Breaking the bargain

Fr. Richard John Neuhaus was in Philadelphia today to give the St. Thomas More Society's annual Gest Forum lecture.  The lecture was high Neuhaus style, with consequent effect: Many came away wishing they were capable of offering such courageous witness to the Catholic faith.  On the train ride home I was pondering how the laicized state has failed to uphold its part of the modern bargain.  The Church blessed the state's emerging as an independent instrument, rather than a sacral achievement under the watch of the Church, on the promise that the state would protect and reflect a true anthropology of the person, including the person's intrinsically social nature.  The toothpaste has left the tube, and now the very idea of the state's giving effect to an understanding of what is truly good for humans is drummed out of court.  Neuhaus's response to the problem, as offered today to a rapt audience of lawyers:  People of good faith must press on in every possible and attrative way to hold government responsible to the natural law.