Calling Donald Trump’s vision of America’s future an ‘extreme and perverse version of the American dream’ the renowned Catholic Theologian Massimo Faggioli has called upon the US Catholic church instead ‘to defend democracy, the rule of law, and human rights.’
Contrasting the demeanour of New York Catholic Archbishop Timothy Dolan with the appeal for mercy made to the president by Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde soon after, Faggioli identifies two streams of thought in American Catholicism – one that is socially conscious and democratic, in the tradition of Vatican II theologian Fr John Courtney Murray, and the other ‘enchanted by the destruction of language brought by populism and desensitized to the most disruptive aspect of Trumpism‘.
Calling Trumpism not truly conservative but ‘ultra modern’ in its embracing of an ‘America first’ that is supreme in technological power, Faggioli argues that this echoes the ultra-nationalism and futurism of the 1920s and 30s in Europe and that true conservatism today is defined by alignment with the constitution and the rule of law – and that in this sense too many US bishops ‘are not conservative enough‘.
“Trump is the latest, extreme, and perverse version of the American dream. The dilemma is that today one can defend an unqualified aspiration to the American dream, or one can defend democracy, the rule of law, and human rights. But it’s impossible to do both. This has been evident for a while. Now it should be evident to many more Americans and American Catholics. It’s time for a new generation of Catholic social and political thought for the 21st century.”
To read Massimo Faggioli’s complete article in La Croix International click here.
0 Comments