I saw Dr Marshall’s article and found it interesting. He certainly didn’t employ the word theocracy, and forgive me, but I am actually not being pedantic when I make the distinction between a theocracy and a confessional state. **There never has been a Catholic theocracy, except, almost accidentally, the Papal States; simply because in that instance the Popes happened to be secular rulers of territory as well.**A theocracy, is, properly speaking, something like modern Iran where the religious authorities can override the civil ones in completely civil matters. Catholicism has never desired such a society.
All that being said, had England remained a Catholic country, her American colonies would have been Catholic too, and, I suspect, would have reflected the peculiarly English parliamentary system along with Catholicism as the established faith. This is extremely difficult to find an exemplar for, because the last period in which the English State functioned peacefully as a Catholic one was the middle years of the 1520’s. It is even difficult to predict in what ways English parliamentary government would have evolved had the country remained Catholic.
In any case, the question is moot, because such a society in North America today is simply not possible. For one thing, there would be no way of preventing the population from voting out Catholic laws it didn’t like. Therefore, either the mass of the people would have to maintain lives of almost heroic virtue and right reason at all times–something unknown to human history–or the state would have to be an authoritarian one.
All ideas of representative democracies functioning as confessional states are utopian. It is no accident that nearly every representative democracy on earth has demoted Christianity. Democracy assumes relativism of personal opinion and Christianity insists upon objective norms. The only way the former could be brought to the latter would be a miraculous conversion of the entire population to the most devout form of Catholicism, and for the conversion to be perpetual, effectively eliminating original sin. Obviously, I do not wish to limit what God could do, but it is highly improbable, to say the least.
The incidental fact that American laws long reflected Christian norms, especially in sexual matters, was the consequence of America’s inheriting the English Common Law tradition which had been formed by Christianity. As a residual Christian mentality faded in both Britain and America, so the laws changed to reflect the new attitudes. America differs from Britain in that Christianity is still strong enough here for there to be a real battle over many issues, but it is still difficult to make a case for laws grounded in a uniquely Christian, or Mosaic tradition to those who do not already form a believing part of it.
On the other hand, the US also has the advantage of the authority invested in individual states; and it is perfectly possible that some states may retain, or even regain, a stronger Christian ethos. It is true as well, that an increase in the number of serious Catholics could have some impact upon votes, and hence law. But even were this to be the case, it would always be fragile, because another future less devout group could overturn the laws again.
The idea of a truly Catholic American society reminds me a bit of an article written in 1976 on the premise that the Revolution had failed. Queen Victoria at a rodeo, George V opening the Panama Canal. Counterfactual speculation can be great fun, but it can’t change reality. As St Paul tells us, the truth is that “here we have no abiding city.”
