A (Possibly) Immodest Proposal, by Robert Royal

By Robert Royal, The Catholic Thing, July 25, 2022

Robert Royal is editor-in-chief of The Catholic Thing and president of the Faith & Reason Institute in Washington, D.C. His most recent books are Columbus and the Crisis of the West and A Deeper Vision: The Catholic Intellectual Tradition in the Twentieth Century.

Anyone paying attention to American society today can’t help but notice that the public space afforded to religion has shrunk – and is continuing to shrink, day by day. The Supreme Court may issue decisions protecting the rights of churches and church schools to hire and fire whomever they want. And it may even, as in the most recent session, level the playing field a bit so that religious schools can receive the same state support as other non-public schools. But these are victories at the margins.

The main culture-forming institutions – colleges and universities, media, Hollywood, the arts, even corporations – sharply limit open expressions of religion, which is to say primarily traditional Christianity, anywhere they can. We can still worship privately, but we can do less publicly than ever before in our history. …