NOTE: Enjoy this excerpt from The American Daily Reader, by CatholicVote president Brian Burch and Emily Stimpson Chapman. To order the complete volume, visit the CatholicVote store today!
CV NEWS FEED // When the French statesman Alexis de Tocqueville arrived in the United States on May 9, 1831, his mission was to examine the American penitentiary system on behalf of the French government. He did that and more, eventually writing a detailed account of his travels through America and his observations of the fledgling nation.
Published in two volumes (in 1835 and 1840) as Democracy in America, de Tocqueville’s account touches on nearly every aspect of early American life, from economics and politics to religion and the slave trade. It also includes the devout Catholic’s thoughts on how his Church was faring in the United States.
In words that offer insight even today, he wrote:
America is the most democratic country in the world, and it is at the same time…the country in which the Roman Catholic religion makes most progress. At first sight this is surprising.
Two things must here be accurately distinguished: equality makes men want to form their own opinions; but, on the other hand, it imbues them with the taste and the idea of unity, simplicity, and impartiality in the power that governs society. Men living in democratic times are therefore very prone to shake off all religious authority; but if they consent to subject themselves to any authority of this kind, they choose at least that it should be single and uniform.…
At the present time, more than in any preceding age, Roman Catholics are seen to lapse into infidelity, and Protestants to be converted to Roman Catholicism. If you consider Catholicism within its own organization, it seems to be losing; if you consider it from outside, it seems to be gaining. Nor is this difficult to explain. The men of our days are naturally little disposed to believe; but as soon as they have any religion, they immediately find in themselves a latent instinct that urges them unconsciously -towards Catholicism. Many of the doctrines and practices of the Roman Catholic Church astonish them, but they feel a secret admiration for its discipline, and its great unity attracts them.
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