- Feb 5, 2002
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This Forum is a place for respectful discussion and debate of political issues, by Roman Catholics, in the context of the Roman Catholic Faith.
Certain Catholic critics of the American Constitutional order often point to the contemporary social and political climate as proof that the founding was a project doomed to failure: we are now experiencing the fruits of the founders’ fundamentally individualist, “Enlightenment liberal” philosophy.
But did not the founders believe in “the laws of nature and of nature’s God,” as well as the reality of man’s fallen nature? And isn’t such a belief enshrined in the Declaration, Constitution, and Bill of Rights? As I will attempt to show, the founders did indeed have an understanding of the common good, as articulated in the founding documents. Drawing from Robert Reilly, Jacques Maritain, and other political thinkers and historians, I will attempt to show that the founders espouse a notion of the common good that is consistent with Catholic doctrine—including, in particular, through the right to freedom of religion as articulated by the First Amendment.
Continued below.
A Catholic Defense of the American Founding - Clarifying Catholicism
Certain Catholic critics of the American Constitutional order often point to the contemporary social and political climate as proof that the founding was a project doomed to failure: we are now experiencing the fruits of the founders’ fundamentally individualist, “Enlightenment liberal” philosophy.
But did not the founders believe in “the laws of nature and of nature’s God,” as well as the reality of man’s fallen nature? And isn’t such a belief enshrined in the Declaration, Constitution, and Bill of Rights? As I will attempt to show, the founders did indeed have an understanding of the common good, as articulated in the founding documents. Drawing from Robert Reilly, Jacques Maritain, and other political thinkers and historians, I will attempt to show that the founders espouse a notion of the common good that is consistent with Catholic doctrine—including, in particular, through the right to freedom of religion as articulated by the First Amendment.
Continued below.
A Catholic Defense of the American Founding - Clarifying Catholicism
