Comments for American – and Catholic? at http://www.thecatholicthing.org , comment 1 to 8 out of 8 comments http://www.thecatholicthing.org Wed, 22 May 2013 06:02:35 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/american-and-catholic.html#comment-5075 For Debby- Thanks for the book tip. - ruth Sun, 24 Oct 2010 16:35:44 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/american-and-catholic.html#comment-5059 "Americans do not learn such things in public schools anymore." They do in the U.S. history class I teach in a public school. - Mark Wed, 20 Oct 2010 16:43:29 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/american-and-catholic.html#comment-5047 Thank you, Debby. I'll check it out. I appreciate your interest. - Louise Tue, 19 Oct 2010 04:54:49 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/american-and-catholic.html#comment-5044 for louise, you may be interested in this recent work by Bradley J. Birzer: American Cicero, The Life of Charles Carroll (Lives of the Founders). available at amazon.com i heard a radio interview with the author and ordered it for my husband....haven't had the opportunity to crack the cover but my neighbor borrowed it already and is enjoying it very much. have fun! - debby Mon, 18 Oct 2010 15:30:22 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/american-and-catholic.html#comment-5043 Thank you so very much for your thoughtful answer to a very complex question. I don't think I realized how complex it was. Since becoming Catholic several years ago, I have heard the Enlightenment and Protestant culture disparaged as the first steps in the secularization of culture and the rejection of God in culture and society, leading to where we are now. This led me to wonder whether our American ideals of government by the consent of the governed and such documents as the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution could have emerged from Catholic thought in 1789, or whether they could have emerged only from 18th century Protestant culture, rationalism, and the Enlightenment or whether there is no connection at all. Thank you again for your time and thoughtfulness. - Louise Mon, 18 Oct 2010 14:56:35 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/american-and-catholic.html#comment-5042 Louise, as you probably know, the Federalist Papers # 51 expresses something very similar to QA: " If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions." The "auxiliary precautions" go a step further than the encyclical. As practical men, the Founders knew that neither "parchment barriers" nor wise statesmen could be relied on to make judgments about controlling the natural tendency of governments to move into every sphere of life. They recommended specific institutional arrangements, separation of powers, enumerated powers, and so forth. An encyclical cannot and should not specify specific forms of government, since these can vary legitimately among different human communities. But it can warn about the need to understand the different levels and liberties necessary to a good society. In Centesimus Annus, JPII makes some general statements about proper structures to embody Catholic principles. Could QA have been written in the colonies in 1789, who knows? It may not even have been possible to write it in Europe. Certainly, European revolutions of the French kind had plenty of trouble controlling Napoleon and other ambitious men. America has made some practical contributions to political liberty, though we could do with a more robust sense of the natural law principles that undergird liberty. - Robert Royal Mon, 18 Oct 2010 12:54:34 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/american-and-catholic.html#comment-5040 Thank you for an informative essay. I think what we need is a good course in the history of ideas. For example, I recently asked another TCT author if the U.S. Constitution could have been formulated if the Founding Fathers had been Catholic. Without meaning to be sarcastic or disrespectful or flippant, or anything other than legitimately curious, could Quadragesimo anno have been written in 1789 in the colonies, if those persons had been Catholic? Were Bellarmine's writings widely available to laity at the time? Did our own Founding Fathers have access to them and was Bellarmine known to them? Thank you for helping me work through my own confusion. I should add that I can see that I am very quickly going to be in way over my head. Already by brain is tired. - Louise Mon, 18 Oct 2010 10:31:26 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2010/american-and-catholic.html#comment-5039 Yes, wisdom and humility are in short supply and we should pray that our leaders - secular and religious - are imbued with copious amounts of each - and with courage also because without courage there is paralysis in the public square I would love to know a little more about the history and development of the principle of subsidiarity. Perhaps another column? Thanks for this excellent piece. - Ray Hunkins Mon, 18 Oct 2010 05:38:34 +0100