The Danger of Trump to Postliberal Catholicism
A few weeks ago our friends at Catholic Family News had an interesting discussion in which Dr. Brian McCall gave a controversial but important opinion regarding the condemnation of Action franćaise by Pius XI. Listen below at 40:00:
The Biography of Marcel Lefebvre says that the 1926 condemnation of Action française was the “turning point in the history of the Church; from then on the bishoprics were given to left-wing clerics whilst all opposition to liberalism was falsely tarred with the same brush as Action Française.”[1] This was at the very moment when the “Avant-guarde Theological Generation” was arising, which would triumph at and after Vatican II.[2]
I don’t think anyone can argue that the condemnation of Action française was a terrible mistake by Pius XI, which is only worsened by his failure to consecrate Russia, leading to World War II.
But what was Dr. McCall saying? McCall is making the same argument of Jacques Maritain in his book Primauté du spirituel, which served to justify the condemnation in 1927. The fact is, there can be no politics which does not maintain the primacy of the spiritual.
This important truth about post-Liberal Catholic politics is summed up in the person of Charles Murras, the founder and leader of Action française. The man was a lapsed Catholic turned Agnostic. And yet he realised what “New Atheist” Richard Dawkins could admit recently, that he did not want to live in a world that was not at least “culturally Christian.” And so Charles Murras co-founded and helped to lead Action française until the Pope saw that the Church could not support any political movement which failed to place “Jesus is King” at the forefront of everything – from
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