THE CITY
ciated enough that an early resolution of this issue was accom‐ plished.” The bishops did not, however, immediately fall in line. For once, they did not follow the lead of the Catholic Left. There is, in fact, rea‐ son to wonder whether Obama may not have shaken some members of the hierarchy from their dogmatic slumber. A few of them—and, among the younger priests, some of their likely successors—appear to have begun to recognize the logic inherent in the development of the administrative entitlements state. The proponents of Obamacare, with some consistency, pointed to Canada and to France as models. As anyone who has attended mass in Montreal or Paris can testify, the Church in both of these places is filled with empty pews. There is, in fact, not a single country in the social democratic sphere where either the Catholic Church or a Protestant church is anything but moribund. This is by no means fortuitous. When faith and morals are no longer taught and when government‐financed entitlements stand in for charity and the Social Gospel is preached in place of the Word of God, heaven on earth becomes the end, the state replaces the Church, and genuine Christianity goes by the boards. It took a terrible scandal and a host of lawsuits to persuade the American Church to rid itself of the pederast priests and clean up its seminaries. Perhaps the tyrannical agenda of Obama and his allies will have a comparable effect. Perhaps it will occasion on the part of the Catholic clergy a rethinking of the social‐justice agenda. The ball is now in the court of Timothy Dolan, Cardinal‐Archbishop of New York. He has refused the fig leaf that President Obama offered him. He has chosen to fight, and the other bishops have rallied in his sup‐ port. We can only hope that he is not only cunning and resolute but also fully cognizant of the role played by the American Church in forging the weapons now being used against it. The hour is late, and the stakes are high. Next time, the masters of the administrative entitlements state will not even bother to offer the hierarchy a fig leaf.
Paul Rahe holds The Charles O. Lee and Louise K. Lee Chair in the Western Heritage at Hillsdale College, where he is Professor of History. He is the author most recently of Soft Despotism, Democracy’s Drift: Montesquieu, Rousseau, Tocqueville, and the Modern Prospect (Yale University Press, 2009). 66