Preface: America, the Church, and Orestes Brownson

David Paul Deavel

doi:10.1353/log.2020.0035

Orestes Brownson For and Against America

Catholic Social Science Review ◽

10.5840/cssr2021268 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 26 ◽

pp. 89-98

Author(s):

Michael P. Krom ◽

Keyword(s):

The Body ◽

Political Crisis ◽

Body Of Christ ◽

Important Contributor ◽

American Citizenship ◽

Magnum Opus ◽

Catholic Mission ◽

Orestes Brownson ◽

The Church

The compatibility, or lack thereof, between Catholicism and American citizenship is continually raised by Catholic political theorists. With each new political crisis we face as a nation, proponents and opponents trot out their arguments in an attempt to prove that Americanism continues to nourish, or poison, the Body of Christ. This argument has been raging for nearly 200 years, and today an important contributor to this conversation is often overlooked: Orestes Brownson. While in his magnum opus, The American Republic, he spoke eloquently of America’s providential and Catholic mission, in 1870 he confided in Isaac Hecker that he had lost all hope for America and saw her as a corrupting influence on the Church in America. In this essay I explore Brownson as for and against America, showing how his later book, Conversations: Liberalism and the Church, reveals a consistency between his apparently contradictory stances.

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John Henry Newman and Orestes A. Brownson as Educational Philosophers

Recusant History ◽

10.1017/s003419320000577x ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 23 (3) ◽

pp. 408-417

Author(s):

Vincent Ferrer Blehl

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

New Hampshire ◽

John Henry Newman ◽

American Life ◽

The Future ◽

Orestes Brownson ◽

The Church

Orestes Brownson (1803–1876), preacher, journalist, editor, philosopher and controversialist, was born in Stockbridge, Vt., 16 September 1803. At the age of nineteen he became a Presbyterian, but two years later a Universalist. He married in 1827. From 1826 to 1831 Brownson preached in New Hampshire, Vermont and New York. He became a Unitarian, and was ordained a Unitarian minister in 1834. In 1836 he organized ‘The society for Christian Union and Progress’ and began to preach the ‘Church of the Future’. In the same year he became acquainted with Emerson, Alcott, Ripley and others who were labelled Transcendentalists. The latter were the dominant intellectual figures in American life until the middle of the century.

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Spiritual Healing, Sick Kids and the Law: Inequities in the American Healthcare System

American Journal of Law & Medicine ◽

10.1017/s0098858800002847 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 29 (2-3) ◽

pp. 269-299

Author(s):

Janna C. Merrick

Keyword(s):

Medical Science ◽

Spiritual Healing ◽

Best Interests ◽

Legal Rights ◽

High Tech ◽

Divine Love ◽

Religious Minority ◽

Human Need ◽

East End ◽

The Church

Main Street in Sarasota, Florida. A high-tech medical arts building rises from the east end, the county's historic three-story courthouse is two blocks to the west and sandwiched in between is the First Church of Christ, Scientist. A verse inscribed on the wall behind the pulpit of the church reads: “Divine Love Always Has Met and Always Will Meet Every Human Need.” This is the church where William and Christine Hermanson worshipped. It is just a few steps away from the courthouse where they were convicted of child abuse and third-degree murder for failing to provide conventional medical care for their seven-year-old daughter.This Article is about the intersection of “divine love” and “the best interests of the child.” It is about a pluralistic society where the dominant culture reveres medical science, but where a religious minority shuns and perhaps fears that same medical science. It is also about the struggle among different religious interests to define the legal rights of the citizenry.

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Ideas and Leaders in Contentious Politics: One Parish Priest in El Salvador's Popular Movement

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0140525x13009862 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 38 (01) ◽

pp. 76-101

Author(s):

PETER M. SANCHEZ

Keyword(s):

Collective Action ◽

El Salvador ◽

Liberation Theology ◽

Contentious Politics ◽

Religious Leaders ◽

Political Movement ◽

Parish Priest ◽

Historical Moment ◽

Resource Mobilisation ◽

The Church

AbstractThis paper examines the actions of one Salvadorean priest – Padre David Rodríguez – in one parish – Tecoluca – to underscore the importance of religious leadership in the rise of El Salvador's contentious political movement that began in the early 1970s, when the guerrilla organisations were only just beginning to develop. Catholic leaders became engaged in promoting contentious politics, however, only after the Church had experienced an ideological conversion, commonly referred to as liberation theology. A focus on one priest, in one parish, allows for generalisation, since scores of priests, nuns and lay workers in El Salvador followed the same injustice frame and tactics that generated extensive political mobilisation throughout the country. While structural conditions, collective action and resource mobilisation are undoubtedly necessary, the case of religious leaders in El Salvador suggests that ideas and leadership are of vital importance for the rise of contentious politics at a particular historical moment.

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