Catholicism Offers the U.S.
a Vision of the Good Life
by James Kalb
American political institutions give us all part of the responsibility
for how we are governed. Catholics need to carry out that responsibility
in accordance with their best understanding of man,
society, and American political life.
The Catholic understanding of man and society is reasonably well worked out, but the nature of American political life is ambiguous. Our institutions are republican by design, and based on limited and distributed powers. They are also democratic, and claim to reflect the will of the people. What’s needed to bring those two aspects together is mutual persuasion. If powers are limited and distributed, mutual persuasion is necessary for government to go forward, and if that is how decisions are made, they can reasonably be viewed as the considered judgment of the people.
That system seems a good one for carrying on public life in accordance with reason. For government to do something a great many people in different situations must be persuaded the action would be sensible. As described, though, the system is simply procedural. It says that a variety of people have to agree before something happens, but not what kind of people they are or what leads them to agree. It leaves uncertain what the point of the activity is.
Our foundational documents do not really settle the issue. The Preamble to the Constitution says that the goals of the “more perfect union” established by the Constitution are justice, domestic tranquility, common defense, the general welfare, and the blessings of liberty. The First Amendment tells us that religion and the press have a protected though unofficial role, while other amendments protect property and privacy rights and show a tendency to broaden the popular element in government. And the Declaration of Independence says that we are all created equal and endowed with rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.................
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