The Catholic Experience in America From Orestes Brownson to the Bozells A Precedent for Muslims?
Main Article Content
Keywords
Muslim Americans, Catholicism, Orestes Brownson, American Creed, Liberalism
Abstract
Muslim Americans confront the challenges of adapting to a liberal culture that is both formally tolerant and ideologically compelling; a culture often understood as growing out of the individualistic and anti-authoritarian features of the Protestant Reformation. Scholars such as Harold Bloom and Alan Wolfe have argued that due to its appeal, this dominant culture—what may be called the American creed—transforms all other faiths into variants of itself. They predict that a similar liberalizing assimilation will take place with Islam. In order to assess the validity of this prediction and its implications, this article looks at the experience of another religion that also came to America resistant to the individualistic focus of the American creed. It does so by tracing the evolution of American Catholicism beginning with perhaps its most influential exponent, the nineteenth-century convert Orestes Brownson. After reviewing—through demographic and public opinion data as well as the analyses of some leading contemporary Catholic thinkers—how successfully Catholicism has maintained its identity in the American context since Brownson’s time, the article concludes by considering the implications for Muslim Americans.
References
Endnotes
1 Harold Bloom, The American Religion: The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York: Touchstone, 1993), pp. 37, 66, 32, 22.
2 Alan Wolfe, The Transformation of American Religion: How We Actually Live Our Faith (New York: Free Press, 2003), p. 236.
3 R. A. Herrera, Orestes Brownson: Sign of Contradiction (Wilmington, Delaware: Intercollegiate Studies Institute Books, 1999), p. xviii.
4 Helen Sullivan Mims, “Early American Democratic Theory and Orestes Brownson,” Science and Society, vol. 3, no. 2 (Spring 1939): 166-198; p. 181.
5 Orestes A. Brownson, The Convert: Or, Leaves from My Experience (New York: Edward Dunigan & Brother, 1857), p. 148.
6 New Views of Christianity, Society, and the Church (1836), reprinted in Richard M. Reinsch II (ed.), Seeking the Truth: An Orestes Brownson Anthology (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2016): 99-150; pp. 101-102.
7 Ibid., p. 103.
8 Ibid., p. 124.
9 Ibid., pp. 100, 130.
10 Ibid., p. 143.
11 Ibid., p. 140
12 Ibid., p. 141.
13 Brownson, The Convert, p. 245.
14 Brownson, review of The American Democrat, or Hints on the Social and Civic Relations of the United States of America by J. Fenimore Cooper, Boston Quarterly Review, vol. 1, no. 3 (July 1838): 360-377; pp. 372, 373, 374-375.
15 Brownson, “Prospects of the Democracy,” Boston Quarterly Review, vol. 2, no. 1 (January 1839): 123-136; pp. 125, 133.
16 Ibid., p. 136.
17 Brownson, “The Laboring Classes,” a review of Chartism by Thomas Carlyle, Boston Quarterly Review, vol. 3, no. 11 (July 1840): 358-395; see pp. 370-372.
18 Ibid., pp. 391, 393.
19 Ibid., p. 376.
20 Ibid., p. 386.
21 Ibid.
22 Ibid., pp. 388-389.
23 Brownson, The Convert, p. 251.
24 Ibid., p. 266.
25 Brownson, “The Republic of the United States of America,” Brownson’s Quarterly Review, vol. 3, no. 2 (April 1849): 176-195; p. 193.
26 Brownson, “Demagoguism,” Brownson’s Quarterly Review, vol. 1 (January 1844): 176-195; p. 100.
27 Brownson, “Catholicity Necessary to Sustain Popular Liberty,” Brownson’s Quarterly Review, vol. 2 (October 1845): 514-530; p. 516.
28 Ibid., pp. 518, 526. See Carl F. Krummel, “Catholicism, Americanism, Democracy, and Orestes Brownson,” American Quarterly, vol. 6, no. 1 (Spring 1954): 19-31; pp. 24-25.
29 Brownson, “Protestantism Ends in Transcendentalism,” Brownson’s Quarterly Review, vol. 3, no. 3 (July 1846): 369-399; p. 370.
30 Ibid., pp. 377, 382, 376.
31 Ibid., 382, 383.
32 Brownson, “Protestantism Not a Religion,” Brownson’s Quarterly Review, vol. 1, no. 1 (January 1853): 87-111; p. 110.
33 Brownson, “Protestantism Ends in Transcendentalism,” p. 389.
34 Brownson, “The Influence of Catholicity on Political Liberty,” Brownson’s Quarterly Review, vol. 2, no. 2 (April 1848): 163-183; p. 181.
35 Brownson, “Protestantism in a Nutshell,” Brownson’s Quarterly Review, vol. 3, no. 4 (October 1849): 413-438; pp. 428, 426.
36 Brownson, “Religion in Society,” Brownson’s Quarterly Review, vol. 4, no. 1 (January 1850): 105-127; p. 109.
37 “Liberal Studies” in The Works of Orestes A. Brownson, collected and arranged by Henry F. Brownson, vol. 19 (Detroit: Thorndike-Nourse, 1885): 431-446; p. 432.
38 Brownson, “Liberalism and Socialism,” Brownson’s Quarterly Review, vol. 3, no. 2 (April 1855): 183-209, p. 190; “Constitutional Guaranties,” Brownson’s Quarterly Review, vol. 2, no. 2 (April 1874): 197-220, p. 219. All along, Brownson stressed that he viewed Catholicism “as a religious, not as a political power” (“Catholicity Necessary to Sustain Popular Liberty,” 1845, p. 527). See Francis E. McMahon, “Orestes Brownson on Church and State,” Theological Studies, vol. 15, no. 2 (May 1954): 175-228, pp. 226, 228; Gregory S. Butler, In Search of the American Spirit: The Political Thought of Orestes Brownson (Carbondale & Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1992), p. 188.
39 Brownson, “St. Peter and Mahomet; or the Popes Protecting Christendom from Mahometanism,” Brownson’s Quarterly Review, vol. 4, no. 3 (July 1850): 273-297, pp. 277, 274-275.
40 Butler, In Search of the American Spirit, pp. 163-192; Herrera, Orestes Brownson, pp. 142, 175.
41 See John T. McGreevy, Catholicism and American Freedom: A History (New York: W. W. Norton, 2003), pp. 181-215.
42 Michael J. Baxter, “John Courtney Murray” in Peter Scott and William T. Cavanaugh (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Political Theology (Malden, MA; Blackwell Publishing 2004): 150-164; p. 150.
43 John Courtney Murray, We Hold These Truths: Catholic Reflections on the American Proposition (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1960), pp. 41, 20.
44 Ibid., pp. 304, 158, 249-250, 258. Murray added: “The United States today is an imperialism, like it or not” (p. 281).
45 Ibid., p. 67; Lonergan discussed and quoted in McGreevy, Catholicism, p. 246.
46 Brent L. Bozell Jr., Mustard Seeds: A Conservative Becomes a Catholic (Manassas: Trinity Communications, 1986), pp. 62, 123.
47 Ibid., p. 316.
48 Ibid., p. 98.
49 Ibid., pp. 87-88, 90.
50 Jacob Heilbrunn, “He Was Dismissed as a Conservative Kook: Now the Supreme Court is Embracing his Blueprint,” Politico Magazine, 7 July 2022 (https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/07/07/leo-brent-bozell-abortion-game-00044246). The phrase “creedal passion” is Samuel Huntington’s, referring to the periodically recurring reaffirmation of the American creed’s core values: “liberal, individualistic, democratic, egalitarian, and hence basically antigovernment and antiauthority in character.” Samuel P. Huntington, American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981), p. 4.
51 Justin Nortey, Patricia Tevington, Gregory A. Smith, “9 Facts About U.S. Catholics,”
Pew Research Center, 12 April 2024 (https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/
2024/04/12/9-facts-about-us-catholics/).
52 Gallup website, “Historical Trends: Religion,” online at (https://news.gallup.com/poll/1690/religion.aspx); Betsy Cooper, Daniel Cox, Rachel Lienesch, Robert P. Jones, “Exodus: Why Americans are Leaving Religion – And Why They’re Unlikely to Come Back,” Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), 22 September 2016, p. 3 (https://www.prri.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/PRRI-RNS-Unaffiliated-Report.pdf).
53 Cooper et al., “Exodus,” p. 4; Carlyle Murphy, “Half of U.S. Adults Raised Catholic Have Left the Church at Some Point,” Pew Research Center Fact Tank, 15 September 2015; (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/09/15/half-of-u-s-adults-raised-catholic-have-left-the-church-at-some-point/).
54 Statista, “Religion Affiliation in Latin America as of 2020, by Type,” 5 July 2024 (https://www.statista.com/statistics/996386/latin-america-religion-affiliation-share-type/);
Pew Research Center, “Religion in Latin America: Widespread Change in a Historically Catholic Region,” 13 November 2014, pp. 26, 15, 5 (https://www.pewforum.org/2014/11/13/religion-in-latin-america/).
55 Pew Research Center, “Religion in Latin America,” p. 12; Pew Research Center, April 2023, “Among U.S. Latinos, Catholicism Continues to Decline but Is Still the Largest Faith” (https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/04/PF_2023.04.13_NSL-religion_REPORT.pdf), p. 6.
56 Pew Research Center, “Americans Have Positive Views About Religion’s Role in Society, but Want It Out of Politics,” 15 November 2019, p. 43 (https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2019/11/PF_11.15.19_trust.in_.religion_FULL.REPORT.pdf).
57 Ibid., p. 35.
58 Ibid., p. 20. Recent sex-abuse scandals no doubt contributed to this decline.
59 Pew Research Center, “Spirit and Power: A 10-Country Survey of Pentecostals,” October 2006, pp. 4, 5, 30 (https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2006/10/pentecostals-08.pdf).
60 Michael I. Harrison, “Sources of Recruitment to Catholic Pentecostalism,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, vol. 13, no. 1 (March 1974): 49-64, pp. 52-53; Robert Wuthnow, The Restructuring of American Religion: Society and Faith Since World War II (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), pp. 150-151.
61 Pew Research Center, “Spirit and Power,” p. 94.
62 Pew Research Center, “A Portrait of American Catholics on the Eve of Pope Benedict’s Visit to the U.S.,” 27 March 2008, pp. I.4, II.4 (https://www.pewforum.org/2008/03/27/a-portrait-of-american-catholics-on-the-eve-of-pope-benedicts-visit-to-the-us/); Pew Research Center, “Changing Faiths: Latinos and the Transformation of American Religion – II. Religion and Demography,” 25 April 2007, pp. 10, 3 (https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2007/04/25/ii-religion-and-demography/).
63 Bloom, American Religion, pp. 258, 22.
64 Brownson, “Protestantism Ends in Transcendentalism,” Brownson’s Quarterly Review, pp. 390, 393-394.
65 Decade averages from the University of Chicago’s General Social Survey (https://gssdataexplorer.norc.org/trends/Religion%20&%20Spirituality?measure=relig_rec). 2019 figure from the Pew Research Center, “In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace,” 17 October 2019, p. 3; (https://www.pewforum.org/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/). 2021 figure from the Pew Research Center, “About Three-in-Ten U.S. Adults Are Now Religiously Unaffiliated,” 14 December 2021, pp. 4, 5, 14 (https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/12/PF_12.14.21_update_on_religion_trends_report.pdf).
66 Pew Research Center, “Modeling the Future of Religion in America,” September 2022, p. 30 (https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/09/US-Religious-Projections_FOR-PRODUCTION-9.13.22.pdf).
67 Michael Lipka, “10 Facts About Atheists,” Pew Research Center Fact Tank, 6 December 2019; (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/12/06/10-facts-about-atheists/).
68 Art Raney, Daniel Cox, Robert P. Jones, “Searching for Spirituality in the U.S.: A New Look at the Spiritual but Not Religious,” Public Religion Research Institute, 6 November 2017 (https://www.prri.org/research/religiosity-and-spirituality-in-america/).
69 Pew Research Center, “Many Americans Mix Multiple Faiths,” December 2009, pp. 2, 8, 12 (https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2009/12/multiplefaiths.pdf).
70 Ibid., pp. 8, 10.
71 Art Swift, “In U.S., Belief in Creationist View of Humans at New Low,” Gallup News, 22 May 2017 (https://news.gallup.com/poll/210956/belief-creationist-view-humans-new-low.aspx); The Immunization Partnership, “Poll Reveals Disappointing Trend on Vaccine Support,” 23 May 2018 (http://immunize.astoundz.com/blog/2018/may/23/tip-vaccine-poll/).
72 Patrick J. Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018), pp. 30, 7, 39, 9, 3.
73 Ibid., p. 181.
74 Ibid., pp. 19, 2, 197. An earlier Catholic call for “the construction of local forms of community within which civility and the intellectual and moral life can be sustained through the dark ages” of liberal individualism “which are already upon us” came in Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984), p. 263. See also Rod Dreher, The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation (New York: Sentinel, 2017).
75 Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed, p. 20.
76 Adrian Vermeule, “Integration from Within,” American Affairs Journal, vol. 2, no. 1 (Spring 2018): 202-213; p. 209.
77 Ibid., p. 203.
78 Thomas Crean and Alan Fimister, Integralism: A Manual of Political Philosophy (Seelscheid, Germany: Editiones Scholasticae, 2020), pp. 55, 29; also fn. 24, p. 35.
79 Ibid., pp. 195, 21, 78.
80 Adrian Vermeule, Common Good Constitutionalism: Recovering the Classical Legal Tradition (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2022), pp. 113-114.
81 Ibid., p. 39.
82 Adrian Vermeule, “Beyond Originalism,” The Atlantic website, 31 March 2020 (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/common-good-constitutionalism/609037/).
83 Vermeule, Common Good Constitutionalism, pp. 41-42.
84 Patrick J. Deneen, Regime Change: Toward a Postliberal Future (New York: Sentinel, 2023), p. xvi.
85 Ibid., pp. 95, 181.
86 Ibid., p. 228.
87 Ibid., p. 152.
88 Adrian Vermeule, “A Principle of Immigration Priority,” Mirror of Justice blog post, 20 July 2019 (https://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2019/07/a-principle-of-immigration-priority-.html).
89 The Second Vatican Council’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, quoted in Jason Blakely, “The Integralism of Adrian Vermeule: Not Catholic Enough,” Commonweal, vol. 147, no. 9 (October 2020): 34-37; p. 37, at (https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/not-catholic-enough).
90 Heilbrunn, “He Was Dismissed as a Conservative Kook.”
91 Zogby International & Georgetown University Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, “American Muslim Poll: Nov/Dec 2001,” p. 28 (http://www.cippusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/pmreport.pdf).
92 Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), The 2020 PRRI Census of American Religion (Washington D.C., July 2021), p. 12 (https://www.prri.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/PRRI-Jul-2021-Religion.pdf); Besheer Mohamed, “New Estimates Show U.S. Muslim Population Continues to Grow,” Pew Research Center, 3 January 2018 (https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/01/03/new-estimates-show-u-s-muslim-population-continues-to-grow/).
93 Pew Research Center, “U.S. Muslims Concerned About Their Place in Society, But Continue to Believe in the American Dream,” 26 July 2017, p. 7 (https://www.pewforum.org/2017/07/26/findings-from-pew-research-centers-2017-survey-of-us-muslims/).
94 Ibid., pp. 5, 7, 13. An important caveat is that these generally benign views about American life are offset by those of African-American Muslims, who constitute about a fifth of the total, and whose historical experience leads a considerably higher proportion (96 percent) to discern a lot of discrimination against Muslims (p. 37). For an argument that American liberalism is racist “at its very core” and therefore incapable of the “political assimilation of Muslim Americans,” see Edward E. Curtis IV, Muslim American Politics and the Future of US Democracy (New York: New York University Press, 2019), pp. 123-124, 3.
95 Pew, “U.S. Muslims Concerned About Their Place in Society,” p. 126.
96 Gallup, Center for Muslim Studies, “Muslim Americans: A National Portrait,” 2 March 2009, p. 50 (http://www.dec17.org/AmericanMuslimReport.pdf). The 2017 Pew study cited in the previous note found (p. 86) that the number of Muslim Americans describing themselves as “liberal” rose from 24 percent (2007) to 27 percent (2011) to 30 percent (2017).
97 Pew, “U.S. Muslims Concerned About Their Place in Society,” pp. 28, 95, 26.
98 M.A. Muqtedar Khan, “Constructing the American Muslim Community” in Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, Jane I. Smith, John L. Esposito, eds., Religion and Immigration: Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Experiences in the United States (Walnut Creek: Altamira Press, 2003): 175-198, p. 176; American Muslims: Bridging Faith and Freedom (Beltsville: Amana Publications, 2002), pp. 2, 6.
99 Feisal Abdul Rauf, What’s Right with Islam: A New Vision for Muslims and the West (New York: HarperCollins, 2004), p. 83. The book was reissued a year later with the revised title: What’s Right with Islam Is What’s Right with America.
100 Ibid., p. 101. Emphasis in the original. See also p. 103.
101 Ibid., pp. 69-70.
102 Ibid., pp. 259, 252.
103 Saleemah Abdul-Ghafur, “Introduction” in Saleemah Abdul-Ghafur, ed., Living Islam Out Loud: American Muslim Women Speak (Boston: Beacon Press, 2005): 1-6; p. 3.
104 Mohja Kahf, “The Muslim in the Mirror” in Saleemah Abdul-Ghafur, ed., Living Islam Out Loud: American Muslim Women Speak (Boston: Beacon Press, 2005): 130-138; p. 133.
105 Edward E. Curtis IV, Muslim American Politics and the Future of US Democracy (New York: New York University Press, 2019), pp. 3, 155.
106 Nadia Marzouki, Islam: An American Religion, trans. C. Jon Delogu (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017), p. 25. See also Faisal Devji and Zaheer Kazmi, “Introduction” in Faisal Devji and Zaheer Kazmi, eds., Islam After Liberalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017): 1-14; p. 9.
107 Butheina Hamdah, Liberalism and the Impact on Religious Identity: Hijab Culture in the American Context (Master’s thesis, University of Toledo, December 2017), pp. 32, 48-49.
108 Ibid., pp. 37, 39, 51.
109 Sherman A. Jackson, “The Impact of Liberalism, Secularism & Atheism on the American Mosque,” American Learning Institute for Muslims (ALIM) website, 4 February 2016, pp. 2, 3, 5 (https://www.alimprogram.org/uploads/1/2/5/5/125574672/the-affects-of-liberalism-secularism-and-atheism-on-the-american-mosque.pdf).
110 Mustafa Akyol, Islam without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty (New York: W. W. Norton, 2011), p. 268.
111 Ibid., p. 29.
112 Ibid., p. 272.
113 Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im, What is an American Muslim? Embracing Faith and Citizenship (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 20, 24.
114 Ibid., p. 169.
115 Ibid., pp. 173, 175.
116 Ibid., p. 173.
117 Akyol, Islam without Extremes, p. 242; An-Na’im, What is an American Muslim?, p. 66.
118 Pew, “U.S. Muslims Concerned About Their Place in Society,” p. 106; Besheer Mohamed and Elizabeth Podrebarac Sciupac, “The Share of Americans Who Leave Islam is Offset by Those Who Become Muslim,” Pew Research Center Fact Tank, 26 January 2018 (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/26/the-share-of-americans-who-leave-islam-is-offset-by-those-who-become-muslim/).
1 Harold Bloom, The American Religion: The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York: Touchstone, 1993), pp. 37, 66, 32, 22.
2 Alan Wolfe, The Transformation of American Religion: How We Actually Live Our Faith (New York: Free Press, 2003), p. 236.
3 R. A. Herrera, Orestes Brownson: Sign of Contradiction (Wilmington, Delaware: Intercollegiate Studies Institute Books, 1999), p. xviii.
4 Helen Sullivan Mims, “Early American Democratic Theory and Orestes Brownson,” Science and Society, vol. 3, no. 2 (Spring 1939): 166-198; p. 181.
5 Orestes A. Brownson, The Convert: Or, Leaves from My Experience (New York: Edward Dunigan & Brother, 1857), p. 148.
6 New Views of Christianity, Society, and the Church (1836), reprinted in Richard M. Reinsch II (ed.), Seeking the Truth: An Orestes Brownson Anthology (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2016): 99-150; pp. 101-102.
7 Ibid., p. 103.
8 Ibid., p. 124.
9 Ibid., pp. 100, 130.
10 Ibid., p. 143.
11 Ibid., p. 140
12 Ibid., p. 141.
13 Brownson, The Convert, p. 245.
14 Brownson, review of The American Democrat, or Hints on the Social and Civic Relations of the United States of America by J. Fenimore Cooper, Boston Quarterly Review, vol. 1, no. 3 (July 1838): 360-377; pp. 372, 373, 374-375.
15 Brownson, “Prospects of the Democracy,” Boston Quarterly Review, vol. 2, no. 1 (January 1839): 123-136; pp. 125, 133.
16 Ibid., p. 136.
17 Brownson, “The Laboring Classes,” a review of Chartism by Thomas Carlyle, Boston Quarterly Review, vol. 3, no. 11 (July 1840): 358-395; see pp. 370-372.
18 Ibid., pp. 391, 393.
19 Ibid., p. 376.
20 Ibid., p. 386.
21 Ibid.
22 Ibid., pp. 388-389.
23 Brownson, The Convert, p. 251.
24 Ibid., p. 266.
25 Brownson, “The Republic of the United States of America,” Brownson’s Quarterly Review, vol. 3, no. 2 (April 1849): 176-195; p. 193.
26 Brownson, “Demagoguism,” Brownson’s Quarterly Review, vol. 1 (January 1844): 176-195; p. 100.
27 Brownson, “Catholicity Necessary to Sustain Popular Liberty,” Brownson’s Quarterly Review, vol. 2 (October 1845): 514-530; p. 516.
28 Ibid., pp. 518, 526. See Carl F. Krummel, “Catholicism, Americanism, Democracy, and Orestes Brownson,” American Quarterly, vol. 6, no. 1 (Spring 1954): 19-31; pp. 24-25.
29 Brownson, “Protestantism Ends in Transcendentalism,” Brownson’s Quarterly Review, vol. 3, no. 3 (July 1846): 369-399; p. 370.
30 Ibid., pp. 377, 382, 376.
31 Ibid., 382, 383.
32 Brownson, “Protestantism Not a Religion,” Brownson’s Quarterly Review, vol. 1, no. 1 (January 1853): 87-111; p. 110.
33 Brownson, “Protestantism Ends in Transcendentalism,” p. 389.
34 Brownson, “The Influence of Catholicity on Political Liberty,” Brownson’s Quarterly Review, vol. 2, no. 2 (April 1848): 163-183; p. 181.
35 Brownson, “Protestantism in a Nutshell,” Brownson’s Quarterly Review, vol. 3, no. 4 (October 1849): 413-438; pp. 428, 426.
36 Brownson, “Religion in Society,” Brownson’s Quarterly Review, vol. 4, no. 1 (January 1850): 105-127; p. 109.
37 “Liberal Studies” in The Works of Orestes A. Brownson, collected and arranged by Henry F. Brownson, vol. 19 (Detroit: Thorndike-Nourse, 1885): 431-446; p. 432.
38 Brownson, “Liberalism and Socialism,” Brownson’s Quarterly Review, vol. 3, no. 2 (April 1855): 183-209, p. 190; “Constitutional Guaranties,” Brownson’s Quarterly Review, vol. 2, no. 2 (April 1874): 197-220, p. 219. All along, Brownson stressed that he viewed Catholicism “as a religious, not as a political power” (“Catholicity Necessary to Sustain Popular Liberty,” 1845, p. 527). See Francis E. McMahon, “Orestes Brownson on Church and State,” Theological Studies, vol. 15, no. 2 (May 1954): 175-228, pp. 226, 228; Gregory S. Butler, In Search of the American Spirit: The Political Thought of Orestes Brownson (Carbondale & Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1992), p. 188.
39 Brownson, “St. Peter and Mahomet; or the Popes Protecting Christendom from Mahometanism,” Brownson’s Quarterly Review, vol. 4, no. 3 (July 1850): 273-297, pp. 277, 274-275.
40 Butler, In Search of the American Spirit, pp. 163-192; Herrera, Orestes Brownson, pp. 142, 175.
41 See John T. McGreevy, Catholicism and American Freedom: A History (New York: W. W. Norton, 2003), pp. 181-215.
42 Michael J. Baxter, “John Courtney Murray” in Peter Scott and William T. Cavanaugh (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Political Theology (Malden, MA; Blackwell Publishing 2004): 150-164; p. 150.
43 John Courtney Murray, We Hold These Truths: Catholic Reflections on the American Proposition (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1960), pp. 41, 20.
44 Ibid., pp. 304, 158, 249-250, 258. Murray added: “The United States today is an imperialism, like it or not” (p. 281).
45 Ibid., p. 67; Lonergan discussed and quoted in McGreevy, Catholicism, p. 246.
46 Brent L. Bozell Jr., Mustard Seeds: A Conservative Becomes a Catholic (Manassas: Trinity Communications, 1986), pp. 62, 123.
47 Ibid., p. 316.
48 Ibid., p. 98.
49 Ibid., pp. 87-88, 90.
50 Jacob Heilbrunn, “He Was Dismissed as a Conservative Kook: Now the Supreme Court is Embracing his Blueprint,” Politico Magazine, 7 July 2022 (https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/07/07/leo-brent-bozell-abortion-game-00044246). The phrase “creedal passion” is Samuel Huntington’s, referring to the periodically recurring reaffirmation of the American creed’s core values: “liberal, individualistic, democratic, egalitarian, and hence basically antigovernment and antiauthority in character.” Samuel P. Huntington, American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981), p. 4.
51 Justin Nortey, Patricia Tevington, Gregory A. Smith, “9 Facts About U.S. Catholics,”
Pew Research Center, 12 April 2024 (https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/
2024/04/12/9-facts-about-us-catholics/).
52 Gallup website, “Historical Trends: Religion,” online at (https://news.gallup.com/poll/1690/religion.aspx); Betsy Cooper, Daniel Cox, Rachel Lienesch, Robert P. Jones, “Exodus: Why Americans are Leaving Religion – And Why They’re Unlikely to Come Back,” Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), 22 September 2016, p. 3 (https://www.prri.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/PRRI-RNS-Unaffiliated-Report.pdf).
53 Cooper et al., “Exodus,” p. 4; Carlyle Murphy, “Half of U.S. Adults Raised Catholic Have Left the Church at Some Point,” Pew Research Center Fact Tank, 15 September 2015; (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/09/15/half-of-u-s-adults-raised-catholic-have-left-the-church-at-some-point/).
54 Statista, “Religion Affiliation in Latin America as of 2020, by Type,” 5 July 2024 (https://www.statista.com/statistics/996386/latin-america-religion-affiliation-share-type/);
Pew Research Center, “Religion in Latin America: Widespread Change in a Historically Catholic Region,” 13 November 2014, pp. 26, 15, 5 (https://www.pewforum.org/2014/11/13/religion-in-latin-america/).
55 Pew Research Center, “Religion in Latin America,” p. 12; Pew Research Center, April 2023, “Among U.S. Latinos, Catholicism Continues to Decline but Is Still the Largest Faith” (https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/04/PF_2023.04.13_NSL-religion_REPORT.pdf), p. 6.
56 Pew Research Center, “Americans Have Positive Views About Religion’s Role in Society, but Want It Out of Politics,” 15 November 2019, p. 43 (https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2019/11/PF_11.15.19_trust.in_.religion_FULL.REPORT.pdf).
57 Ibid., p. 35.
58 Ibid., p. 20. Recent sex-abuse scandals no doubt contributed to this decline.
59 Pew Research Center, “Spirit and Power: A 10-Country Survey of Pentecostals,” October 2006, pp. 4, 5, 30 (https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2006/10/pentecostals-08.pdf).
60 Michael I. Harrison, “Sources of Recruitment to Catholic Pentecostalism,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, vol. 13, no. 1 (March 1974): 49-64, pp. 52-53; Robert Wuthnow, The Restructuring of American Religion: Society and Faith Since World War II (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), pp. 150-151.
61 Pew Research Center, “Spirit and Power,” p. 94.
62 Pew Research Center, “A Portrait of American Catholics on the Eve of Pope Benedict’s Visit to the U.S.,” 27 March 2008, pp. I.4, II.4 (https://www.pewforum.org/2008/03/27/a-portrait-of-american-catholics-on-the-eve-of-pope-benedicts-visit-to-the-us/); Pew Research Center, “Changing Faiths: Latinos and the Transformation of American Religion – II. Religion and Demography,” 25 April 2007, pp. 10, 3 (https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2007/04/25/ii-religion-and-demography/).
63 Bloom, American Religion, pp. 258, 22.
64 Brownson, “Protestantism Ends in Transcendentalism,” Brownson’s Quarterly Review, pp. 390, 393-394.
65 Decade averages from the University of Chicago’s General Social Survey (https://gssdataexplorer.norc.org/trends/Religion%20&%20Spirituality?measure=relig_rec). 2019 figure from the Pew Research Center, “In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace,” 17 October 2019, p. 3; (https://www.pewforum.org/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/). 2021 figure from the Pew Research Center, “About Three-in-Ten U.S. Adults Are Now Religiously Unaffiliated,” 14 December 2021, pp. 4, 5, 14 (https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/12/PF_12.14.21_update_on_religion_trends_report.pdf).
66 Pew Research Center, “Modeling the Future of Religion in America,” September 2022, p. 30 (https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/09/US-Religious-Projections_FOR-PRODUCTION-9.13.22.pdf).
67 Michael Lipka, “10 Facts About Atheists,” Pew Research Center Fact Tank, 6 December 2019; (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/12/06/10-facts-about-atheists/).
68 Art Raney, Daniel Cox, Robert P. Jones, “Searching for Spirituality in the U.S.: A New Look at the Spiritual but Not Religious,” Public Religion Research Institute, 6 November 2017 (https://www.prri.org/research/religiosity-and-spirituality-in-america/).
69 Pew Research Center, “Many Americans Mix Multiple Faiths,” December 2009, pp. 2, 8, 12 (https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2009/12/multiplefaiths.pdf).
70 Ibid., pp. 8, 10.
71 Art Swift, “In U.S., Belief in Creationist View of Humans at New Low,” Gallup News, 22 May 2017 (https://news.gallup.com/poll/210956/belief-creationist-view-humans-new-low.aspx); The Immunization Partnership, “Poll Reveals Disappointing Trend on Vaccine Support,” 23 May 2018 (http://immunize.astoundz.com/blog/2018/may/23/tip-vaccine-poll/).
72 Patrick J. Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018), pp. 30, 7, 39, 9, 3.
73 Ibid., p. 181.
74 Ibid., pp. 19, 2, 197. An earlier Catholic call for “the construction of local forms of community within which civility and the intellectual and moral life can be sustained through the dark ages” of liberal individualism “which are already upon us” came in Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984), p. 263. See also Rod Dreher, The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation (New York: Sentinel, 2017).
75 Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed, p. 20.
76 Adrian Vermeule, “Integration from Within,” American Affairs Journal, vol. 2, no. 1 (Spring 2018): 202-213; p. 209.
77 Ibid., p. 203.
78 Thomas Crean and Alan Fimister, Integralism: A Manual of Political Philosophy (Seelscheid, Germany: Editiones Scholasticae, 2020), pp. 55, 29; also fn. 24, p. 35.
79 Ibid., pp. 195, 21, 78.
80 Adrian Vermeule, Common Good Constitutionalism: Recovering the Classical Legal Tradition (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2022), pp. 113-114.
81 Ibid., p. 39.
82 Adrian Vermeule, “Beyond Originalism,” The Atlantic website, 31 March 2020 (https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/common-good-constitutionalism/609037/).
83 Vermeule, Common Good Constitutionalism, pp. 41-42.
84 Patrick J. Deneen, Regime Change: Toward a Postliberal Future (New York: Sentinel, 2023), p. xvi.
85 Ibid., pp. 95, 181.
86 Ibid., p. 228.
87 Ibid., p. 152.
88 Adrian Vermeule, “A Principle of Immigration Priority,” Mirror of Justice blog post, 20 July 2019 (https://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2019/07/a-principle-of-immigration-priority-.html).
89 The Second Vatican Council’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, quoted in Jason Blakely, “The Integralism of Adrian Vermeule: Not Catholic Enough,” Commonweal, vol. 147, no. 9 (October 2020): 34-37; p. 37, at (https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/not-catholic-enough).
90 Heilbrunn, “He Was Dismissed as a Conservative Kook.”
91 Zogby International & Georgetown University Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, “American Muslim Poll: Nov/Dec 2001,” p. 28 (http://www.cippusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/pmreport.pdf).
92 Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), The 2020 PRRI Census of American Religion (Washington D.C., July 2021), p. 12 (https://www.prri.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/PRRI-Jul-2021-Religion.pdf); Besheer Mohamed, “New Estimates Show U.S. Muslim Population Continues to Grow,” Pew Research Center, 3 January 2018 (https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/01/03/new-estimates-show-u-s-muslim-population-continues-to-grow/).
93 Pew Research Center, “U.S. Muslims Concerned About Their Place in Society, But Continue to Believe in the American Dream,” 26 July 2017, p. 7 (https://www.pewforum.org/2017/07/26/findings-from-pew-research-centers-2017-survey-of-us-muslims/).
94 Ibid., pp. 5, 7, 13. An important caveat is that these generally benign views about American life are offset by those of African-American Muslims, who constitute about a fifth of the total, and whose historical experience leads a considerably higher proportion (96 percent) to discern a lot of discrimination against Muslims (p. 37). For an argument that American liberalism is racist “at its very core” and therefore incapable of the “political assimilation of Muslim Americans,” see Edward E. Curtis IV, Muslim American Politics and the Future of US Democracy (New York: New York University Press, 2019), pp. 123-124, 3.
95 Pew, “U.S. Muslims Concerned About Their Place in Society,” p. 126.
96 Gallup, Center for Muslim Studies, “Muslim Americans: A National Portrait,” 2 March 2009, p. 50 (http://www.dec17.org/AmericanMuslimReport.pdf). The 2017 Pew study cited in the previous note found (p. 86) that the number of Muslim Americans describing themselves as “liberal” rose from 24 percent (2007) to 27 percent (2011) to 30 percent (2017).
97 Pew, “U.S. Muslims Concerned About Their Place in Society,” pp. 28, 95, 26.
98 M.A. Muqtedar Khan, “Constructing the American Muslim Community” in Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, Jane I. Smith, John L. Esposito, eds., Religion and Immigration: Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Experiences in the United States (Walnut Creek: Altamira Press, 2003): 175-198, p. 176; American Muslims: Bridging Faith and Freedom (Beltsville: Amana Publications, 2002), pp. 2, 6.
99 Feisal Abdul Rauf, What’s Right with Islam: A New Vision for Muslims and the West (New York: HarperCollins, 2004), p. 83. The book was reissued a year later with the revised title: What’s Right with Islam Is What’s Right with America.
100 Ibid., p. 101. Emphasis in the original. See also p. 103.
101 Ibid., pp. 69-70.
102 Ibid., pp. 259, 252.
103 Saleemah Abdul-Ghafur, “Introduction” in Saleemah Abdul-Ghafur, ed., Living Islam Out Loud: American Muslim Women Speak (Boston: Beacon Press, 2005): 1-6; p. 3.
104 Mohja Kahf, “The Muslim in the Mirror” in Saleemah Abdul-Ghafur, ed., Living Islam Out Loud: American Muslim Women Speak (Boston: Beacon Press, 2005): 130-138; p. 133.
105 Edward E. Curtis IV, Muslim American Politics and the Future of US Democracy (New York: New York University Press, 2019), pp. 3, 155.
106 Nadia Marzouki, Islam: An American Religion, trans. C. Jon Delogu (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017), p. 25. See also Faisal Devji and Zaheer Kazmi, “Introduction” in Faisal Devji and Zaheer Kazmi, eds., Islam After Liberalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017): 1-14; p. 9.
107 Butheina Hamdah, Liberalism and the Impact on Religious Identity: Hijab Culture in the American Context (Master’s thesis, University of Toledo, December 2017), pp. 32, 48-49.
108 Ibid., pp. 37, 39, 51.
109 Sherman A. Jackson, “The Impact of Liberalism, Secularism & Atheism on the American Mosque,” American Learning Institute for Muslims (ALIM) website, 4 February 2016, pp. 2, 3, 5 (https://www.alimprogram.org/uploads/1/2/5/5/125574672/the-affects-of-liberalism-secularism-and-atheism-on-the-american-mosque.pdf).
110 Mustafa Akyol, Islam without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty (New York: W. W. Norton, 2011), p. 268.
111 Ibid., p. 29.
112 Ibid., p. 272.
113 Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im, What is an American Muslim? Embracing Faith and Citizenship (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 20, 24.
114 Ibid., p. 169.
115 Ibid., pp. 173, 175.
116 Ibid., p. 173.
117 Akyol, Islam without Extremes, p. 242; An-Na’im, What is an American Muslim?, p. 66.
118 Pew, “U.S. Muslims Concerned About Their Place in Society,” p. 106; Besheer Mohamed and Elizabeth Podrebarac Sciupac, “The Share of Americans Who Leave Islam is Offset by Those Who Become Muslim,” Pew Research Center Fact Tank, 26 January 2018 (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/01/26/the-share-of-americans-who-leave-islam-is-offset-by-those-who-become-muslim/).
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Nov 10, 2025
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Mufti, M. (2025). The Catholic Experience in America From Orestes Brownson to the Bozells: A Precedent for Muslims?. American Journal of Islam and Society, 42(3-4), 42–73. https://doi.org/10.35632/ajis.v42i3-4.3648
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