The conversation about Damon Linker’s Neuhaus article continues over at the American Scene, with good exchanges between Linker and Alan Jacobs, as well as quite trenchant points from Ross Douthat:

Which is why Linker, in order to read Neuhaus out of the liberal order, has to turn to his religious beliefs, and then read those back into his politics. The dishonesty of this maneuver ought to be obvious. Does Linker seriously believe that in thinking that the Catholic Church is the one true church, and desiring it to thrive and prosper and expand its reach in American culture, Neuhaus has lurched into authoritarianism? This is a reasonably common belief among thoughtless people – the sort of people who think that private proselytization, say, is incompatible with liberal democracy – but one expects better from a former editor of First Things.

The irony is that Linker is right about one thing: the "Catholic neoconservative" project can be a dangerous one, if taken too far. But it’s potentially dangerous to Catholicism, not to America – because in attempting to smooth away contradictions between the American order and the Church, it risks losing too much that is distinctively Christian. The Catholic neocons aren’t anywhere near as compromised with the wider culture as their "abortions-for-everyone!" brethren in the religious left, but some of Michael Novak’s writings about the free market, or George Weigel’s arguments about American foreign policy, partake a little too much, for my taste at least, of our country’s quasi-Christian civil religion.