The Postliberal Project: What Do We Promote?

By the Grace of God, and with enough political imagination, courage, and faith, we can make the new American dream a reality.

Introduction: What We Ought to Do

In the Republic, Plato continual argues that a good society is one where everybody does what they ought to do. 

Given that man is by nature a political animal, and that all men live in society as an extension of that nature, the responsibilities of citizens are necessarily tied up with the rest of the community. Plato believed that a good man is a social one. For Plato, the ideal citizen is a patriotic one.

Of course, a society of patriots is easier praised than made. Plato squarely recognized that societies do not simply stay cohesive, with every citizen whistling while they work, for no reason.

The last installment of The Postliberal Project proposed a list of current societal blights and the best ways to drive them out. This piece, in turn, will seek to present a substantive and positive political vision — a vision of Catholic Political Realism. Liberalism needs to be replaced with something, after all. The goal of that something, as is the goal of Christianity as well as politics, will be to bring out the best of men — to lead lives of Christian virtue and do what they ought.

This vision will be split into three large, all-encompassing sections: “The Nation”, “The Family”, and “The Church.” The nation must be addressed first because societal self-correction must be rooted in national self-understanding; The Family next, for its status as the atomic building block of society; and finally, The Church, the Bridegroom of Christ.

The List

I) The Obvious

The List, like last time, needs to be prefaced by the obvious. Here it is, as put by Cicero: "nothing can be useful, if it is not at the same time morally good" (Cicero, De Off., ii. 30).

There is an amazing scene from A Man For All Seasons in which Richard Rich, the rag-clad man-boy and acquaintance of Saint Thomas More, implores the well-connected More to grant him a job in court. More instead offers the young striver a humble position as a teacher, which More thinks he would be “fine,” and “perhaps ... great.”  Rich, ambition unsatiated, rejects the offer, asking “if I was [a teacher], who would know it?” When More replies that “God,” who is “not a bad public,” Rich remains unsatisfied. 

This simple, seemingly small test in character later leads More when Rich (having not learned his lesson) again begs, “employ me!” to reply in the negative with a stiff “no.” In response to this episode, Rich’s pride is wounded deeply.

More’s refusal to grant Rich a place in the movie’s regime may seem flimsy; it is not as if Rich was embroiled in some salacious scandal — not yet, at least. Rich’s unaddressed vice of pride easily metastasizes into greater sins, made vulnerable by humiliation and subject to the temptations that come with high positions. 

After, Rich, still pursuing earthly riches, waltzes into court (now dressed in a coat of rich fabrics) and accuses More of a crime that never occurred. More notices Rich’s new chain of office, signifying his post as Attorney General for Wales. Highlighting Rich’s mighty fall into the ugliest of sin, More laments “it profit a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world … but for Wales?”

The lesson to be taken here is that power corrupts bad men, and that therefore, power ought to be reserved for good men. Plato knew this to be true, stating in the Republic that those in positions of power, no matter how small the post, ought to be “immune” to the “sorceries” of sin. In fact, Plato proposes a strict screening process for potential rulers, wishing his city to “subject [its] young people to fears and then plunge them once again into pleasures, so as to test them much more thoroughly than people test gold in a fire.”

We ought to replicate this diligence as a matter of social expectation. If somebody wishes to write for a publication, or staff a conference, or work in government, their character ought to be screened. There ought to be no place for ladder-climbing baby kissers. Of course, nobody is perfect, and there is room for growth in virtue at every stage of life. Furthermore, everybody ought to be treated with graciousness at every step of the process; if strict standards lead the movement to self-righteousness, they would be no better than the people they were screening.

That being said, those with souls firmly fettered to sin ought to be turned away, even if said sin appears as mere seedlings, lest it grows into vines that envelop and strangle both the society and the sinner themself (it is merciful to keep spiritual toddlers away from the political knife-drawer, so to speak).

As Rich displays, dangerous sins are not simply the most scandalous ones. Daydreaming egomaniacs and sardonic edgelords, like the striving Rich, can often be quite charming on their surface; in this way, the company of bad character is temptation. Nonetheless, they must be kindly turned away until they are better.

If you are still doubting the necessity of promoting strict internal standards, use your imagination! Let us borrow from Saint Peter’s 2nd Epistle for a moment so as to paint a picture. Imagine that the Christian right wins, and our civilization “escape[s] the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

However, as was stated in What do We Ban?, “in this marathon towards the Beautiful City, becoming a Christian nation again is the starting line.” Imagine, then, that the Christian right takes the gift of victory and completely blows the opportunity.

Returning to Saint Peter’s Epistle, if America continues down a dark path of sin — coming to know Christ, only to forsake Him and  “again” becoming “entangled” in “corruption” — then America would be “worse off at the end than [she] were at the beginning.” In fact, “it would have been better” for America to “not to have known the way of righteousness” than it would be to “turn [her] back on the sacred command that was passed on to [her].” The message is clear: unless the Christian political movement remains pure, it would be better if the movement did not exist in the first place.

This looming, existential danger of squandering God’s mission must be the concern for any Christian political movement that wants to succeed. This danger can be avoided only if our movement is made up of the best. That, of course, means you! Pray and read scripture daily; go to Confession; go to Adoration; go to Mass; form a relationship with the Blessed Mother; pursue your vocation, be it marriage or religious life; exercise regularly; be sociable and kind; have courage; wield any political power you have justly; bear your cross day by day, and let Our Lord pick you up if you fall.

If you learn to love these things, you will become a Saint. You, in turn, like all Saints, will become an unstoppable force for good in the world. The holiness of our ranks is the first thing we ought to promote. 

II) The Nation

As was previously discussed, the right can easily come to deify the fraternal bonds of the nation in an unnatural manner.

Liberals deify the agency of the individual, which in turn leads them to deify the state. The story of liberalism is that of a death spiral. As an example among many, the libertarianism of no-fault divorce leads to broken families, which in turn leads the state to swoop in to replace the family itself through the welfare nation, which in turn hurts the family more.

Of course, criticism of state-idolatry is not to say that the State isn’t “instituted by God” and, therefore, a divinely mandated institution; the Catechism of the Catholic Church says as much.

Rather, this is to say that true religion ought not be abandoned in favor of the totalizing “isms” of ideology, which attempt to uproot the inexhaustible God from the center of politics and replace Him with the one-note idols of the French Revolution— liberty, equality, and fraternity. These “isms,” in idolizing an incomplete combination of these isolated — and therefore suffocated — virtues, end up with none of them.

On the other hand, a body politic with God at its center gives all the natural bonds of human beings their proper place. qThe social order stays undisturbed because a healthy nation, under God’s hand, has no such social voids to fill which would impel them to bow to golden calves.

In idolizing the nation as they do, modernists not only leave themselves without the smaller and larger things, but also leave themselves without the nation! Fascists scurry to maintain the glory of their nation through wars which destroy them; and the rot of liberalism, when proving too large for even the nation to solve, demands the borg of globalism to step in, only ruining things further. Idolize the nation, and you will be left with nothing — not even the nation — in the end.

What, then, is a healthy political disposition? How ought we view the nation alongside the smaller and larger things? Saint Thomas Aquinas writes, “After his duties towards God, man owes most to his parents and his country … and the services due to one’s country have for their object all one’s fellow countrymen and all the friends of one’s fatherland.”¹

Pope Leo XIII recognized the reality of this orderly Christian love, writing that “there is no perfect Christian who is not a perfect Patriot.”² Loyalty to God means loyalty to all things to which loyalty is owed, which of course includes the nation.

National love must be properly promoted. With said love now established, we can now discuss certain policies aimed at maintaining a healthy and cohesive nation. 

End to Immigration

Immigration is an immediate political problem for the American Republic, and since 1965, the massive influx of immigrants has weakened the nation. This mass migration, which occurred legally and illegally, has cost Americans their jobs, houses, stable wages, industries, and in some instances, their lives. This means we must respond with practical policies: mass deportations and an immigration moratorium for the sake of preserving the American nation.

As many liberals would have you believe, this is not at odds with Catholic Social Teaching. In fact, sensible immigration policy is perfectly in accordance with the teachings of the Church. The Angelic Doctor writes, “If foreigners were allowed to meddle with the affairs of a nation as soon as they settled down in its midst, many dangers might occur, since the foreigners not yet having the common good firmly at heart might attempt something hurtful to the people.”

Aquinas does not endorse the false narrative of “Christian Open Borders,” but instead recognizes that nations serve the common good by controlling immigration. Our policy needs to respect the customs and traditions of the nation, instead of diluting these differences in the name of promoting an open society.

The Economy

Gross Domestic Product is not our god. The market exists to serve the citizens of the nation, not the other way around. This means that the right-liberal dogmas of free trade, deindustrialization, and globalization need to be sent to the ash heap of history.

For the longest time, leftists in America have advocated for a socialistic, society-razing “equality of outcome” where, in a modern reenactment of dekulakization, the laws of justice and the bonds of natural society are ripped apart out of a burning resentment of the prosperous and productive.

Right-liberals have responded to this profound evil with profound stupidity. Pushing their nerd-glasses right up to the tops of their noises, they reject  “equality of outcome” by lazily doing away with all concerns over “outcome” whatsoever, instead advocating for the empty doctrine of “equality of opportunity.”

This worldview is a fundamentally liberal one, for it concerns itself only with tearing things down, aiming towards the imaginary equality of the “state of nature.” In this way, libertarians avoid responsibility for killing the American dream, for they never really claimed to be fixing anything; there is no tangible goal in “equality of opportunity.”

In short, “equality of outcome” wholly concerns itself with utopian ends, with no regard for means; and “equality of opportunity” wholly concerns itself with utopian means, with no regard for ends. As is the case with liberal projects concerning the nation, in the end the liberals are left with nothing, not even what they aimed for at all costs. The only “outcome” brought about by left-liberalism is widespread poverty; the only “opportunity” brought about by right-liberalism is total social immobility.

An economic third way is in order. Viewing economic means and ends as dovetailed realities — which should exist in service to human dignity means that the Catholic economic vision — is not ideology-centered, nor is it market-centered: it is people-centered.

The Catholic economic vision does not fall victim to the false dichotomy of economic theories promoted by liberalism. The Catholic economic vision recognizes the right of man to work, own property, and receive the benefits of his labor, but also endorses just wages, limited hours, and blue laws. This vision transcends the trite economic debates in American politics to create an outlook that seeks justice and promotes the common good most prominently articulated by Pope Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum.

The third way economic vision will promote policies which create the people-centered economy. This means returning America back to work instead of allowing American corporations to send jobs overseas. There will be no more “you will own nothing and be happy.” Instead, we should promote that pro-property and pro-family economic vision that is supported by industry and tariffs.

Pope Pius XI writes in Quadrissimo Anno that “economic and social conditions should ... enable every head of a family to earn as much as according to his station in life necessary for himself, his wife, and the rearing of his children.” In short, Americans should be able to raise a family on a single income. Today, many cannot and current economic trends give a grim prediction of the future. The solution will be neither to endorse free markets or big government, but to endorse the people-centered economic vision. 

Education

Liberals have ruined education, from grade school to graduate school.

An ideal education system will stress a return to the classical educational system. Students should become immersed in the entire Western canon instead of being beaten over the head with the “critical histories of the West.” The death of classical education and the current liberal arts has led to an unfortunate domination of careerist programs at American universities, which are utterly devoid of endearing wisdom. Universities exist to produce deeply conservative patriots whose love of God and country is made lucid by the wisdom of the ages.

Thankfully, the thousands of classical schools rising across the nation are a great sign that people are longing for a better educational system. 

However, it is very easy for classical schools to become Benedict-option retreats. Our beautiful universities, once the envy of the world, cannot be left to rot. Harvard and the County College of Morris, and every school in-between must be recaptured. Wisdom-hating liberal professors must be replaced with educators who care about instilling their students with knowledge. Not everyone can afford to send their children to classical school, and those Americans must not be abandoned. 

Furthermore, the tyranny of public schools intruding on parents' roles must be squashed. Modern schools act as a nanny state. Instead of instilling virtues into the children, they read Gender-Queer and Anti-Racist Baby. Schools are disordered, trying to usurp the role of the family. Therefore, any policies that seek to supplant the familial role in stewarding a child’s education must be rejected.

Architecture

In Dante's words, “Beauty awakens the soul to act.” Beautiful architecture brings out the best in citizens and makes them happier. As incarnate beings, humans relate to the world through our senses. We feel the difference between beautiful and soul-crushing architecture with great intensity, be we walking down the street or working at the office.

Imagine yourself in New York City. Which buildings feel better to exist around? Few would report feeling most alive around the Vessel or any other ugly, soul-crushing modern abominations. Instead, of course, the classical buildings are obviously so much better. A timeless beauty sticks out in the modern skyline like a bright star in a dark sky, reminding us, in our world which so insists that we act and think like animals, that we are, in fact, human beings. It is the large, Gothic cathedral dedicated to St. Patrick, standing tall against the background of identical glass skyscrapers, which elevates us most.

Postmodern architecture has crushed the souls of our country and the art that our generation has produced is nothing less than a crime against humanity. The nation must be in the business of creating beauty. This is why President Trump’s executive order in 2020 to “Make America Beautiful Again” was so promising; and why it was so sad (and yet predictable) that Joe Biden instantly squashed the order: liberalism hates beauty, and beautiful things threaten the liberal order itself. We need to make America beautiful again!

Among the most important jobs of the American beautification campaign is the building of beautiful cities. Unfortunately, conservatives have not conserved much in this regard. Modern zoning laws favor ugly, industrial buildings which (literally) stand in the way of vibrant communities being formed. Liberals, with their anti-community zoning laws, have shoved unsightly and obtrusive “affordable housing” apartments which inevitably dilapidate and empty out within mere decades, down America’s throat — rather than investing in beautiful neighborhoods where people actually want to live.

Given that these reforms would be undertaken at the local level, they must have their root in local action. Conservatives must begin investing in their local communities and engaging with their towns to prevent them from turning into glorified economic zones and to fix them if that is what they have come. Nothing is more powerful than a city council full of beauty-loving patriots. Steubenville, Ohio, where many American Catholics love, serves as a great witness.

If America does not change course, future generations will continue to grow up surrounded by ugliness, leaving them perpetually uninspired. This is the deadly trap of modern architecture: overcoming our age of ugliness requires inspiration! That being said, a beautiful America, full of beautiful buildings, communities, and cities, is possible — if only we have the courage to act.

III) The Family

Pope Saint John Paul II said, “As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.” The fundamental political unit is the family, which naturally sustains the political order. The political order comprises a union of families working towards the common good. The family is to the state as the heart is to the body. Destroy the heart kills the body. The American family is currently on life support.

In order to remedy our current crisis, the state needs to curtail aspects of our culture that destroy families — such as divorce, abortion, IVF, and pornography — which are currently permitted to wreak havoc upon America. The crimes that destroy human dignity must be rooted out of our disordered culture. In Dignitas Infinita, the Church writes that “each individual and also every human community is responsible for the concrete and actual realization of human dignity.”

This means young men and women need to build themselves up as temples of virtue. America must break its habit of celebrating one-night stands and forever girlfriends. These evils ape the pure, complimentary, life-long love between the sexes, which is only found and expressed through the Sacrament of Marriage. Young, Christian couples committed to one another through all trials are the hope of America; not only because the families they create will produce virtuous citizens, but also because they serve as a witness to those deceived by modernity’s promise that happiness is found in an unholy combination casual sex, rampant careerism, and DoorDash.

These targeted social changes must be bolstered by pro-family policies which strengthen the average American household and make it easier to have a family. This means promoting policies like Make Birth Free, overturning Obergefell and Grizzwold, and imitating the pro-family culture of nations like Hungary for adaptation in the United States.

The family is the cradle of civilization. As young adults, we understand how important our families have been to our personal, professional, and religious lives. We will not continue to allow liberalism to destroy a divine institution such as marriage or the family. However, for all the good that the state alone can bring forth, the only institution that can truly save the family is the institution that sanctified the family.

IV) The Church

Finally, we come to the most important institution to promote — the Church. The Church is the only institution that can save our souls as well as the soul of America, as Pope Leo XIII wrote, “If society is to be healed now, in no other way can it be healed, save by a return to Christian life and Christian institutions.” 

Despite rhetoric from liberal pundits, there is no neutrality in the public square nor is it possible to separate religion and politics. The state will always have a religion — the question is, which one? Christianity is the obvious answer for America for two reasons. 

The first reason is that Christianity is true. God really did create the heavens earth, day, night, sky, sea, land, plants, stars, sun, moon, fish, birds, beasts, and man — and all of it was good!

Jesus Christ — who is God — really was born of The Blessed Virgin Mary 2,000 years ago; He really did perform miracles; He really did die on the cross; He really did rise from the dead on the third day; He really did ascend into Heaven; He really did redeem mankind; and He really will return.

God really did so love the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life! It’s all real!

The second reason is that America used to be a Christian country: America’s roots are thoroughly Christianity. From the beginning with Columbus, Christianity has always been America’s religion. 

America needs the Church to help understand and perfect its mission of freedom and prosperity. Pope Leo XIII writes in Praeclare Gratulationois, “The Church is a society perfect in its kind, whose office and mission it is to school mankind in the precepts and teachings of the Gospel, and by safeguarding the integrity of morals and the exercise of Christian virtue to lead men to happiness which is held out to everyone in Heaven.” 

The Church’s primary mission, the salvation of souls, should not be hindered by the state; it must be aided by the state. This is a mere recognition of the state’s duty to promote the well-being of its citizens, which can only occur with the recognition of and corresponding assistance by the American church. Matters related to justice, charity, and the common good extend from the tradition and teaching of Christianity. As Pope Leo XIII wrote in the encyclical Longinqua, “The Church would bring forth more abundant fruits if, in addition to liberty, she enjoyed the favor of the laws and the patronage of the public authority.” 

America was never meant to have a separation of church and state. Our earliest founding documents link our heritage to Christianity. The First Charter of Virginia directs Americans to “spread the Christian religion to such people as yet to live in darkness and miserable ignorance of the true knowledge and worship of God.” Before ideologues on the Supreme Court misinterpreted the First Amendment to ban Christianity from the public square, crosses, prayers, and ceremonies were common in the nation. It is up to us to tear down the fake wall of separation.

This can only be achieved if Christians have the courage to use political power for a Christian future. From the lowest to the highest levels of government, Christians need to be using the levers of power to secure the common good.

American Catholic Orestes Brownson noted, “Christianity is constantly at work, moudling political society in its own image and likeness, and every political system struggles to harmonize Christianity with itself. If, then, the United States have a political destiny, they have a religious destiny inseparable from it.”³

To clarify, the Church serves its unique function and cannot merge with the state. A caesaropapist regime would be detrimental to the mission of Christianity and America. Instead, church and state must understand their roles and cooperate towards the same goal — heaven. 

Given America's unique Christian pluralism, political ecumenism should be our strategy, working with our Christian brethren to restore our Christian tradition in America. This means that the Christian alliance should help bring about a Christian polity and a Christian government should be the ideal that we work towards each day.

What would a Christian government look like? We can imagine that it will do things such as this: it will safeguard the observance of the Lord’s Day and major religious holidays: promote social, economic, and foreign policy in line with the teachings of Christianity: return prayer to public schools, have crosses adorn public buildings, and promote Christian celebrations such as Eucharistic processions. Though we have major theological differences, our goal is to restore Christianity as the law of the land in America. 

Finally, there is no secular solution and certainly no Christless conservatism. We need Him for this effort and the moment to act is now. Russel Kirk observes that “the American order, far from being stagnant, still is developing.”⁴ As Alexis De Tocqueville said, “[America’s] posterity will tend more and more to a single division into two parts – some relinquishing Christianity entirely, and others returning to the bosom of the Church of Rome.” Those who despair over America’s future, acting as if she is bound to die by liberalism’s hand simply because she has been liberal for a while now, fail to see beyond the present.

By the Grace of God, and with enough political imagination, courage, and faith, we can make the new American dream a reality. Quo Vadis, America?

---

If you enjoyed this article, please consider becoming a patron of our publication! Your enthusiasm and support means a lot to all of us at The American Postliberal — and we promise we’ll work hard for your investment in our project.

1. Cahill E., S.J., The Framework of a Christian State. Roman Catholic Books, 2000, pg. 542.

2.  Ibid, pg. 590.

3. Brownson, Orestes Augustus. The American Republic: Its Constitution, tendencies, and destiny. Lector House, 2020, pg. 133.

4. Kirk, Russell, The Roots of American Order, pg. 475.