Vote Zentre Party in 2012!

The German Catholic Center Party emerged out of the attempt by liberals and the state to crush Catholicism during the Kulturkampf. In the face of the unrelenting hostility of the German elite - and an active campaign to strip away Catholic hospitals, property, charitable activity, etc. - German Catholics formed the Center Party as a way of protecting the institutional interests of the Church and of Catholics. Thereafter, the Center Party - typically siding with the Social Democrats - often played a key role in forming coalitions that controlled the government

The Nazis hated the Center party, with a hate that often lumped "Jesuits" and Catholic politicians together with Jews and Communists. A significant portion of Nazi venom was directed against "political Catholicism," and to the proposition that Catholic political action should be limited to worship. That's why the poster to the right shows a Catholic priest being crushed along with a Socialist. Likewise, people forget that one of the first victims of the Nazis was Erich Klausener, the head of Catholic Action, who was murdered by the Nazis in their putsch against their own SA faction: the Nazis would not tolerate a rival who made claims on the loyalty of Germans through social action.

The American Catholic is making an argument for a kind of Center Party approach to Election 2012 in the face of what appears to be a renewed Kulturkampf:

The reason why is obvious. Put aside the academic policy debates for a moment. Put aside the debate over whether or not concern for the poor necessitates a confiscatory welfare regime, whether water-boarding is an intrinsic evil, whether being pro-life means being pro-subsidized single motherhood, or any of the other heated policy debates that politically-minded Catholics like to have. The reality is that the fate of the Church in the United States, which is not historically Catholic or majority Catholic, will necessarily be determined through a struggle of powers greater than itself.

On one side of the struggle is a coalition that respects the right of the Church to exist, even if it does not fully embrace all of her positions. On the other side of the struggle is a coalition that can barely conceal its violent hostility for the Church and is pursuing policies and programs that will have the practical effect of driving her out of public life. It isn’t my intention to make the hard case for that here, but most of us understand what the far-reaching implications of the HHS mandate will be. We understand that the kind of people who would propose and implement such a thing can be counted upon to press even further, especially when they no longer have an election to win. We are well within reason to label these people enemies.

As a matter of self-defense, then, we must work for the defeat of Obama this fall. There are other prudent reasons to do so as well. Obama’s vision of fairness and justice is irrational and warped. His recent statements on the HHS mandate are proof enough of this. In the view of Democratic Party, it is not simply our obligation to cough up as much as they determine they need to pump into another social program whose practical results are dubious; our refusal to do so is tantamount to actually taking control of someone else’s life and limiting their freedom. If I don’t want to pay for someone else’s birth control, this means I want to “control the decisions they make about their health” or something along these lines. This insane rationale can be extended to just about anything that can itemized by an apparatchik. There is no limit to what this regime believes it can demand of you in the name of its grand social vision, a vision which is sharply at odds, moreover, with the Catholic faith. As Pope Leo XIII wrote:

If, then, by anyone in authority, something be sanctioned out of conformity with the principles of right reason, and consequently hurtful to the commonwealth, such an enactment can have no binding force of law, as being no rule of justice, but certain to lead men away from that good which is the very end of civil society. — Libertas, 10

There is no doubt in my mind that this is a perfect description of the HHS mandate and its underlying principles.