Tim Bradley, Politics and Economics Editor
“The great challenge of the contraceptive mandate is not legal, political or even constitutional. The primary challenge is an evolving orthodoxy that no longer assumes religion in American public life is a good thing, much less that it ought to be constitutionally privileged.”
Bill McGurn, editorial page editor of the New York Post, delivered a speech titled “New Gods in the Public Square” to open the Tocqueville Program’s 2013 Notre Dame Symposium on September 19 at the Eck Hall of Law. McGurn is also a columnist for the Wall Street Journal, and served as chief speechwriter for President George W. Bush from 2006 to 2008.
McGurn put forward a three-part proposition: “First, the distinctive freedoms our constitution offered translated in practice to a public square that has been crowded with institutions, including wide varieties of churches and related religious institutions. Second, the basic assumptions that went into this arrangement were that a free people needed morality and self-control—and that for most people religion was the most reliable source. Finally, my main point: these assumptions have all changed, largely because of a sexual revolution that helped give us a different understanding of rights and is now taking us to a correspondingly different understanding of the role of churches.”
One great danger of this new orthodoxy is its threat to religious liberty. “Even with the Constitution firmly on our side, even if we are upheld in the courts, religious liberty will become increasingly fragile because the understandings about human nature and the role of religion upon which they rest are no longer ascendant in the institutions that forge and shape public opinion,” McGurn said.
This is a grave departure from the tradition of this country. From the beginning America has been filled with private associations that have served multiple purposes. First, “the diffusion of civil society over multitudes of private institutions helps guarantee freedom for all by diluting the power and reach of government,” McGurn explained, “and the profusion of church and charitable groups make our communities better off in a way that would be almost impossible to replicate if they were to be shoved off the square.”
The Founding Fathers may not have all been religious, McGurn says, but “when it came to the American experiment in liberty, the choices they made show they believed religion as traditionally understood was vital to the success of freedom.”
The landscape is different today. The Founding Fathers’ beliefs on the importance of religion are not shared by large and growing portions of the public. In fact, religion is viewed by many as something that cannot be defended rationally. McGurn discussed the importance of the sexual revolution on affecting this change. The idea that there are no sexual norms is closely tied to the notion that there are no truths about human nature.
“How far that is from the idea that at the heart of liberty are self-evident truths … that there exist Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God we do well not to defy … and that the most precious and unalienable rights we have come from our Creator,” said McGurn.
The sexual revolution has raised three new gods on the public square in place of the one true God: tolerance, health and sexual freedom.
Tolerance: Proponents of religious liberty are not only condemned for being wrong, but are also condemned as bigots. Health: Reproductive health reigns supreme, and all who disagree with the supremacy of reproductive health are told to be tolerant. Lastly, on sexual freedom, McGurn expressed, “We are free to keep to our teachings about human sexuality within our homes and our churches. Once we step outside, however, we are again told we must support and underwrite whatever sexual lifestyle others choose.”
In light of all these attacks on religious liberty, how should Catholics proceed? McGurn believes that “the answer is to restore the lost language of liberty: whence come these strange truths that were self-evident to our fathers … how limited government flows from them … and why human freedom becomes impossible when human nature is denied. In its essence, the challenge before us is as old and as timely as the challenge of the Gospel: ‘And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set ye free.’”
McGurn concluded that this message is the meaning behind the motto over the east door of the Basilica: “God, Country, Notre Dame.” He said, “Properly understood, they are a sign of humility, a reminder—over a church door—that Country and Notre Dame mean nothing unless they are bound to the God who is Truth. The challenge of religious liberty today is not to convert America to Christianity but to restore the truths about man that allowed faith and freedom to flourish in this land as no other.”
In addition to his speech, Mr. McGurn was kind enough to elaborate on some themes of his speech in correspondence with the Rover.
On how to address the growing divide between those who hold a religious view of the world and those who do not: “The first thing is that we need to do more to ensure that our own side understands the idea of natural truth. The Catholic Church, with its natural law tradition, has particular advantage here: We were speaking the language of the Declaration long before the Founding Fathers. That’s why America resonates so well with Catholics despite a long history of practical anti-Catholicism.”
On the pursuit of happiness: “The pursuit of happiness has been among the greatest sources of mischief in American life. Jefferson would be shocked by how it has degenerated into a pursuit of pleasure, or the fulfillment of appetites, or the idea that whatever floats your boat is OK. Jefferson got the phrase from Lord Kames, I believe, and it really was another way of saying the pursuit of virtue and learning for him.”
On public education, the Common Core and the role of education in teaching students an understanding of truth and reason and liberty as understood by the Founding Fathers: “Over the long haul, it’s hard to see how we maintain America’s experiment in liberty if the major vehicle for educating our future citizens—the public schools—does not inculcate in them an understanding of the natural truths upon which our nation was founded.
“That’s not going to happen, at least in the near term. So the vehicles we have left have to keep the embers alive. This is again where the Catholic Church can make a great contribution, by restoring the idea of natural truth that we can discover by reason.
“This is not easy, and is a project of generations. But let me add this, to end on an optimistic note: For all the confusion and mess and incoherence and misunderstanding, another thing the Founders and the church have in common is this: People have an innate thirst for the truth, and when they hear it, even when they don’t fully understand, it resonates in their souls. So we can’t be afraid in promoting it. If you believe in a democracy, you have to believe that if you make your case, people will respond. We are not the people who need to fear the truth. That is a huge advantage and should be a source of comfort in difficult circumstances.”
Tim Bradley is a sophomore Economics and Theology major Contact him at tbradle5@nd.edu.