{"product_id":"9780932863980","title":"Neo-Catholics: Implementing Christian Nationalism in America","description":"Volumes have been written about the role the Religious Right played in achieving its  ultimate goal - the presidency of George W. Bush. But few know the primary and  essential role played by Catholics in instituting and directing the Religious Right as  the means for the neoconservative takeover of the U.S. government, a group the  author calls neo-Catholics. The first neoconservatives - Irving Kristol, Allan Bloom,  and Francis Fukuyama - were proponents of the philosopher Leo Strauss who  considered the ideal state as one ruled by an intellectual elite with religion used to  mollify and intimidate the masses into obedience.  Not only did Catholic leaders have a millennium of experience in propping up  monarchs and dictators, but also Catholics were the largest denomination in the U. S. Neoconservative Catholics were ready, willing and able to implement the  American brand of church\/state unification:  Christian Nationalism.  This book examines how hawks and neo-conservatives in the Republican Party  forged a nexus with powerful right wing Catholics that would change the face of  American Catholicism, the structuring of social policy in the United States, and the  American agenda in the world.     At the start of the 1980s, the Church's social justice agenda had been committed to  alleviating poverty, to demilitarization, to affirmative action,and to ending capital  punishment-an agenda antipathetic to the Republican platform. By the end of the  nineties, its justice agenda was marginalized, and political action was mobilized  around concern for the dying and the unborn.  Clermont's rigorous and extensively documented research examines how it was  done.","brand":"Clarity Press, Incorporated","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47132453863664,"sku":"9780932863980","price":19.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9780932863980_p0.jpg?v=1763861324","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9780932863980","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}