honoring Bush

Eduardo has some good questions about the propriety of honoring President Bush. Here is a very quick response. I'd say that Bush's support for the death penalty is not inconsistent with the Church's teaching. I'd agree with Avery Dulles (here) that the Church has not (yet) taken the view that the death penalty is always immoral, and that the decision about whether it is permissible in certain conditions is a prudential judgment on which people can reasonably disagree. On the war in Iraq, we discussed this a bit last year when the issue of honorary degrees came up in the context of Boston College and Condoleezza Rice. Here was my view at that time. I took the view that the administration had not taken a position that was inconsistent with Church teaching and that the area of disagreement about the war (I suspect that my views on this are probably close to Eduardo's) related to prudential judgments. On torture, if the Bush Administration has defended a position contrary to that expressed in the Catechism (2297-2298) than I'd say that would be grounds for opposing an honorary degree.

Richard M.