Catholicism in the United States and Europe is heading toward trouble. The presenting issue is immigration. Vice President JD Vance criticized the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops for their hostility to “commonsense immigration enforcement.” Cardinal Timothy Dolan issued a testy response, calling Vance’s remarks “scurrilous.”
The American bishops are trying to cleave to the Vatican line on this issue. Pope Francis is always critical of those who propose to tighten border enforcement and limit immigration. He opposes abortion with strong words, true, but he vituperates with passion against populist politicians who tap into public discontent with elite-sponsored policies that allow for unrestricted mass migration.
What with all the talk of Trump as the second coming of Hitler, it’s difficult for many to recognize that we’re no longer living in the twentieth century. The same holds for ecclesiastical matters. It’s hard for many older clerics to recognize that the vast majority of people living today were born after Vatican II.
In the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church embarked on a sustained effort to reconcile itself with the dominant ethos of the postwar West. As I argue in Return of the Strong Gods, that ethos was characterized by an open society consensus. In response, influential figures in 1970s Catholicism articulated a vision of a Church “open to the modern world.” This meant emphasizing themes like “dialogue” and other notions suggesting engagement and openness.
Karl Popper’s influential book The Open Society and Its Enemies was clear about metaphysics. Strong truths were enemies of the open society consensus. Open-church Catholicism echoed this view, denouncing “dogmatism” and other forms of “rigidity” as contrary to the spirit of Vatican II.
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