A while back, we discussed Arthur Brooks' book, Who Really Cares?, in
which Brooks claims to have found an increased tendency among
"conservatives" to donate money to charities of all sorts and to
volunteer. After offering some preliminary thoughts based on
second-hand accounts of the book, I promised to read the book and post
some thoughts. I'm working on a full review of the book, and so I don't
want to spoil too much. But my read did answer a few of the questions I
had based on the news accounts of the book's findings.
First, what do the numbers look like for religious liberals? Here's what Brooks says on page 50:
"Religious liberals bear a
resemblance to religious conservatives in their giving habits. They
are almost as likely to give (91%), but give away about 10% less money
than religious conservatives each year. On both these measures, they
greatly exceed population averages. They are about as likely to give
to secular causes as religious conservatives. Two-thirds volunteer
each year. They are a bit less likely than religious conservatives to
volunteer for religious causes, and a bit more likely to volunteer for
nonreligious causes."
Second, what does he say about secular conservatives?
"Like secular liberals, secular
conservatives are not civically involved, and when it comes to giving
and volunteering, secular conservatives are the least charitable group
of the four. . . . Secular conservatives behave less charitably than
others in informal ways. For example, they are less likely than
average to let someone in front of them in a line, to give up a seat on
the bus, to give a stranger directions, and to help a homeless person."
Third,
does he take into account the differential spatial distribution for
liberals and conservatives to account for different costs of living and
tax burdens? Not that I could tell, and this may go some length
towards explaining the differences between religious conservatives and
religious liberals. He also rules out any consideration of taxation
and government spending as an expression of generosity towards the poor
for reasons I find dubious, but that he explains at length. I'll save
this discussion for the book review.
So, the giving habits of
religious liberals are pretty much the same as those of religious
conservatives (maybe not quite as generous, but the differences are
small, and liberals tend to live in more expensive places with higher
taxes). Secular conservatives, on the other hand, are less generous
and less likely to volunteer than practically everyone else, though,
again, secular liberals give them a run for their money. It seems like
the obvious conclusion to draw here is that religion is doing all the
work. But after acknowledging that religious liberals act pretty much
like religious conservatives and that secular conservatives act pretty
much like secular liberals when it comes to charitable behavior, and
after acknowledging that religious views are by far the strongest
predictor he has of charitable behavior, he continues to argue
throughout the book as if liberal economic positions CAUSE people to
avoid charitable behavior while conservative economic positions CAUSE
people to give to charity. Given the data he has about secular
conservatives and religious liberals, this argument makes very little
sense to me.
The book makes some very good points about the
importance of charity as a virtue, points that resonate very nicely
with Catholic thoughts on the same topic. But these observations are
overshadowed, in my view, by his need to color his analysis primarily
in liberal-conservative terms. I'm not sure whether this way of
framing his findings was his choice or the choice of his publisher,
Basic Books. I've looked at some of Brooks's academic writings, and
they are far more measured in their tone and conclusions. I can
understand that it sells many more books to say that
conservatives are more charitable than it does to say that religious
people are more charitable. But his own data just does not seem to
support the point.
Rick asks whether Dean Kagan should have told the Harvard students protesting Ropes & Gray that lawyers must be free to provide zealous representation for all clients without the taint of association. I guess my answer depends on what we mean by "the taint of association." If the taint translates into the state trumpeting the lawyers' identities and encouraging the market to punish the lawyers for the sins of their clients, I agree that lawyers should operate taint-free. But if the question is whether there is a moral dimension to a lawyer's decision to represent one client rather than another, then the taint is inescapable.
I once declined a partner's "invitation" to work on a case defending a company that had defied even minimal standards of human dignity. The conduct was evil, and its only possible defense was the statute of limitations. I did not believe that working on the case would make me culpable for the underlying conduct, but rather culpable for devoting my time and talent to their cause. I represented many clients who had behaved badly (why else would they need my services?), but this, for me, was beyond the pale. Nevertheless, there were dozens of attorneys lined up behind me to take the case; rarely, in our legal services market, will the immorality of the client preclude representation. (The client's lack of money is another story, of course.) To paraphrase Bill Kunstler, everyone has a right to a lawyer, but they don't have a right to me.
More broadly, if the Catholic legal theory project has any bearing on the practice of law, doesn't there have to be some degree of moral accountability for the causes we take on? Pope John Paul II, for example, famously (and controversially) instructed that Catholic lawyers “must always decline the use of their profession for an end that is counter to justice, like divorce.” And if I should exercise moral agency in picking my clients, am I not equipped to exercise moral agency -- and to encourage others to exercise moral agency -- in picking my employer?
In this regard, I believe that the moral dimension of legal representation should be recognized in the marketplace. If I was interviewing at a law firm that had devoted all of its pro bono activities to challenging partial-birth abortion bans, would I think twice about whether the ideals of the firm match my own? Absolutely. Do I think it's a healthy sign of moral engagement when law students challenge a firm's decision to devote its resources to a particular client or cause? Absolutely. At the same time, do I think it's a threat to the marketplace when a government official takes on the role of moral arbiter, drumming up support for a boycott against lawyers taking on causes disfavored by the government? Absolutely.
My friend Paul Horwitz blogged a few days ago about Cully Stimson's now-widely-discussed (and, so far as I can tell, universally rejected) complaints about law firms representing Guantanamo Bay detainees. Paul endorsed (as do I) the view that Stimson is off-base, and agrees with (as do I) Jonathan Adler's statement that "[a]ll individuals, even suspected terrorists, are entitled to a capable legal defense when subjected to legal process, and it is wrong to impugn attorneys on the basis of the clients they represent."
Now, a number of prominent law-school deans have weighed in, with this letter. The deans write:
We teach our students that lawyers have a professional obligation to ensure that even the most despised and unpopular individuals and groups receive zealous and effective legal representation. Our American legal tradition has honored lawyers who, despite their personal beliefs, have zealously represented mass murderers, suspected terrorists, and Nazi marchers. At this moment in time, when our courts have endorsed the right of the Guantanamo detainees to be heard in courts of law, it is critical that qualified lawyers provide effective representation to these individuals. By doing so, these lawyers protect not only the rights of the detainees, but also our shared constitutional principles. In a free and democratic society, government officials should not encourage intimidation of or retaliation against lawyers who are fulfilling their pro bono obligations.
To be clear, I agree entirely with this statement. I wonder, though, if a similar statement was warranted when some students at Harvard Law School protested against Ropes & Gray, during on-campus recruiting (according to this report), for its representation of Catholic Charities, which was at that time seeking an exemption from a non-discrimination law requirement that adoption agencies facilitate adoptions with same-sex couples?
Obviously, statements from government officials like Stimson raise concerns that student protests do not. Still, it strikes me that, "in a free and democratic society," the religious-freedom rights of those with unpopular religious views deserve and require "zealous and effective representation" no less than the rights of detainees. Consider this, from the Boston Globe:
''The words 'boycott-slash-picket' were thrown around," said Peter Renn, a third-year student and Lambda board member who said he had wanted to shame Ropes into ending its work on behalf of Catholic Charities and warn the firm that the issue could hurt recruiting at Harvard.
''Big firms like this are very concerned about public relations, and who in this game is maximally positioned to exert pressure on Ropes & Gray? It's law students," said Renn, who will clerk for a federal district court judge in California after he graduates. ''Attorneys at the firm are in a horrible position, because they don't want to get canned, so they can't say, 'How dare you take that case' and insist the firm withdraw."
In his Stimson post, Paul wrote, "One believes that people are entitled to legal counsel or one does not; one believes that lawyers are entitled to provide that counsel without the taint of association or one does not." Should Dean Kagan (who signed the law-deans' letter regarding Stimson) have made a similar point to Harvard's students?
Sightings 1/15/07
Troubles in
Poland
-- Martin E. Marty
Names like Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski,
Stanislaw Wielgus, Andrzej Zybertowicz, Stefan Wyszynski, Andrzej Paczkowski,
Konrad Stanislaw Hejmo, Michal Czajkowski, Stanislaw Dziwisz, and Janusz
Bielanski are likely to become household, or at least church-hold, words in the
days ahead. Add to them up to thirty-nine more priestly names to be
revealed in a forthcoming book by Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski. Virtually all
of the names have titles before them: "Reverend," "Father," "Bishop,"
"Archbishop," and "Cardinal." Because no sexual and probably no financial
scandal is associated with them, they may escape being pursued by paparazzi or
featured in the tabloid press. In their homeland of Poland, however, the
"crisis" -- the Polish church's name for it -- that they have occasioned is more
profound and more troubling than sexual and fiscal matters could be. The
public resents churchly non-disclosure most.
If their stories of
Communist collaboration, more and more of them corroborated by others or
confessed by themselves, prove true, what they have done touches the very heart
of the soul, or the soul of the heart, of Polish Catholicism, and thus of
Poland. Throw in "and of European Catholicism" or "Pope Benedict" or
"Catholicism." This is the case because Polish church resistance, or at
least creative foot-dragging in the face of Communist repression, suppression,
and oppression, was seen to be so massive, consistent, heroic, and effective
that it made for one of the great stories celebrating the triumph of the human
spirit in the century past.
These collaborations may not have always
produced direct damage. Many say they hurt no one personally by their
cooperation with secret police. Indirectly, however, they hurt every
Catholic and no doubt every Pole who loved freedom and hated the
oppressor. They are not alone. (We) Lutherans are not proud of East
German clerics who cooperated even minimally with the hated Stasi, their secret
police. It is likely that in almost all cases of totalitarian inflictions
some who are weak, or who find it convenient, play along. So they did in
Hitler's Germany, on a scale that still is haunting. Recovery, if any, is
slow.
Decades ago, when describing the way Christianity is "moving south"
globally, I would orally present a map. "Starting west of Poland, crossing
Western Europe and the British Isles (except for Ireland), Canada, and the
northern United States into Japan is the 'spiritual ice-belt' where many people
live who are so remote from church life that they cannot even imagine why
Africa, Latin America, and Asia are so religious and 'churchy.'" Later I
had to cross off Ireland, as its Catholics increasingly deserted church
participation as they reacted to scandal and found salvation in materialist
goals. Now church participation in Poland declines precipitously, and this
collaborationist scandal will hurt.
In the United States a few books by
atheists sell well but probably drive few from the pews and, maybe even against
the wills of their authors, lure some people to faith. Pope Benedict XVI
has it more or less right when he talks about secularization in the form of
desertion of the European churches. That's a less dramatic but more
undercutting mode of reducing the sphere of active Christians than atheism ever
could be.
References:
The article "In Poland, New Wave of
Charges Against Clerics" by Craig S. Smith (New York Times, January 10,
2007) can be read here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/10/world/europe/10poland.html?_r=2&th&emc=th&oref=slogin&oref=slogin.
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Monday, January 15, 2007
Relevant to today's holiday is this, taken from a 1965 interview with Dr. King:
[T]he most pervasive mistake I have made was in believing that because our cause was just, we could be sure that the white ministers of the South, once their Christian consciences were challenged, would rise to our aid.... The projection of a social gospel, in my opinion, is the true witness of a Christian life.... The church once changed society. It was then a thermostat of society. But today I feel that too much of the church is merely a thermometer, which measures rather than molds popular opinion.
(Thanks to Professor Friedman.)
A central problem in jurisprudence -- and, therefore, and important challenge for Catholic Legal Theory -- is that of Authority. That said, here is an interesting post, by Rod Dreher -- inspired by the current situation in Poland -- about the problem of Authority. A bit:
I can't quite get out of my head the problem of Authority in the contemporary age. As Rieff and others have explained, for various reasons we live in a place and time in which authority has devolved to the individual. The Polish bishops say that only the Holy See has the right to judge a bishop, and as a matter of ecclesiology, they're right. But as a practical matter -- as a matter of the sense of the faithful -- I suspect they're wrong. They would certainly be wrong in the West; it's only a question of how far along the path Poland is. When I say "authority," I'm talking about the way their authority in (canon) law is perceived in the hearts of the faithful. As recently as 30 years ago, it would have been unquestioned in Poland. Fifty years ago in the US, same deal. But today? No.
Understand that I'm not saying this is how it should be. I'm saying that's the way it is. This is why Rieff was pessimistic about the old culture ever reappearing. How do we recapture the old way of thinking, of seeing? And all of us have to deal with that. The problem is more acute for those of us who are members of hierarchical churches, because as a matter of faith we believe that God has created an authoritative hierarchy. The challenge for those of us who do believe in the hierarchy's authority in principle is to figure out how to respond when the men who possess that authority misuse it. And this is where I think having grown up in modernity puts us at either an advantage or disadvantage, depending on how you look at it. On the down side, it is simply impossible for many, even most, of us to act by force of will to ignore what we learn about the way the authorities have behaved. You can't un-learn these things, and if you choose to ignore them, you do so at a great price to your conscience. You can choose to follow a strategy of ironic detachment, trusting in the authority of the office even as you dismiss the man occupying it. Or you lose your faith in the institution entirely -- even against your own will. Rightly or wrongly, the discrepancy one perceives between the authoritative office and the man or men who inhabit it become too difficult to bear -- intellectually, emotionally, psychologically -- and you cease to believe. It has always been possible for men to make these decisions, but it seems so much easier to make them in conditions of modernity, when we are acculturated to believe that everything is, and should be, a choice. Even if we reject that in theory, it's impossible to fully get that mindset out of our system. . . .
People cannot live without authority. What characteristics will those persons and institutions who wish to accumulate and to preserve authority now and in the near future have to have? I think one non-negotiable characteristic is transparency, and an eagerness to accept fault and make substantive and visible efforts to remediate error. Had George W. Bush not been so defensive for so long, and had been willing to make changes early on, he wouldn't have fallen to such low esteem in the public's eye. Had the US Catholic bishops done the right thing to start with regarding the sex abuse scandal instead of trying to cover up, they wouldn't be in such bad shape today. In my own church, the OCA, the attempt to hide or deflect or suppress the financial scandal surrounding the Metropolitan is actually subverting the authority of the hierarchy, not protecting it. That's something that those in secular and religious authority can't seem to grasp: that in the present day, genuine humility is the key to maintaining authority, and power.
A second question: what disposition toward authority do we ordinary people have to maintain for our own good? We cannot be permanently and corrosively suspicious of all authority; that way lies madness, and at least social dissolution. How much reality are we prepared to allow ourselves to ignore, for the greater good? Is it ever moral to turn away from knowing the truth about the authority's behavior, because to know the truth would not set us free, but would make us prisoners of our own chronic mistrust?
Chris Kaczor (Loyola Marymount) has written a paper entitled "Ectopic Pregnancy and the Catholic Hospital" that he will present at a meeting of the US Bishops in February. I am sure that he'd send a copy to anyone who is interested. He can be reached at [email protected] or [email protected].
In this paper, Chris considers the various treatment options and concludes that salpingostomy and methotrexate may both be used by Catholic hospitals since the underlying moral issues have not yet been definitively resolved.
Richard M.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
[From today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution:]
Quoth John Podoretz, National Review
Online: "If tonight's speech doesn't herald the beginning of a serious
turnaround in Iraq that is plain to see by spring of next year, the Risen Christ could
be the Republican nominee in 2008 and He wouldn't be able to win against Al
Sharpton." Replied a reader on Andrew Sullivan's Time.com blog: "The
premise is ridiculous. The Risen Christ would never make it through the GOP
primary."
