Orestes Brownson Part 2: Catholics as the Best Citizens

American Catholic History

Noelle & Tom Crowe

History, Christianity, Religion & Spirituality, Education

5 • 724 Ratings

🗓️ 30 June 2025

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Orestes Brownson was the first major American Catholic intellectual to gain an international reputation. His thinking on the significance of America, and the place of Catholics within American political life was new and unexpected. He believed, contra what many anti-Catholics in his day believed, that not only could Catholics be good Americans, but that Catholics could be the best Americans. He also had strong opinions on slavery. Brownson opposed slavery as a great evil, but he was not an abolitionist. He believed that those who held slaves had a moral obligation to treat them well, and to prepare them to be free men and women, but that simply freeing all slaves would bring about great harm to the slaves as well as society. But once the Civil War began, he became an abolitionist, believing that, since the South made the war about the right to own slaves, slavery must be ended as part of the North’s victory in the Civil War.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to American Catholic History, brought to you by the support of listeners like you.
0:11.0	If you like this podcast and would like to support our work, please visit American Catholic
0:16.0	History.org slash support. I'm Noelle Heister Crow. And I'm Tom Crow.
0:21.5	Today we're talking about the political thought of Arrestes Bronson, specifically what he
0:27.1	wrote about the place of Catholicism in American political life and his position on slavery,
0:32.8	abolitionism, and the Civil War.
0:35.1	We gave a biography of Brownson last week, but briefly, Arrestes Brownson was born in 1803.
0:41.0	He was a convert, having moved through a number of different faith traditions before becoming Catholic at 41.
0:47.2	He was a prolific writer and considered by many to be one of the most powerful intellects of the 19th century.
0:54.3	And what he had to say on matters mattered to a lot of people.
0:58.3	He wrote on politics, religion, culture, you know, all those topics everyone says not to talk
1:02.8	about.
1:03.3	Right.
1:03.8	All the topics, but sports.
1:05.2	Well, if he'd lived long enough for organized sports, he'd probably have had strong opinions
1:09.1	about those also.
1:10.3	Of course.
1:10.8	For one, he definitely recognized baseball as the most sublime of sports, and he'd strongly
1:16.3	opposed the designated hitter.
1:18.2	And interleague play.
1:19.7	Oh, of course.
1:20.3	All good people do.
	...

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