From the Education for Justice website (http://www.educationforjustice.org/Thoughts for Your Consideration
Our commemoration of Good Friday can sometimes be taken over by a “spirituality of sentimentality.” We might force ourselves to feel bad because of someone who died 2000 years ago. We might force ourselves to feel bad because we are told that we did something to make this Jesus of Nazareth suffer. Our art, our music and our prayer can box us into such sentimentality; however, this need not be the case.
We may avoid the extremes or limits of such a spirituality and move to a more healthy spirituality of Good Friday, by making sure that we ground our spirituality in the “real world.” The suffering of Jesus is connected with the suffering of the world and its people – people of all times and places – especially the poor and powerless.
This suffering continues today:
in any situation where people experience injustice
in the violence that continues in the Middle East, Afghanistan, and Iraq
in the extreme poverty in places like Haiti or nations in Sub-Sahara Africa
in the more than 800 million people in the world who go to bed hungry
in the lives of those who affected by last year’s hurricanes and struggle to recover
in the experience of those who are denied human rights or are even unjustly imprisoned
in the lives of all those who experience racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination
in the “suffering” of planet earth as it feels the effect of the human abuse of the environment
in the lives of forced migrants (refugees, migrant workers, the undocumented
in the experience of indigenous peoples at home and abroad
in the experience of anyone who has lost family members in acts of war and violence
in the experience of the people of the Darfur region of the Sudan
in the millions who have died in the ongoing war and unrest in the Congo
in the suffering experienced by individual people and families in abusive relationships
in the experience of those who are sick and cannot afford medical care
in children who are denied an adequate education
in the frustration of those who cannot find work at a just wage.
The list could go on and on.
The events of Good Friday call us not into an unreal, sentimental sorrow, but into a deeper awareness of life today with its struggles and sorrows. Our Good Friday experience calls us into a deeper desire to work for an end to injustice and suffering. We are called to a deep solidarity with our God and a deep solidarity with each other. In solidarity, Jesus “became the source of eternal salvation.” Through such solidarity we will experience resurrection.
Three Reminders of Social Teaching from John’s Passion Story
1) Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword into its scabbard.”
Catholic Social Teaching is committed to peace, reconciliation and nonviolence.
It is absolutely necessary that international conflicts should not be settled by war, but that other methods better befitting human nature should be found. Let a strategy of non-violence be fostered also, and let conscientious objection be recognized and regulated by law in each nation.
1971 Synod of Bishops, Justice in the World
In all of his suffering, as in all of his life and ministry, Jesus refused to defend himself with force or with violence. He endured violence and cruelty so that God’s love might be fully manifest and the world might be reconciled to the One from whom it had become estranged. Even at his death, Jesus cried for forgiveness for those who were executioners: “Father, forgive them.”
US Bishops, The Challenge of Peace
2) Jesus answered the high priest: “I have spoken publicly to the world.”
Catholic Social Teaching encourages political and economic processes that are “transparent” so that all people can fully participate in their human and political rights.
Is this not the time for all to work together for a new constitutional organization of the human family, truly capable of ensuring peace and harmony between peoples, as well as their integral development? . . . It means continuing and deepening processes already in place to meet the almost universal demand for participatory ways of exercising political authority, even international political authority, and for transparency and accountability at every level of public life.
John Paul II, World Day of Peace, January 1, 2003
3) Jesus said to Pilate: “For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.”
Catholic Social Teaching invites the whole world and its institutions to speak the truth whether it is through a free and truthful press, open and honest government, or the courageous speaking up about situations of injustice.
The fundamental moral requirement of all communication is respect for and service of the truth. Freedom to seek and speak what is true is essential to human communication, not only in relation to facts and information but also, and especially, regarding the nature and destiny of the human person, regarding society and the common good, regarding our relationship with God.
John Paul II, World Communications Day, June 1, 2003....
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Ryan Anderson has a review (subscribers only) of Chris Wolfe's new book, Natural Law Liberalism, in National Review. Here is an excerpt from the review:
Central to Western political liberalism is the notion that disagreement can be resolved through common deliberation and that representative constitutional democracy is the best institution for such deliberation. This makes us think that any kind of clash can be solved through rational discussion of the truths we share. At the same time, however, our modern system is founded on skepticism about the ability of people and their governments to define and enforce a universal vision of the good life. This makes us think that there aren’t any real truths to be shared.
It is in response to such worries that Christopher Wolfe has written his new book, Natural Law Liberalism. Wolfe is a Marquette University political scientist who focused his early work on constitutional interpretation and judicial activism. He founded the American Public Philosophy Institute to support the efforts of such thinkers as Robert P. George, Russell Hittinger, and Hadley Arkes, who have been working to rearticulate the natural-law foundations of political life. Natural Law Liberalism is Wolfe’s contribution to the effort.
By liberalism, Wolfe means the whole range of modern political thought, from the early Enlightenment through the American Founding the philosophical theory of government that emphasizes human equality, personal liberty, individual rights, participatory government, and the rule of law. And natural law, as Wolfe conceives it, is the long Western tradition of reflection on the nature of human flourishing and the rational principles that can guide human action and choice. His thesis is simple: If political liberalism is to justify itself at home and abroad, it must return to the classical tradition of Western thought and embrace natural-law theory as the account of its foundations.
For those in or near Chicago, this series, sponsored by Holy Trinity Church in Hyde Park, might be of interest:
Text and Truth, Spring 2007: Christian Scholars Intentionally Engaging their Disciplines |
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| Join us Tuesdays at 12:00pm, in the South Lounge, 2nd floor the Reynolds Club, at the University of Chicago. |
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I realize that Stanley Hauerwas would not embrace every premise of the Catholic legal theory project, but I find this passage from A Community of Character to be a helpful reminder of the significance that the story of Easter has for us Christians:
The task of the Christian is not to defeat relativism by argument but to witness to a God who requires confrontation. Too often the epistemological and moral presuppositions behind the Christian command to be a witness to such a God have been overlooked. The command to witness is not based on the assumption that we are in possession of a universal truth which others must also 'implicitly' possess or have sinfully rejected. If such a truth existed, we would not be called upon to be witnesses, but philosophers. Rather the command to be a witness is based on the presupposition that we only come to the truth through the process of being confronted by the truth.
