More on ProLife Progressivism

A couple of presenters at the St Tommy confab objected to my characterization of their presentations. I'll let the readers judge. The first is John O'Callaghan from ND, who blogged over at Ethics and Culture re my characterization of his presentation of the equivalence argument as a critique of the CE of L itself, as distinct from politicized formulations of it. Here is the link. The other was Kevin Schmiessing of the Acton Institute, who interestingly disassociated himself from my characterization of Novak's critique of the Christian/Catholic social justice tradition as importing secular, "statist" ideology at the expense of the faith's real message. Again, I'll let the readers judge, although I would add that I did not dismiss Kevins's argument that there is a Catholic "antiprogressive" tradition; the evidence for that seems overwhelming. The question for me is whether there is a Catholic progressive tradition. I am glad that Kevin does not dismiss that possibility out of hand. I'm sorry that my short, broadbrush summaries of complex positions did not do full justice to them.

In summarizing my presentation, you wrote that I "did not think

progressivism was very Catholic (especially "progressive" versions of

Catholic Social Thought)." This is not an accurate summary of my paper, nor

of my views.

My paper was titled "Another Social Justice Tradition: The Catholic

Antiprogressives." My argument was that there is a tradition of Catholic

thinking about social and economic issues that is outside of or at least

differs in significant respects from the progressive tradition that was

represented by most of the participants in the symposium. Never did I argue,

suggest, or even imply that one or the other tradition was (or is) "more

Catholic" than the other. My paper had two goals: 1) to describe the

antiprogressive, or conservative, tradition in its broad outlines; and 2) to

suggest that it is consistent with Catholic social teaching--not that it is

consistent exclusive of the progressive tradition; merely that it is also

consistent.

I did use Michael Novak as a representative of what I called a "new version

of the conservative tradition." This does not necessarily mean that I agree

with everything Novak says or writes. (I don't.) It is true that, given the

landscape of contemporary American Catholic social thought, I would fall

more into the "conservative" camp with Novak, than into the "progressive"

camp of Sidney Callahan and John Carr. But I would hope that my ideas could

e engaged on their own terms rather than conflated with those of Novak--or

even others at the Acton Institute--and thereby dismissed.

-Mark