Table Of ContentA Partisan
A Partisan Church
Church
Todd S cribner
A Partisan
Church
C
American
Catholicism
and the Rise of
Neoconservative
Catholics
The C atholic University of A merica Press
Washington, D.C.
Copyright © 2015
The Catholic University of America Press
All rights reserved
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum
requirements of American National Standards for Information
Science—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials,
ANSI Z39.48-1984.
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Text design by Kachergis Book Design, Pittsboro, NC
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Scribner, Todd.
A partisan church : American Catholicism and the rise of
neoconservative Catholics / Todd Scribner.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8132-2729-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Catholic Church—
United States—History—20th century. 2. Catholic Church—
United States—History—21st century. 3. Conservatism—United
States—History—20th century. 4. Conservatism—United States—
History—21st century. 5. Conservatism —Religious aspects—
Catholic Church—History—20th century. 6. Conservatism—
Religious aspects—Catholic Church—History—21st century.
I. Title.
BX1406.3.S37 2015
282.7309045—dc23
2014039457
CONTENTS
Preface vii
Introduction 1
1. Both American and Catholic 11
2. The Narrated Life 39
3. From Abortion to Reagan 74
4. A World Split Apart? 97
5. U.S. Catholics and the Anticommunist
Crusade 137
6. Latin America, Liberation Theology,
and the Catholic Church 165
7. When Shepherds Become Sheep: At the
Intersection of Politics and Ecclesiology 193
Conclusion 220
Bibliography 223
Index 241
PREFACE
In h is bo ok The Restructuring of American Religion Robert
Wuthnow highlighted some of the fundamental shifts that occurred
in American religion during the second half of the twentieth cen-
tury. Preeminent among them was the decline of denominational
affiliation as a defining marker of religious identity and, in its stead,
the increasing importance of political ideology. As political orien-
tation became increasingly salient as a marker of religious identi-
ty, long-standing animosities between competing denominational
identities—Catholic and Protestant in particular—declined. As a
consequence, adherents of traditionally competing denominations
began to work more closely together in the public sphere. Likewise,
those of the same tradition were often pitted against one another
as liberal and conservative factions within the tradition struggled
to achieve competing ends. Conflict within long-standing denom-
inational structures became more pointed and the continuity that
existed within these structures began to fragment.
In the early stages of research for this book, I was intrigued by
Wuthnow’s proposition and interested in exploring how this trend
contributed to American Catholic identity in the post–World War
II period. I narrowed my focus to a small but influential band of
intellectuals that emerged in the mid-seventies: the neoconservative
The opinions expressed in this book are those of the author and do not necessarily repre-
sent the policies or positions of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
vii
viii preface
Catholics. Originally composed of Richard John Neuhaus, Michael
Novak, and George Weigel, they were active in the public sphere,
vied for policies that lined up with their political worldview, and
were often critical of religious contemporaries who disagreed with
them.
A longtime Lutheran pastor, Richard John Neuhaus served for
seventeen years at a predominately black Lutheran church in Brook-
lyn, New York.1 During this period, the heyday of which occurred
during the sixties, he became intimately involved in both the civil
rights and antiwar movements. Working alongside other prominent
religious figures, including Daniel Berrigan and Rabbi Abraham
Joshua Heschel, Neuhaus was active in the antiwar movement and
critical of the use of American power overseas. By the early seven-
ties he had grown estranged from the liberal, Democratic worldview
that he had once embraced and within a few years broke away from
many of the contemporaries with whom he once associated, as his
own views began shifting to the right and many of his former allies
continued on a leftward path. Although a supporter of Jimmy Car-
ter during the 1976 election, he soon grew disenchanted with what
Carter had to offer and within a few short years expressed, even if
only privately at first, sympathy for a Reagan-style Republicanism.2
Coming to prominence in the 1960s, Michael Novak had spent
an extended period in the seminary, beginning in the late forties
and extending throughout most of the next decade. After aban-
doning his studies for the priesthood he began graduate studies at
Harvard, garnered a reputation as a left-wing Catholic intellectual,
and published a series of high-profile books on issues related to the
church and American political life.3 After leaving Harvard, Novak
1. More will be said below on the logic of including Richard John Neuhaus, a Lutheran
at the time, in the same category as the neoconservative Catholics.
2. For some biographical insights, see John Allen, “Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, Dead at
Age 72,” National Catholic Reporter, January 8, 2009, http://ncronline.org/news/people/
fr-richard-john-neuhaus-dead-age-72 (accessed March 2, 2013); Damon Linker, The Theo-
cons: Secular America under Siege (New York: Doubleday, 2006). In Linker’s book, see in
particular ch. 1.
3. Some of Novak’s more important early works that often define his left-wing period
preface ix
took a teaching position at Stanford and, in 1968, transferred to the
State University of New York at Old Westbury. It was during his
teaching stint at Old Westbury, along with his ongoing involvement
with the antiwar movement, that he too began to grow alienated
from the far-left-wing politics with which he had been associated for
at least the previous decade. By the mid-seventies Novak, like Neu-
haus, began to shift rightward on the political spectrum. By 1980
he had abandoned support of socialism, embraced democratic capi-
talism, and eventually accepted the designation of neoconservative.4
George Weigel provides a slightly different portrait than either
Neuhaus or Novak. Growing up in 1960s Baltimore, Weigel was a
generation younger than both of them. A theology student in both
college and graduate school during the late sixties and early seven-
ties, Weigel did not become an active participant in the antiwar
movement. He was not directly engaged in the theological disputes
that raged in the years immediately following the Second Vatican
Council, although his theological studies during this period cer-
tainly made him aware of the general tenor of the debate. After
leaving a teaching position at a seminary in Washington State, he
worked at the World without War Council, an institute headed by
the pacifist antiwar activist Robert Pickus. Weigel’s early writings
focused extensively on issues related to war and peace and, while he
never embraced pacifism, the influence of Pickus was undeniable.
As with his counterparts, Weigel eventually embraced the neocon-
include The Open Church: Vatican II, Act II (New York, Macmillan, 1964); Belief and Unbe-
lief: A Study of Self Knowledge (Macmillan, 1965); Theology for Radical Politics (New York:
Herder and Herder, 1969).
4. For more autobiographical information on Novak, see Confession of a Catholic (San
Francisco: Harper and Row, 1983); “Controversial Engagements,” First Things (April 1999),
http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=3136&var_recherche=controversial+
engagements (accessed March 2, 2013); “Errand into the Wilderness,” On Cultivating Lib-
erty: Reflections on Moral Ecology (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999), 259–304.
For a critical, yet generally fair account of Novak’s thought and development during this
period and afterward, see Gary Dorrien, The Neoconservative Mind (Philadelphia: Temple
University Press, 1993). Novak’s most comprehensive autobiographical publication is his
memoir: see Writing from Left to Right: My Journey from Liberal to Conservative (New York:
Crown, 2013).
