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By Nathaniel Gotcher

Introduction

There are many Catholics today who deny the necessity of promoting a Catholic political order. This denial is manifest in two strains of thought that sometimes coincide. The first is the idea that political order is amoral and pragmatic. It is primarily concerned with the material prosperity and security necessary for each person to pursue their goals. It may not legislate morality except insofar as it is clear that a given action harms another person by inhibiting their goals.  The teaching of moral virtue above and beyond this is properly in the scope of ecclesiastical structures and individual families—in other words, moral formation belongs to the Church and the Family, not the State. The second idea is that political order itself is immoral and corrupt. Even the pragmatic concern for prosperity and security is tinged with the wickedness of men in power. Instead, religious institutions and private philanthropy ought to be in charge of the distribution of material goods so that the practice of charity renders the State unnecessary and frees us from the bondage of worldly political order.

Travis Cooper

This essay is highly synthetic – it is an attempt to bring together many different foundational truths in philosophy and theology.  More specifically, it’s an attempt to look at the foundations of the moral law so as to understand its relationship to our happiness.  In this respect, it is theoretical (in the old sense of that word: “looking at how things are”).  But, as is always true of foundational truths, and particularly when it comes to the moral law, it is of the utmost importance for practice, for our actions, for our “lived lives.” 

Guillaume de Thieulloy

A PhD in political science (EHESS), Guillaume de Thieulloy is the publisher of a group of French conservative media properties. He’s also a former staffer of the vice president of the French Senate, Jean-Claude Gaudin. This paper was originally presented at the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture fall conference, November 3, 2018. An Italian translation of this essay can be found here.

It is striking for historians of the French Revolution that, a few months after the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (26 August 1789), the Terror began and, with the Terror, the first experiment of massive murders decided by a political power against its own population—especially in the Vendée. This huge gap between human rights and Terror seems strange: one cannot easily understand how, after the public recognition of human dignity, the same political power can organize massive slaughters of human beings.