Democrats, Republicans, Catholics

Bradley Lewis has two interesting posts (here and here) over at the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture "Forum."  This observation, in particular, seems right to me:

It seems to me that the basic problem here is to see politics in the categories of individualism and collectivism and to identify the Catholic tradition with collectivism. Individualism run amok (as sometimes seems to be the goal of many political "conservatives"--an odd thing on its face: what's "conservative" about that?) is often vicious, but so is collectivism. The question one should ask from the perspective of the Catholic intellectual tradition is what protects and promotes the common good, understanding the adherence to basic moral norms as itself partly constitutive of that very common good. This leaves a great deal for Catholic citizens and politicians to argue about when it comes to policy, without confusingly assimilating questions of doctrine to those of prudence.

Rick