More on Prophecy and Practical Reasoning About Human Life

Having been a part of the so-called “dust up” with Cathy Kaveny during the presidential campaign two years ago, I appreciate learning from Professor Kaveny’s continuing engagement with the foundational social and moral question of our time, namely how to ensure and promote sanctity of human life. During the past two years, I too have continued to think about these matters, some of which is shared in my forthcoming piece in the Journal of Catholic Legal Studies (published by St. John’s law school). I’ve also come toward greater appreciation of the contribution that Professor Kaveny has presented in her prior work toward securing greater respect for the life of the unborn, a positive and supportive dimension that I found largely missing in her messages during the “dust up,” but which I hope will return in her ongoing scholarly work.

In response to her recent message as posted by Michael Perry, I respectfully suggest that three points or factors ought to be added to, or given more attention within, Professor Kaveny’s analytical framework:

First, practical reasoning (or what Professor Kaveny calls “casuistical” discourse) and prophetic discourse should not be viewed invariably as mutually exclusive, but rather may often be mutually reinforcing. John Paul’s powerful prophetic message about the Culture (or, as he preferred to say, the “Gospel”) of Life and its contrast with the Culture of Death was a powerful message that has resonated across the globe and within this country. Without that appeal to our better selves, the opportunity for practical reasoning of the type Professor Kaveny now endorses might have been lost or diminished, as society might have continued a blind walk down a dark path. Arguments founded upon practical reason are more likely to have traction if the participants have appreciated the underlying moral stakes, which may be highlighted by prophetic discourse.

While Professor Kaveny mentions in passing the “important hortatory function [of prophecy], reminding us all about the transcendent importance of certain values,” she nonetheless sees prophecy primarily as undermining reasonable conversation rather than as perhaps creating the very occasion for the exercise of practical reasoning. See M. Cathleen Kaveny, Prophecy and Casuistry: Abortion, Torture and Moral Discourse, 51 Villanova Law Review 499 (2006). (In my view, Professor Kaveny overstates her case by characterizing prophecy as “moral chemotherapy,” thereby lumping all forms of prophetic discourse into a single and extreme category.)

Prophecy also shines the light of truth on overarching themes, so that we can better understand how we arrived at a dangerous point in which the sanctity of human life has come under assault from so many directions. As Professor Kaveny writes, with citation to James Gustafson, prophecy frequently identifies root causes of larger social and moral errors. What made John Paul’s Evangelium Vitae “‘new’ in a quite important way,” as Helen Alvaré observes, was “that abortion was not treated as a solitary issue but also as a paradigm of the “‘culture of death.’” What we have been witnessing in recent decades is the emergence of sharp divisions on a related series of the most fundamental questions of human existence. We have seen a pattern of societal dehumanization and collective subjugation of human dignity for the weak, helpless, and unwanted. Nor have these cultural trends arisen in a random and unrelated manner, but rather reflect an integrated anti-ethos of isolated, selfish, and radical autonomy. Through this culture of death, grounded on extreme individualism, we are seeing what Jacques Maritain called “the tragic isolation of each one in his or her own selfishness or helplessness.”

Interestingly, in the past, Professor Kaveny has made similar observations, noting that “[a] lenient attitude toward abortion . . . should finally be viewed as a prismatic and poignant example of a callousness toward life in general, a callousness that must be eradicated in all its forms.” Cathleen Kaveny, Toward a Thomistic Perspective on Abortion and the Law in Contemporary America, 55 The Thomist 343, 393 (1991).

Second, we say much about ourselves and our culture by whether we choose to characterize a statement or series of statements as largely prophetic or largely casuistical. When speaking of the “culture of death,” John Paul was addressing the perverted conscription of the language of legal rights and charity, even benevolence, in the service of the killing business. When a culture has so deformed the language of humanity and compassion as to describe the purging of the unborn as medical services and necessary health care, to characterize the elimination of the dependent aged as exhibiting compassion and respect for dignity, and to label human embryos as mere cell material, then plain speaking is essential and will appear prophetic. When the world has gone mad, the clear and sober voice of the sane man may appear extreme and disturbing. Such is the typical response to the words of a prophet in any age.

Third, if the Catholic witness for life is to maintain vitality and integrity, we must be careful not to give scandal to the faithful or to the nation at large by leaving the impression that contemptuous disregard for human life is not a serious breach with Catholic communion. When prominent Catholics are widely perceived as bending over backwards to justify votes for pro-choice political candidates, we inevitably begin to hear voices within our own parishes and faith communities citing these statements as evidence that the sanctity of life is not an important, or at least not an indispensable, Catholic value. Just as deleterious to the Catholic witness for life, we hear suggestions that promoting pro-life values in public life is like saying the Rosary each day, something good and to be encouraged to be sure, but not essential or central to our Catholic faith.

If anything, the danger of such scandal is even greater in the academic community, where published justifications by Catholic academics for supporting pro-choice politicians are held up by others as the defining mark of what a “thinking” Catholic says and does. Those of us who speak forthrightly and without ceasing about the central importance of human life, even of the unborn, thus are more easily dismissed by the larger academic community as either quaint or radical. The academic community instead favors (and regularly rewards with enhanced reputations, invitations to speak, and prestigious appointments at elite universities) those Catholics who appear to be ambivalent about abortion or whose pro-life views are seen as non-threatening or who at least appear unwilling to allow any fetish about fetuses to stand in the way of allegiance to liberal orthodoxy among the professoriate. While the appearance may not be the reality in the case of these Catholic academics, the appearance is created by their statements and actions and thus they have the moral responsibility to take vigorous action to correct those misimpressions.

In the past, Professor Kaveny appears to have recognized this very danger. She also spoke of the importance of “supporting and gradually extending a pro-life consensus,” which of course may only be achieved by unceasing and unambiguous statements about the value of human life at all its stages. (I must say, however, and many on both sides of the discussion noted this in private conversation at the time and since, this essential element of Professor Kaveny’s message was conspicuously missing from her commentary during the 2004 “dust up.”)

Finally, I am compelled to comment on Professor Kaveny’s “take” on the midterm elections: “Most Americans now believe the country needs a reasonable conversation; they want practical reason, not prophecy.” While I’m not at all convinced that the recent election turned on the question of the appropriate approach to abortion (and the reemergence of pro-life Democrats, at least for a brief moment, in this election suggests something more complex), I’m quite convinced that popular opinion cannot be the test by which we evaluate the need for a prophetic vision.

Reviewing the prophetic books of the Old Testament, for example, I find that it would have been the rare case in which the people of Israel would have chosen “prophecy” over what they preferred to see as “practical reason.” The prophets were unwelcome, indeed despised, precisely because they refused to follow elite conventions and engage with social and political leaders in “reasonable conversation.” The prophets themselves were sometimes reluctant to speak the hard but truthful words that they had been given by God, because they understandably did not want to be perceived as out-of-the-mainstream of the society in which they lived. The prophets nonetheless said what they did out of faithfulness.

As an academic, I hardly am an opponent of “practical reason,” and, most of the time, I am inclined toward the softer, gentler approach. But I should constantly be asking myself whether what I say, and how I say it, and just as importantly what I choose not to say, reflects my obsequious desire for acceptance in a larger academic community that is not receptive to the message of life, or instead whether I am being faithful to what God is calling me to say and do. When I stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ, I hope that He will judge that, at least some of the time, I truly did listen for and hear the voice of God and was faithful in speaking up for His little ones.

Greg Sisk