While the march of modernism takes its toll, the pro-family movement is growing by leaps and bounds. People are pushing back against the commoditization of faith and family. This rising resistance to globalism is manifested in the multi-dimensional aspects of the pro-family movement. There is community outreach, social welfare work, policy formulation, political action and education. It is in the latter category, education, where Washington, DC businessman and author Tom McDonough has stepped up to the plate and founded the American Family Project.

Tom founded AFP to establish a pro-family voice in the nation’s capital. He understands that as goes the family, so goes society.  (Full disclosure: yours truly is honoured to serve on the AFP board).

In Washington, public policy is crafted via collaboration of special interest lobbies and members of Congress. To be heard, you must have either money, connections or a public policy organization. AFP is a family-friendly public policy group, a strong intellectual force for fostering family-friendly culture. Towards that end, it recently sponsored a symposium on Capitol Hill, “Orestes Brownson and the Future of American Constitutionalism”

Brownson became a towering figure in 19th century America with a considerable following and political influence. While today largely forgotten, a “Brownson revival” is underway. And that is due in significant measure to the efforts of folks like Tom McDonough and AFP.

Who was Orestes Brownson?

In America’s first Census (1790), slightly more than one percent of the US population was Catholic. Today more than one in four Americans are Catholic or from Catholic backgrounds. Orestes Brownson (1803-1876), born into the die-hard Protestant milieu of early 19th century New England (Vermont), helped to give the rapidly growing American Church intellectual respectability. The great American historian Henry Steele Commager described him as follows:

"In his day Orestes Brownson was respected and feared as were few of his contemporaries; European philosophers regarded him with hope; American politicians enlisted his vitriolic pen; denominations competed for his eloquence; and when he listed himself among the three most profound men in America there were those who took him seriously.”

His book, The Laboring Classes, was widely believed to have caused the defeat of President Martin van Buren’s 1840 re-election bid. His collected works number 20 volumes. Nonetheless, he was quickly forgotten.

In 1937, New York City police investigated a vandalism case on West 104th Street and Riverside Drive, where teenagers had toppled and defaced a statue dedicated to Orestes A. Brownson (1803-1876).

After extensive investigation, police couldn’t find anyone who knew who Brownson was.

The irony is that Orestes Augustus Brownson was one of the previous century’s foremost intellectuals, involved in every major debate of the time: political, religious, intellectual, with strong opinions on all. (His collected writings number 20 volumes.) A seeker after truth, he joined several churches before finding Catholicism. In time he forged a place for himself as Catholic America’s first great lay intellectual.

Brownson’s journey included Unitarianism, Transcendentalism, atheism and political activism before being received into the Catholic Church at age 41. American political scientist Peter Lawler summed up his contribution as follows:

Brownson would conclude that man’s progress in history depends on his communion with, and the continuous action of, a Creator. He also concluded that belief in supernatural revelation and creation was not as incompatible with reason as he had once supposed. Before long, Brownson had decided to convert to Roman Catholicism and was received into the Church by Bishop John B. Fitzpatrick of Boston in 1844. 

The American Republic (1866) is Brownson’s most comprehensive work of political reflection—which means that it is about much more than politics narrowly understood. Republican—or distinctively and properly political—life cannot be understood simply on its own terms, Brownson argued. It must be placed in the broader context of human life as a whole and its proper relation to the truth about the whole of God’s creation.  

Brownson realized that reason and revelation are complementary, not conflicting, something not widely understood in these times.

How is this relevant to family life in the 21st century?