Mirror of Justice

A Question

Are my friends Rick Garnett (Notre Dame) and Chris Eberle (United States Naval Academy) themselves still friends?

Just kidding.  Of course they are!

Indeed, I doubt that Chris Eberle knows that Navy has a football team.  Chris?

Notre Dame's adult-stem-cell-research ad and initiative

Today, at halftime of Notre Dame's pathetic disappointing loss to Navy, this ad -- which describes a research project that uses adult stem cells and proclaims Notre Dame's commitment to life from conception to natural death -- ran.  And, this new webpage, on Notre Dame's Initiative on Adult Stem Cells and Ethics, was launched. Among other things, the new webpage has this:

The Catholic Church has been a robust participant in the ethical debate over stem cell research. It has vigorously opposed the use and destruction of embryos on the grounds that it constitutes the unjust taking of innocent human life for the benefit of others.

The Church’s argument follows from two premises.

First, as modern embryology confirms, the human embryo is a living, complete, whole, integrated, self-directing, member of the human species who will, if given the proper environment, move itself along a trajectory of development to the next mature stage.

Second, all human beings possess an equal moral worth and dignity, regardless of age, condition of vulnerability or dependence, circumstance, or the value of their life as judged by others.

Accordingly, “the use of human embryos or fetuses as an object of experimentation constitutes a crime against their dignity as human beings who have a right to the same respect owed to a child once born, just as to every person.” (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Instruction Dignitas Personae on Certain Bioethical Questions).

Thus, Catholic researchers and research institutions are morally prohibited from participating in such research, either directly (i.e., deriving the embryonic stem cell lines), or indirectly (i.e., “there is a duty to refuse to use such “biological material” even when there is no close connection between the researcher and the actions of those who performed the artificial fertilization or the abortion, or when there was no prior agreement with the centers in which the artificial fertilization took place.” Id.).

At the same time, the rich tradition of the Church embraces “science [as] an invaluable service to the integral good of the life and dignity of every human being,” and “hopes …that the results of [biomedical] research may also be made available in areas of the world that are poor and afflicted by disease, so that most in need will receive humanitarian assistance,” (Id.)

In service of this goal, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith recently urged scientists and research institutions to “dedicate themselves to the progress of biomedicine and [to] bear witness to their faith in the field.” (Id.).

Concretely, in the same instruction, the Church explicitly noted that “research initiatives involving the use of adult stem cells, since they do not present ethical problems, should be encouraged and supported.”

Notre Dame is uniquely situated to take up this charge by exploring cutting-edge adult stem cell research (along with other forms of stem cell research that do not require the use and destruction of human beings at any stage of development) in the name of the common good.

In this way, Notre Dame aims to bear witness to the proposition that respect for the dignity of the human person and devotion to excellence in science are integral and indispensable components of the richest understanding of the ends of biomedical research.

This is, of course, not enough; Notre Dame (and, of course, other Catholic universities) needs to do more to move the ball, and spread the word, on the sanctity of human life and the dignity of the human person.  But, it seems to me, this is a good thing.  Lots and lots of people (true, many of them were probably throwing things at their TV, angered by the Irish's performance) were reminded, on NBC, of the inviolable dignity of every person.

A Reader Responds

Thanks to Tom White for reading MOJ--and especially for his response below to my post.  It's clear where I stand on the issue of the "visitation":  with Sr. Sandra Schneiders and Sister X, among others (including my Aunt Betty, who is a Dominican sister).  I have nothing to say that they haven't already said, much more personally and eloquently than I could.

Anyhow, here is Tom's response:

I 'm puzzled by the reaction of Professor Perry and others like him to the apostolic visitation of institutes of women religious.  I am curious to know his views on the following questions:

1.  What obligation, if any, does the Catholic "patriarchy" have when faced with groups such as the Leadership Conference of Women Religious whose members purport to have moved "beyond Jesus" and the Church?  http://www.lcwr.org/lcwrannualassembly/2007assembly/Keynote.pdf

Apart from the obvious scandal (in the sense of endangering other souls) involved when a religious publicly embraces what can only be called apostasy, it strikes me as an act of great charity on the part of people like Cardinal Rode (and others in the "patriarchy") to  make an effort to bring them back into communion with the Church.

2.  Assuming some obligation exists, what objections do you have with the manner in which the Cardinal has sought to solve the problem?  I'm not aware of any criticism of the way in which Mother Clare, the nun that Cardinal Rode appointed to conduct the visitation, has handled it thus far.  But maybe you or others have.

On "Benedict's ongoing battle against secularism"

I'm not a fan of the National Catholic Reporter, but that newpaper certainly has a gem of a reporter in John Allen.

Thanks to Michael P. for calling attention to Mr. Allen's characteristically insightful article on Pope Benedict's ongoing battle against ideological secularism.  Allen rightly notes the Holy Father's crucial distinction between a properly secular sphere ('healthy secularism") and secularism as an ideology.

So here's the chance I've been hoping for to say to Michael:  Amen, brother!  (Amen to Brother Allen, too.)

For some thoughts of my own prompted by the Pope's distinction:

http://www.winst.org/fellows/george/Moral_Witness_of_the_Catholic_Church.pdf

"Benedict's ongoing battle against secularism"

Is there anywhere a more informed, or more insightful, commentator on today's Roman Catholic Church than John Allen?  If so, who?

This week's Friday missive from John Allen is especially good,  And that's saying something!

Read it ... here.

Professor Dickens’s Great but Tragic and Flawed Expectations

 

 

Thanks to Michael P. for alerting us to Professor Bernard Dickens recent essay appearing in Medicine and Law dealing with conscientious objection in the realm of “reproductive rights” and his assertion that there are occasions when the conscientious objector claim is “unethical.” I have read his interesting article, and it is clear that Dickens has a particular target in mind: the Catholic Church and Her teachings. He is a collaborator with his University of Toronto colleague, Professor Rebecca Cook, in advancing the notion that “reproductive health” claims are a human right. Indeed, they are in some circumstances, but “reproductive health” has another meaning for folks like Professors Dickens and Cook, i.e., abortion and its unrestricted access. Both of them are veteran scholar-advocates who zealously challenge those who disagree with their contention that abortion is a human right. Tragically for the unborn, they dismiss the right to their life. For them and their allies, it’s all about abortion and its uninhibited access: this is a right that cannot be compromised!

He devotes a full page of his eleven-page essay in excoriating the Church for Her position on abortion and the right to those who object to it to rely on conscience protection when the state or others demand their compliance in some fashion with the demand for its acceptance and accomplishment. Dickens’s conflation of Catholic teachings on bioethical and life issues with the Holy Office of the Inquisition is a neat trick and, at the same time, misinformed. He is, nonetheless, a passionate advocate for “abortion rights.” Because of this passion, he is familiar with the Holy See’s involvement at the International Conference on Population and Development (Cairo, 1994) and the UN Fourth International Conference on Women (Beijing, 1995) where efforts were unsuccessfully made by the pro-abortion lobby to advance the cause cherished by Professor Dickens. He further suggests that the Church is “commonly supportive of strident expressions of conscientious objection to many medical treatments that fall within the concepts of reproductive health and rights” yet this position, in his mind, “contradicts the pleas of Pope John Paul II... ‘that each individual’s conscience be respected by everyone else; people must not attempt to impose their own “truth” on others.’”

Professor Dickens labors intensively to mold the Church’s teachings to serve his objective—the promotion of abortion “rights” at the expense of legitimate rights. Once again, we see the will (Dickens) pitted against the intellect (the Church and Her teachings). Professor Dickens is inclined to conclude that the “truth” the Church advances is just one of those “truths” that cannot be imposed on others. But he is mistaken in his views on truth—for such a thing does exist. There is a truth that is absolute and universal about the human person and the human person’s nature. But he appears not to understand this first principle. Of course he offers a substitute for this truth—his view. And when his view attempts to incorporate what John Paul II said of conscience and truth, he appears to exclude—perhaps by oversight—all of what this pontiff said in the World Day of Peace Message (1991) that Dickens quotes in small part.

So, it would be prudent to consider all of what John Paul II said in that text [HERE] that is pertinent to the “rights” that Professor Dickens advances. What highlights might be offered of John Paul II’s take on this? Here are several pertinent ones that blunt Dickens’s argument:

In 1988 I proposed some reflections on religious freedom. It is essential that the right to express one’s own religious convictions publicly and in all domains of civil life be ensured if human beings are to live together in peace. I noted on that occasion that “peace... puts down its roots in the freedom and openness of consciences to truth”. The following year I continued this reflection by proposing some thoughts on the need to respect the rights of civil and religious minorities, “one of the most delicate questions affecting contemporary society... since it is related to the organization of social and civil life within each country, as well as to the life of the international community”...

[T]he individual person, despite human frailty, has the ability to seek and freely know the good, to recognize and reject evil, to choose truth and to oppose error. In creating the person, God wrote on the human heart a law which everyone can discover. Conscience for its part is the ability to judge and act according to that law: “To obey it is the very dignity of man”...

No human authority has the right to interfere with a person’s conscience. Conscience bears witness to the transcendence of the person, also in regard to society at large, and, as such, is inviolable. Conscience, however, is not an absolute placed above truth and error. Rather, by its very nature, it implies a relation to objective truth, a truth which is universal, the same for all, which all can and must seek. It is in this relation to objective truth that freedom of conscience finds its justification, inasmuch as it is a necessary condition for seeking the truth worthy of man, and for adhering to that truth once it is sufficiently known. This in turn necessarily requires that each individual’s conscience be respected by everyone else; people must not attempt to impose their own “truth” on others. The right to profess the truth must always be upheld, but not in a way which involves contempt for those who may think differently. Truth imposes itself solely by the force of its own truth. To deny an individual complete freedom of conscience — and in particular the freedom to seek the truth — or to attempt to impose a particular way of seeing the truth, constitutes a violation of that individual’s most personal rights...

The guarantee that objective truth exists is found in God, who is Absolute Truth; objectively speaking, the search for truth and the search for God are one and the same. This alone is enough to show the intimate relationship between freedom of conscience and religious freedom. It also explains why the systematic denial of God and the establishment of a regime which incorporates this denial in its very constitution are diametrically opposed to both freedom of conscience and freedom of religion...

Intolerance can creep into every aspect of social life. It becomes evident when individuals or minorities who seek to follow their conscience in regard to legitimate expressions of their own way of life are oppressed or relegated to the margins of society. In public life, intolerance leaves no room for a plurality of political or social options, and thus imposes a monolithic vision of civil and cultural life...

 

A few other points need to be made that reflect on Professor Dickens’s concern on “reproductive health” and abortion “rights.” Since the Professor had decided to rely on John Paul II, we need to take stock of something else John Paul II said about the Dickensonian enterprise in the Encyclical Evangelium Vitae:

Among all the crimes which can be committed against life, procured abortion has characteristics making it particularly serious and deplorable. The Second Vatican Council defines abortion, together with infanticide, as an “unspeakable crime”. But today, in many people’s consciences, the perception of its gravity has become progressively obscured. The acceptance of abortion in the popular mind, in behavior and even in law itself, is a telling sign of an extremely dangerous crisis of the moral sense, which is becoming more and more incapable of distinguishing between good and evil, even when the fundamental right to life is at stake. Given such a grave situation, we need now more than ever to have the courage to look the truth in the eye and to call things by their proper name, without yielding to convenient compromises or to the temptation of self-deception...

Life is indelibly marked by a truth of its own. By accepting God’s gift, man is obliged to maintain life in this truth which is essential to it. To detach oneself from this truth is to condemn oneself to meaninglessness and unhappiness, and possibly to become a threat to the existence of others, since the barriers guaranteeing respect for life and the defence of life, in every circumstance, have been broken down...

It is true that history has known cases where crimes have been committed in the name of “truth”. But equally grave crimes and radical denials of freedom have also been committed and are still being committed in the name of “ethical relativism”. When a parliamentary or social majority decrees that it is legal, at least under certain conditions, to kill unborn human life, is it not really making a “tyrannical” decision with regard to the weakest and most defenseless of human beings? Everyone’s conscience rightly rejects those crimes against humanity of which our century has had such sad experience. But would these crimes cease to be crimes if, instead of being committed by unscrupulous tyrants, they were legitimated by popular consensus?...

Everyone’s conscience rightly rejects those crimes against humanity of which our century has had such sad experience. But would these crimes cease to be crimes if, instead of being committed by unscrupulous tyrants, they were legitimated by popular consensus?...

 

And, it is precisely this public consensus that Professor Dickens is trying to alter so that the conscience that pursues the authentic truth of who the human person simply becomes one “truth” among many diverse “truths”—true only because someone, like Dickens, says so, but not true because they are in fact not. The Church teaches that to seek to preserve human life is not only a right but also a responsibility. To seek the opposite is no right at all but something that is opposed to the fundamental concept of the very thing that Dickens says he pursues.

RJA sj

 

Is the NYT anti-Catholic?

[Some MOJ readers will be interested in this:]

A Response to Archbishop Dolan

I am the national religion correspondent at The New York Times, and sent this letter to Archbishop Dolan yesterday. I would like to share it with the readers of his blog.

Dear Archbishop Dolan,

I was very disturbed to read your blog post about The New York Times, and about my work and that of my colleagues as “anti-Catholic.” You write as though the Catholic Church is some sort of special target, when in fact any institution that is accused of wrongdoing receives critical coverage and commentary. As you know, the Catholic Church is the largest religious institution in the world, and a quarter of Americans are adherents. The Catholic Church is a hierarchical church with a clear chain of accountability. It is only natural that it receives such scrutiny. As you acknowledged in your blog, there are recent developments in the Church that are “well-worth discussing and hardly exempt from legitimate questioning.” So when a newspaper undertakes this kind of coverage, it should not be seen as anti-Catholic. If so, we could equally be accused of being anti-Every religious group that we have called to task, and there are many.

You cite Paul Vitello’s front page story about sexual abuse in the Orthodox Jewish community as evidence that the Times is anti-Catholic. Paul and I find it a hard argument to understand. The Times has written about the sexual abuse of minors by clergy of many faiths: Jews, Southern Baptists, mainline Protestants, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Orthodox Christians, evangelicals. But the abuse story has been bigger for the Catholic Church simply because of the quantitative facts: there are more priests accused, more alleged victims, more countries involved, more settlements, more years since the problem first became public, more legal and financial consequences and simply more people affected.

In mentioning my piece about a priest who had an affair with an adult woman, you imply that there was no reason to run a story now that is 20 years old. You neglected to acknowledge that this piece was written now because the priest’s son is dying of brain cancer, he believes the church and the priest have failed him, and because the priest was still serving in a parish where neither his parishioners nor his bishop had knowledge of his philandering until I began reporting. One of the women he was involved with was allegedly a minor, and at one point the priest suggested that a pregnancy he was responsible for be terminated by an abortion. I wrote the story because church officials have said privately to me over the years that priests who violate their vows with adult women are far more common than priests who sexually abuse minors. Also, I have also been contacted over the years by adult women in similar situations. I wrote about this woman because she was willing to go public with her experience and had the legal documentation and photographs to prove that this was more than a case of he said/she said.

You claim that the Times ran this story instead of covering Afghanistan, health care and the Sudan, but as you know the Times is regularly full of stories about all these issues.

And finally, you cite as “anti-Catholic” the coverage of Pope Benedict XVI’s new structure for welcoming traditionalist Anglicans into the Catholic Church. The Times’ story did state clearly, as you pointed out, that the arrangement was a response to requests from some Anglicans. Certainly, the Vatican is “welcoming” these Anglicans, but many other Anglicans feel as if the church were making a bid for their allegiances. Our story used language reflecting these various points of view. Our coverage did not differ much from most of the media coverage, except that we were far more tempered than some.

Archbishop Dolan, you and I have known one another since we first met in Rome in 1998 when you were rector at the North American College. We met again years later when I was doing a story about you and several others whom I dubbed “Healer Bishops” who were trying to help the church recover from the scandal over sexual abuse by priests. I am pained that your blog selectively overlooked all the articles in the Times that you and other bishops in the church have praised over the years because you found them fair, and there are many (including some about your appointment to the Archdiocese of New York). This is why I cannot accept your characterization of the Times as “anti-Catholic.”

This weekend, I am going to the conference of the American Academy of Religion, the largest society of religion scholars, to receive their top journalism award for a three-part series I did last year on the Catholic Church. The subject was international priests serving in the church, and the series included stories about a Kenyan priest beloved by his Kentucky parishioners, an American vicar who selects foreign priests to serve in his diocese, and why so many young Indians choose vocations in the Catholic Church. To do these pieces, I spent many weeks in American parishes and a week living in a seminary in India. If the Times were “anti-Catholic,” why would it devote the reporting time and three consecutive front page stories to a fair and affectionate look at the contemporary Catholic Church?

Sincerely,

Laurie Goodstein

National Religion Correspondent The New York Times

Posted By: Laurie Goodstein
2009-11-04 2:42 PM

Is 'Marriage' a Civil as Well as a Sacramental Category?

Hello again, All,

Martha Nussbaum gave an interesting talk here today on the subject of same-gender marriage, a subject which figures into her forthcoming book on 'the politics of disgust.' I took the opportunity of the talk to raise a question that often has struck me, and that I would like to raise here to see what you all think. 

The question issues from a speculative thought that often presses upon me.  The thought for its part runs thus:  Much of the rancor that surrounds present-day argumentation and politicking about same-gender marriage seems to me as though it might be traceable to our tendency, when speaking informally about marriage, to run together two distinct categories. 

So far as *state* functions are concerned, 'marriage' seems to have a very thin meaning.  It seems to mean, so far as I can tell, little more than 'civil union.'  Talk about civil marriage, or civil unions, always seems to treat the phenomenon in question as a matter of the benefits conferred upon society by the prevalence of committed relations and stable households, and, accordingly of the state's having reason to facilitate or at any rate not hinder the formation of such relations and households. 

Within our nation's many *religious* traditions, on the other hand, 'marriage' of course has a much thicker, richer set of meanings -- meanings that often reach well beyond the here and now.  The fact that marriage in fact is a *sacrament* within the Catholic tradition of course is illustrative of just how fraught with transcendent importance, and hence how 'rich' in meaning and 'thick' with significance, marriage as distinguished from mere civil union tends to be. 

When I think about these differences, I often wonder why it is that the same word is so much as used for the civil and the ecclesial cases.  And when I reflect upon how muddling the two categories together might also underlie much of the distasteful 'culture war' lather that always foams up around 'the debate over same sex marriage,' I find myself wondering whether it wouldn't be a salutary thing simply to purge the concept of marriage as such, as distinguished from civil union, from state functions altogether.  Why not, in other words, assign the 'justice of the peace' the task of conferring official recognition upon civil unions alone -- when certain criteria that speak to matters of legitimate state concern are met, of course -- and reserve the function of recognizing people as 'married' to the church or temple, which latter of course have criteria of their own?  Isn't there something even, dare I say it, 'intrusive' about the state talking about our sacrament? 

I should perhaps emphasize that I am not here actually advocating any such measure, or this point of view that leads me to contemplate it.  I am only wondering about it -- whether it would be feasible, and whether it would even be desireable if so. 

One objection I can imagine would be that matters of political life on the one hand, and of culture on the other, are not as readily disentangled in our lives and self-conceptions as what I envisage here would require.  A related objection might be that we -- on some relevant understanding of who the 'we' here are -- would not want to work such a separation even if we could, in that it would force a sort of multiple schizophrenia or 'compartmentalization' upon us that just wouldn't be good for our mental health or our persons. 

Because so much of modern life -- particularly as a religious adherent in a non-theocratic, pluralistic polity -- involves such 'compartmentalization' already, however, it isn't altogether clear to me that simply dissagregating currently muddled 'marriage' into state civil union and ecclesial sacramental marriage components reserved to their respective spheres would appreciably increase the degree to which we already fall short of 'seamlessness' in our 'modern' lives.

What do y'all think?  

All best,

Bob    

Shiffrin Fest Part II

Hello again, All,

Just a quick note to say there's a very nice exchange between our friend Steve on the one hand, and Steve's & my colleague Mike Dorf on the other, over at Dorf on Law today.  I still plan to add some reactions of my own there and here, but will hold off for now since there's quite a bit to say and I've little time at the moment, which I'll be using to pose a more nicely contained question in a post immediately after this one.

All best,

Bob

American nuns may have been infected by the "feminism" virus. That's why the Vatican patriarchy must investgate!

Read all about it at dotCommonweal, here.

The Camino Begins...

 

(hoisting the censor at the Santiago Cathedral)

 After spending more than a month blissfully in first gear, I have shifted into second gear after returning home Tuesday night.  In many ways, reaching Santiago marked - for me and my fellow pilgrms - the beginning of a new camino in life. How could it not?  After all, I walked in gratitude for the many gifts I have been given in 49 and a half years of life and with a spirit of openness to whatever lessons the Camino held for me.  And, the vast majority of pilgrims I talked with, even -and maybe especially- those who described their pilgrimage as "non-religious," were on the Camino searching for direction in life or seeking answers to some of life's ultimate questions. 

Anticipation started to build in the few days before we reached Santiago (St. James) as we journeyed ever closer to our destination.  And, a wonderful  thing occurred - most of the people who were significant to me on the Camino reappeared sometime during the last few days and attended the pilgrims' Mass at the Cathedral on All Saints Day.  Over the course of the Camino, I had met and had conversations with people from 30 countries and had gotten to know quite a few of them.  On the Camino, when you part ways with a fellow pilgrim, you never know whether you will see that person again because they might get a day or two or three ahead of you or behind you over the course of a month.  And, I lost contact with most of these fellow pilgrims at different points in the journey, but there they were, arriving in Santiago the same day I arrived. 

We arrived on All Hallows Eve, and a group of young American, Aussie, and Canadian pilgims decided to walk that last day in Halloween costumes.  One guy, an American snow board instructor, got pulled over by the police (no, not for speeding - he was travelling at no more than 3 miles an hour!) for dressing as a swimmer covered only by a speedo and his back pack. Mark, Bill, and I spent part of the last day's walk composing a song, which we entitled "Buen Camino" (Good journey).  Our first two performances the song - at a celebratory dinner with 13 other pilgrim's Halloween night and in front of the Cathedral a day later - met with rave reviews.  If I can figure out how to upload our Cathedral plaza performance onto Youtube, I will share it with you all.

As I mentioned in my last post, the Mass was incredible.  And, just as incredible, the self-declared "non-religious" pilgrims were just as interested in attending the Mass as the religious pilgrims.  After Mass, the scene was something like a graduation where people who had known each other for a few weeks were saying there goodbyes, getting pictures taken, making sure they had each others emails.  On Sunday night, Mark, Bill, and I had another celebratory dinner.  And, on Monday at the airport, I met a Swedish guy who had just finished the 500 miles of the Camino Frances on a unicycle.  

Some More Grist for Rob's Mill

"Legal Protection and Limits of Conscientious Objection: When Conscientious Objection is Unethical"

Medicine and Law, Vol. 28, pp. 337-347, 2009

BERNARD DICKENS, University of Toronto - Faculty of Law
Email: bernard.dickens@utoronto.ca

The right to conscientious objection is founded on human rights to act according to individuals' religious and other conscience. Domestic and international human rights laws recognize such entitlements. Healthcare providers cannot be discriminated against, for instance in employment, on the basis of their beliefs. They are required, however, to be equally respectful of rights to conscience of patients and potential patients. They cannot invoke their human rights to violate the human rights of others.

There are legal limits to conscientious objection. Laws in some jurisdictions unethically abuse religious conscience by granting excessive rights to refuse care. In general, healthcare providers owe duties of care to patients that may conflict with their refusal of care on grounds of conscience. The reconciliation of patients' rights to care and providers' rights of conscientious objection is in the duty of objectors in good faith to refer their patients to reasonably accessible providers who are known not to object.

Conscientious objection is unethical when healthcare practioners treat patients only as a means to their own spiritual ends. Practitioners who would place their own spiritual or other interests above their patients' healthcare interests have a conflict of interest, which is unethical if not appropriately declared.

[Downloadable for free, here.]

Remember, remember, the Fifth of November

Today is "Guy Fawkes Day" (or, more precisely, for our friends across the Pond, tonight is Bonfire Night),  

When I was in first grade, my public school celebrated Guy Fawkes Day.  It did not strike me as strange at the time, though it certainly does now.  (Probably because of this guy, Henry Garnet, S.J., who was executed for not revealing the Gunpowder Plot, about which he is sometimes said to have learned in confession.)  Should it?  Would a public school's celebration of Guy Fawkes Day communicate to Justice O'Connor's famous "reasonable observer" that she was an outsider in the political community?  Certainly, that was long the celebration's purpose.  General Washington raised some eyebrows when he told his soldiers to refrain from burning the Pope in effigy as part of their celebration:

As the Commander in Chief has been apprized of a design form’d for the observance of that ridiculous and childish custom of burning the Effigy of the pope–He cannot help expressing his surprise that there should be Officers and Soldiers in this army so void of common sense, as not to see the impropriety of such a step at this Juncture; at a Time when we are solliciting, and have really obtain’d, the friendship and alliance of the people of Canada, whom we ought to consider as Brethren embarked in the same Cause. The defence of the general Liberty of America: At such a juncture, and in such Circumstances, to be insulting their Religion, is so monstrous, as not to be suffered or excused; indeed instead of offering the most remote insult, it is our duty to address public thanks to these our Brethren, as to them we are so much indebted for every late happy Success over the common Enemy in Canada.

In any event, instead of burning Fawkes, or waxing rhapsodic about how liberty, individualism, and all that is good were saved when the (alleged) Plot was thwarted, maybe we should read a little Eamon Duffy, and think about what England was.

The Millennium Development Goals: In Light of Catholic Social Teaching

By D. Brian Scarnecchia, JD  and Terrence McKeegan, JD

looks good. Focuses on a lack of solidarity and subsidiarity. Check it out further at http://www.c-fam.org/publications/id.1403/pub_detail.asp

A Message from Italy [Updated]

[The update is the Vatican's response, here.]

[MOJ friend, Pasquale Annicchino, Fellow in the Law and Religion Programme at the University of Siena and Editor in Chief, University College London Human Rights Review, sends this along:]

Lautsi v Italy: A European Everson?

Italian National Ms Soile Lautsi is mother of Dataico (11) and Sami Albertin (13), two children living in Abano Terme (Italy). They both attend a State public school. In the school all the classrooms had a crucifix on the wall. According to Ms Lautsi this was a violation of the principle of “laicità” or secularism. She asked the school to remove the crucifixes from the wall but the school refused. Therefore she decided to go to court. After several judgements, the Consiglio di Stato (administrative tribunal) dismissed her appeal. According to the tribunal the crucifix had become a secular symbol, representing values of civil life.

What did the European Court of Human rights hold?

According to the court the crucifix is not to be interpreted as a secular symbol but as a religious one. Students would feel under psychological pressure in an educational environment to privilege one religion over the others. According to the court the state is obliged to observe confessional neutrality especially in the context of public education where classes are compulsory and the aim of this educational experience should be to foster critical thinking.

The court found a violation of art. 2 of Protocol 1 (right to education) and art.9 (freedom of thought, conscience and religion), jointly examined. This compulsory display of a symbol, according to the court, restricted the right of parents to educate their children in conformity with their convictions and the right of children to believe or not to believe.

We might adhere to a “Borkeian” interpretation according to which international courts are a priori secularizing agents against religious symbols in public spaces but, even within the constraints of a blog post, a better analysis is probably needed.

First of all, it is worth pointing out that the court did not consider in this case the traditional doctrine of the margin of appreciation according to which under art. 9 of the Convention ”where questions concerning the relationship between State and religion are at stake, on which opinion in a democratic society may reasonably differ widely, the role of the national decision-making body must be given special importance” (Sahin, ECtHR 2005). The court dealt with it only under the perspective of art. 2 of the First protocol. This would mean for U.S. scholars a “pre-Everson” situation where different States pursue different policies and no common standards exist in the field. Under this perspective the case, if confirmed by the Grand Chamber, would signify for European Human Rights Law what Everson meant for the U.S.

There is also another thing worth pointing out. The court was composed of rather “secular” judges. Among them, Andras Sajo, former Constitutional Law Professor and a prolific scholar in Law and Religion. It is easily to imagine he played a leading role in this decision. Sajo is a strong separationist. In an article recently published by the Cardozo Law Review he claimed: “People are buried in cemeteries not because it facilitates resurrection but for public health reasons”. Amen. The other judge worth discussing is Vladimiro Zagrebelsky, the Italian member of the court. Why? Not for his background, he is not a human rights or law and religion lawyer, but for the process that led to his appointment to the court. According to a report published in December 2008 by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe his election was “ad hoc and without formal legal basis” (footnote 43). As a matter of faith in our judges, especially in such a delicate field, this is not a good start.

On the merit of the decision, as a matter of principle I continue to adhere to the basic rule outlined by Benjamin Franklin: “When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself, and when it does not support it so that its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil policies this is a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one”, or as Justice O’Connor wrote in County of Allegheny v ACLU “government cannot endorse the religious practices and beliefs of some citizens without sending a clear message to non adherents that they are outsiders or less than full member of the political community”.

In any case, respect for precedents and respect for procedures should not be an option. We deserve independent judges, so does Europe..

p.s.

In the next weeks the 2009 issue of University College London Human Rights Review will be launched. Justice Rozakis, Vice President of the ECtHR deals exactly with the issue of the margin of appreciation in the frame of the Convention, answering to the objections that Lord Hoffman made in his lecture on “The Universality of Human Rights”. The lecture provoked wide debate.

MOJ’s friends interested in the debate can send an e-mail to me and they will receive a copy of the review.

annicchino3@unisi.it

Pasquale Annicchino

Fellow Law and Religion Programme, University of Siena

Editor in Chief, University College London Human Rights Review

The Next Generation of Catholic Leaders.... in action at Georgetown?

John Allen recently published an interesting article called "The Next Generation of Catholic Leaders", on a  topic that we've addressed on MOJ in the past -- the nature of a perceived generational shift in attitudes toward the Church.  He writes:

Most empirical data has pegged this cohort of young priests, religious and lay activists as more "conservative," and there's a good deal of truth to that claim. In general, they're more attracted to traditional modes of devotion and prayer, less resistant to ecclesiastical authority, and less inclined to challenge church teaching and discipline.

Yet, I argued, slapping the label "conservative" on all this is potentially misleading, because it assumes an ideological frame of reference, as if younger Catholics are picking one side or the other in the church's version of the culture wars. My sense is that these young people are not so much reacting to (or against) anything in the church, but rather secular culture. In a nutshell, they're seeking identity and stability in a world that seems to offer neither.

Proof of the point comes when you drill with these young Catholics. You'll find they often hold views on a wide variety of issues -- such as the environment, war and peace, the defense of the poor and of immigrants, and the death penalty -- which don't really fit the ideological stereotype.

These observations are hardly unique to me, of course, but I included them because I wanted to issue a plea to Catholics my age and older.

This new generation seems ideally positioned to address the lamentable tendency in American Catholic life to drive a wedge between the church's pro-life message and its peace-and-justice commitments. More generally, they can help us find the sane middle between two extremes: What George Weigel correctly calls "Catholicism lite," meaning a form of the faith sold out to secularism; and what I've termed "Taliban Catholicism," meaning an angry expression of Catholicism that knows only how to excoriate and condemn. Both are real dangers, and the next generation seems well-equipped to steer a middle course, embracing a robust sense of Catholic identity without carrying a chip on their shoulder.

The students at Georgetown Law Center offer an example that demonstrates that this interest in breaking down "ideological stereotypes" is not necessarily limited to Catholic youths.  The Georgetown Progressive Alliance for Life and the Georgetown Law Students for Reproductive Justice are co-hosting a symposium on Friday, November 13, titled:  "A New Abortion Debate:  Emerging Perspectives on Choice, Life, and Law."  Both Susan Stabile and I will be moderating panels at this program.  Here's the description:

The long-standing debate over the legality of abortion in the United States can often be politically divisive and can drain resources and attention from other issues that affect the health and well-being of women and families. The goal of this symposium is to bring together pro-choice and pro-life scholars and activists who are interested in new and emerging ideas about the abortion debate, and the role that it plays in the U.S. and abroad. This includes both scholars working on "common ground" policy or philosophical scholarship, as well as other individuals who are seeking to broaden the scope of the abortion debate to non-legal and non-constitutional themes.

The well-formed conscience as the "certain" conscience

MoJ reader Robert King offers some thoughts on our conversation about the Catholic voter and conscience:

While in the process of investigating, the individual should give the benefit of the doubt to the Church; and only when every avenue of research has been exhausted can one claim to act contrary to Church teaching in following one's conscience. The Catechism says (1790) that our obligation is to obey the "certain judgment" of our conscience. While our conscience remains uncertain, our obligation is to seek correction of our ignorance.

The less well-formed one's conscience is, the less is one's responsibility for one's actions -- to the good or to the evil. But one action for which one will always be fully responsible is to seek ever-fuller formation of one's conscience.  In short, it is not so much that one "is only obligated to follow a well-formed conscience," but that only a well-formed (i.e., certain) conscience obliges one "against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority."

I'm not sure that equating "well-formed" with "certain" is consistent with Fr. Araujo's interpretation.  There are many instances where one can imagine a Catholic voter feeling certain about the moral truth of her conviction even when it conflicts with Church teaching.  At that point, it seems, we must either defer to conscience or to ecclesiastical authority.  For example, if a Catholic voter in the 18th century, after prayerful reflection and study of relevant teachings, became certain that religious liberty is a fundamental element of a just society, should she have advocated (and voted, if given the opportunity) for religious liberty, or should she have deferred to Church teaching (at the time) against religious liberty?  My understanding of Robert's position is that she should act pursuant to her conscience; my understanding of Fr. Araujo's position is that she should defer to Church teaching.

Hans Kung and the Vatican

One of my favorite theologians, Hans Kung, has criticized the Pope on the Anglican issue, See http://www.catholicreview.org/subpages/storyworldnew-new.aspx?action=7087, and the Vatican has fired back. See http://blog.beliefnet.com/news/2009/11/vatican-newspaper-denounces-sw.php. Although I ordinarily think that claims of Catholic bias and Catholic victimization are exaggerated (and the rhetoric of victimization is similarly used by many religious groups without sturdy foundation (as my colleague Mike Dorf has recently observed)- I think some of the nonetheless interesting work of Stephen Carter falls into the category of exaggerating victimization), some of the comments defending Kung at beliefnet are way over the top and give me pause.

Conscience and Fr. Ratzinger

 

 

Thanks to Rob for his joining me on the discussion on conscience and fidelity, a discussion we pursue frequently at the Mirror of Justice—and, I am confident, we will continue to discuss for some time to come. In view of Rob’s update regarding N. 16 of the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern Worlds, Gaudium et Spes, it would be helpful to know what this provision states in its entirety in the chapter on the dignity of the human person:

 

N. 16. In the depths of his conscience, man detects a law which he does not impose upon himself, but which holds him to obedience. Always summoning him to love good and avoid evil, the voice of conscience when necessary speaks to his heart: do this, shun that. For man has in his heart a law written by God; to obey it is the very dignity of man; according to it he will be judged. Conscience is the most secret core and sanctuary of a man. There he is alone with God, Whose voice echoes in his depths. In a wonderful manner conscience reveals that law which is fulfilled by love of God and neighbor. In fidelity to conscience, Christians are joined with the rest of men in the search for truth, and for the genuine solution to the numerous problems which arise in the life of individuals from social relationships. Hence the more right conscience holds sway, the more persons and groups turn aside from blind choice and strive to be guided by the objective norms of morality. Conscience frequently errs from invincible ignorance without losing its dignity. The same cannot be said for a man who cares but little for truth and goodness, or for a conscience which by degrees grows practically sightless as a result of habitual sin.

 

The quotation offered by Rob in his update is not from Cardinal Ratzinger and his commentary on N. 16. It was by Father and Professor Joseph Ratzinger and written after the Council in the latter half of the 1960s. Substantively, Fr. Ratzinger developed the specific passage quoted in Rob’s update in his discussion of Cardinal Newman’s thoughts on the matter of conscience. But Fr. Ratzinger presented his own view of the conciliar text and went on to explain that, “Genuine ecclesiastical obedience is distinguished from any totalitarian claim which cannot accept any ultimate obligation of this kind beyond the reach of its dominating will.” Fr. Ratzinger continued by pointing out that this text from the Pastoral Constitution simply presents the general outline of the Christian doctrine regarding conscience. He, Ratzinger, took pains to emphasize in his discussion on this provision of the Council’s document that the text emphasizes the transcendent nature of conscience, its non-arbitrary character, and its objectivity—a point that I think is most important about the formation of conscience that is well-formed. I concur with Fr. Ratzinger’s assessment that conscience, in a Christian context and praxis, must not be subjectively determined—and I think this is precisely what the “Catholics for Marriage Equality” in Maine are doing—subjectively forming their consciences. Fr. Ratzinger stated, moreover, that,

 

The fathers [of the Council] were obviously anxious (as, of course, was repeatedly shown in the debate on religious freedom also) not to allow an ethics of conscience to be transformed into the domination of subjectivism, and not to canonize a limitless situation ethics under the guise of conscience. On the contrary, the conciliar text implies that obedience to conscience means an end to subjectivism, a turning aside from blind arbitrariness, and produces conformity with the objective norms of moral action.

 

A few lines later, Fr. Ratzinger penned that “the habit of sin can dull and practically blind the conscience.” Here, Fr. Ratzinger is critical of the conciliar text in that it fails to give a sufficient account of “the limits of conscience.” He further noted that the text offers an “evasive formula” regarding the “binding force of erroneous conscience.” Here, the good father who was a peritus at the Council notes his own concern about the erroneously formed conscience. This is why I often speak of the well-formed conscience rather than conscience, because I believe that there can be an erroneously formed conscience that some folks rely upon to justify the decisions they make in life. I turn to “Catholics for Marriage Equality” in the Maine referendum as a case in point. Fr. Ratzinger concluded his observations on the conciliar text that Rob has brought to our attention by stating:

 

The doctrine of the binding force of an erroneous conscience in the form in which it is propounded nowadays [the 1960s and, I would suggest, to the present day], belongs entirely to the thought of modern times.

 

Because of what I have presented here, I do not join Rob in his assessment “that a person is only obligated to follow a well-formed conscience is in some tension with significant strands of the Catholic tradition...” I think Rob makes a good point, in which I concur, that much, but not all of the issue we have been discussing, emerges from poor formation of conscience. A person may be most sincere in his or her following a poorly formed conscience, but that conscience remains poorly formed. That is a concern for me, and it was a concern for Fr. Ratzinger.

 

Rob concludes his last entry by arguing that framing the Catholic voter’s obligation as “a duty to disregard her own conscience in the voting booth, rather than a duty to prayerfully and intentionally seek to form her conscience in the light of Church teaching, also raises tensions with democratic notions of citizenship.” I am inclined to disagree. Folks rarely form their views in a vacuum. They turn to opinions they trust or that they like or that they hear all the time, etc. I think the Church and Her teachings can be such a source; for the person who declares to be a “faithful Catholic,” then they ought to turn to Her teachings and the wisdom on which they are based. This should not generate tension with democratic notions of citizenship. If some view the Maine group “Catholics for Marriage Equality” as one source of information for forming their views, the Church must be viewed as an alternative source, particularly for the “faithful Catholic.”

 

RJA sj

 

Conscience and the Catholic voter in Maine

We've talked about conscience and the Catholic voter before on MoJ, but it's worth revisiting in the context of the Maine same-sex marriage vote.  The notion that a person is only obligated to follow a well-formed conscience is in some tension with significant strands of the Catholic tradition, including the writings of St. Paul, Thomas Aquinas, Peter Abelard, and Albert the Great.  In the estimation of these and other leading figures, the culpability lies in the poor formation, not in obeying the conscience that results from the poor formation.  Besides running counter to much that has come before in our faith tradition, framing the Catholic voter's obligation as a duty to disregard her own conscience in the voting booth, rather than a duty to prayerfully and intentionally seek to form her conscience in the light of Church teaching, also raises tension with democratic notions of citizenship.

UPDATE: Greg Kalscheur brings to my attention this quote from Cardinal Ratzinger's Commentary on section 16 of Vatican II's Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World:

Over the pope as the expression of the binding claim of ecclesiastical authority there still stands one's own conscience, which must be obeyed before all else, if necessary even against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority.  [The conscience of the individual] confronts him with a supreme and ultimate tribunal[,] which in the last resort is beyond the claim of external social groups, even of the official church.

Cultivating a Franciscan sensibility among lawyers

Even in his first post, Bob Hockett has contributed significantly to the Catholic legal theory project. There is a lot to explore along the lines of his Franciscan worldview and its implications for our understanding of lawyers and the work they do.  I write only to note my admiration for his progression from Augustinian to Thomist to Franciscan.  More often, I think, we start out as Franciscans and move in an Augustinian direction -- filled with wonder and awe for the particulars of creation when we're young, then gradually overtaken by the reality of sin, retreating into a defensive, or at least wary, posture toward creation.  I know I could benefit from having a few more daily "Thou" encounters with my surroundings.  Maintaining a sense of the sacred in our everyday encounters, despite our familiarity with the sinfulness that is never far from the surface of those encounters, seems to be an especially pressing challenge for lawyers.  Can legal educators play a role in helping lawyers meet this challenge? 

As goes Maine...

 

Tomorrow voters in Maine will cast their individual ballots on the proposal to determine the meaning of marriage—the Question 1 initiative. A “yes” is a vote for the defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Sound familiar? There are strong parallels between this issue and the Proposition 8 question that California voters addressed a few months ago.

The matter in the Maine ballot clearly addresses the question of what a marriage is and what it is not. The current law and Catholic teaching on the matter run a parallel course. But, like in many states a strong, aggressive lobby wishes to change all this. Their success in litigation and ballot initiatives is mixed, but they have made remarkable and perilous headway in “redefining” marriage.

I write tonight to bring to the attention of the Mirror of Justice community the work of a group of individuals who claim to be “faithful Catholics” who believe that marriage ought to be between a man and a man or a woman and a woman in addition to the union of one man and one woman. They criticize their bishop, Bishop Richard Malone of Portland, Maine. They claim to offer a “Catholic case for same-sex marriage.” [HERE] Moreover, they allege that the bishop “has missed the point.”

He has not.

The so-called Catholics who advocate for same-sex marriage are the ones who are in error. I have argued why this is so enough times in the past. [Download Equality and Same Sex Marriage] Some of the Catholic advocates argue that they are “obligated” to follow “their own informed consciences on the matter.” If they were Catholic, they would know that this formulation is in error if one follows Church teaching. They are obligated to follow a well-formed conscience, not a subjectively determined one that is premised on grave error. But I digress.

Bishop Malone has offered his own perspective [HERE].

Pollsters appear to agree that the outcome of the initiative is too close to call. That being said, I shall pray that sense and sensibility and the reasoned position of the Church will prevail. Perhaps others may wish to join me in this effort.

 

RJA sj

 

Steve Shiffrin Fest

Hello All,

A quick note to congratulate our friend Steve Shiffrin upon the release of his new book on the 'Religious Left.'  We held an illuminating symposium here this past Friday to mark the occasion.  I'll write more about that a bit later.  I thought right now I would mention that our colleague Mike Dorf has a very nice post on the event over on Dorf on Law, with a helpful comment thread attached.

All best and more soon, Bob

Welcome home, Michael

I suspect I speak for many MOJ readers and bloggers when I say how wonderful and inspiring it has been to have had Michael's faith-filled dispatches from the Camino these past few weeks.  What a blessed experience this been for him, and for all of us.  Thanks, Michael!

Gratitude in Santiago

We just finished the Pilgrim´s Mass at theCathedral, and it was one of the most beautiful masses I have ever attended with the choir´s voices moving through the church like angels.  The pilgrim´s were fumigated with a big censor (sp), which took 7 or 8 people to swing it high adn across the length of the church.  The mass was made more special by the presence of so many people I have gotten to know over the last five weeks, including several I had not seen in weeks.  Somehow, we all ended up here at the same time. 

The internet cnnection isn´t working well so I´ll post more when I get baCk to the US.  My heart is filled with gratitude for God´s graces over the first 49 and a half years of my life and over the past 33 days of walking.

Bob, I very much appreciated your post, whuch resonated with me as I have spent 33 days obeserving  the natural world at a walker´s pace.