American Freedom and Catholic Power

Rating:
Summary: A Classic of Bigotry
Review: If any twentieth century book deserves the monniker "Epoch-changing," Blanshard's 1949 certainly does. Although it is a classic of anti-Catholic bigotry, American Freedom is distinguished from other screeds by an extensive set of footnotes and better than average research.

Blanshard is a master of the political spin. It is clear that he is, like many WASPs, terrified by the expanding Catholic minorities in the U.S.

As Mike Jones has documented in John Cardinal Krol and the Cultural Revolution, the Blanshard book helped stimulate a coordinated effort to nip Catholic power. First, an effort began to break up the Catholic neighborhoods in the major Eastern cities, thus diluting their power base in the legislatures. Second, the foundations funded research into a "Catholic contraceptive," which became the birth-control pill.

The book tries to look objective, but after fifty years even the most strident anti-Catholic will admit that the language and presentation are offensive. It is ironic that a nation that ended WWII with such animosity toward anti-Semitism continues to promote anti-Catholicism.

Rating:
Summary: Paul Blanshard is not anti-Catholic; He is PRO-FREEDOM!
Review: Paul Blanshard was never an "anti-Catholic bigot." On the contrary, he was one of America's foremost advocates of true religious liberty maintained through strict separation of church and state! His writings only opposed the reactionary pre-Vatican 2 policies of the Roman Catholic hierarchy of his day. He never attacked Catholics as human beings or loyal Americans in any of his books.

In fact, his writings today are still timely when we are facing the same threats from the evangelical, fundamentalist Protestant Religious Right, which seeks to destroy separation of church and state through the current Bush administration's so-called "faith-based initiative." The Religious Right's current playbook is almost identical to the Catholic hierarchy Paul Blanshard so roundly criticized in his day.

With the acquiescence of all too many politicians in both parties, the Religious Right is eating away at our religious freedom through its incremental and cynical manipulation of the First Amendment by insisting that tax support for "faith-based" education and social services guarantee their free excercise of religion. This stands religious freedom on its head! Public funds are for secular education and social services only! Private funds are for religious schools and faith based social services. AMERICA, WAKE UP! If Paul Blanshard were alive today, he would be screaming out at the top of his lungs at what is happening in our country today.

Rating:
Summary: Blanshard & Liberalism's long love-affair with Eugenics
Review: Paul Blanshard's classic is an excellent illustration of why liberals are disturbed by politically active Catholicism. Check the references for "Eugenics" in his index and you'll find that in his eyes one of Catholicism's great crimes was its opposition to eugenics--the idea that the government should classify people into two categories, the fit and the unfit and not permit the latter to have children. According to Blanshard, "Recent studies, in fact, have indicated that, with modern techniques for saving the unfit, there is an average decline of intelligence (I.Q.) of two or three points in each generation."

You'll find similar remarks if you check out index entries on birth control and forced sterilization. Blanshard is horror stuck that Catholicism would urge Catholic judges to a "Flat Defiance of an existing law" in 27 states that forced men and women to be sterilized against their will. Recall that the next time you hear liberals claim to champion "reproductive freedom" against a terrible Catholic hierarchy.

If you'd like to read what Blanshard was supporting, consult one of Margaret Sanger's still-in-print books for a eugenic point of view and G. K. Chesterton's Eugenics and Other Evils for the contrary (and Catholic) point of view.

Fortunately for all of us, Blanshard, Sanger and liberalism in general were not successful with their scheme to radically curtain the birth rates of allegedly inferior immigrants from Italy (Catholic) and Eastern Europe (Jewish). And both groups have demonstrated through their children that Blanshard's once politically correct beliefs about their 'unfitness' and IQ decline were nonsense.

In short, though I disagreed with Blanshard, his book is interesting for the historical perspective it lends to current debates.