How Pope Benedict Wants To Save American and Western Civilization

I usually never link anything from RENEW AMERICA for various reason. Mostly because I am not a Alan Keyes fan. Sorry Keyes groupies. Though I once was!!!

However for this very fine article demand I make a exception

Go see The Pope's quest to save Western civilization by Fred Hutchison

This article is so well done and easy to read. I also liked this part because I am exploring this important American right now in my spare reading:

I am curious about whether Benedict XVI has read The American Republic by Orestes Brownson (19th century American Catholic political philosopher). Benedict's writing bears more resemblance to Brownson than it does to de Tocqueville. Like Brownson, Benedict's writing reveals a mind deeply immersed in theology, philosophy, history, and culture.

Brownson wrote that the American Republic embodies a new and better kind of new kind of civilizationI am curious about whether Benedict XVI has read The American Republic by Orestes Brownson (19th century American Catholic political philosopher). Benedict's writing bears more resemblance to Brownson than it does to de Tocqueville. Like Brownson, Benedict's writing reveals a mind deeply immersed in theology, philosophy, history, and culture.

Brownson wrote that the American Republic embodies a new and better kind of civilization. While no utopia, American was a move away from the tyranny and the remnants of barbarism in Europe. As a champion of civilization and an opponent of tyranny and barbarism, Brownson believed that the American Republic was the providential way forward. Brownson and Benedict are alike in pointing to the early Republic as an exemplar for Europe to follow.Brownson posited that the constitutional design of James Madison as laid on top of American religious and organic foundations and upon American cultural and political traditions is in harmony with the divine order of things.

He derived principles from the Trinity, the Incarnation, and concepts of "catholicism" in contrast to sectarianism.For example, e pluribus unum, "out of many, one," is a Trinitarian concept, for God is one, but he is also three. We are one nation, a "catholic" concept — not a congery of factions, a "sectarian" concept.Brownson finds a good organic resemblance between several general principles of the divine order only for the American Republic. His search through history to find another country that measures up was futile. Even parliamentarian England with its admirable balance of freedom and order fell short in several particulars.Brownson admired the American constitution and wrote: "The American constitution taken as a whole and in all its parts is the least imperfect that has ever existed, and under it individual rights, personal freedom, as well as public authority or society, are better protected than any other...."

The whole thing a again a very good read.Not bad for a Internet Article at Renew