Conservative thought parallels Roman Catholic teaching in many respects. Not surprisingly, then, numerous Catholics have played a leading role in conservative politics and intellectual life in America, especially since World War II.

In the early years of the American Republic, Catholics Charles Carroll of Carrollton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and his cousin Daniel Carroll, a signer of the Constitution, were identified with conservative elements in Maryland politics and became prominent Federalists, the first conservative American political party. The only other Catholic signer of the Constitution, James Fitzsimons of Philadelphia, also was a Federalist and member of the first House of Representatives. In the nineteenth century, Orestes A. Brownson, a Yankee convert to Catholicism, became one of America’s greatest political thinkers. He opposed the radical, innovating spirit taking hold in nineteenth-century America and was described by Russell Kirk as “the most interesting example of the progress of Catholicism as a conservative spirit in America.”

Catholic doctrine and tradition are close in many respects to the basic tenets of conservatism. Pope Leo XIII, in his famous social encyclicals of the late nineteenth century, strongly attacked liberalism for its arch-individualism, which preached “boundless license” and disconnected men from God and the natural moral law. Rejecting the natural law and making human consent the sole basis for governance permitted no certain restraint to political tyranny. Leo—along with leading contemporary Catholic spokesmen in the United States—also rejected egalitarian leveling in politics and economics, socialism and communism, and innovating, impractical, and utopian social theories; he strongly defended private property; and he stressed the need for limited and sufficiently decentralized government. All of these principles coincide closely with, say, the “canons” of conservative thought as articulated by Kirk.

It should be pointed out, however, that the liberalism of the era that Leo XIII wrote against was classical, or laissez-faire, liberalism. This version of liberalism in the twentieth century has actually been identified with certain branches of conservatism, especially in its economic outlook. While the Church has given her support to the market economy, entrepreneurship, private economic initiative, the profit motive, etc., she has also insisted that the market must be limited to ensure that it is just, moral, and humane; that the rights of workers and the poor must be upheld; and that a proper role for the state—in economics and other areas—must be acknowledged. So, in spite of the Church’s affinity with conservatism in many matters, she does not fully embrace it or any particular socio-politico-economic perspective.

In active politics, the American Catholic community has been divided in its outlook and support for liberal and conservative candidates. Catholics were an important element in the Democratic party from the rise of the old urban political machines at the time of heavy Catholic immigration from Europe, and later most embraced the “liberal” New Deal. At the same time, Catholics were more like conservatives in their ardent anticommunism. After 1960, American liberalism became increasingly secularized and embraced positions, such as unqualified support for legalized abortion, that increasing numbers of Catholics could not accept. Catholics began to shift their support toward political conservatives and the Republican party. Still, in the confusion that enveloped American Catholicism in the wake of the Second Vatican Council (1962–65) some Catholics turned away from, or at least selectively rejected, the teaching authority of the Church and espoused both doctrinal and political liberalism. Others accepted their Church’s teachings, but did not carry them over into their political thinking and decision-making.

Among the more prominent American Catholic conservatives in the twentieth century have been the following: Francis Graham Wilson, author of The Case for Conservatism (1951); Russell Kirk, a major shaper of the conservative intellectual revival, which he helped ignite with his The Conservative Mind (1953); Fr. John Courtney Murray, S.J., one of the most influential Catholic spokesmen and thinkers of the 1950s who argued forcefully for the natural law underpinnings of American politics; William F. Buckley Jr., whose National Review became a major conservative opinion journal; William J. Bennett, secretary of education in the Reagan administration and a major cultural critic; Patrick J. Buchanan, syndicated columnist and sometime presidential candidate; Justice Antonin Scalia, the current intellectual leader of the U.S. Supreme Court; Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, a Lutheran minister who later became a Catholic priest and established the influential ecumenical journal First Things; Congressmen Henry J. Hyde and Christopher Smith; Neil McCaffrey, conservative activist and founder of the Conservative Book Club; Alan Keyes, Catholic radio commentator and presidential candidate; Edwin Feulner, long-time president of the influential conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation; Paul M. Weyrich, head of the Free Congress Foundation; Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton and noted Catholic scholar; Hungarian émigré scholars John Lukacs and Thomas Molnar; E. Victor Milione, long-time president of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute; historian and columnist James Hitchcock; syndicated columnist Joseph Sobran; traditionalist activist writer L. Brent Bozell; presidential speechwriter and political commentator Peggy Noonan; political theorist Willmoore Kendall; and traditionalist scholar Frederick Wilhelmsen.

Beginning with the pontificate of John Paul II (1978–2005), a revival of Catholic orthodoxy has spawned or focused renewed attention on many Catholic organizations and publications, some of which are avowedly conservative and others of which share many basic conservative principles. These organizations include Catholics United for the Faith, the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars, the Society of Catholic Social Scientists, Women for Faith and Family, the Catholic Central Union (Verein) of America, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, and the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute. Publications contributing to the Catholic renaissance have included the Wanderer, National Catholic Register, Crisis, New Oxford Review, Catholic Social Science Review, Catholic Dossier, and Catholic World Report. New or transformed institutions of higher education, committed to doctrinal orthodoxy, have appeared: Thomas Aquinas College, Christendom College, Franciscan University of Steubenville, and The Thomas More College of Liberal Arts chief among them. Numerous graduates or student interns of these institutions have worked in or become part of conservative political efforts in Washington. Ave Maria School of Law, recently founded by Catholic billionaire Thomas Monaghan, presents the promise of producing a new generation of natural law–oriented Catholic lawyers. Catholic lay activists in recent decades have also distinguished themselves in the “conservative” pro-life, pro-family, and educational reform movements. As a result, Catholic voters, especially those who regularly attend mass, have begun to make a stronger connection between Catholic moral teaching and political principles, usually to the benefit of more conservative candidates.

This entry was originally published in American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia, pp. 743–4.