Orestes Brownson

From "Orestes Brownson" by R. A. Herrera:

Orestes Brownson is the Catholic thinker par excellence of the United States. There are no rivals. The decks have been cleared. No Catholic thinker has equaled him in national prominence, international presence, density of thought, variety of concerns, or sheer volume...

In many ways, Brownson was ahead of his time and prepared the way for the vicissitudes and conflicts of the twentieth (and perhaps the twenty-first) century...He was agonizingly aware of the depredations that a Catholicism become worldly and humanitarian would cause. He repeatedly marked the danger rampaging democracy presented to both the American republic and the Catholic Church. Though it is possible to choose either the liberal or the conservative Brownson as guide, a question remains: Was Brownson a prophet, a man who transcended his epoch, or simply an atavistic or Utopian malcontent?