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Today, my brother and I were exchanging emails about the Supreme Court and he told me he just figured out that five of the nine Supreme Court Justices are Catholic (Roberts, Alito, Scalia, Thomas, and Kennedy). All of them are the more conservative justices on the Court. If I remember correctly, during Alito’s confirmation, the MSM and the blogosphere addressed this. For a long time, Catholics were a religious minority in the U.S. (and sometimes an un-welcomed minority) so it is interesting to see that Catholics now hold the majority on the Supreme Court.

I also was just perusing the news and started reading more about Bobby Jindal, Louisana’s new (young) governor who is very conservative. Conservatives rave about him. I think Rush Limbaugh called him the next Ronald Reagan. I learned that he is Catholic. Dinesh D’Souza, a political commentator, is also Catholic. So is Ramesh Ponnuru of National Review. Both Indian-American Catholics.

Now my point is not that the Court is going to be overrun with Catholics (though that is an argument some people make and I understand why) or that all Indian-Americans tend to be Catholic and conservative. My point is that it seems many of the conservative movement’s most important leaders and most ardent followers are Catholic.

First, as a short side note about the Court and Catholicism, the influence of the justices’ religions leanings is an issue that I am NOT addressing. It is a good debate/discussion to have, but just elsewhere. My point is, certain Catholic justices, particularly Scalia and Thomas, are viewed as major contributors and proponents of the conservative movement, and the fact that they are Catholic in the first place is worth noting.

Second, to clarify what I mean by the conservative movement: I do not mean the Christian Right (i.e. Jerry Falwell and the likes). I mean something very different; think Heritage Foundation, National Review, talk radio (Dennis Prager not Rush - disclaimer: Prager is Jewish not Catholic), and the like. I have always had issues with the Christian Right being associated with or called “conservatives.” I don’t think they are “conservative,” which is also a different topic in itself. But for the sake of brevity, by “conservative” or “conservative movement,” I do not mean those individuals or groups of people.

So in my view, without a ton of preliminary/background research, the most influential and prominent leaders of the conservative movement were and are predominately Catholic. The late William F. Buckley Jr., founder of National Review, was Catholic. So was Russell Kirk, another giant in the early conservative movement and author of The Conservative Mind (he converted). Eric Voeglin, an extremely influential 20th century political philosopher, described himself as a “pre-Reformation Christian.”

At the Heritage Foundation, where I interned last year, I was pleasantly surprised to find out so many scholars, employees and interns were Catholic. Edwin Feulner, president of the Heritage Foundation, is Catholic. So is my boss, Dr. Lee Edwards, as was Dr. Matthew Spalding, director of the Center of American Studies. I could list more, but I think you get the point. Several interns were Catholic.

National Review also is home to many Catholics: Kate O’Beirne, Kathryn Jean Lopez, Ramesh Ponnuru, and others (can’t think of more at the moment).

Others: Michael Novak, journalist, author, AEI scholar; L. Brent Bozell Jr., a conservative activist through the 1970s; Peggy Noonan, Reagan’s speechwriter and WSJ columnist; Henry Hazlitt and Murray Rothbard, famous economists and staunch advocates of free markets; Pat Buchanan, syndicated columnist; Sean Hannity of Fox News. Many of the European emigres (who came in the 1940s-50s) who helped shape the intellectual underpinnings of modern conservatism were Catholic or converted to Catholicism.

In our very own political science department at Marquette, Dr. Hanley, Dr. Dobbs, and Dr. Wolfe, all known to have conservative bents, are all Catholic.

I know there are so many others, but these as just ones from memory.

I think noting the influence of Catholics in the conservative movement is important for a couple of reasons. First, I think it has implications about Catholic teaching on many subjects (theological, social, political, economic, etc.) and how various Catholics interpret it, especially on subjects like social welfare, pro-life issues, and the role of the state. This also has serious implications for American politics in general. Second, Catholics were an important element in the Democratic Party from the rise of the urban political machines in the late 19th-early 20th centuries when there was heavy Catholic immigration from Europe, and in the establishment of the Roosevelt Coaltion and support of the New Deal. However, after the 1940s, there seemed to have been a major shift in ideological alignment among Catholics due to the rise in anticommunist sentiment in the U.S. and from the Vatican. I don’t remember exactly which pope it was, but whoever was pope in the 1950s was extremely anticommunist and many Catholics followed. Probably more often than not anticommunists tacked on to a political philosophy that later became known as modern conservatism.

I was also looking online to see if there was any literature on this subject and was delighted to find a book by a man named Patrick Allitt: Catholic Intellectuals and Conservative Politics in America.

George Nash’s book The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945 also gives some insight on this subject, but not much.

Catholics in general still tend to vote more liberal/Democratic, surely not all of the conservative movement’s important leaders are Catholic, and there are probably very influential liberal leaders who are Catholic. What I am saying is that the role of Catholic individuals in shaping and sustaining the conservative movement is monumental and I think should be more highlighted. I hope to do so in later posts.

Since this is just one blog post, I don’t want to get too detailed yet since there are so many specific topics that can be further discussed and debated. The point of this specific post was to note that several of the most prominent and influential conservative thinkers and writers are Catholic and I think it is worth investigating why. These people are deeply moved by their religious convictions, so why would they identify themselves as conservatives and why would they promote the conservative movement?

Hopefully I’ll have more posts up about this soon.

• Another instance of viewpoint discrimination at MU - April 11th, 2008
• The passing of a chief architect of the conservative movement - February 27th, 2008
• Newt video - February 18th, 2008
• Do the right thing... - February 18th, 2008
• Why can't we find a candidate like this? - November 29th, 2007