Something has changed. As the flurry of recent articles and books on liberalism and its discontents attests, the stability of the intellectual framework through which Catholics have for the past hundred years or so made sense of our place in modern society seems to have been lost. We find ourselves disoriented and looked for stable ground but discover on all sides simply more shifting sand. It is not an exaggeration, I think, to describe the situation as a crisis, and as is appropriate to such a moment, we are again asking fundamental questions surrounding the proper relationship between Church and State, between religious and secular pursuits, between morality and politics, and it seems that as far as potential answers go, just about everything is back on the table.
Nevertheless, in the discussion up to this point the categories of liberal discourse have largely remained intact. We find ourselves arguing often about the boundaries between Church and State, but far less often do we consider the possi- bility that it is these categories themselves that are our problem. We talk a great deal about protecting religious liberty, but very little about the possibil- ity that the modern concept of religion itself (not to mention that of “liberty”) is integral to Christi- anity’s diminution. We ask whether capitalism is the best economic system, but we don’t consider that perhaps the question itself presupposes a liberal understanding of the social order. We are talking a great deal about liberalism, but very little about the possibility that by remaining within liberal discourse, we are unwittingly reinforcing our own marginalization. Can we offer a critique of liberalism that remains bound by liberal concepts? As an answer, I would venture that if we do so remain within the liberal discourse of rights, laws, states, economics, etc. it is not merely that we will not be able to articulate a coherent opposition to liberal modernity. It is far worse than that. By remaining within liberal discourse, we are engaged in a massive yet obscured project of begging the question. Our criticism buttresses its object.
Within the meta-narrative of progress that underwrites liberalism, Christians are cast as the losing side and, I’m afraid, there is no amount of maneuvering that can change that. In fact, our role in the drama is precisely this maneuvering. We are cast to fight a rear-guard action: we steadily lose ground, but nonetheless put up a stubborn resistance. In the liberal march to freedom, we are the ever-retreating but completely necessary tyrants, the enemies of human rights against whom the freedom fighters heroically contend, the defenders of dogma against whom the courageous scientists struggle, the stuffy prudes against whom the free-spirited youth must battle. We have all seen multiple versions…
