In Ireland the Catholic Church’s fall from grace has been dramatic and the pace of the decline in its political influence swift. The most recent and remarkable example of the church’s inability to persuade the electorate to defer to its moral authority was the referendum on marriage equality, when neither the church’s teaching on homosexuality nor the legacy of its social power held sway.
Precisely what factors are at play in Ireland, and how these can be understood in an international context, are matters of great significance. This is the terrain of Anna Grzymala-Busse’s compelling book, a meticulously researched, persuasively argued analysis of the political influence of Christianity in western democracies through the lens of six countries: Canada, Croatia, Ireland, Italy, Poland and the US.
In this first-rate work of comparative political analysis, the author explores one of the most enduring and important political questions of our age: how and why some churches gain and wield such enormous political power while others do not.
Her analysis extends to countries that have long-established democracies, such as the US and Ireland, and to those, such as Poland and Croatia, that have more recently adopted (or readopted) democratic government.
Her argument is that, ironically, churches gain their greatest political advantage when they can appear to be above petty party politics and affect policy through backroom manoeuvres rather than through public pressure. She shows that a church’s ability to access the corridors of power depends on its record of defending the nation, as it is from this that a religion ultimately gains its moral authority and, therefore, its political clout. Indeed, it is through its moral authority that religion exerts the most effective and enduring influence on politics.
Varying influences
Grzymala-Busse’s starting point is that the extent of church influence differs starkly across countries that are otherwise similar in patterns of religious belief, belonging and attendance. Even more surprisingly, this influence often endures despite broad public opposition.
So, she argues, if one wants to understand church influence on politics, one has to reckon with a set of interlocking puzzles: the differences in organised religions’ political influence; their peculiar ability to overcome widespread popular opposition; and the mechanisms of this influence in the face of formal strictures and firewalls.
Grzymala-Busse organises her study into three comparative analyses: Ireland and Italy, Poland and Croatia, and the US and Canada. In each case she assesses the church’s ability to influence policy on education, abortion, divorce, stem-cell research and same-sex marriage.
The result is an illuminating, original and evidence-based argument about the nature of the power that churches wield and the factors that dispose political systems to succumb to that influence.
Grzymala-Busse examines why and how both the religious and secular actors choose and deploy their specific strategies to influence these policy debates. As the paired countries are similar in terms of religiosity, economic development and political structure, the reader is enabled to see more clearly which factors underwrite the authority of churches in the political realm and which are irrelevant.
The core of her argument, and what the comparative analysis demonstrates, is that the historical fusion of national and religious identities gives churches moral authority, and that it is this moral authority, a powerful but brittle resource, that allows them to influence political discourse and social policy.
The contrasting cases of Ireland and Italy are instructive in this regard, as in the Irish case Catholicism and nationhood went hand in hand, with the Irish church assuming the mantle of defender of the people in the face of colonial rule. The Italian church, meanwhile, was vehemently opposed to the creation of the Italian state, even banning Catholics from participating in the newly founded nation.
As a result the churches had very different levels of moral authority over the two populations, and each ultimately became an archetype of different kinds of political influence: via institutional access in the case of Ireland and via partisan coalition in the case of Italy.
The analyses of Poland-Croatia and the US-Canada bring into view additional configurations of this relationship between national-religious fusion, church moral authority, and the channels of policy influence. Each gives further nuance to the reader’s understanding of the multifaceted and often fractious relationship between religion and politics.
Historical narratives
It is impossible to do justice to this work solely by focusing on the central argument, notwithstanding its brilliance, as its significance lies also with its deep understanding of the politics of religion; with its historically situated analysis of the way this politics intersects with national mythologies and identities; and with its appreciation of the way historical narratives shape the contemporary strategies of both religious and secular actors.
Its value lies also in the continuing importance of its topic. In its recently published report The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010-2050, the Pew Research Centre noted that the religious profile of the world is changing and that those with no religious affiliation will continue to make up a declining share of the world's population.
Religion, it seems, is here to stay, and its impact on political life is likely to persist in multiple forms. Nations Under God is an unparalleled resource for anyone interested in this enduring question of how, why and in what ways religion impacts on political life.
Linda Hogan is vice-provost and professor of ecumenics at Trinity College Dublin. Her next book, Keeping Faith With Human Rights, will be published by Georgetown University Press in September
