William McGurn, writing on the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, is the latest conservative Catholic to rush to the defense of Congressman Paul Ryan. In making his defense, he calls especial attention to the column I wrote the day Ryan was announced as Mitt Romney’s running mate in which I labeled Ryan a “Champion of Dissent.” Consequently, it is both a pleasure and an obligation to respond.
McGurn’s begins his essay by stating, “Say this for the liberal impulse in American Catholicism: In its day it leavened the faith.” Actually, it is the faith that acts as leaven, not the other way round, but McGurn’s method of framing the issue is telling. He cites the role of liberalism in promoting the role of the laity against clericalism and the role liberals played in advancing the idea of religious liberty at the Second Vatican Council. The promotion of the role of the laity, I would submit, had very little to do with any liberal impulse. If anything, it had to do with specifically theological developments, such as a renewed focus on baptism, that focus itself a fruit of Pope Pius XII’s rehabilitation of the Easter Vigil liturgy. If McGurn wishes to think Pius XII a liberal, he is the first to do so.
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