution represented the first major divorce in history, what Liberalism considers “disentangling”, of religion both natural and revealed, from government and public law. This, importantly, was not a system of legitimate toleration which, abhorring the objective evil of religious indifferentism and a State built on the same, “for the sake of securing some great good or of hindering some great evil, [the civil authority may] allow patiently custom or usage to be a kind of sanction for each kind of religion having its place in the State.”16
Rather, the aim was to advance four key pillars of the Liberal project and its anti-Christian order:
To deny the duties of government towards God and revealed religion, Christianity
To divorce the political order and government, which is to say applied morality, from religious dogma
To promote the separation of Church and State as the ideal arrangement, i.e. “a free Church in a free State”, rather than as an objective evil which can only be tolerated under certain circumstances
To affirm the doctrine of unrestricted freedom of conscience and worship for all citizens and establish it in law
You might ask how, then, was the United States government to be distinguished from government envisioned by Freemasonry, Deism or various strains of Liberalism?17 The answer is rather obvious. . . particularly when the question is posed this way.
Naturalism is the Animating “Spirit” of the American Project
What is Naturalism? At its core, it is the system of thought by which human reason and nature alone, independent of Divine, Natural or Ecclesiastical law, is to be the guide in all things. Naturalism denies religious dogma and truth, let alone their necessity, choosing instead to only follow those things which can be known by human intelligence.18 Moving away from the speculative order, its principles translate onto the political and social order as well. Pope Leo XIII, ever the opponent of doctrinal error, outlines its aims in his 1884 encyclical against Freemasonry, inveighing against this form of Liberalism:
Then come their doctrines of politics, in which the naturalists lay down that all men have the same right, and are in every respect of equal and like condition; that each one is naturally free; that no one has the right to command another; that it is an act of violence to require men to obey any authority other than that which is obtained from themselves. According to this, therefore, all things belong to the free people; power is held by the command or permission of the people, so that, when the popular will changes, rulers may lawfully be deposed and the source of all rights and civil duties is either in the multitude or in the governing authority when this is constituted according to the latest doctrines. It is held also that the State should be without God; that in the various forms of religion there is no reason why one should have precedence of another; and that they are all to occupy the same place.
That these doctrines are equally acceptable to the Freemasons, and that they would wish to constitute States according to this example and model, is too well known to require proof. For some time past they have openly endeavored to bring this about with all their strength and resources; and in this they prepare the way for not a few bolder men who are hurrying on even to worse things, in their endeavor to obtain equality and community of all goods by the destruction of every distinction of rank and property (emphasis added).19
The system of Naturalism in mind, we can better judge the philosophies of the much-celebrated “Founding Fathers”.
General George Washington, our country’s first president, had many admirable natural qualities and is and always has been the quintessential American hero. However, this belies the objectively sinister program he was committed to, given he was a committed Freemason,20 who succeeded in — we would argue, decisively — legitimizing the Naturalism and Liberalism of America’s revolutionary founding. Washington was heterodox, to put it mildly. For example, he supported the legislative efforts of Thomas Jefferson in Virginia to enshrine the error of “religious freedom”, identifying as “impolitic” the public and State recognition of Christianity (read Anglicanism), since it would be offensive to a “respectable minority”.21 Consistent with his commitment to religious indifferentism,22 Washington denied the Divine Right of a Supernatural God to enjoin one religion by which He would be worshipped and obeyed, defending instead “[T]hat every man, conducting himself as a good citizen, and being accountable to God alone for his religious opinions, ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience”.23
Contrast this with the doctrine of Cardinal Tommaso Zigliara, O.P., whose clarity is unmatched, as he unmasks the absurdity of this system:
For man is bound by the strictest duty of nature to think rightly of God, and of those things which concern both speculative and practical religion. But to voluntarily contradict the strictest duty of nature is license, not liberty; and if we are talking, as in our argument, of a voluntary transgression of duty towards God, the aforesaid license is impiety. Therefore, because through freedom of conscience the right is given to man to think of God as he pleases, this liberty is true impiety.
The celebrated father of the Constitution, James Madison, who unlike Washington played a direct role in the Constitutional Convention, was another proponent of this same form of religious indifferentism. In order to illustrate this point, recall his 1785 letter, written anonymously, where he railed against the public patronage of various Protestant sects in Virginia, defending instead the following system:
The Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. This right is in its nature an unalienable right. . . We maintain therefore that in matters of Religion, no mans right is abridged by the institution of Civil Society and that Religion is wholly exempt from its cognizance (emphasis added).24
Even more troubling was Madison’s flagrant ignorance of the storied and harmonious union of Church and State in Christendom. Latter on in the same letter he observes:
During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution. . .
What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not (emphasis added).25
To what extent this sentiment was motivated by enlightenment prejudices or was simple ignorance is a question best left for academic historians. Nevertheless, this attitude was common among the revolutionary intellectuals and those who framed the new government of the United States. The present godlessness of Americans as a people, falling ever-deeper into debauchery, materialism and revolutionary socialism, then, is a direct consequence of this decoupling of society from religion. Pope Pius XII, in his 1939 encyclical On The Unity of Human Society described this very phenomenon, which is observed — albeit gradually — in a tragic case like ours:
Once the authority of God and the sway of His law are denied in this way, the civil authority as an inevitable result tends to attribute to itself that absolute autonomy which belongs exclusively to the Supreme Maker. It puts itself in the place of the Almighty and elevates the State or group into the last end of life, the supreme criterion of the moral and juridical order, and therefore forbids every appeal to the principles of natural reason and of the Christian conscience. We do not, of course, fail to recognize that, fortunately, false principles do not always exercise their full influence, especially when age-old Christian traditions, on which the peoples have been nurtured, remain still deeply, even if unconsciously, rooted in their hearts (emphasis added).26
A final American figure worth examining in regard to this naturalistic spirit is Alexander Hamilton, who labored to draft and secure ratification for the U.S. Constitution. Lest we forget, it was Hamilton who wrote the majority of The Federalist Papers and, in the very first one, we find the poisonous seed of Naturalism, hidden beneath the mask of concern for merely temporal peace. Addressed to the people of the State of New York he lamented:
[Nothing] could be more ill-judged than that intolerant spirit, which has, at all times, characterized political parties. For in politics as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution (emphasis added).27
In this oft-quoted passage Hamilton subtly asserts his own intolerant stance in opposing, albeit diplomatically, the intolerance of others. For him, it seems, the State recognition and protection of a particular religion is to be labelled “persecution,” irrespective of whether the religion is true or false, or whether the means employed are actually unjust. Such a stance, however expedient in a republic divided over many religious groups, does not appreciate the apostolic insistence that there is no salvation outside the name of Christ (Acts IV, 12) and that false teaching merits anathema (Gal. I, 8).
In totality, we see the chief consequence of the enlightenment; namely that of denying the necessity of marrying the supernatural order and Divine Revelation to the political governance of societies. Instead, the framers of the constitution tried to abstract from it, proposing an indifferentist system which ultimately secured ratification. But if there is tolerance in religious matters, distinct from a legitimate toleration of erring individuals or political tolerance (in certain, defined cases) for false cults, it is impossible to — with consistency — believe in Christianity and adhere to its dogmas.
Further Confirmation of the Godless Constitution
Returning to the Constitution, we will now examine how its indifferentist character was confirmed in its official interpretation and implementation. Most importantly, we will see how the very first two presidents, Washington and Adams, respectively, witnessed to this reality.
In 1790, two years after the ratification of the Constitution, then President George Washington wrote a letter to Jews from the Hebrew Congregation of Rhode Island, boasting that the American project rejected the European practice of religious toleration, embracing instead the “enlarged and liberal policy” of religious liberty in which all citizens are equally free to exercise. He noted, approvingly, that the “Government of the United States. . . gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance”.28 Now, this novel “freedom” championed by Washington, characterized by confusing license with true liberty29 — i.e. the latter being a faculty (power) of the will to choose legitimate means by which to achieve some good end — is exactly the same error warned against by Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical condemning the Americanist spirit and system:
But. . . in this present matter of which we are speaking, there is even a greater danger and a more manifest opposition to Catholic doctrine and discipline in that opinion of the lovers of novelty, according to which they hold such liberty should be allowed in the Church, that her supervision and watchfulness being in some sense lessened, allowance be granted the faithful, each one to follow out more freely the leading of his own mind and the trend of his own proper activity. They are of opinion that such liberty has its counterpart in the newly given civil freedom which is now the right and the foundation of almost every secular state (emphasis added).30
One cannot help but notice the ending, this “liberty” is in “manifest opposition” to Catholic doctrine and law. Experience confirms this. Over the course of three centuries in America, it has been inescapably the cause of religious indifferentism, culminating today in outright, public atheism.
Our second President, John Adams, who was among the most influential “Founding Fathers” delivered a more decisive confirmation of the secular character of the United States government. Secular, in this sense understood as the negation of the State’s duty to recognize the rights of God and the Christian religion. We have in mind the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli, signed by President Adams and unanimously ratified by the Senate without any recorded debate,31 which included Article 11 in English, namely that “the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion” and has no enmity towards the “the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims”.
ARTICLE XI. — As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion, — as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen, — and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.32
A more explicit confirmation of State indifferentism could hardly be imagined. Incidentally, the signing of the document was met, itself, with little to no domestic protest. Content with godless government, this was the same Adams who, while in 1774 while attending mass at St. Mary’s Church in Philadelphia, explained what he thought of the only Christianity worthy of its name, Catholicism,33 “This afternoon’s entertainment was to me most awful and affecting; the poor wretches fingering their beads, chanting Latin, not a word of which they understood. . . ”, after describing the the altar furnishings, vestments and the priest, he concluded “Here is everything which can lay hold of the eye, ear, and imagination — everything which can charm and bewitch the simple and ignorant. I wonder how Luther ever broke the spell.”34
Answering the Brewer Objection
As the popular objection goes, in the Supreme Court’s 1892 Holy Trinity vs. United States, Justice David Brewer wrote that “this is a Christian nation”,35 evidencing (ostensibly) America as a Christian state. Does this hold up to scrutiny, however? First, noting that Justice Brewer had qualified his conclusion, observing “These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation (emphasis added)”,36 he later elaborated what he meant in a 1905 book entitled “The United States: A Christian Nation”. Recognizing that the nation and State are formally distinct, i.e. government and its people — which, to Brewer’s credit he will make note of — the Justice explained:
But in what sense can [the United States] be called a Christian nation? Not in the sense that Christianity is the established religion or the people are compelled in any manner to support it. On the contrary, the Constitution specifically provides that ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.’ Neither is it Christian in the sense that all its citizens are either in fact or in name Christians. On the contrary, all religions have free scope within its borders. Numbers of our people profess other religions, and many reject all. Nor is it Christian in the sense that a profession of Christianity is a condition of holding office or otherwise engaging in public service, or essential to recognition either politically or socially. In fact, the government as a legal organization is independent of all religions (emphasis added).37
While recognizing the religious character of the young American nation, i.e. a physiological union derived from shared ancestry and blood, Brewer identified the federal government as entirely indifferent to religion and its duties towards Christianity, which always had been the case, precisely the thesis we have been arguing. Another important detail, perhaps overlooked by Brewer and those who rely on this objection, is that religiosity in America has increased — not decreased — over time. On the eve of the revolution in 1776, fewer than one in five Americans were active in church affairs, which rose to thirty-five percent in 1870 and finally eclipsed fifty percent in 1906.38 Nevertheless, an uncomfortable truth that throws cold water on the simple, hagiographic understanding of the colonial period.
Conclusion
As division continues to grow in America with ever-increasing intensity,39 we must be careful not to identify the effects of bad principles with their cause, refusing to see what was plain and obvious not only in light of Divine Revelation, but also right reason. What good is a detective if he is content with hanging around the scene of murder, unwilling to track down the suspect and his weapon? What kind of treachery would he be guilty of if, as it turned out, he had aided in the conspiracy, pretending to solve the crime, all while withholding the whereabouts and identity of the perpetrator? In light of this analogy, we have aimed at beginning the detective work in The Journal of American Reform — unmasking, first, the Godless Constitution and those responsible for its design.
As history demonstrates, a country with a godless government is not, for very long, going to produce good fruit — if it is even possible. Since religion is and should be the most important thing in man’s life, the same man who must naturally live in society, it is no surprise to see that a government founded on indifference to the supernatural order and Church is, therefore, unable to prevent the inexorable descent into anarchy of belief and shameless immorality. Such is the consequence of original sin, its effects and a system designed to ignore it. In other words, the American one.
This tendency towards the accommodation of revolutionary principles, as was seen with Bishop Ireland, was not confined to Protestant and Liberal intellectuals, from whom we would expect rapprochement, but from our American Catholic forefathers. Sadly, another figure, Cardinal James Gibbons, whose tremendous presence in the Church was felt in the twentieth century, was perhaps more enthusiastic in seeing the American model of Church-State relations as the shining ideal.
At the installation of Father Thomas J. Conaty as rector of the Catholic University of America on January 19, 1897, Gibbons declared:
If I had the privilege of modifying the Constitution of the United States, I would not expunge or alter a single paragraph, a single line, or a single word of that important instrument. The Constitution is admirably adapted to the growth and expansion of the Catholic religion, and the Catholic religion is admirably adapted to the genius of the Constitution. They fit together like two links in the same chain.40
The same prelate returned to his vomit — forgive us, there is no other way to put it —twelve years later in the North American Review:
American Catholics rejoice in our separation of Church and state, and I can conceive no combination of circumstances likely to arise which would make a union desirable for either Church or state.41
Yet as we have seen, we must not repeat our forefathers’ errors. Let us expose them—not in spite, but for the sake of Truth. Let us proclaim the GLORIOUS UNION OF CHURCH AND STATE, ensuring we have a government that is pleasing to Almighty God, who alone matters, and is JESUS CHRIST. However daunting, our task as Catholics remains the same, nothing other than the Christianization of the American government and our public institutions. This, of course, happens especially through elites — whether by their conversion or, if necessary, replacement.
If America is to establish social harmony and moral order, it must acknowledge the proper relationship between Church and State. The ultimate end of political authority is not merely temporal happiness but the promotion of conditions conducive to man’s supernatural destiny. Only a regime that acknowledges Christ’s kingship can fully safeguard both justice and authentic liberty. Only then can the State effectively combat moral error, defend religious truth and ground its authority not in the fluctuating will of the people and their consent, but in the eternal, absolute sovereignty of Almighty God.
END.
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Rev. Edward Cahill, S.J., Framework of a Christian State, (1932), pp. 575-90.
Cf. Pope Gregory XVI, Cum Primum, (1832), no. 3 — “We are taught most clearly that the obedience which men are obliged to render to the authorities established by God is an absolute precept which no one can violate, except if by chance something is commanded which runs counter to the laws of God or of the Church. ‘Let everyone’ says the Apostle, ‘be subject to higher authorities, for there exists no authority except from God, and those who exist have been appointed by God. Therefore he who resists the authority resists the ordination of God. . . wherefore you must needs be subject not only because of the wrath, but also for conscience sake’ (Rom 13.1,2,5). Similarly St. Peter (1 Pt 2.13) teaches all the faithful: ‘Be subject to every human creature for God’s sake, whether to the king as supreme, or to the governors sent through him. . . for (he says) such is the will of God, that by doing good you would silence the ignorance of foolish men.’ By observing these admonitions the first Christians, even during the persecutions, deserved well of the Roman emperors themselves and of the security of the state. ‘Christian soldiers,’ says St. Augustine, ‘served an infidel emperor: when it came to the subject of Christ, they recognized no one except Him who is in heaven. They distinguished between the eternal Lord and the temporal lord, but also were subject to the temporal lord because of the eternal Lord’ (St. Aug. On Ps 124). (emphasis added).”
Msgr. Joseph Clifford Fenton, Principles Underlying Traditional Church-State Doctrine, (1952), American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. 126, pp. 456-7.
Pope Leo XIII, Immortale Dei, (1885), nos. 10-12.
Cf. Ibid, no. 32. — “So, too, the liberty of thinking, and of publishing, whatsoever each one likes, without any hindrance, is not in itself an advantage over which society can wisely rejoice. On the contrary, it is the fountain-head and origin of many evils. Liberty is a power perfecting man, and hence should have truth and goodness for its object. But the character of goodness and truth cannot be changed at option. These remain ever one and the same, and are no less unchangeable than nature itself. If the mind assents to false opinions, and the will chooses and follows after what is wrong, neither can attain its native fullness, but both must fall from their native dignity into an abyss of corruption. Whatever, therefore, is opposed to virtue and truth may not rightly be brought temptingly before the eye of man, much less sanctioned by the favor and protection of the law (emphasis added).
Pope Pius XI, Quas Primas, (1925), no. 32.
Cf. Pope St. Pius X, Vehementor Nos, (1906), no. 3 — “That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error. Based, as it is, on the principle that the State must not recognize any religious cult, it is in the first place guilty of a great injustice to God; for the Creator of man is also the Founder of human societies, and preserves their existence as He preserves our own. We owe Him, therefore, not only a private cult, but a public and social worship to honor Him. Besides, this thesis is an obvious negation of the supernatural order. It limits the action of the State to the pursuit of public prosperity during this life only, which is but the proximate object of political societies; and it occupies itself in no fashion (on the plea that this is foreign to it) with their ultimate object which is man’s eternal happiness after this short life shall have run its course (emphasis added).”
Frs. Ryan and Millar, S.J., The State and the Church, (1922), p. 287; what is, perhaps, even more troubling than the grievous error of Bishop Ireland is that the Jesuit theologians responsible for this manual quoted it by all evidence, approvingly. How does a work of Church-State relations cite the champion of orthodoxy and anti-liberalism, Cardinal Billot, in one section (pp. 62-7), yet the antithesis in another?
Incidentally, in the same address (p. 288), Bishop Ireland veered further into heterodoxy and delivers this astonishing statement, surely in an effort to prove his Americanism over and against the Catholic faith:
Necessarily religious freedom is the basic life of America, the cement running through all its walls and battlements, the safeguard of its peace and prosperity. Violate religious freedom against Catholics: Our swords are at once unsheathed. Violate it in favor of Catholics, against non-Catholics: No less readily do they leap from the scabbard.
Pope Leo XIII, Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae, (1899).
Isaac Kranmick and R. Laurence Moore, The Godless Constitution, (1996), pp. 26-45.
Articles of Confederation, (1777).
Henry May, The Enlightenment in America, (1978), p. 97.
Pope Leo XIII, Immortale Dei, (1885), no. 36.
It is worth recalling what we mentioned in our introductory essay against the rising tide of neo-Americanism:
The principles that animated the American revolution and founding are no less deadly than those of the French revolution. In some respects, they are more evil. The reason being that the former, uniquely, are an insidious evil, not the honest, so to speak, evil found in the French experiment. In the same way that communism, which is easily recognizable and nearly-always violent, is less dangerous than liberalism, which has a veneer of respectability and a subtlety that can go undetected. Mass executions of clergy and religious, followed by anti-Catholic legislation are easy to see. What is harder to detect, much less combat, is naturalism, inflamed by an individualistic and capitalistic spirit, preaching rights for true and false religion, alike. Both systems of revolution, importantly, share the same, underlying anti-Catholic principles.
Pope Leo XIII, Humanum Genus, (1884), no. 12.
Ibid. nos. 22-3.
Cf. George Washington, Letter to the Masons of King David’s Lodge, Rhode Island, (1790) — “Being persuaded that a just application of the principles, on which the masonic fraternity is founded, must be promotive of private virtue and public prosperity, I shall always be happy to advance the interests of the Society, and to be considered by them a deserving Brother (emphasis added).”
George Washington, Letter to George Mason, (1785).
Cf. Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos, (1832), no. 13 — “Now We consider another abundant source of the evils with which the Church is afflicted at present: indifferentism. This perverse opinion is spread on all sides by the fraud of the wicked who claim that it is possible to obtain the eternal salvation of the soul by the profession of any kind of religion, as long as morality is maintained. Surely, in so clear a matter, you will drive this deadly error far from the people committed to your care. With the admonition of the apostle that ‘there is one God, one faith, one baptism’ may those fear who contrive the notion that the safe harbor of salvation is open to persons of any religion whatever. They should consider the testimony of Christ Himself that ‘those who are not with Christ are against Him,’ and that they disperse unhappily who do not gather with Him (emphasis added).”
George Washington, Letter to the United Baptist Churches of Virginia, (1789).
James Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, (1785), no. 1.
Ibid. no. 7-8.
Pope Pius XII, Summi Pontificatus, (1939), no. 53.
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Papers, (1787), no. 1.
George Washington, Letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, (1790).
Rev. Henri Grenier, Moral Philosophy, (1932), vol. 3, pp. 476-8.
Pope Leo XIII, Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae, (1899).
John Adams, Treaty of Peace and Friendship, (1796), Art. 11.
Pope Pius IX, Syllabus of Errors, (1864), prop. 18.
John Adams, Familiar Letters of John Adams and His Wife Abigail, During the Revolution, (1876), pp. 46-7.
Ibid.
David Brewer, The United States A Christian Nation, (1905), p. 12.
Roger Fink and Rodney Starke, The churching of America, 1776-1990 : winners and losers in our religious economy, (1992), p. 15.
While not intended by Our Lord, division or dissension, themselves, are not necessarily a bad thing, rather they are the effect of the Truth of the Gospel destroying the false peace of this word. — Cf. Matt. X, 34-9.
John Tracy Ellis, The Life of James Cardinal Gibbons, (1962), p. 143.
Cardinal James Gibbons, The Church and the Republic, (1909), p. 16.