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Entry: The Pragmatism of Russell Kirk Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/the_pragmatism_of_russell_kirk#3647 Post contents: "And, by the way, it’s not a mistake that the 'Continental counterrevolutionary' tradition is often called the 'Catholic counterrevolutionary' tradition." Mr. Richert is correct, for it is indeed called this. If it were also only true! Burke wasn't Catholic, though because of his support of Catholic Emancipation in Ireland and the French Church against the National Assembly's "reforms", some accused him of being Jacobite. Of the Middle European Conservatives, I think only Friedrich von Gentz and the later Friedrich Schlegel were Catholics. I'll check on this. In France they were indeed Catholics except the conservative extremist Maurras, who called himself "the Catholic atheist". (I guess we can call Henry Adams and Bernard Berenson "the Marian atheists", and Ruskin and the early Pound the "Gothic agnostics".) Eliot, C. S. Lewis, and Charles Williams weren't Catholics either. Does anyone know about Dorothy Sayers? Roger Scruton has written with eloquence of why he didn't take the Road to Rome. He's in VA now. Somebody send over Father C. John McCloskey for a chat over a cup of tea! Of course one must distinguish between _Wertkonservatismus_ (conservatism of values) and the _Strukturkonservatismus_ (social order conservatism). One could make the same distinction in the libertarian positions. Truth be told, except for loyalty to the concept of the Papal States, there is a tension between Real Conservatism and the Catholic Faith. One wonders if De Maistre leans more than just a little to the heresy of Fideism, anathemized at Vatican I in 1970 and by The Anti-Modernist oath of Pope Pius X. Even the Syllabus of Errors isn't quite Real Conservative (at least from my fallible memory; I'll check on this too). Catholics are more Thomist-Aristotelean than subscribers to Burkean prescription. When Benedict XV put Maurras on the Index, and for good reason, Action Française's large Catholic following fled in a rush, led by the Neo-Thomist Maritain. Also, Christian Democracy of the Windthorst-Adenauer-Leo XIII version isn't Real Conservatism. If the Magisterium is tense toward Real Conservatism, it is utterly hostile to Nationalism. So too Neo-Thomism. cf. Maritain's attack on "integral nationalism". And, of course, nationalism isn't Real Conservatism either. As to Mr. Richert's other post, I am curious, How would he have remedied Jim Crow laws with respect to voting rights? Maybe he isn't old enough or wasn't in the right place to have witnessed these; I am. I too hold the federal principle; I hold other principles. Sent at: 2008 08 21