Citation

Cochran CE. Rev. Polit. 2000; 62(1): 39-42.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2000, University of Notre Dame, Publisher Cambridge University Press)

DOI

10.1017/S0034670500030229

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Gary D. Glenn and John Stack advance two important claims; one explicit, the other implicit. Their explicit claim is that the "new regime of civil liberties" is dangerous to Catholicism. Here I am in qualified agreement, though important ambiguities cloud the argument. Their implicit claim is that it is a bad thing for Catholicism to be in danger. This proposition is flawed. Glenn and Stack cite (without irony) American Catholics "who have spent several generations seeking to become accepted and acceptable to the American democratic culture." A large part of the danger seems to be "the punishment of exclusion from respectability in the culture." This assumes that the "normal" mode for Catholicism is comfortable accommodation to political culture and institutions.

Language: en