I share Rick's reaction to Bishop Sklystad's letter to the President on behalf of U.S. bishops concerning Supreme Court nominations: the letter fails to make the distinction between (a) voting for policies that coincide with Catholic social teaching and (b) finding those policies in the Constitution. Of course, several of the bishops' emphases are pretty difficult to disagree with as a matter of constitutional interpretation -- for example, protecting "the rights of minorities" and "respect[ing] the role of religion and of religious institutions in our society and the protections afforded them by the First Amendment." But that's only because those emphases are stated at such a high level of generality as to dodge all the hard questions that the justices must confront in real cases. On some of the other emphases, the bishops fail to make any connection at all to constitutional provisions or principles -- for example, the emphasis on "ending the use of the death penalty" -- and it seems pretty clear they're just advocating someone who will vote for the right policies. (Let me add, too, that I want to see the abolition of the death penalty: see my "Religious Conservatives and the Death Penalty," posted to the right. But as a matter of policy, not judicial decree.)
On the other hand, Professor Gerry Bradley's criticism of the bishops' letter is less convincing to me. His problem is not that the letter speaks of policymaking rather than interpretation, but rather that it gets the policy emphases wrong. In particular, he thinks that the letter "weakens the message on abortion by unfurling the well-worn 'seamless garment'" -- "the term Catholics use to describe it when their leaders water down the pro-life message by lumping abortion with other issues" as Bishop Skylstad does by adding considerations such as "the rights of minorities [and] immigrants," religious freedom, and "ending the death penalty."
This critical reaction, in this context, strikes me as a bit knee-jerk. I certainly appreciate the argument that in choosing between candidates for office, a voter should always give abortion greater weight than all the other "seamless garment" issues combined. (I don't agree with the argument when it's stated that categorically, but I can certainly appreciate its force in view of the seriousness of abortion as a moral wrong.) But the voter usually has only two, maybe three candidates from whom to pick, and sadly in our current political world, one typically has to choose between abortion and several of the other "seamless garment"-type issues like immgrants' rights or the death penalty. In that context, maybe the anti-abortion candidate is always the lesser of two evils, no matter how inferior or plain bad the opponent is on all other moral issues.
By contrast, President Bush doesn't face such a bipolar choice with his nomination(s). He has a lot of qualified candidates from whom to pick, almost all of whom think that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided.* In that context, assuming the bishops are going to urge consideration of moral issues at all, it seems perfectly legitimate for them urge the President to ask whether the candidate in question will be strong on other moral issues as well as abortion. Note that the bishops' letter urges first that the nominee "pre-eminently" support the protection of life from conception to natural death. And note also that some of the other moral emphases in the letter are pretty darn fundamental -- again, "the rights of minorities," "the role of religion and religious institutions in our society," "the value of parental choice in education" -- such that it's questionable to dismiss them as just a "laundry list" as Gerry does. Bishop Skylstad wasn't asking for someone who would oppose CAFTA or lift the welfare family-cap.
One can reasonably worry that the "seamless garment" idea will dilute the emphasis on abortion in some contexts. But that does not entail developing an instinctual gag reflex whenever someone brings up other moral issues to consider along with abortion.
Tom B.
* OK, some of Bush's potential nominees may be soft on the protection of life. But if Bush picks a (non-pro-life) Gonzalez, it surely won't be because the nominee is strong on the other moral issues that the bishops emphasize.
Is the Church shifting its stance on evolution? Read the Times' account here.
Rob
Just went thru the program for the AALS Annual Meeting, and found a couple of things worth noting:
1. On Saturday, January 7 at 1:30pm the Section on Scholarship will have a panel on "Blogging: Scholarship or Distraction?" My answer to that question is "potentially scholarship, too often distraction." Some may remember the exchange Steve Bainbridge, Brian Leiter and I had about that topic about 18 mos ago (linking to all that is utterly beyond me), where I expressed optimism that blogging could be "scholarly." I remain convinced that blogging can become a preeminent means of scholarly exchange, and that MOJ is a good case in point. Too often, however, law prof blogging is merely hallway or lunchroom conversation with an electronic megaphone: a mix of valuable discussion of law and legal theory, political argument, gossip, discussions of what I had for dinner or saw at the movies, and attempts to prove who is the smartest kid in the class. Fortunately, one staple of those conversations -- what's wrong with the dean --- doesn't usually show up in the blogosphere. The panel should, however, be very interesting. Anyone know who is speaking?
2. On Friday, Jan 6 at 4:00 pm the Section on Law and Communitarian Studies will have "A Conversation About Abortion." I have no idea what that will be like, but it is intriguing. Anyone with info might want to post it.
PS John Breen's article on Catholic law schools, mentioned by Susan below, is a very useful critique of the claims of many Catholic law schools that they are adequately serving their mission.
--Mark
Newsday reports on a draft Vatican document regarding communion. Predictably, the draft cautions that "[s]ome receive Communion while denying the teachings of the church or publicly supporting immoral choices in life, such as abortion, without thinking that they are committing an act of grave personal dishonesty and causing scandal." In addition:
The paper covers a range of issues related to the Eucharist: It suggests, for example, that Latin be used during international liturgical gatherings so all priests involved can understand the proceedings, and it suggests that parishes consider using more Gregorian chants to prevent more "profane" types of music from being played.
It calls for priests not to be "showmen" who draw attention to themselves and says lay people can have an important but "minimal" presence in Masses. It says the tabernacle -- which holds the bread and wine held by Catholics to be the body and blood of Christ -- should have a prominent place in the church and not be shunted off to a corner.
Most significantly, though, the document laments the fact that fewer and fewer Catholics are going to Mass on Sundays -- in some countries, only 5 percent of the faithful attend -- and that fewer Catholics are going to confession.
As a result, many Catholics are living in a state of mortal sin when they receive Communion, it said.
I'm no expert on church growth, but I'm hoping that the primary component of the Church's reevangelization strategy is not simply to tell all the Catholics who don't attend mass that they're in a state of mortal sin if and when they do show up. Put differently, perhaps we should offer a bit more carrot, a bit less stick?
Rob
We have previously blogged on the question of what it means to be a Catholic Law School, part of the larger question of what defines a Catholic University. John Allen's NCR column this week reports on a meeting of a group of presidents, trustees, administrators and faculty from the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities with Archbishop Michael Miller of the Congregation for Catholic Education as well as Allen's own discussion with Miller.
Miller suggets that "it should be possible for Catholic educators to agree on some measurable "markers" of Catholic identity" that "would provide data in trying to determine how "Catholic" a given institution actually is." These benchmarks include not only concern for social justice, but: sacramental and devotional life, curriculum, percentage of Catholics among faculty, trustees, and staff, religious and doctrinal attitudes of students over time, and practice of the faith.
Obviously there is a difference in what benchmarks one might apply at the undergraduate level and those that might apply at the law school level, but the exercise ot trying to identify benchmarks is equally valuable. Regarding law schools specifically, I just received a reprint of John Breen's "Justice and Jesuit Legal Education: A Critique," 36 Loyola Univ. Chicago L.J. (2005). John argues that "the one indispensable feature that a Catholic and Jesuit law school must have in order to be deserving of the name is to bring the Catholic intellectual tradition to bear on questions of law and justice," a conclusion that would seem equally applicable to Catholic law schools that are not Jesuit.
Susan
From Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. This will be of interest to many MOJ readers.
Religion and the Liberal Polity
Terence Cuneo, ed., Religion and the Liberal Polity, University of Notre Dame Press, 2005, 280pp, $22.00 (pbk), ISBN 0268022895.
Reviewed by John J. Davenport, Fordham University
Religion and the Liberal Polity
is a collection of innovative essays from a highly distinguished group
of authors resulting from a PEW Trust seminar with Nicholas
Wolterstorff. The book is similar in quality to an earlier collection edited by Paul Weithman in 1997. Most
of the essays are successful in finding new angles on their chosen
topics, including the question of whether it is right for citizens and
officials in democratic societies to use religious beliefs as bases for
political choices or cite religious reasons in political advocacy. This
question has become familiar in political philosophy and democratic
theory since the 1990s, when an imposing list of religious thinkers --
from Weithman and Wolterstorff to Philip Quinn, Chris Eberle, Kent
Greenawalt and several others -- challenged secular-reason requirements
defended by John Rawls and Robert Audi. These
critics were motivated both by (1) the conviction that secularist
political theory is cutting itself off from powerful strands of liberal
religious conscience that helped abolish slavery and win civil rights,
and (2) that contemporary liberal theory is undermining democracy by
restricting it to inadequate epistemic sources of justification.
[To read the whole review, click here.]
_______________
mp
Thanks to Susan for linking to Bishop Skylstad's letter to President Bush regarding Supreme Court nominees. For what it's worth, I think Amy Welborn is right: The letter does not indicate an awareness that Justices are not (or, are not supposed to be) legislators. Their job (in my view) is not, for example, to "restrain[] and end[] the death penalty" (although I would, as MOJ readers know, welcome the end of the death penalty). As I see it, the job of Justices is to decide cases raising questions about the interpretation and application of legislatively enacted statutes, democratically ratified constitutional provisions, etc.
So, while I prefer public servants who "support the protection of human life from conception to natural death" to those who do not, I would hope that Bishop Skylstad and his colleagues understand the difference between, on the one hand, the claim that Roe v. Wade was an incorrect interpretation of the Constitution and that courts should therefore uphold local governments' decisions to regulate abortion, and -- on the other hand -- the claim that, because abortion and capital punishment are immoral, Justices should for that reason invalidate some laws and uphold others.
Here, by the way, is Notre Dame law professor Gerry Bradley's reaction to the letter.
Rick
