In his recent rhetoric, the president has presented a choice to America: either embrace his vision of an ever-expanding federal government, or get ready for a world where “you’re on your own.”
In his recent actions, the president has shown that he is serious.
On January 20, the Obama administration decided that Catholic institutions will be required under the new health care law to provide their employees with health insurance that covers abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization — all things that the church teaches are fundamentally immoral. In so doing, the president made his rhetorical campaign-stump choice a somber reality for the Catholic Church, and indeed all religious institutions in America. The Catholic Church must either conform to the preferences of his government by violating what the church believes to be divine law, or face steep fines that will force the closure of Catholic schools, hospitals, and charities throughout the country. Essentially: Do it my way, or “you’re on your own.”
The significance of this decision cannot be overstated. It is now more apparent than ever that America stands at a crossroads between two very different philosophies of government and society, and a further jaunt down the road on which the president is leading us will leave the America we know a fading figure in the rear-view mirror of history.
To highlight this divergence in philosophy, it is worth a trip back to 1789. That year in New York and Philadelphia, the First United States Congress convened under America’s newly ratified Constitution and quickly began work on the Bill of Rights, which would enshrine, among other things, the freedom of religion as a right deserving specific constitutional protection. That same year, across the Atlantic, a different kind of revolution was just beginning. The French were following America’s lead by rebelling against an abusive monarchy — but in all other ways, the French Revolution resembled nothing of its American counterpart.
The American Revolution and the Constitution it begot were grounded largely in the philosophies of John Locke and Montesquieu, finding limited government essential to the preservation of liberty. The French Revolution, on the other hand, looked to the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau for its guiding principles. To summarize, Rousseauian political theory holds that individuals can only fulfill themselves through total submission to the “general will” of the state. And because the “general will” of the state must be supreme in all things, other societal institutions — such as the Catholic Church — were seen as counterproductive to the coherence and harmony of society.
The results of this philosophy began to play out in 1789 and over the several years that followed. On November 2, 1789, the National Assembly declared that the property of the church was at the disposal of the nation. The state took on the responsibilities of the church, which included paying the clergy and caring for the poor, the sick, and the orphaned. Legislation abolished monastic vows, and on February 13, 1790, all religious orders were dissolved. On July 12, 1790, the Civil Constitution of the Clergy turned the remaining clergy into employees of the state, and in November of that year, the National Assembly began to require an oath of loyalty to the Civil Constitution from all the members of the clergy. Those who refused to take the oath were forced into exile, deported, or executed as traitors.
Though America’s current perils are not yet as extreme as those of the French Revolution, the president’s recent actions and overall governing philosophy are nevertheless startlingly Rousseauian. His mandate to Catholic institutions embodies the notion that social goals are best fulfilled when all individuals and institutions are submissive to the ideals of a central government, and he has made clear his willingness to attack the religious institutions of this country when they are not. The president’s actions should be of grave concern for all Americans — Catholic, religious, or otherwise. They mark a sharp divergence from the philosophy upon which this country was founded and resemble too much a philosophy that has in the past led to the destruction of a nation.
It is clear that the president, in the Rousseauian tradition, views the federal government as the only institution that binds together this great country. He is wrong. We are a nation of states, churches, towns, neighborhoods, charities, businesses, schools, and families. We are a nation of free individuals who look out for each other in many ways and at many levels, and we are not “on our own” just because the federal government does not do it all for us. Indeed, when the federal government tries to do it all — as it is with health care — it undermines, and in this case outright threatens, the functioning of our religious and other societal institutions. And when it threatens these institutions, it threatens the very fiber that unites America.
This scandal should remind us of the dangers associated with an overgrown and unrestrained federal government. Our founding fathers understood that the avoidance of tyranny requires structural limits on government. Today, we have lost much of that structural perspective of politics. We have continually allowed the federal government to grow well beyond its constitutionally established limits, always under the guise of policies that seem benevolent on their face. Obamacare is the latest and most grievous example. While Americans rightly perceived the need to improve the administration of health care in our society, we were negligent in turning to a government-managed system for the answer. Not only has this grant of power to the federal government given rise to more inefficiency, it has opened the door for the federal government to abridge freedoms that individuals, institutions, and states previously enjoyed. Indeed, the hand that giveth is proving also to be the hand that taketh away.
For those Americans, Catholic or not, who wish to do something in response to the administration’s hostile action toward religious liberty, here is a proposition: pack your houses of worship this weekend. And don’t stop after this weekend — do it every weekend. Demonstrate to the president that, yes, we still do cling to religion in this country, and that we are bound together by much more than his federal government.
Joseph Petros is an associate at the law firm of Warren and Young PLL in Ashtabula, Ohio. He is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and the University of Notre Dame Law School, where he served as executive editor of the Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy.