Freedom From Tyrrany

 

Happy Independence Day. For our international readers, here in America we celebrate July 4th as the birth of American independence from Great Britain. The colonists did not initially favor complete independence during the Revolutionary War of 1775, and those who did were considered radical. But as hostility against Great Britain increased in the ensuring year, the tide turned and the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, 1776

Americans have always had a revolutionary, independent spirit. In many ways, being an American and being a Catholic has always been held in historical tension. From Masonic influence to its Protestant roots, Catholics in America have had to work out what it means to be both Catholic and American and where their allegiance lies. Pope Leo XIII warned about the "heresy of Americanism" in the late 19th century, and there were concerns when the first Catholic president, John F. Kennedy, was elected. 

In the religious world, Martin Luther's 95 Theses nailed to the door in Wittenberg in 1517 was a kind of Protestant "Declaration of Independence" from the "tyranny" of the Church of Rome. He was not original in this--heretics have been breaking off from Christ's Church for centuries before and centuries after, leaving the Baroque of Peter to form their own independent churches. This is the spirit of how America was born, and yet it is the very antithesis of what it means to be a Catholic, the hallmark of which is allegiance to Rome. 

St. Iraneus (whose feast day we celebrated yesterday) was countering the Gnostics in the 2nd century, and saints and popes throughout history have done the same. The Church Fathers wrote of the primacy of Peter as the mark of a true Catholic. St. Cyprian, for one, wrote in 251:

“The Lord says to Peter: ‘I say to you,’ he says, ‘that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church.’ . . . On him [Peter] he builds the Church, and to him he gives the command to feed the sheep [John 21:17], and although he assigns a like power to all the apostles, yet he founded a single chair [cathedra], and he established by his own authority a source and an intrinsic reason for that unity. Indeed, the others were that also which Peter was [i.e., apostles], but a primacy is given to Peter, whereby it is made clear that there is but one Church and one chair. So too, all [the apostles] are shepherds, and the flock is shown to be one, fed by all the apostles in single-minded accord. If someone does not hold fast to this unity of Peter, can he imagine that he still holds the faith? If he [should] desert the chair of Peter upon whom the Church was built, can he still be confident that he is in the Church?” (The Unity of the Catholic Church 4; 1st edition [A.D. 251]).

For dissident Catholics who regard the dogma of the Church as a kind of spiritual "tyranny," they have no problem employing this particular American sentiment of noble revolutionary spirit to break away and render themselves anathema. They are a dime a dozen. Should they stay as "cafeteria Catholics," they only undermine their allegiance and make clear they are children of this world, content with the bitter herb of perceived spiritual independence and so-called enlightenment by their own waywardness.

But for the Catholic today who lives, breathes, and dies as an American, we know where our allegiance lies--to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Sometimes the two will square, and sometimes they will not; when we chose our national identity in this world as a higher ideal over our identity in Christ and His Church, we get the kind of JFK Catholicism that bears out its fruit of cognitive dissonance we see now in our current presidency (under the 2nd Catholic president in our history). 

I sometimes wonder why there are not more American saints. Certainly they are out there, whether canonized formally or not. Our history does not go as far back certainly as Europe, but it begs the question, which seems beyond the scope of a half hour blog post--is there something inherent in fervent Americanism that works counter to the faith? Has freedom become our idol? Are the ideals of our country--religious freedom, self-governance, the dignity of all men, the ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness--compatible and worthy of emulation in the life of our Catholic faith? As much as I love and cherish being an American, and that there has never been a system of government so ahead of its time, it is nonetheless called the "American experiment" for a reason. 

As Benjamin Franklin wrote, "Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." If we as a nation are not virtuous people (can it be argued otherwise?), are we truly capable of freedom? And if not, is it any surprise that our bloated government has stepped in to assume the role of master?

Freedom is a precarious thing. As the American Revolutionaries and all those who fought and died to establish and ensure that freedom know, it is anything but free. If we do not secure it with virtue (freedrom from the tyranny of sin, which comes from Christ and His teachings), we may well find the American Experiment an untenable affair in the years to come.  

See also: Darkness Before Dawn; The Golden Triangle of Freedom