Race, Liberalism, and the Catholic Response

To qualify as a paleo-conservative in some circles it seems as though one must enlist in a militant crusade to preserve the “white race”, or at the very least, to maintain “racial distinctions” against whatever threatens to erode them. My response is that a program of maintaining racial distinctions when nature does not cooperate (i.e., when language and religion and geography and immobility are not significant barriers) requires turning the priorities of Catholicism upside down. Similarly, the idea that cultural restoration requires an explicitly race-based nationalism also does violence to Catholic social priorities.

ECR once again has the honor of presenting the commentary of Matt Anger, a traditionalist writer who has investigated the topic with considerably more rigor and seriousness than I have. Although Mr. Anger has the good sense to avoid the undisciplined habit of “blogging”, he has generously agreed to contribute to ECR as time permits.

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Race, Liberalism, and the Catholic Response

Race and racism are subjects that require a nuanced treatment; not the ham-fisted approach that’s common across the political spectrum. A pleasant exception to this are the articles of James Fitzpatrick http://www.catholicexchange.com/vm/archives.asp?vm_id=74&aut=336, a regular columnist for Catholic Exchange. He invariably defies the usual stereotypes and discusses race in an intelligent and balanced manner. For example, Fitzpatrick faults the apparent ethnocentric emphasis of Pat Buchanan in Death of the West. At the same time, he staunchly defends Buchanan against ill-founded charges of anti-Semitism. More recently, in his November 11, 2003 essay (“Left: One Point”), Fitzpatrick talks about a controversial “Caucasian Club” that a white student is attempting to set up at Freedom High School in Oakley, California.

Like any conservative Catholic, he is annoyed by the hypocrisy of liberal opposition to such a proposal. And many of us at one time or another, at least on principle, would probably have said, “Why not set up such a club? After all, if there can be Greek, Vietnamese, Black or Hispanic groups, why not a white one?” But Fitzpatrick refuses to be baited into a grouchy reaction. While Sam Francis and William Rusher have charged to the defense of the Caucasian Club, he acknowledges that there are greater subtleties at work:

Consider the difference with a Caucasian Club. This is still a country that is overwhelmingly white. (That may change some day in the future, which will change this analysis.) When a Caucasian Club is formed, it says in effect that there is a club that represents the society as a whole — one that is intended for everyone except a racial or ethnic minority, one where everyone belongs except unwelcome sub-groups. It is hard to see how that could be interpreted in any way other than as a relegation to second-class citizenship for those excluded. Which makes all the difference in the world.

Look: If black and Latino student associations are preaching racial hatred or subversion they should be criticized for doing so. The clubs should be disbanded. But if they are doing what the Gaelic societies and Italian-American clubs have done for decades now, there is nothing to object to. Forming “Caucasian Clubs” to score points against racial minorities is not just a case of turn-about being fair play. It delivers the wrong message.

The Sam Francis mentioned above is an important figure in the discussion of race. A former columnist for The Washington Times, his writings have appeared in Chronicles and the conservative Catholic Wanderer newspaper. In 1995, Sam Francis wrote an article for Southern Partisan which criticized the Southern Baptist Convention for adopting a resolution formally apologizing for slavery. As with similar apologies in recent years (on racism, sexism, etc.), these after-the-fact lamentations are ridiculous political posturing—or, one could say, political bowing and scraping to the ideological regime of the moment. Nevertheless, while anti-racism has degenerated into a thinly veiled weapon of leftist cultural strategy, that doesn’t mean I should necessarily defend what the left condemns. That is precisely Fitzpatrick’s point. What most often makes the left wrong is not its stated beliefs (usually disingenuous) but its underlying intentions. For example, no one thinks women should be “exploited,” or treated as “sex objects.” But the feminist answer of turning them into butch careerists and combat jocks is a cure worse than the disease.

I don’t have Mr. Francis’ original essay in front of me; however, some selected quotes indicate that he is, if not espousing racism (a charge that is tossed about much too lightly), going too far at times in his nostalgia and defense of the past. After all, Catholics don’t defend something on the basis of whether it is “old” or “new,” but right or wrong. Mr. Francis, however, believing that whatever the left hates must be good, defends all aspects of the Old South, including its “peculiar institution.” He adds that, “Not until the Enlightenment of the 18th century did a bastardized version of Christian ethics condemn slavery.” Come again?

In an article written a few years back, called “Race and the Church” (to be republished later this year), I noted that in 1462, Pope Pius II called slavery a “great crime”. He was condemning the enslavement of black Africans as the great European powers began their worldwide exploration and colonization. Let’s skip ahead a few centuries, to 1890, when Pope Leo XIII proclaimed that:

The maternal love of the Catholic Church embraces all people. As you know, venerable brother, the Church from the beginning sought to completely eliminate slavery, whose wretched yoke has oppressed many people. It is the industrious guardian of the teachings of its Founder who, by His words and those of the apostles, taught men the fraternal necessity which unites the whole world (Catholicae Ecclesiae, “On Slavery in the Missions”).

Slavery has always flourished in a society that is non-Christian or in some way compromising its Christian beliefs. That is not to say that we must disown our heritage wholesale. It is true that the Confederacy, for all its virtues, defended an indefensible institution. Likewise, Rome and Greece, the birthplace of Western culture, engaged in many practices (including slavery) that we would rightly abhor. But no sensible person thinks we should just toss whole centuries of cultural wealth and wisdom into the memory hole. I think that Sam Francis is right insofar as he senses the disproportionate emphasis laid on slavery. Firstly, Christians accept that we live in a fallen world and that there will always be temporal evils, though they may vary from one generation to the next. Secondly, we believe that servitude of the soul is a far worse thing than servitude of the body. But I admit to feeling a bit impatient with those who howl at the least imposition of the IRS, and the “slavery” of the federal government, yet think nothing of consigning whole groups (like non-whites) to a second-class status… especially if they are members of the exempt class.

My response to certain paleo-nationalists is that race-based theories of society, however benevolently conceived, are themselves Enlightenment-era by-products. While we may loathe multiculturalism and globalism, ethno-nationalism (the bugbear of the modern left) is itself a thoroughly liberal concept. It just so happens to be a variety of naturalism that has gone the way of older secular fads like mesmerism and phrenology. Racialism and extreme nationalism grew up in the Darwinian, materialistic climate of the 19th century. They were also at the forefront of anti-clerical movements in Europe. The real answer is not a return to an earlier error. It is, rather, a return to objective, transcendent truth, which is not the product of some historical epoch but is that faith which, as St. Augustine said, is “so old and yet so new.”

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