The recent publication of Daniel Patrick Moynihan: A Portrait in Letters of an American Visionary (Public Affairs) is cause for both celebration and sadness: celebration, because his letters reintroduce us to Pat Moynihan’s scintillating intellect, sparkling wit, and penetrating insight into some the great issues of the late 20th century; sadness, because Pat was, in his time, the great Catholic “what if….?” of American public life.
Following the biblical injunction in Sirach 44:1, let us [first] praise famous men.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan was one of the five or 10 most influential public intellectuals of the past half-century, a man whose ideas eventually worked themselves into the hard soil of public policy. He was among the first to recognize the enduring influence of ethnicity in the political and cultural Mixmaster of modern America, as he identified early on the social pathologies destroying the African-American family—and he was pilloried as a racist for both insights. When most of the Democratic Party went into a post-McGovern swoon of appeasement and neo-isolationism, Pat helped lead the charge for a robust U.S. foreign policy focused on the defeat of communism through the defense of human rights. Long before welfare reform came onto the national radar screen, Moynihan knew that something was desperately wrong with our social services and coined the pellucid phrase “defining deviancy down” to describe the wishful thinking and counter-productive welfare policies then destroying lives, families and neighborhoods.
And along the way, he became the only man in our history to serve in the cabinet or sub-cabinet of four consecutive presidents of two different parties: Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford.
That public service, which culminated in his 1976 election to the first of four terms in the United States Senate, was marked by a rapier-like wit and a bracing, combative public presence. As U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, he raised polemics to a new art form while flagellating various corrupters of the moral coin of international public life; his speech condemning the General Assembly’s infamous “Zionism is racism” resolution remains a landmark in the annals of passionate advocacy. As for the wit, well, asked once whether it was true that he had been sick throughout his years as ambassador to India, Pat replied, “I was only sick once! It lasted two and a half years!”
For all of these reasons, it seemed to some of us, in the late 1970s, that Pat Moynihan was singularly positioned to do several things at once: save the Democratic Party from its nose-dive into the fever swamps of the Sixties; bring a new bipartisan realism to social welfare policy; remind us that a healthy culture was important for democracy; give America back a sense of itself as a protagonist of the history of freedom. In doing this, he might have uniquely embodied, in our high politics, the insights of Catholic social doctrine and the Catholic optic on world affairs.
Alas, it was not to be. For whatever reasons—New York state politics and fear of the then-influential New York Times likely high among them—Pat did virtually nothing about the great civil rights issue of the late 20th century: the defense of the right to life. He famously said that, while everyone is entitled to their own opinion, no one is entitled to their own facts. And no one as intelligent as Daniel Patrick Moynihan could have been ignorant of the scientific facts about the product of human conception, the moral facts about the ethical status of the pre-born child, and the jurisprudential facts about the travesty of legal reasoning that produced Roe v. Wade. Yet, until an end-of-career vote against partial-birth abortion, Pat Moynihan was not a happy warrior for life, as he had been a happy warrior for other great causes.
This was more than a sadness, a failure of insight and nerve. It marked, I believe, the greatest lost opportunity to bring the full range of Catholic insights to bear in public life in my lifetime.
George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.
Comments:
It may be YOUR greatest civil rights issue, but you have to face the fact that many like Moynihan didn't necessarily agree with your world view. But I must agree about your take on him being a great man.
I also take issue with your characterization of the Democratic Party as taking a "nose-dive into the fever swamps of the Sixties;". Many see it that way but that is something of a matter of perception. When we got to the 70's we were then introduced to the Republican Party taking a nose-dive into the paranoid and fraudulent world of Richard Nixon. I suppose it was your ox being gored back then, though.
More to the point. The fever-swamps of the 60's took hold and became the dominant wing of a major party. How long is the "but you guys had Nixon" rationalization going to hold? I understand it. I was of that number in 1970 myself. But at some point folks have to stop regarding current politics as either a vindication or condemnation of their cultural choices as a child.
I recall that Moynihan had written late in life that he had regretted so much of what he had formerly supported that contributed to the destruction of the nuclear family among African Americans, but he felt that we had gone so far in this destruction that we had no choice but continue to aid and abet a failed social policy viewed as the only social net we had. It seems he had not succumbed to cowardice so much as he succumbed to despair, which is a sin against hope.
Several years ago, Robert D. Novak spoke to the St. Thomas More Society (a Catholic lawyers' organization) in Wilmington, Delaware. Novak was a longtime friend of Moynihan. I asked Novak in the Q&A why Moynihan had voted in lockstep with the liberal wing of his party on so many issues, especially abortion. Novak said that Tim Russert had been deputed by the national Democratic establishment to deliver this message to Moynihan: if he didn't toe the line on these issues he wouldn't get renominated. Sad indeed.
Hmmmm. Let's see, a man who served multiple masters with very different fundamental MORAL values and beliefs.... who is being promoted as a "great" Catholic... Doesnt pass the smell test to me. I do recall something about two masters in the Gospel. Of course, none of that matters to post-Vatican II cafeteria catholics who subscribe to the feminist based faith of feelings and false Charity.
No, Pat Moynihan was NOT a great Catholic. He was a Social Justice Socialist politician who used his catholic heritage to buttress his ambitions, idols and his greatest cause....himself.
And it was done using the blood of aborted children.
AMDG
Knight
As to Prof. Barr's information on Russert's intended [carried?] message to DPM, I find it not believable for two reasons. First, Pat was not a guy that anyone wanted to threaten. Second, that threat would have been idle: look at the voting results over the years for the NY Senate seat. JS
Well done, Knight....I am assured as you are that you will march off into eternity in a blaze of righteous glory and certainty. The rest of us infidels, of course, will probably be condemned.
"He was simply factually wrong in arguing that the United States government, up until World War One, operated in a "culture of openness" and that this came to an end during the presidency of Woodrow Wilson when a "structure of secrecy" was erected that persists to this day."
Read Douglas Reed's books Far and Wide aand The Controversy of Zion and you may change your mind .
After I read Douglas Reed's books I'll curl up with a copy of "The Protocol's of Zion." I have no idea what you are saying here, I was simply making the point that Moynihan was wrong to assume that intelligence and secrecy in the American experience is a 20th century phenomenon. Secrecy is as old as the Constitution itself, which was crafted in secret. Many of our early presidents, Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Jackson used intelligence operations and routinely withheld information from Congress. That's a fact, and one that Moynihan, by talking about a pre-World War One "culture of openness," simply ignores.
" The strength of this secret group is shown by the fact in 1910, when Mr. House had privately decided that Mr. Wilson should be the next president,
---------- "
It is conceivable that Mr. Pat Moynihan was alluding to the alleged " power behind the scenes" since the election of President Woodrow Wilson in 1912.
Also a greater "what if?" on this question is what would have happened had the pro-life Robert F. Kennedy lived and won in 1968, or his brother in law Sarge Shriver in 1976?
I think it is well reasoned, un-biased and orthodox.
I admired Mr Moynihan for the most part.
One can certainly say or view James Moynihan as not being pro-life in an pure sense. But than he would most likely have been thrown out of the democratic party altogether, and his other ideas likely would not have been welcome in the republican party of the 80s and 90's either.
I don't fully understand the political system of the USA but if it means politicians are forced to compromise some of their morals or not be politicians at all...
What is one to do?
I have no idea, perhaps it has always been this way, and for that reason I remain a-politicial and glad that God allows repentance. I endorse more classical republics and monarchies with state religions. I do not participate in the USA local or federal government elections.
Well Richard, kudos for recognizing AMDG. However you seem to be a bit confused on condemnation, that is reserved to God Alone (maybe you can figure out the significance and source to that one).
Regardless, a Catholic has a moral obligation to not remain silent when someone is upheld as a "great" Catholic and it is not true. Now you may think my comment was less than charitable, but I think your reply belies far more about yourself and charity than me. Which by the way brings up minor point, I use a pseudonym for the same reason as the gentlemen who wrote the Federalist Papers. In short, unlike your reply, it's not about me but rather the subject and points put forth.
A grave "Smoke of Satan" has spread through the Catholic Church during the past 50+ years. And St. John Chrysostom's warning, "The road to hell is paved with the skulls of erring priests, with bishops as their signposts.", is not limited to priests. Political leaders who hold themselves out as Catholic but in the Public Square openly and actively support grave sin share the same moral responsibility. Christ's warning of supporting scandal is clear a vivid, drown in the sea with a millstone. It also serves as a guide post to one trying to understand charity. Likewise the virtue of silence is spoken to by way of a mote in the eye, not a beam. In fact quiet the opposite is commanded when a beam is seen.
So Richard, I did not march off in a blaze of righteousness against infidels but rather pointed to the beam lodged in the eye of a Catholic, Mr. Moynihan, and in the eyes of non-Catholics who like to hold him up as a paragon of a "great Catholic". And I did so strongly because I fear millstones and anonymously because I desire all glory for Our Lord God Jesus Christ.
As for Mr. Moynihan, I dont know if he is in Heaven or not. But if he is, I suspect he didnt get there without some suffering; you might want to read St. John of the Cross to understand the difference between going "directly to Heaven" and going to Heaven.
AMDG
Knight
A compelling argument can be made, but not for a responsible center regarding abortion. Unless one would like to argue there was a responsible center to any of the various holocausts that have take place throughout the history of man.....
Also, the very point you make regarding his opposition to forms of abortion, along with the quote you used serve as clear and very compelling argument that Mr. Moynihan was not a great Catholic. Rather they are the basis for a very compelling argument that Mr. Moynihan was a politician that used his Catholicism only when it benefited himself AND that he placed his Democratic Party above his dedication to the Catholic Church. If this were not the case why do we not have a quote of Mr. Moynihan saying something similar to the quote you used; "you people are destroying the Catholic Church with your insistence against abortion".
As for "the progressive conservative tradition", in the future you probably want to reconsider such observations, the irrationality and self contradiction of such is hard to miss.
AMDG
Knight
“In fact about the only thing I have to offer is a reasonably good knowledge of the Irish role in the current political-economic life of the city, and some doubtless distorted notions abut the role of the Church in the life of the city. (I ought to say in candor that while I am reasonably strict in my observances, I am like Lord Melbourne, more a buttress of the church than a pillar, in that I support it from the outside.)”