Antichurch

The EWTN News article of March 24, 2026, reports on a conference titled “Orestes Brownson and the Mission of America,” organized by the Politics Department of The Catholic University of America (“CUA”), the American Family Project, and the Orestes Brownson Studies Foundation. The event aims to promote the 19th-century convert Orestes Brownson as a vital Catholic thinker for contemporary America, with his work “The American Republic” hailed as a solution to modern crises like progressivism and federal overreach. Conference president Tom McDonough states Brownson has “so much to say about modernity” and claims the motto: “What Aquinas was to Aristotle, Orestes Brownson is to our American founding.” Keynotes include “CUA” president Peter Kilpatrick on “the Mission of America,” historian Seth Smith on Brownson’s historical place, and former senator Rick Santorum on “Brownson and the Family.” Panels will address constitutional thought, democracy, and church-state relations, featuring academics from “CUA,” the Heritage Foundation, and other institutions. The organizers plan to digitize Brownson’s essays, create visual content, and hold annual conferences, framing Brownson as the premier Catholic intellectual for America’s next 250 years.

The article’s thesis is clear: Orestes Brownson, a 19th-century American convert, is presented as the Aquinas-like guide for Catholics to engage with and redeem the American political project from within, offering a Catholic solution to modern social decay. This represents a profound synthesis of Catholic thought with American liberal ideology, a synthesis condemned by the pre-conciliar Magisterium as the very essence of Modernist apostasy.