The central question underlying this series of discussions has been, “Should Catholics follow the utopian vision of modern democracies?” Many might think this is a question about whether or not Catholics should live within and work with democracies. Certainly they can, and indeed, those who live within them are encouraged to work within their system to transform it the best they can, in a process of reformation without end. Perhaps to deal with the confusion it might have been better to ask, “Should Catholics follow the current utopian vision of America?” This would not have sufficed. If we did not see this problem in America, we would find another nation turning democracy into an end in itself. Many people forget that the foundation of current democratic principles comes as a result of the “modern turn to the subject” in philosophy, and justifies itself from those same modernist principles. They are the same principles used to justify most revolutions, communist or democratic or other, in the world today. While some might believe that we have progressed past the stage of utopianism, all one has to do is look beyond the intelligentsia and into the real world to see how most people are easily swayed by such dreams.
One significant problem we must grapple with is the fact that most people have transformed a real good, freedom, into an idol. As with most idols, what we are given to worship is a perverted image, one which warps the minds of men and women, confusing them, making them forget what freedom actually entails. “It too has often taken on mythical traits in the modern period. Freedom is often thought as something anarchical, something simply opposed to institutions. This makes it an idol, since human freedom can never be anything other than a freedom expressed in the right way of living in common – freedom in justice. Otherwise, it becomes a lie and leads to slavery” Joseph Ratzinger, Values in a Time of Upheaval. trans. Brian McNeil (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2006), 26. It is in the name of freedom, after it has been turned into an ultimate good, where many justify whatever evil they do, as we see, for example, by those who support abortion.
This does not mean we should completely reject democratic principles. There is much good which has been done within democratic institutions. Moreover, the Church praises the good it finds in democratic nations. In his 1987 Apostolic Visit to the United States, Pope John Paul II congratulated the United States for the bicentennial celebration of its Constitution, praising what great things can be found within it. “And finally I come to join you as you celebrate the bicentennial of the great document, the Constitution of the United States of America. I willing join you in your prayer of thanksgiving to God for the providential way in which the Constitution has served the people of this nation for two centuries: for the union it has formed, for the justice it has established, the tranquility and peace it has ensured, the general welfare it has promoted and the blessings of liberty it has secured” John Paul II, Speech At Miami Airport, September 10, 1987 pages 130 -132 in The Pope Speaks to the American Church (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992), 131. In that statement, one might think that the Pope embraced the American political institution and all that is within. This is simply not true. The Church respects legitimate authorities wherever it finds them, but it cannot express political preferences. “The Church respects the legitimate autonomy of the democratic order and is not entitled to express preferences for this or that institutional or constitutional solution” John Paul II, Centesimus Annus (Vatican, 1991), para. 47. Instead, the Church acts as a guide to all nations, to all political institutions. She acts as a critic, admonishing the wrongs which have been committed by any nation, but more importantly, encouraging whatever good they have done. Proper criticism of another, be it an individual or a society, does not degrade, it encourages; it encourages metanoia based upon those goods an individual or society already appreciates, showing how they are in conflict with whatever they do which is wrong: “the Church is duty-bound to offer, through the purification of reason and through ethical formation, her own specific contribution towards understanding the requirements of justice and achieving them politically” Pope Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est (Vatican, 2005), para.28. Christians should recognize the full force of these criticisms, whenever they are made, and find a way to deal with them, in the most ethical fashion possible.
Some governments and nations will last longer than others, and it is difficult, if not impossible, to predict how successful any given state will be. There are factors which we can use to predict the stability or instability of a state, but they are only aspects of a wider equation, an equation we can never grasp. The unpredictability of international relations, scientific advances, and ecological circumstances, among others, creates variables which over-ride theory. This explains why critics such as St Thomas Aquinas or de Maistre could not accurately predict the stability of modern democratic states: they only saw the instability of previous democracies and extrapolated their ideas from this. Yet we must not be too quick to dismiss their arguments. If we give a careful examination of the history of the United States, it is obvious that that it has not continued without a collapse of its political institution. The Civil War is by far the greatest proof of the instability of the United States (although one can offer other examples, such as the breakdown of society we found in the 1960s). Moreover, as de Maistre and Pobedonostsev predicted, there have been times when the will have a majority manifested itself in cruel, tyrannical actions, such as in the case of slavery, or in the ways the United States acted against its treaties with the Native Americans. We must also admit that the continued slaughter of the unborn, that is abortion, continues and provides ample evidence for their criticism. Democracy, at least as much as in any other political system, is open to abuse.
What then is a Christian to do? Should they forsake the world? If, as the fifth chapter of the anonymous letter to Diognetus suggests, “They dwell in their own countries, simply as sojourners. […] They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven” The Epistle to Diognetus (ANF1), do Christians really have a place in the world and the things of the world? Is political activity a corruption of the Christian spirit? No, because we are incarnate beings, people of flesh and blood, and Christ did not come to destroy the world in some gnostic form of transcendence, but to transfigure the world, and all that is within it. Christians are called to act upon the grace given to them, and to spread it through the world, to act as God’s agents in history, realizing that it is not in history but in the eschaton that the fulfillment of their achievements will be discerned. “Only through history is meta-history attained” (Paul Evdokimov, “The Church and Society,” 75). Indeed, to fulfill the personal charism given to each of us, we must be social, and create social institutions, never clinging to what we have created, but leaving them open for change, for transformation, for improvement through the continued work of grace upon the world. “Each man is also a member of society; hence he belongs to the community of man. It is not just certain individuals but all men who are called to further the development of human society as a whole. Civilizations spring up, flourish and die. As the waves of the sea gradually creep farther and farther in along the shoreline, so the human race inches its way forward through history” Paul VI, Populorum Progressio (Vatican, 1967), para.17. 
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