Note: this column is adapted from the sixth chapter of the author’s book, “Citizens Yet Strangers: Living Authentically Catholic in a Divided America” (OSV Books 2024).
“We hold these truths to be self-evident,” declared the Continental Congress in 1776, “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” And, of course, we are collectively celebrating these words, arguably the central philosophical statement of the American experiment.
But what is a Catholic to make of America if the moral and political theories that animate these allegedly self-evident truths are in tension with, if not contradicted by, Catholic theology? A tentative attempt to answer this question was posited in 1960 by the American Jesuit priest and political theorist John Courtney Murray in his book, “We Hold These Truths: Catholic Reflections on the American Proposition.”
Father Murray observed, “The question is sometimes raised, whether Catholicism is compatible with American democracy. The question is invalid as well as impertinent; for the manner of its position inverts the order of values,” he continued. “It must, of course, be turned round to read whether American democracy is compatible with Catholicism.” Even then, the answer is not obviously “yes.”
Father Murray posits the possibility of a highly qualified “yes,” by suggesting that we consider the moral principles of the American founding as “articles of peace,” rather than “articles of faith,” framing his discussion around the specific rights enumerated in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Some people read into the First Amendment “certain ultimate beliefs … with regard to the nature of religion, religious truth, the Church, faith, conscience, divine revelation, human freedom, etc.,” he suggests. “In this view these articles … are dogmas, norms of orthodoxy, to which one must conform on pain of some manner or excommunication,” he continues. “They are true articles of faith. Hence it is necessary to believe them, to give them a religiously motivated assent.” We can easily extend this principle to the Declaration of Independence.
Father Murray argues that we Catholics cannot embrace the moral and political principles of the American founding as articles of faith. “[T]he only tenable position” is that these principles “are not articles of faith but articles of peace. … They are not true dogma but only good law. That is praise enough,” Father Murray contends. “This, I take it, is the Catholic view.”
Of course, some may agree that the principles are not even “good law.” But Father Murray’s suggestion that we take the moral principles as articles of peace is helpful for us Catholics who understand that we may live (uneasily) under the moral foundations of the U.S., but never really embrace them with unbridled enthusiasm.
Indeed, I believe that we must heed Father Murray’s conclusion that taking these principles as articles of peace is the “Catholic view.” My continuing concern, in fact, is that this even must be said. Too many of us uncritically embrace the moral foundations of the United States without doing the hard work of asking whether or to what extent that they are in tension with Catholic doctrine.
Even worse, some believe and argue that the founding principles should be embraced as articles of faith, as though they are divinely inspired corollaries of Christian moral theology. This is a dangerous – and perhaps idolatrous – game. But it is one that we see played out in our current political culture.
In its most basic formulation, the individualist moral philosophy of the American experiment is – at best – in tension with the Catholic understanding of man as social and dependent. Put simply, the Catholic doctrine of solidarity is not consistent with the American doctrine of individualism. Does that mean we cannot live in such a regime? No. But it does mean that we must be circumspect in our celebration of it.
As we approach the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, with its assertion of “self-evident” truths, I suggest that we take a step back to consider both the demands of the doctrines of our faith and the competing philosophical demands in the American founding.
Perhaps the demands can be reconciled. And by no means am I suggesting categorically that they cannot. But if they can be reconciled, something like Father Murray’s distinction between articles of faith and peace is the necessary approach.
We do not take the moral theories of the American founding as theological principles, but pragmatically workable propositions for living peaceable lives in a pluralist political culture. If we conceive it this way, we can be America’s good civic friends, but God’s faithful servants first.
Kenneth Craycraft is a professor of moral theology at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary and School of Theology in Cincinnati and author of “Citizens Yet Strangers: Living Authentically Catholic in a Divided America” (OSV Books).
