Mirror of Justice

Friday, December 21, 2007

The Catholic Church, the Death Penalty, and "Development of Doctrine"

I think many MOJ readers will be interested in John Allen's Friday missive over at NCR (here). Some execrpts follow:

It would probably be pushing things a bit far to suggest that Tuesday's vote in the General Assembly of the United Nations in favor of a global moratorium on the death penalty is a victory for the Catholic church. It is, however, a result difficult to imagine without the Catholic contribution.

Consider the following footprints of Catholic influence:

The principal NGO lobbying for the measure, the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty, composed of 64 member organizations in various parts of the world, was founded in Rome in 2002 under the auspices of the Community of Sant'Egidio, one of the "new movements" in the Catholic church;
Ten nations co-authored the resolution: Albania, Angola, Brazil, Croatia, Gabon, Mexico, New Zealand, the Philippines, Portugal, and East Timor. Eight of the ten are majority Catholic states, where numerous Catholic associations and activists, as well as bishops' conferences, have been in the forefront of abolitionist efforts;
The nation that formally presented the resolution was Gabon, one of nine majority Catholic nations in Africa. In announcing its own decision in September to remove the death penalty from its statute books, the government of Gabon specifically cited the work of Sant'Egidio;
When Egypt attempted to scuttle the measure by attaching an anti-abortion amendment, both the Philippines and the Vatican responded by saying that while they would enthusiastically support a separate resolution on abortion, they did not want the pro-life cause to be instrumentalized in order to block progress on the death penalty, thereby saving the resolution;
Perhaps the diplomatic mainstay of the campaign for a global moratorium over the last 15 years has been Italy, with the strong backing of the Vatican.

The non-binding resolution passed by a vote of 104 nations in favor against 54 opposed, with 29 abstentions and five nations not present. The United States joined China, Iran, Sudan, Singapore and several Caribbean states in opposing it.

Though legislative success is always the result of heterogeneous coalitions, it's quite possible that without the strong anti-death penalty activism that's taken shape within global Catholicism over the last several decades, which came to a crescendo under Pope John Paul II, Tuesday's result may never have occurred. In 1996, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger said that Catholicism has witnessed a "development in doctrine" on the death penalty. The UN vote hints at the social capital of the Catholic church which this development has unleashed.

I sat down this week for an interview with Mario Marazziti, the leading spokesperson for Sant'Egidio after its founder, Andrea Riccardi, and a key figure in the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty. Marazziti was in New York for Tuesday's vote.

How important has the church been?
Very important. The Catholic church, especially under John Paul II and continuing with what it's doing now, has had a real role in accompanying this change over the last 20 years, and the Philippines is one of the cases where you see that most clearly.

We've worked side-by-side with Cardinal [Renato] Martino [President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace]. He gave me a short interview to be used on Nov. 30, when we had our "Cities Against the Death Penalty" event. He said something to us that has never been said at such a high level before: "The death penalty is homicide." Unfortunately the media didn't pick up on it, but the clear meaning is that you can't answer one crime with another.

By 'the Vatican,' you mean in this case Archbishop Celestino Migliore, the nuncio of the Holy See as a Permanent Observer to the UN?
Yes. The central point was that the Holy See supports the defense of life in every circumstance, but on this very important subject we don't want to see [the resolution] instrumentalized for other questions. It was a very interesting position. Of course, the Vatican doesn't vote at the UN. Nevertheless, they said the defense of life is an important subject, but exactly for that reason it has to be without exceptions. In substance, the point was that the Holy See doesn't support the way some say, 'We have to abolish the death penalty' but don't care about abortion, and meanwhile those who were now proposing something against abortion were doing so to uphold the death penalty. We shouldn't get into deciding which lives are worth defending. It was a very sharp, well-constructed position, and I thought it was quite clear.

In the end, what does this result mean?
First of all, the death penalty has officially become a question of human rights. From the point of view of the international community, this is new. … It fixes an official standard of justice without death. Even if it's not obligatory, it creates a moral standard. It will become ever more embarrassing for those countries that still use the death penalty.

* * *

So far, most global press coverage of the UN vote has not highlighted the Catholic contribution. In Italy especially, the tendency has been to attribute the outcome to the efforts of the Italian government and various secular humanitarian groups, especially those linked to the Radical Party, which has long campaigned against the death penalty.

On Thursday, L'Osservatore Romano, the official Vatican newspaper, carried an interview with Cardinal Renato Martino, President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, in the wake of the General Assembly resolution. In part, the interview focused on a perceived lack of recognition for Catholic efforts. Martino suggested that the church's role may be more difficult to appreciate since, for Catholics, the death penalty is part of a continuum of life issues that also features war, employment, and especially abortion.

Tamanaha's mistake

By Patrick McKinley Brennan

Tamanaha asserts the following: "If non-believers make political decisions by the lights of their best moral judgments, the fact that they wrongly do not believe in the Christian story does not prevent Christians from enjoying eternal salvation. No harm done to them, at least with respect to the hereafter."

Non-believers making political decisions "by the lights of the their best moral judgments" could, just conceivably, prevent preachers from preaching, ministers from ministering, sacraments from being celebrated, monks from chanting, parents from sharing true religion with their children (e.g., Joel Feinberg's "right to an open future"), and so forth. On some Christian theologies, I suppose, these failures would not "harm" Christians or potential Christians with respect to the hereafter. (See Coons and Brennan, By Nature Equal (1999)). On other Christian theologies, however, such failures just might have the consequence of either preventing people from getting to heaven or, at least, of making it more difficult for them to do so. The recent document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, on the importance of evangelization, certainly doesn't take the view that it is immaterial whether or not people hear the Good News.

Tamanaha on Araujo on Eschatology & Public Policy

By Rob Vischer

Over at Balkinization, Brian Tamanaha responds to Robert Araujo's recent post of a hypothetical conversation between a believer and nonbeliever about eternity. Fr. Araujo wrote:

Let me offer a humble and modest suggestion by posing a question for the secularist who has at least an equal share in the direction of public policy as does the theist: have you thought about the future? The secularist may dismiss the direction in which my inquiry is going, i.e., in an eschatological path. All I can do then is to propose that the secularist reflect on something that he or she may have never considered. And how might I do this?

Let me offer the following illustration: I could say, “You may be right, Secularist, that it is all over when we die. But I ask you to consider the following: we both will die (however that happens), and this event is inevitable. You may look at me and say, ‘see I (the Secularist) was right. You have wasted a lifetime.’ But, my suggestion to you is this: But if I (the theist) am right, I will not have wasted a lifetime, but you will have wasted an eternity.”

An excerpt from Brian's response:

[F]or the broader issue of the relevance of religious views in political decisions, there is a notable asymmetry in the consequences that follow from these two positions. If non-believers make political decisions by the lights of their best moral judgments, the fact that they wrongly do not believe in the Christian story does not prevent Christians from enjoying eternal salvation. No harm done to them, at least with respect to the hereafter.

However, if Christians make political decisions by the lights of Christian doctrine, and it turns out that there is no God or that Christianity is wrong about the nature of things (two distinct possibilities), then Christians will have inflicted their false religious beliefs on others, with immediate consequences.

Noonan on Huckabee

By Rob Vischer

Since Rick has brought up Mike Huckabee, let me say that I find him to be the most huggable presidential candidate, but I'm not tempted to support him. Neither, apparently, is Peggy Noonan. Here's her commentary on the infamous "cross" commercial:

I love the cross. The sight of it, the fact of it, saves me, literally and figuratively. But there is a kind of democratic politesse in America, and it has served us well, in which we are happy to profess our faith but don't really hit people over the head with its symbols in an explicitly political setting, such as a campaign commercial, which is what Mr. Huckabee's ad was.

I wound up thinking this: That guy is using the cross so I'll like him. That doesn't tell me what he thinks of Jesus, but it does tell me what he thinks of me. He thinks I'm dim. He thinks I will associate my savior with his candidacy. Bleh.

She also sees him as a hybrid of two leading political figures, and not a good sort of hybrid:

Mr. Huckabee reminds me of two governors who became president, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Like Mr. Clinton, he is a natural, charming, bright and friendly. Yet one senses something unsavory there, something not so nice. Like Mr. Bush, his approach to politics seems, at bottom, highly emotional, marked by great spurts of feeling and mighty declarations as to what the Lord wants. The problem with this, and with Bushian compassionate conservatism, which seems to have an echo in Mr. Huckabee's Christianism, is that to the extent it is a philosophy, it is not a philosophy that allows debate. Because it comes down to "This is what God wants." This is not an opener of discussion but a squelcher of it. It doesn't expand the process, it frustrates it.

Concerns about Huckabee

By Rick Garnett

Like many political conservatives - and, also, like more than a few political liberals -- I have been thinking that there is much to like about Gov. Huckabee. (That said, he is not, and has never been, my preferred candidate.) I liked it, that is, that -- in addition to having sound (i.e., my own) views on abortion-regulation, he seemed (for a while, anyway) not to endorse base anti-immigrant rhetoric; that, as Governor, he was willing to commute the sentences of, and pardon, convicted criminals; and that, for a while, he avoided Giuliani-esque over-the-top statements about how tough he is willing to be on detainees, etc. (I have been bothered, though, by his cosy relationship with the teacher unions, among other things.) I even gave him a little (very little) money.

This column, though, by Robert Novak, leaves me very troubled. Now, to be clear, it is not (for me) a reason to worry about Gov. Huckabee's candidacy that, apparently, some Southern Baptist leaders are not endorsing him. What does bother me, though, is (what seems to be) Gov. Huckabee's close relationship with Steven Hotze, Rick Scarborough, and Vision America.

I've been pretty clear, I think, about my disdain for the tedious "the theocrats are coming!" thing that is so popular in some circles. (See Ross Douthat's take-down of the genre here.) But, as I see it, Hotze, Scarborough, and Vision America really do have troubling and misguided views about faith, law, and the political order. We're not talking Fr. Neuhaus's critique of the naked public square here, or John Courtney Murray's We Hold These Truths. These folks are hard-core. And, they are, in many ways, wrong.

Now, I'm confident (should I be, though?) that Gov. Huckabee's own views are more thoughtful and sound than those of these so-called Christian Reconstructionists. But, can anyone doubt that, were Huckabee to be the nominee, these people and their views (read this, for example) -- which would be, I'm confident, regarded as deeply creepy and troubling by most Americans -- would be at the center of the campaign? (Indeed, it would be political malpractice for Huckabee's opponent, or opponents, not to exploit his connection with these people.) Even those of us who have found things to like about Huckabee would, I hope, demand that he repudiate them, their views, and their aims.

I am, of course, pro-life and fairly conservative. I agree entirely with those who insist that religious faith has a role to play in politics and policy. I don't see "theocracy" looming behind efforts to, say, protect unborn children from partial-birth abortions. But, I do worry about Vision America (not that they could actually achieve their aims, but that they will become associated in the public mind with *my* aims).

Also troubling to me - and, I hope, to other Catholics -- is the fact that Gov. Huckabee apparently has no difficulty appearing with, and preaching at the church of, Pastor John Hagee, a virulent and ignorant anti-Catholic polemecist who has, to put it mildly, not yet got the word about "Evangelicals and Catholics Together."

So: tell me, MOJ readers who support Gov. Huckabee, if you think I'm overreacting here. Should I not worry about Huckabee's relationship with the attendees at the event described in the Novak column? About his relationship with Hagee?

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Robby George responds ... [Updated]

By Michael Perry

UPDATE: Robby's message below was posted as a comment at dotCommonweal, where there are now comments on Robby's message. If you're interested: at dotCommonweal, scroll down past Robby's message (in the comments) to read the comments on Robby's message (here).

[Robby asked me to post this, and I am delighted to do so.]

Dear Michael and Cathy,

I notice that on MoJ and on the Commonweal blog you linked to Max Blumenthal's story about the Nava case at Princeton. You also linked to the Anscombe Society's statement.

Since Blumenthal's story contained serious allegations against me, I'm sorry that you did not (since we are friends and can easily be in touch with each other) first ask me whether these allegations are true.

In fact, those allegations are despicable lies.

The worst of them is this:

"But before George pointed to Nava's beating as proof of anticonservative bias on campus, he had been presented with evidence that Nava, while at the Groton boarding school, had fabricated a threat against himself and his roommate, head of the Gay-Straight Alliance, in the form of a letter containing the phrase 'die fags.' The letter may have raised doubts in George's mind, but not strongly enough to deter him from attacking Princeton's administration."

This is utterly false---the very reverse of the truth. Fortunately, it is demonstrably false. The moment I learned about what Nava had done at Groton, I demanded that he reveal it to the campus police and then I followed up with Alvan Flanders, the detective in charge of the investigation, to make sure that Nava had given him the facts. I did not "point to Nava's beating as proof of anti-conservative bias on campus." Nor did I criticize (much less "attack") the administration's handling of the case. On the contrary, I praised it. And I praised it because it deserved to be praised. Moreover, I continued working with Detective Flanders and others to uncover the truth, and I counseled students against holding a candlelight vigil, a day of silence, or any other "solidarity event" before the investigation settled the facts. I was determined to prevent Princeton from repeating the errors made at Duke in the lacrosse case and, earlier, at Claremont-McKenna and Amherst College where enormous uproars occurred before it was discovered that what appeared to be hate crimes had been staged by the alleged victims.

If you have any doubt about my veracity, please call Detective Flanders at 609-258-1000 and Kathleen Deignan, Princeton's Dean of Undergraduate Students (whose office took the lead in the administration's handling of the case) at 609-258-5431.

Charles Davall, Deputy Director of Princeton's campus security force, wrote to me thanking me and the Anscombe Society students who had been victims of the false threats. Here is what he said about our role in helping to unravel Nava's story and reveal the truth:

"We owe a debt of gratitude to you and the rest of the students who under extreme adversity, did the right thing at many stages of this investigation. Because of their actions, and yours, we were able to quickly resolve this matter before it became an even bigger media and University event."

I also received a message from Dean Deignan. Here are her words to me (please recall here Blumenthal's charge that I used Nava's claims to "attack" the Princeton administration):

"Princeton is indeed lucky to have you here. Perhaps because I spend so much of my time working with undergraduate "trouble" of one sort or another, I have a special appreciation for how difficult it can be to approach situations like this one in the careful and measured way you did. These things can sometimes take on a life of their own and it's often difficult to provide immediate and supportive responses while at the same time refraining from drawing precipitous conclusions. I have great admiration for the guidance you provided to the students and deep gratitude for the trust you placed in the rest of us. I hope you'll have a little rest from this ordeal in the next few weeks and that you and your family will enjoy the Christmas season as it is meant to be -- peace."

You will, I trust, find it instructive in light of Blumenthal's claims that yet another member of the Princeton University administration has written to acknowledge and thank me for the role I played in the Nava investigation. Here is what Shirley Tilghman, President of Princeton University, wrote to me in an e-mail message this afternoon:

"Let me say that everyone has greatly appreciated the way you collaborated so effectively with public safety and the Office of the Dean of Students. They are very grateful for your caution, your good judgment and your solicitude for the students. I join them in thanking you for everything."

If you would like additional evidence, Michael, please let me know. There is plenty more where this came from. But again, you needn't take my word for any of it. I urge you to make the calls so that you can know with certainty whether Blumenthal is lying or I am.

Among his gross misrepresetations, Blumenthal says that I "immediately went to the neoconservative daily the New York Sun, and exclaimed, "Are there double standards and reforms that need to be made? Absolutely." In fact, I did not go to the New York Sun or any newspaper---"immediately" or otherwise. A reporter from the Sun got in touch with me. I told her that Princeton's administration and campus security people were handling the Nava investigation in an exemplary manner and without discrimination of any type. She then asked me if there is any unfairness towards conservative points of view at Princeton, and I said "absolutely," and told her about ideologically biased presentations in the freshman orientation program (especially a presentation entitled "Sex on a Saturday Night" which new students are required to attend) that Anscombe Society students and others have been working with Princeton's Vice President for Student Life Janet Dickerson to reform. Fortunately, on this point too I can provide documentary evidence. (As to the highly responsible way that the Anscombe students have conducted themselves in seeking reforms, please ask Vice President Dickerson.)

Among Blumenthal's gross falsehoods (echoed by Grant Gallicho on Commonweal), is that I began by attacking the administration and then later changed my tune in order to claim credit for assisting the detectives in solving the case. As to whether I (and the Anscombe students) did play important roles in assisting the detectives, ask Charles Davall, Alvan Flanders, and any of the administrators at Princeton who were involved. Again, there is no need to take my word for it. As to whether I changed my tune, ask Kathleen Deignan. She will confirm that on Friday---that is, even before anyone suspected Nava was perpetrating a fraud---I was defending the administration''s handling of the matter and offering to write a letter to the student newspaper saying that the administration's actions were exemplary. When the article in the New York Sun appeared, I wrote a letter to the reporter praising the administration's handling of the case and criticizing her story for depicting the administration in a negative light. So, you see Blumenthal and Gallicho simply couldn't be more wrong. They evidently published what they wanted to be true about me and the Anscombe students, but it turns out to be, once again, the very reverse of the truth.

And there is another very important point on which Commonweal bloggers and Max Blumenthal have managed to get things completely wrong. Their portrayal of the Anscombe students could not be farther from the truth. The overwhelming majority of events touching on political or moral questions on Princeton's campus tend to promote the liberal point of view, and there are numerous student advocacy organizations on that side of the political spectrum. Surely that comes as no surprise to you. On questions of sexual morality and marriage, Anscombe students have worked to ensure that there is a hearing for a competing perspective by sponsoring lectures and discussion groups, and even offering to co-sponsor balanced intellectual events with groups that take positions opposed to theirs. They do not engage in hate speech or abusive rhetoric, nor do they rely on appeals to revelation or mere tradition (much less emotion or other subrational factors). Following the example of the late Elizabeth Anscombe, they make calm and rational arguments, and have won the respect of administrators as well as many faculty and fellow students. Time after time, I have been told by liberal students: "While I disagree with everything that the Anscombe Society stands for, I'm grateful they're on campus because they make me think and challenge my presuppositions." Moreover, the organization has attracted some of Princeton's most outstanding students. It was created in 2005, and two of its officers---Christian Sahner '07 and Sherif Girgis '08---have won Rhodes Scholarships.

In the Nava episode (as the comments of Charles Davall and Dean Kathleen Deignan make clear), the Anscombe students conducted themselves admirably. Three in particular—Sherif Girgis, Kevin Staley-Joyce, and Jonathan Hwang—demonstrated extraordinary strength, wisdom, and character. In my opinion, they are the true heroes of the story. At every step, they showed great sensitivity and compassion towards Francisco Nava, even as they worked with Detective Flanders and others to determine whether someone they had known as a friend had perpetrated a grotesque fraud. Then, on Monday night, these young men on whom Francisco had imposed profound anguish and misery sat with him in the presence of University officials, quietly listened to his apology, and offered him ungrudging words of forgiveness, consolation, and encouragement. I was filled nearly to bursting with admiration for them. Commonweal blogger David Gibson should have checked with Princeton's administrators (Dean Deignan, for example, or Vice President Dickerson) before cruelly libeling these students with the charge of "kicking [Nava] to the curb." But again, don't take my word for it. Please make the calls.

There are lessons in this case about jumping to conclusions instead of waiting for the evidence, and about seizing on opportunities to politicize tragedies in the hope of blackening those with whom one disagrees. I hope that writers for Commonweal and the Nation will learn the lessons. Checking with me about the facts would have been an elementary courtesy. Checking with the leadership of Princeton's campus security and with the persons in Princeton's administration responsible for coordinating its actions was something any responsible journalist would have done.

I respectfully request that you post this letter on the Commonweal blog and MoJ. In case you prefer for any reason not to phone those Princeton University officials who can substantiate each of the claims I have made, I will copy Charles Davall and Dean Deignan on this message with a request to write to you if anything I have said is in even the slightest respect inaccurate.

Best wishes,

Robby

===========================================

Robert P. George

McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence

Director, James Madison Program in American

Ideals and Institutions

Princeton University

244 Corwin Hall

Princeton, NJ 08544

(609) 258-3270

(609) 258-6837 (fax)

[email protected]

A reflection on and response to Michael P.’s postings

By Robert John Araujo, SJ

I appreciate Michael P.’s engagement of my thoughts posted yesterday. Unlike Michael, I cannot state with such confidence: “that many believers—including Christians—live morally abominable lives, and given that many nonbelievers live morally exemplary lives” so why would I (Araujo) “think that being a believer is a necessary (though) not sufficient) condition of gaining eternity…” Believers and non-believers alike, are sinners. This certainly includes me. The fact that I am a believer is no guarantee of my eternal fate. But I strive, along with many other believers, to respond affirmatively to the call to holiness and the path to God. This is something to which the non-believer has, by self-chosen disbelief, become disengaged. My efforts and those of others who respond to discipleship are called to assist in the effort to evangelize the un-evangelized—and the method to be used is by proposition, by engagement, rather than by other means, as I stated in my post to which Michael has responded.

I am no other person’s judge in matters about eternal life. That is God’s prerogative solely. But, if I am faithful to the call to discipleship and the duties of evangelization, it is my responsibility, as it is that of other Christians, to assist others in seeking God. I may not be a success in the exercise of responsibility, and I may even fail. But that is not what is essential. What is crucial to belief in God is that I must not lapse in my fidelity to the work that I as a Christian have been called to do.

Michael has reminded us in the past about his own Jesuit education [HERE] which seems to have left an imprint on his life. I was two years behind Michael at the same institution he attended and shared in the same education that he did. We had the opportunity to be taught, ministered to, and counseled by a good number of Jesuit priests and a few scholastics. We both encountered these men whose purpose, as stated in the Formula of the Institute establishing the Society of Jesus, is this:

to strive especially for the defense and propagation of the faith and for the progress of souls in Christian life and doctrine, by means of public preaching, lectures, and any other ministration whatsoever of the word of God and further by means of the Spiritual Exercises, the education of children and unlettered persons in Christianity and the spiritual consolation of Christ’s faithful through hearing confessions and administering the other sacraments. Moreover, this Society should show itself no less useful in reconciling the estranged, in holily assisting and serving those who are found in prisons or hospitals and, indeed, in performing any other works of charity, according to what will seem expedient for the glory of God and the common good.

Several decades ago I responded to the call to contribute to this purpose when I entered the Society of Jesus. I am not called to judge others, but I am called to help others, whoever they may be, to God and the salvation promised by Christ through the Christian faith. When I made my final solemn profession nine years ago, I freely obligated myself

by a special vow to carry out whatever the present and future Roman pontiffs may order which pertains to the progress of souls and the propagation of faith; and to go without subterfuge or excuse, as far as in us lies, to whatever provinces they may choose to send us…

The law of the Society that I freely obliged myself requires this of me: to devote myself as a member of the Order

with God’s grace not only to the salvation and perfection of the member’s own souls, but also with that same grace to labor strenuously in giving aid toward the salvation and perfection of the souls of [my] fellow men.

Moreover, the Complementary Norms applicable to the work to which I have responded also require this of me: to be a servant of

Christ’s universal mission in the Church and in the world of today, [to] procure that integral salvation in Jesus Christ which is begun in this life and will be brought to its fulfillment in the life to come. (Italics are mine)

It strikes me that my responsibilities as a Catholic Christian who is also a Jesuit are not inconsistent with what one of my favorite authors once said:

it is simply not true that according to the position I am presenting here, the moral insight achieved over time by the various religious traditions, by the various historically extended religious communities, has at most only a marginal place in public political debate about the morality of human conduct. Such insight… may play a central role even in a politics constrained by the ideal of nonestablishment. Michael Perry

RJA sj

Still More About Princeton and the Nava Hoax

By Michael Perry

Given Rick's post , MOJ readers may want to check out the comments at dotCommonweal--18 comments as of this moment.

Health Care Reform Proposals

By Susan Stabile

While we often disagree about what Catholic Social Thought means regarding specific public policy proposals, no can disagree that it is unacceptable that over 40 million Americans are uninsured, and therefore lack access to affordable health care. In the hope that health care reform will be an important issue in the upcoming presidential election, Americans for Health Care has prepared a detailed comparison of the health plans of the various candidates, available by signing up here. Americans for Heath Care is the largest grassroots health care reform organization in the U.S. Its aim is to make health care for all Americans a priority in the 2008 presidential election.

In a related vein, recognizing that no plan to increase coverage can be effective without efforts to reduce health care costs, the Commonwealth Fund has just issued a study examining 15 policy options with the potential to reduce health spending. The report is available here.

The new First Things blog