Caesar's Coin

...Only if we locate ourselves firmly and decisively there, in this community and this nation, will Catholic acceptance of the disciplines of pluralism and the conventions of civility contribute to the renewal of public life and public debate which the bishops and Father McBrien so earnestly pursue...

...What mafters b...

...Public religion," McBnen tells us, "refers to the ethico-religious value system of the nation" and thus the search to persuade Americans to recognize the imperatives of natural law...

...When large numbers of citizens have grown cynical and passive regarding political life, and powerlessness and consequent irresponsibility mark the public attitudes of many citizens who are not poor, our pragmatic and flexible political ethicians might ask whether we don't need more, not less, factionalism, more vigorous conspiracies, and, a tad less civility...

...Still, when dealing with "the hardest issue," abortion, he asks whether the politician does not have a responsibility to help shape, the consensus and exploit the degree of consensus which in fact exists...

...In his weekly column, his many books, most notably the encyclopedic Catholicism, and his occasional radio and television appearances, McBrien sorts out ideas, makes distinctions, Specifies options...

...Never short of energy, he has familiarized himself with the best political and constitutional scholarship and provides an excellent summary of the state of the questions on establishment and free exercise...

...But when "the state" decides to educate, make war, conduct foreign policy,, or "develop" a neighborhood, one may wonder whether order and stability might be like that reconciliation which Saul Alinsky once defined as, "we have the power and you reconcile yourself to it...

...From the theological side, no single approach to the church-state problem "can be canonized as the one, true Christian approach," but the entire book can be read as a statement of preference for the American arrangement...

...as immigrants and later as a Catholic minority, we wished to bring the best of our heritage to the service of the nation...

...in fact "failure to perceive die difference between morality and religion is at the root of most of the confusion in debates about religion and politics in general, and about specific issues like abortion.'' In the fashion of his most cherished mentor, John Courtney Murray, Me Brien emphasizes the search for public moral consensus and predictably endorses Maria Cuomo's argument that government cannot act-in the absence of such consensus...

...This is not to push for cynicism but for an old Jeffersonian idea that, lacking available angels, we had best govern ourselves, regard all power with the greatest possible suspicion, and be alert for categories of analysis which make unity and peace the highest political goods...

...The problems with McBrien's book are the problems of Murray and the tradition within which both men work...

...Secularism and religious faith are antithetical," he argues, "but secularly and religious faith are entirely compatible...

...MeBrien is today's great Catholic clarifier...

...He begins by sorting out four levels qf recent debate: morality and politics, religion and politics, specific religions and politics, and religious professionals and politics...

...When the public morality is "pluralist" (Murray) it is understandable, of course, why the Founders and so many of their successors thought that the American experiment depended upon limited government...

...Civil religion, on the other hand, "refers to the ethico-religious value system that is centered on the nation itself...

...He then takes up abortion and several other disputed cases, emerging as a critical but committed defender of Cardinal Bernardin's "seamless garment" and the mainstream episcopal position (at the moment) that reasonable argument and civility are necessary instruments for influencing the public moral consensus...

...McBrien is skeptical about its prospects, but somehow this political theologian and those of us who share his very democratic love of politics and his very Catholic love for clarity need a touch of passion, a stronger love for the Republic and its people...

...One wishes to ask Murray and Me Brien: who says the highest good is peace...

...No One who reads this book can come away without feeling great sympathy for the Mario Cuomos and Cardinal Bernardins of this world, contending with sectarians and secularists, with single-issue bishops, Christian America demagogues, an infinite multitude of contentious minorities...

...Leit this sound like neoconservatism, let us remember that the much vaunted "society" is filled with corporations, economic and otherwise, and with more than a few adventurers with great power and far less accountability than government...

...David O'Brien Murray's distinction between spiritual and temporal concerns, and his argument that the First Amendment constitutes an "article of peace," not a theological statement, McBrien carefully makes the case that the churches have the right to participate in public debate and to promote human rights, but primarily within society, as distinct from the state...

...he makes theology sound sensible and the church appear an arena of reasonable discourse...

...He rejects the argument that morality and, religion must always be connected...

...In very American fashion McBrien adds that "the first thing due to the people, injustice, is their freedom, the proper enjoyment of their personal and social rights...

...That experience has taught us that we can have "political unity and stability . . . without uniformity of religious belief " and thai religious communities themselves benefit from separation...

...No question is more important for Catholics than "who are our people...

...One is the heavy dependence upon the distinction between society and the state, the related distinction between "the common good of society, which- all persons and communities are bound to pursue, and the narrower juridical notion of public order, which is the proper (and limited) concern of the state...

...He prefers the flexible Madisonian "line" to the impenetrable Jeffersonian wall...

...Who benefits and who loses from civility and "amity...

...The latter includes "public peace, which is the highest political good, public morality as determined by moral standards commonly accepted among the people, and justice, which secures for the people what is due them...

...To put it another way, Catholics who were once outsiders have become insiders...

...But the state is in fact the - govftnttent as we know it, led by "the brightest" in the sixties, then by theWatergate crowd, now by the people on today's television screen...

...But when the federal budget determines many matters of economy, social welfare, even culture, it is naive to rest so heavy a weight on a supposedly autonomous "society...

...In Murray-like fashion McBrien appeals to experience to affirm the pragmatip, flexible approach to the various levels of the religion and politics debate...

...Perhaps because reasonable liberals see the motes in all eyes but their own, perhaps because their reasonableness, like the passions of others, can and does become ideology for interests, be they clerical or academic...

...McBrien then offers an extended examination of church and state in American history and law...

...Perhaps...

...568...

...failing that, Catholic liberals settle for various forms of deterrence and "peace of a sort...

...Now, our bonds with one another are looser, more contractual, but our sense of oneness with our fellow Americans has not intensified...

...BOOKS A marriage not in heaven made B eter Maurin, co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement, spent a lifetime of non-stop agitation seeking "clarification of thought.!' One suspects that, despite reservations about Richard Me Brien's brand of civil and ecclesiastical politics, Maurin would love the chairman of Notre Dame's theology department...

...sides explicit religious beliefs must be excluded to achieve these exalted aims...

...Perhaps because liberals promote a public philosophy rather than a public theology, they deal in ethics rather than meaning...

...Richard McBrien addresses his new book "especially to those for whom devotion to 'the public good' is no idle pursuit...

...For Murray, McBrien, the ethical realists, and even for the bishops in their pastoral letters, the abstract "state" is peopled with disinterested "decisionmakers" carefully weighing options and factoring in ethical considerations filled with precise distinctions and cautious 567 proportions...

...He hits the religious right with the above distinctions, but has no truck with absolute separationists...

...No issue is more central to the publicchurch debate than whether or not Catholics can build bonds of community and fellowship with our fellow citizens, first of all in local communities...

...Experience has also demonstrated that "stable political unity can be strengthened by the exclusion of religious differences from affairs of state and government," thereby preventing the factionalism that so concerned the founders...

...Drawing heavily on CAESArSCOIN RELIGION AND POLITICS IN AMERICA Richard P. McBrien Macmiiian, $19.95, 294 pp...

...Friends of the public good, McBrien's intended audience,, may constitute a band no larger than the subscription list of Commonweal Why is it that reasonable persons can rally so little support...