I am afraid that conservative Catholics have made some of the very same mistakes concerning American politics as did the liberals in the sixties and seventies. During the 60s and 70s, in their desire for peace and justice, many faithful Catholics, including the greater part of the episcopate, aligned themselves with the political left. The political left seemed to be allied with the Catholic Church in matters economic and political. In their alignment with the political the left, these Catholics allowed partisanship and loyalty to their “friends” to blind them to the fact that the philosophy of the left is diametrically opposed to the truths of Christianity—now the left has definitively shown it’s true colors: it hates Christianity and Christians. The Christian allies of the left have in recent years either stopped being Christian or drifted away from the left-- Just look what has happened with the bishops. Peace and Justice Christians who are serious about their Christianity are only now beginning to realize what a terrible mistake they made when they threw in with the progressive crowd—but it’s too late. The damage has been done. The Church is on the verge of demographic collapse and general persecution. I’m afraid the conservatives in the Church are making the same mistake with the political right. Free-market capitalism, majority-rule government, the spread of Enlightenment ideology—these things are not Catholic. It pains me to see Catholics embracing American nationalism, and talking about protecting “American culture” as if the pornography, moral relativism, individualism, and greed that our culture mass produces and exports all over the world are things worth defending. We can already see that the so-called neo-cons are annoyed with the religious hang-ups of their allies in the Church. The conservatives in the Church who think they have made a home in the Republican Party are going to be in for a surprise similar to that the liberal Catholics in the Democratic Party have experienced, when their children, raised to defend American bigotry, capitalism, and war, decide that the Catholic Church is not where they belong. They will either leave the Church and become non-denominational individualists, or they will become secular Wall-Street conservatives, or neo-con hawks.
We need to hunker down, regroup, learn from our mistakes, and start to re-evangelize. We need to realize that the world, has rejected Christ, and the world will reject us. We can have no home in American politics.