Playing God

January 9, 2023
In this comprehensive and unsparing indictment, journalist McConahay (The Tango War) chronicles the rightward shift of America’s Roman Catholic leadership. Among other “ultraconservative” Catholics responsible for that transformation, McConahay spotlights Heritage Foundation cofounder Paul Weyrich, whose belief that “moral issues should be at the center of politics” led him “to unite the political trajectory of Catholic bishops with that of leaders of evangelical Christians.” She also profiles Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who wanted “nothing more” than to be a priest but dropped out of seminary over racist remarks, and Domino’s Pizza founder Tom Monaghan, who bankrolled a lawsuit that overturned California’s regulations regarding mandatory donor disclosures for tax-exempt charitable organizations. According to McConahay, “the belief that God desires Christians to rise to power in secular institutions so that their understanding of biblical law might govern the nation” has contributed to misogyny, Islamophobia, institutional racism, and ecological apathy among U.S. priests and bishops. Though McConahay is vague on how to right the ship, she builds a persuasive case enlivened by incisive character sketches and lucid analysis of political and religious trends. This is an intriguing and often distressing study of forces encroaching on the separation between church and state in America.

February 15, 2023
A close-up study of the once-unlikely wedding of the Catholic right with hardcore Protestant advocates of small government and White supremacy. The Catholic vote is important, writes journalist McConahay, author of The Tango War: 75% turned out in 2016, "and since 1952, their vote usually goes to the winning presidential candidate." In 2016, that meant Trump, who, for all his irreligious behavior, commanded the allegiance of a large number of American priests and bishops--and not solely because of the abortion issue. The rightward turn, which, the author notes, puts many members of the American Catholic hierarchy against the views of the current pope, dates back to the Reagan era, when Catholic activist Paul Weyrich forged an alliance with the evangelical right, with Jerry Falwell's so-called Moral Majority (a term coined by Weyrich) leading the charge to pull down the wall separating church and state. In another unholy alliance, right-wing Catholics also made common cause with the Koch brothers, who, though professing no objections to same-sex marriage or abortion, shared their hatred for government intervention in business and social issues. McConahay examines the Catholic connection with such prominent right-wing actors as Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his Trump-adherent wife, a Catholic convert, along with forerunners such as Phyllis Schlafly and Richard Viguerie. Ironies abound, not least Catholic support for Trump against fellow religionist Joseph Biden and the widespread episcopal rejection of science to resist vaccinations and climate change programs, to say nothing of their dismissal of the notion that women can ever serve as priests or deacons. In this searching yet occasionally heavy-handed investigation, McConahay concludes--as have many before her--that the trajectory of the American Catholic Church may one day lead to a schism with Rome--backed, of course, by White nationalist dollars. Dark money meets medieval thought in this intriguing expos� of American Catholicism and its rightist discontents.

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