Sacrifices on the Altar of Modern Liberalism

Paul Rahe does it again.  In light of yesterday's "compromise" by the Obama Administration on the HHS ruling requiring religious institutions such as hospitals and universities to offer in their health care plans sterilization, contraception, and abortifacients (Yuval Levin finds that nothing of moral substance was changed in the slightest), Dr. Rahe takes an extended walk through the political and philosophic aspects of the history of the Catholic Church that bear on this problem.  Rahe finds that at least as far back as the Magna Carta, there was

...within each political community in the Christian West an imperium in imperio – a power independent of the state that had no desire to replace the state but was fiercely resistant to its own subordination and aware that it could not hope to retain its traditional liberties if it did not lend a hand in defending the traditional liberties of others.

I am not arguing that the Church fostered limited government in the Middle Ages and in the early modern period. In principle, the government that it fostered was unlimited in its scope. I am arguing, however, that the Church worked assiduously to hem in the authority of the Christian kings and that its success in this endeavor provided the foundation for the emergence of a parliamentary order. Indeed, I would go further. It was the Church that promoted the principles underpinning the emergence of parliaments. It did so by fostering the species of government had emerged within the church itself.

John Locke, working within the circumstances brought on by the Reformation, which promoted an insidious combination of the Church and Crown, laid the foundation for a politics based not on sectarian struggles but on political liberty, which meant in practice an earthly government of limited powers.  Locke's political philosophy had powerful effects on the American Founding: 

In the nascent American republic, this principle was codified in its purest form in the First Amendment to the Constitution. But it had additional ramifications as well – for the government’s scope was limited also in other ways. There were other amendments that made up what we now call the Bill of Rights, and many of the states prefaced their constitutions with bills of rights or added them as appendices. These were all intended to limit the scope of the government. They were all designed to protect the right of individuals to life, liberty, the acquisition and possession of property, and the pursuit of happiness as these individuals understood happiness. Put simply, liberty of conscience was part of a larger package.

But, due to the Machiavellian principle of wanting Heaven on earth--achieved through the administrative state begun by early twentieth century Progressives--, American Catholics began chartering a different course:

In the process, the leaders of the American Catholic Church fell prey to a conceit that had long before ensnared a great many mainstream Protestants in the United States – the notion that public provision is somehow akin to charity – and so they fostered state paternalism and undermined what they professed to teach: that charity is an individual responsibility and that it is appropriate that the laity join together under the leadership of the Church to alleviate the suffering of the poor. In its place, they helped establish the Machiavellian principle that underpins modern liberalism – the notion that it is our Christian duty to confiscate other people’s money and redistribute it.

And the kicker:

At every turn in American politics since that time [the 1930's], you will find the hierarchy assisting the Democratic Party and promoting the growth of the administrative entitlements state. At no point have its members evidenced any concern for sustaining limited government and protecting the rights of individuals. It did not cross the minds of these prelates that the liberty of conscience which they had grown to cherish is part of a larger package – that the paternalistic state, which recognizes no legitimate limits on its power and scope, that they had embraced would someday turn on the Church and seek to dictate whom it chose to teach its doctrines and how, more generally, it would conduct its affairs.

I would submit that the bishops, nuns, and priests now screaming bloody murder have gotten what they asked for. The weapon that Barack Obama has directed at the Church was fashioned to a considerable degree by Catholic churchmen. They welcomed Obamacare. They encouraged Senators and Congressmen who professed to be Catholics to vote for it.

Much of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church today up in arms about the HHS mandate have helped it come to this.  Either knowingly or not, they have undermined the moral ground for serious argument, and instead, they sacrificed it all on the altar of modern liberalism.

This is only a small section of Rahe's overarching argument.  I would strongly advise reading the whole thing. (Please pay special attention to the damage done by Cardinal Bernardin after Roe.)