The Return of the Establishment

Yesterday the Church remembered the martyrs of Cordoba. The Moors overran Spain in 711 and Christianity was oppressed. Many Catholics found a measure of peace and tolerance by cooperating with the regime but eventually a more vigorous, witnessing Catholicism emerged that dared to publicly declare Mohammed as a false prophet. The martyrdoms began in 822 but intensified in 852 with reign of the more severe King Mohammad I. So, we see that in Moorish Spain, the Church took two different postures to oppression and hostility: compliance and resistance.

At least weekly we remember the heroic martyrs of Elizabethan England, many of them learned Jesuits, who willing accepted torture, hanging, drawing and quartering in fidelity to Pope and Church when the broader Church submitted to the monarch as head of the Church. Here again we see two Churches: the collaborative and the oppositional.

In China today we have the two Churches: the underground, persecuted Church unfailingly loyal to Rome and the public, governmentally-controlled “official” Church. Again: a Church colonized by a hostile, state power and an underground Church that suffers persecution and martyrdom.

The USA Catholic Church split into two in 1968 with Humanae Vitae: the majority, especially in the academy, renounced the Pope’s restatement of tradition and a small minority accepted the same. The following 40 years has seen both groups developing in a tense, competitive relationship with each other. Formal, overt schism has been avoided because episcopal leadership has adopted an irenic, tolerant approach to dissent. The election of 2008, when a majority of Catholics actively supported the agenda of “choice,” however, marked a threshold. This electoral decision consolidated and sealed the allegiance of the majority to the emergent, anti-Catholic new Establishment.

In an insightful article, “The Return of the Best and the Brightest” (February 2009 First Things), R.R. Reno writes of the Obama presidency:

“Not since John F. Kennedy have we elected a man so closely identified with Northern urban, educated elites. His inner circle shares a similar profile. Their resumes shine with degrees from the old establishment colleges and universities: the Ivy League, University of Chicago, and so forth. There are no DePaul or Purdue grads to be found, no ward politicians, no in-laws with dubious credentials clamoring for civil-service jobs, no thick-nicked labor leaders…Their progressive views, trim physiques, and well-disciplined lives remove all doubt: We’re witnessing the restoration of the Establishment.”

Reno goes on to show that The Establishment, after the Kennedy era, transformed itself by diversifying and reaching out and captivating the “best and brightest” of other ethnic and religious groups into the orbit of Northern, secular, cosmopolitan Ivy League culture.

By this logic, Obama, culturally and morally, is no more Black than Biden and Pelosi are Catholic. Notwithstanding his dark complexion and their self-professed piety, they have been thoroughly assimilated into the dominant cultural paradigm.

Reno discloses the real nature of The Establishment:

“The easy combination of progressive ideals with institutional conservatism characterizes Establishment leadership. When the chips are down, what matters most is protecting the status quo. Therefore, the new Establishment evident in the Obama administration is likely to govern from the middle, as did the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations, which were dominated by the old Establishment. Expect moderate economic interventions and no fundamental changes in foreign policy.”

And so, the new administration moved forcefully to dead center in foreign policy with Gates and Clinton. Economically, they are anything but socialists: they are committed to saving the finance system and preserving a market economy. More precisely, they show a credulous belief in the preternatural ability of our markets, with some state stimulus and regulation, to stimulate the economy, provide universal health care, develop alternate energies, clean the environment, revive education, maintain world peace, and redistribute wealth…all by just increasing tax rates for the very wealthy. They are “true believers” in capitalism (albeit with an expanded state, a la fascism.) Consider all the millions donated to the Obama campaign by the bankers, elites and corporate America.

Culture and morality are where Obama and crew most embody the Establishment. By contrast, Sarah Palin is the antithesis of that value set: she has too many kids, including her (eugenically) undesirable; her children do not use “protection” and so give birth to “mistakes;” she likes guns, hunting and the military; she talks openly about demons and heaven and, worst of all, speaks freely about her love for Jesus! She actually means the person Jesus; not abstractions like justice, peace or the environment, but the actual person! She is quintessentially the redneck moron whom Obama described, in a moment of uncharacteristic candor, as “clinging to guns and religion” because she does not understand her real economic interests.

The Catholic majority supported the anti-Catholic Establishment in the culture war skirmish of 2008 because of a soft-leftist-materialism that said: “We can live with abortion, embryonic destruction, and all the rest but we can’t put up with the rich getting any richer. We can put those things like innocent life and family to the side: we need jobs and health care!” Recall that foreign policy differences were muted by election time since Bush had already established a schedule for withdrawal from Iraq and Obama was talking tough about Afghanistan.

Now we watch as Obama recruits “the best and brightest” of our pro-choice Catholics into his cabinet and continues the colonization of Catholics spearheaded over the decades by the Kennedys. Much blame for this domestication and castration of Catholic vigor lies (with some exceptions) with the bishops.

Their feeble resistance to the Establishment brings to mind an image of a Human Resources professional (think Toby of “The Office”) who comes upon a workplace scene where a stronger man is beating the living daylights out of a much smaller man. Aware of the liability and legal dangers of getting involved in the fray, our professional scrupulously avoids forceful intervention but dutifully protests: “This behavior is inappropriate and entirely unacceptable. It violates our ‘Zero Tolerance’ policy. It is being reported and there will be proper consequences.” With that, he calls 411 and then notes accurately the time, his precise words, and the fact that he called the police immediately. He is satisfied that he has followed procedure and is shielded from liability. Meanwhile, the bigger man is kicking the smaller man’s face in.

We can only hope and pray that our bishops and all of us may receive the courage and clarity to honor, visa vie the new Establishment, our memory of the martyrs of Cordoba, the Tower of London, and Red China.