Timothy Gordon - Catholic Republic: Why America Will Perish Without Rome (Crisis Publications)

What should Catholics think of the American founding? Most observers have argued either that Catholics can reconcile the founding with their Faith, or that the founding, and the republican government in general, are contrary to the Catholic Faith. Tim Gordon makes a strong case for a third option: our republican founding appropriated a Catholic understanding of reality and can rest secure only on an explicitly Catholic foundation. Anyone interested in this debate should acquaint themselves with the details of Gordons fascinating argument.

Jay Richards
Executive Editor, The Stream

Tim Gordon is, without doubt, an intellectual heavyweight with a deep understanding of, and love for, the Catholic Church. He is also a good husband, father, and educator who is just as at home lifting weights at the gym as he is standing in front of a group of teenagers, teaching them the intricacies of the Summa . In an era bereft of leaders, Tim is a throwback to the days of yore, where godly men would not only have an intimate relationship with Christ and His Church but would be willing to stand up and defend it, regardless of the consequences.

Matthew Marsden
Catholic Actor and Producer

The framers held these truths to be self-evident. Timothy Gordon does a deep dive into the intellectual sources of their assertion in Catholic Republic: Why America Will Perish without Rome and finds, inter alia, a treasure trove of crypto-Catholicism. Not for the faint of heart, this book exposes popular presuppositions imbibed by many conservatives, while handing readers on both sides of the culture war a slew of provocative insights.

Patrick Coffin
Host, The Patrick Coffin Show

Timothy Gordon impressively substantiates the crypto-Catholic political philosophy present in the American Revolution and founding of the United States of America. Saint Thomas Aquinas asserted that man cannot attain his end by nature, but only by grace because of the exalted character of the end. Gordon demonstrates that the Natural Law tradition of America, in which she was conceived, must also be perfected by this grace. Without turning to the supernatural graces of Catholicism, America will not heal, elevate, or perfect her created nature. Gordon is provocatively accurate: America will perish without the philosophical and theological tradition of Catholicism.

Taylor Marshall
Best-Selling Author

In this intellectually stimulating and thought-provoking book, Tim Gordon highlights that the very source of Americas political and cultural salvation is the Catholicism that has been eschewed and even persecuted from the first days of the republic. Catholic moral thought, with its declaring of natural law, needs a fresh look in the world of American politics and culture.

Michael Voris
Church Militant

Timothy Gordon

Catholic Republic

Why America Will Perish without Rome

An imprint of Sophia Institute Press
Manchester, New Hampshire

Copyright 2019 by Timothy Gordon

Printed in the United States of America. All rights reserved.

Cover design by Perceptions Design Studio.

On the cover: U.S. Capitol (59994721), copyright Songquan Deng/Shutterstock; statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary (515443432), copyright germi_p/iStock.

Scripture texts in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C., and are used by permission of the copyright owner. All Rights Reserved. No part of the New American Bible may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Excerpts from the Catechism of the Catholic Church , second edition, 2000 by Libreria Editrice VaticanaUnited States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Washington, D.C. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

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Sophia Institute Press is a registered trademark of Sophia Institute.

ePub ISBN 978-1-622828-371

Nothing is more to be feared than too long a peace. You are deceived if you think that a Christian can live without persecution. He suffers the greatest persecution of all who lives under none. A storm puts a man on his guard and obliges him to exert his utmost efforts to avoid shipwreck.

Saint Jerome

Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage: Anger at the way things are and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.

Saint Augustine

Contents

Pippin : Why are they still guarding [the Tree of the King]?

Gandalf : They guard it because they have hope, a faint and fading hope that one day it will flower, a King will come, and the city will be as it once was, before it fell into decay. The old wisdom borne out of the West was forsaken. Kings made tombs more splendid than the houses of the living, and counted the old names of their descent dearer than the names of their sons. Childless lords sat in aged halls musing on heraldry, or in high cold towers asking questions of the stars. And so the people of Gondor fell into ruin. The line of Kings failed. The White Tree withered. The rule of Gondor was given over to lesser men.

J. R. R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

We have thought it fitting... that this letter should be addressed specially to you. It will also be our care to see that copies are sent to the bishops of the United States, testifying again to that love by which we embrace your whole country, a country which in past times has done so much for the cause of religion, and which will by Divine assistance continue to do still greater things. To you, and to all the faithful of America, we grant most lovingly, as a pledge of Divine assistance, our apostolic benediction.

Pope Leo XIII, Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae

An Introduction Important Enough to Be a Chapter

America is wired Catholic, labeled Protestant, and currently functioning as secular. In this book, I will show that this is true and explain how this confusion has caused most of our countrys major problems.

Moreover, I will show that, ideologically, every American Protestant, Jew, Muslim, or atheist is actually Catholic. Thats because America is a republic, and, to the extent that they are successful, all true republics rely on a citizenry that holds Catholic principles. When as America has done a republic strays from its fundamental principles, fatal problems ensue. Todays widespread immorality and ever-increasing tyranny are, in fact, symptoms of a much deeper problem: our nation has ceased to be a republic.

One solution and only one can restore our republic and recover Americas greatness: Catholicism.

Only the true source of republican principles Catholicism bears the answer to the problem underlying the six American symptoms to which I dedicate the chapters of this book.

Although Catholic apologetics usually seeks to convert others to the Faith, these pages aim for something less ambitious: revealing Americas hidden Catholicism, which I call crypto-Catholicism.

Thats it.

Doing this alone could be enough to save America.

* * *

Many religious and political conservatives long for a return to principles. Thats nothing new. The purpose of this book is first to demonstrate the real source of American principles Catholicism and only then to return to them.