The Neo-Catholics: Implementing Christian Nationalism in America - Softcover

Clermont, Betty

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0932863639 ISBN 13: 9780932863638

Publisher: Clarity Press, Inc., 2009

Synopsis

The first neoconservatives—Irving Kristol, Allan Bloom, and Francis Fukuyama—were proponents of the philosopher Leo Strauss, an émigré from Nazi Germany. Strauss considered the ideal state as one ruled by an intellectual elite with religion used to mollify and control the masses. The Roman Catholic Church already had centuries of experience preaching docility of the population to civil leaders willing to support the Church’s preeminent position in society. They were natural partners, albeit with differing pet interests. Applying this concept in the US, however, had its difficulties. While Catholics were the largest single denomination, they did not constitute a majority. In order to establish a “national christianity”—the union of church and state, of naturally conservative fundamentalists and evangelicals, was numerically necessary in order to form the “religious right.” Paul Weyrich, once referred to as the most powerful man in America, and fellow Catholics Terry Dolan and Richard Viguerie, along with Howard Phillips, a Jew who had converted to evangelical Christianity, established the Moral Majority, to be led by televangelist Jerry Falwell, to energize their Christian base into political activism and get out the vote. Weyrich, along with Catholic Edwin J. Feulner Jr., also founded the Heritage Foundation, the prototype of the right-wing think tank, to produce intellectual propaganda for the movement. Funding to pay religious leaders along with think tanks, journals and media outlets, came through Knights of Malta William Simon, Nixon’s Treasury Secretary, and William Casey, Reagan’s CIA Director. The Knights were members of a clandestine international group who, along with the CIA, perpetrated acts of terrorism and the overthrow of legitimate governments justified as defense against the Soviet Union and Red China but, in fact, protected their own wealth and power. Opus Dei-backed Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI lent moral authority to neo-conservative mendacity, and by new appointments, filled the ranks with like-minded prelates. Neo-Catholic journalists Michael Novak, Fr. John Richard Neuhaus and George Weigel rationalized immoral projects with religious rectitude. Their vocabulary and formulations were amplified through the neo-con network and repeated by other religious leaders and politicians. It would change not just the face of American Catholicism, but the face of social policy in the United States as it exists to this day.

About this title

From the Publisher:

Catholics are 24% of the American population, almost three times the number of the second largest religious group, Southern Baptists. They are a significant force in the US educational system, with 150,000 Catholic school teachers teaching 2.7 million students.

* There is no other book which traces the history of the alliance between the GOP and the Holy See and weaves their mutual ambitions for power and money into the narrative.
* While much has been written about the neo-conservatives and the Christian fundamentalists, there is little material on the pivotal role played by individual powerful Catholics and American Catholicism in establishing this alliance
* This book addresses the profound shift in Catholic social concerns which the neo-Catholics were able to establish, and as such should be of great interest to socially concerned Catholics and their numerous organizations.
* The efforts towards beatification of Pope John Paul II will stimulate much interest in the pontiff's deeds; this work will provide a critical counterpoint to the likely deluge of eulogies.

About the Author:

Holder of a theological studies in the employ of the Archdiocese institutions from the inside out. Progressive News, an editorial contributor articles for Voice of the Faithful, sex-abuse scandal.

About this edition

• Publisher: Clarity Press, Inc.
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0932863639
• ISBN 13: 9780932863638
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352