By Francis X. Maier, The Catholic Thing - Within the lifespan of the boomer generation, there was a time when most Americans believed they had a stake in ownership of the nation. Most knew the basic ideas of the Founding. Most had a shared sense of national history... Yet despite their differences, most Americans even then felt that they shared and had some say in the course of the country. Many still believe that. As the years go by, though, their act of faith seems to have less and less grounding in fact. We were a republic. We’re now, at least in substance, an empire.