Mirror of Justice

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

A response to “Reforming the Vatican”

I would like to thank Michael P. for his kindly making us aware of Fr. Thomas Reese’s essay in Commonweal Magazine entitled “What the Church Can Learn from Other Institutions.” I’ll be addressing Fr. Reese’s six points for reform in a moment, but there is some need to consider his introductory passage that “throughout its history the Vatican has often imitated the organization of secular political institutions.” Fr. Reese does not offer any particular illustrations, so I am not sure what imitations and adoptions he has in mind. But from the perspective of who adopts from whom, I think those of us interested in Catholic Legal Theory need to be mindful that it was the Church’s legal institutions that often contributed to the foundation of western legal and juridical institutions. Harold Berman’s great work Law and Revolution is but one examination of this argument. Ample evidence exists demonstrating that the secular authority often drew from the Church’s legal and juridical institutions. I think we all need to be mindful that contemporary technologies have enabled the transmission of information in fractions of seconds, and this has had a tendency to reinforce the centralization of authority of academic institutions, corporations, national governments, and other organizations. I would caution against the “Vatican’s” (does Fr. Reese really mean the Holy See?) adopting “practices of the secular political world.” The Church and the Holy See are not political institutions even though some of their governance responsibilities have congruence in the legal and political works of the state, and this is a point that Fr. Reese concedes when he states, “All of these [activities] had parallels in secular society.” But substantive distinctions remain. The Church is the Body of Christ, the People of God. It is an institution in this world but not of it. I don’t think the same can be said of secular political institutions.

Before he begins his presentation of the six topics for reform, Fr. Reese engages in a discussion about Church-State relations particularly in the context of the selection of bishops. While he seems to wish that the selection could be conducted at the more local level rather than by the Holy Father and the Congregation for Bishops, Fr. Reese acknowledges the shortcomings of his desire. First of all, he acknowledges that the faithful do not always speak with one voice. Moreover, is it not possible that certain factions within the Church could stifle the voice of other factions? A lot would depend on who is present and who is not to cheer or jeer the candidate. I question the soundness of a selection process that is subject to the heckler’s veto. In addition, Fr. Reese admits the difficulties presented by the participation of the secular temporal authorities. This is of real and great concern. In the early twentieth century, for example, Cardinal Rampolla’s election to the papacy was frustrated in 1903 by the veto authority reserved and exercised by the Austrian emperor. Today, the People’s Republic of China, officially an atheistic (and totalitarian) government, has forced its views on the appointment of bishops who will serve within its sovereign territory. I think that Fr. Reese is mistaken in relegating to times past the temporal interference in Church matters. As I have stated here, today the Chinese state is not adverse to such interference; moreover, I have discussed in previous postings on Mirror of Justice the efforts by American politicians to saddle the Church with questionable regulation including financially accountability to secular authorities. These acts of temporal authorities, be they in China or the U.S., pose grave challenges to libertas ecclesiae.

Fr. Reese continues his historical study by noting that with the decline of the authority and presence of Catholic monarchs in Europe, the papacy consolidated and centralized the episcopal appointment mechanism. But should there not be a strong bond between Peter and the other apostles? This question was amply addressed at the Second Vatican Council in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, and the Decree on the Bishops’ Pastoral Office in the Church. In these texts, the Second Vatican Council underscored the vital principle that the bishops serve in communion with and under the authority of the Supreme Pontiff. I don’t think this was so much a mere “consolidation of power” as Fr. Reese suggests but an amplification of the principle taught by Jesus found in Saint John’s Gospel regarding the essential relationship between the vine, the branches, and the fruit that is borne. While it has many members, the Body of Christ is one.

And now, on to Fr. Reese’s six “possible reforms.”

At the outset, I suggest that what constitutes “best practices” for secular institutions of limited government (i.e., the “servant state”) must be carefully evaluated before being applied to a divine institution, viz. the Church.

His first recommendation is to make the Vatican a bureaucracy rather than a court. Having dealt with officials of the Holy See curial offices as well as Federal and state administrators, legislatures and their committees, my experience allows me to question what appears to be Fr. Reese’s assumption that Vatican offices are more difficult to approach or to make appeal to than are those of secular temporal authorities. This is not always or often the case. In addition, I don’t think cardinals and bishops particularly think of themselves as “princes” or “nobles” but as persons charged with the responsibility of executing as sons of the Church the duties of their office with fidelity to their commissions. If deference is given to them, it is because of the authority of their office. But we citizens also defer to the authority of our administrative, legislative, and judicial officials. I am certain that the experience of the American republic has revealed that some temporal office holders in the U.S. have exercised their authority in ways that would remind us of the methods not of a servant official but of a tyrant. On his first recommendation, Fr. Reese concludes that elements of the Vatican bureaucracy need to be reminded that as servants of the pope they are not “part of the Magisterium.” What Fr. Reese forgets is that the Vatican bureaucracy serves the pope and produces work which he or someone to whom he has delegated the authority subsequently approves and appropriates thereby making its work his and therefore a part of the Magisterium.

His second point calls for the institution of democratic legislative structures. I do not think his proposal acknowledges several important facts that would blunt the force of this suggestion. First of all, the Roman dicasteries, some of which were established by the work of the Second Vatican Council and some of which precede it by many years (in some cases centuries), today have members and consultors (clerical and lay; men and women) who provide the Holy Father with recommendations that he typically and frequently adopts. When we think about law making in the United States, the system of the Holy See has a parallel with the executive signing into law the work of the legislature before it becomes law. In both cases, there is the mechanism for an “executive veto.” In the case of the Holy See, there is no mechanism for a legislative override, but that is not needed when the dicasteries return to their work leading to new recommendations or other work product submitted to the Holy Father. The fact that the Holy See relies today on all modern means of communication would put into perspective Fr. Reese’s clarion that there be an “ecumenical council at least once every generation.” When modern means of rapid communication did not exist, his suggestion would be more attractive. But one must ask is it necessary to have a meeting when the same work can be accomplished through almost instantaneous global communication.

His third recommendation calls for the conversion of the current dicasteries into “synodal committees.” As I have already mentioned, the Roman curia today (which includes Congregations, Councils, Tribunals, Academies, and other offices) is comprised of members, staff, and consultors from around the world. His conversion recommendation offers little in the way of substantive change but appears to be largely cosmetic.

The fourth suggestion concentrates on legislative oversight of the bureaucracy. I find this recommendation fails to take account of the fact that here in the United States, there is little ability of Congress or state legislatures to exercise oversight over a professional bureaucracy that is protected by the civil service system. Indeed, the highest offices of the bureaucracy are typically filled with political appointments, many of whom are subject to legislative scrutiny, confirmation, and oversight. But the vast majority of the civil temporal bureaucracy is protected from the oversight authority that Fr. Reese considers essential for the Church’s bureaucracy. Fr. Reese correctly notes that in some countries such as the United States there is an independent judiciary. But I wonder what makes him think that the Holy Father does not defer to the judgments and expertise of the several tribunals in Rome and those of the local churches that exercise the juridical duties of the Church? To the best of my knowledge, no pope in modern times ever considered a court packing plan or legislative or executive overrides of judicial decisions. I disagree with Fr. Reese’s contention that the protection of due process is not afforded to theologians who are investigated by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The scandal he imagines may exist in legend but not in reality.

While I have already addressed some of his concerns about episcopal appointments, his fifth suggestion, fails to acknowledge that the papal nuncios (or in countries where there is no nuncio, the apostolic delegate), who are one of the Church’s principal bodies involved in the appointment of bishops, rely on recommendations and information supplied by clerical and lay members of the local churches regarding potential episcopal nominations. The dossiers compiled on those priests being considered for nominations reflect the abundant sources of information and opinions collected by the nuncios or apostolic delegates who then submit short lists to the Congregation for Bishops and, subsequently, to the Holy Father. The conclusion that the participation of the local churches is excluded in the episcopal appointments process is mistaken.

His final suggestion is a call to strengthen episcopal conferences by making them councils that would make the decisions otherwise made “by a centralized government.” While Fr. Reese relies on church teachings pertaining to subsidiarity, he fails to acknowledge that local churches already do this in many areas. But they do so in communion with Peter, the Vicar of Christ. In this context, we cannot forget the principles to which I have already referred that are from Lumen Gentium and the Decree on the Bishops’ Pastoral Office. Subsidiarity in the Church as well as its practice in the civil government of the United States is a good thing, but it exists in a reality where certain universal questions must ultimately be addressed by the highest authority, ecclesial or temporal. Subsidiarity that fails to complement solidarity leads to unnecessary friction and, then, fraction, and this is counterproductive to the flourishing of the vine and the branches—the one Body of Christ.

I look forward to reading the more detailed discussion which will appear in Fr. Reese’s chapters in the forthcoming book. For the time being, I have attempted to respond to the substance of what he has thoughtfully put forward in his article that Michael has kindly brought to our attention. Like Fr. Reese and so many others, including the Holy Father Benedict XVI, I remain a person of hope—hope in the one who came to save us all and who is represented by the Vicar of Christ and those whom he has called to assist him in his divinely mandated commission from our Savior. RJA sj

Conscience, Soldiers, and ACOG

By Rob Vischer

Bryan McGraw offers this response to my post on the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists' opinion on conscience:

First, it’s worth noting that the soldier analogy seems misconstrued and is, more importantly, not quite on point. Soldiers (I used to be one) have a duty, in fact, to disobey an order that violates their moral obligations as codified in the law of war, rules of engagement, or what have you. You’re right, I think, to suggest that the too-easy “all-or-nothing” paradigm doesn’t quite fit, though, since there are always borderline cases where soldiers have to make choices and, sometimes, face punishment when what their conscience tells them and what their superiors tell them are at odds. We shouldn’t shy away from this inevitability and certainly shouldn’t expect our political order to avoid it in all cases. But the soldier analogy seems pretty misleading, more generally, as a democratic political order is not at all like a military institution. That is, it is not defined above all as a command-and-obey institution, but as rule of the people bound together under law whose parameters are set, in some fashion, by liberties (however one might define and derive these). There seems to me a world of difference between the soldier questioning whether he really should train his fire on a particular building as he is commanded to and a physician questioning whether he should participate in a procedure he thinks immoral even if the majority (or at least the majority of policy-makers in one particular bureaucracy) deems it necessary.

More broadly, it seems to me that you’ve flipped the burden of justification here. The most disturbing tendency in these sorts of debates is the tendency to ascribe to policy choices (whether they come out of Congress, the Supreme Court, or administrative bodies) a kind of moral omniscience and *only then* ask whether we want to offer or allow some accommodations to those choices. It should be, it seems to me, quite the opposite: it is the exercise of coercive authority that needs justifying, not the opposite. While you’re right to suggest that rooting claims of conscience in enduring moral truths is problematic from a pragmatic sort of view – recognition of those “enduring moral truths” is too often fleeting and inconsistent – that’s precisely the critique that ought to be leveled at ACOG. They are *so sure* that untrammeled access to abortions is a good thing that they are willing to say that there is no reasonable moral claim on the part of OBs that could justify their opting out of such systems. They are the ones – not the dissenters – that are pretending to a kind of moral omniscience.

I wonder if a more fruitful line of inquiry is to ask why it is that we allow organizations like ACOG to have the authority to make those sorts of decisions? (Similar questions could be asked of bar associations, accrediting agencies, and so on). Too often, they make claims that de facto make them look like political authorities (in the sense that they have authority, in some sense, to determine whether someone can practice law or medicine or what-not) but without the same sort of public accountability.

The Headlines for the Pope's Visit - CNN's take is interesting

By Michael Scaperlanda

At 11:30 am, April 16, the websites of NY Times (“At White House, Pope Laud’s America Faith”), Foxnews (“The Pope in America: A Mission of Faith”), and MSNBC (“Bush Hosts Pope for Birthday Party”) lead with the story - in words and pictures - of the Pope’s visit. At CNN, the lead story is on Virginia Tech and the only mention of the Pope’s visit without having to scroll down is this: “Analysis: Watch for Papal Political Fallout.” Hmm! It pays to look at more than one headline me thinks.

Conscience and the Pro-Life Doctor

By Rob Vischer

Last week Rick invited me to respond to a post by Christopher Kaczor at First Things about last year's opinion on the role of conscience in reproductive medicine from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. I agree that the College's opinion is unduly one-sided, elevating patient autonomy as an absolute value. My own work tries to focus more broadly on whether there is a functioning marketplace for contested goods and services. The focus should be on access within the market, not on ensuring that every provider conforms to the party line. Since most MoJ-ers will presumably share my skepticism toward the College's opinion, let me raise a couple of points of disagreement with Dr. Kaczor and with Fr. Araujo, who thoughtfully commented on the opinion as well.

Dr. Kaczor takes issue with the College's statement that “Although respect for conscience is a value, it is only a prima facie value, which means it can and should be overridden in the interest of other moral obligations that outweigh it in a given circumstance." My question for Dr. Kaczor is, if the law must treat a claim of conscience as more than a "prima facie value," does that mean that the law should treat conscience as an absolute value? If so, how could our legal system function with that understanding of conscience? The Civil Rights Act, for example, is a clear example of the law running roughshod over dissenting claims of conscience. If the law must retreat whenever conscience is invoked, the rule of law is going to encounter some serious obstacles.

Relatedly, Dr. Kaczor explains his disagreement with the College's opinion by analogizing to a soldier:

Consider someone volunteering for military service who receives all the benefits and responsibilities that come with the oath to obey superior officers. If a superior officer orders him to do something that he considers morally wrong, if we make use of the principles invoked by the ACOG, the soldier may only disobey the order if there are other soldiers available to carry that order out. Surely, however, the demands of conscience should not be gerrymandered by the availability of people who very well may be less enlightened and conscientious.

Is he suggesting that soldiers should have a right of conscience to disobey superiors' orders without suffering any discipline for that disobedience? The closest I've gotten to military service is repeated viewings of Saving Private Ryan, but it seems that Dr. Kaczor's view challenges the premises of the chain of command. It also illustrates a broader problem I have with many all-or-nothing defenses of a right to conscience. The fact that the law does not grant me a right to obey my conscience without fear of reprisal does not mean that my conscience has been snuffed out. It just means that I might have to pay a price for standing by my convictions. A soldier is free to disobey the immoral orders of a superior, but he must be ready to defend that decision in a court martial. Similarly, a obstetrician may refuse the directive to refer patients to an abortion provider, but he may need to count the cost of that refusal. To be clear, I oppose requiring a referral under those circumstances, but the law's failure to provide a blanket shield to claims of conscience does not mean that conscience is inoperative. Conscience is not costless.

And just a word in response to Fr. Araujo's criticism of the College's opinion. He writes that:

The conscience that is being sacrificed here is not one that is subjectively determined (like the autonomy intrinsic to “reproductive health rights”) but one that is designed to advance an objectively determined moral order.

The problem is that the relevant authorities (here, the College) do not agree that abortion is inconsistent with an objectively determined moral order. Now what? My fear is that when we put so much weight on the "objective" nature of the conscience claims at issue, we have set the legal argument for recognizing conscience on a pretty shaky foundation. For freedom of conscience to remain vital, it cannot rest on the demonstrable truth value of the claims for which conscience is invoked. Many of the truths that matter most are not demonstrable, or are at least not demonstrable to the satisfaction of the relevant authorities.

By Michael Perry

GOD AND MAN AT NOTRE DAME

Kenneth L. Woodward

[This op-ed, by former Commonweal editor Kenneth Woodward, is published in today's New York Times.]

POPE BENEDICT XVI will give several speeches during his visit to the United States, but the most consequential for American Catholics may be his address to the presidents of Catholic colleges and universities tomorrow.

Benedict has shown himself concerned about preserving the specifically Roman Catholic identity of all Catholic institutions, particularly those in higher education. His predecessor, John Paul II, tried to do this by insisting that Catholic theology professors sign a document called a mandatum affirming their fidelity to the papal teaching. Conservative Catholics are counting on Benedict to enforce this approach.

Yet, because Benedict is at heart a professor, I hope that he recognizes that fidelity to church teachings cannot be coerced.

No question, a Catholic university should be identifiably Catholic. But the problem of institutional identity goes far beyond litmus tests for theologians.

Arguments over the “identity crisis” on Catholic campuses have been going on for 50 years — long enough to realize that there is no single thing that makes a Catholic university Catholic. Indeed, the question of Catholic identity has as much to do with the changes in Catholic students and their parents as it does with faculty members and administrations.

In the early 1960s, half of all Catholic children attended Catholic grade and high schools. The 10 percent or so who went on to college had some 300 Catholic colleges and universities to choose from — more, in fact, than in the rest of the world combined. Catholics were expected to attend one of these; those who wanted to attend, say, an Ivy League college often had to get permission from their pastor.

Today few Catholic students or parents are likely to choose a Catholic university if Princeton or Stanford is an option. A Catholic higher education, in other words, is less prized by many Catholic parents — including complaining conservatives — than the name on the college diploma.

Another difference is this: Well into the 1960s, Catholic college freshmen arrived with a knowledge of the basics of their religion — enough, at least, to question the answers they were given as children or, among the brighter students, to be challenged in theology classes toward a more mature grasp of their faith.

Most of today’s Catholic students, however, have no such grounding. Even the graduates of Catholic high schools, theology professors complain, have to be taught the fundamentals. As one Methodist theologian at Notre Dame wryly put it, “Before I teach my course on marriage I have to tell them first what their own church has to say on the subject.”

No question, Catholic colleges were more “Catholic” then than they are today. Most were small campuses with a liberal-arts curriculum, making it easy to weave theology into the classroom mix. Most teachers were Catholic and many were priests and nuns.

The ’60s changed all that. In 1966, the American Council on Education issued a study that failed to uncover a single Catholic university with a “distinguished or even strong” graduate department. This prompted Msgr. John Tracy Ellis, a leading American Catholic historian, to suggest a radical consolidation: American Catholics should support no more than three Catholic universities, one on each coast and one in between.

Ellis knew it would never happen, given the independence of each university. Yet his pronouncement prompted a contest among Catholic universities in the hope of surviving the final cut. The rush was on to upgrade faculty and facilities, which meant competing for the best teachers and students regardless of religion. Then there was the Second Vatican Council’s urging Catholics to embrace the modern world. This prompted many priests and nuns to abandon Catholic institutions to work “in the world,” further accelerating the need for lay faculty members. Faculty strikes over academic freedom at Catholic universities led many to turn control over to lay-dominated boards of trustees.

Led by the Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, the longtime president of Notre Dame, Catholic educators redefined the relationship between church and university. As Father Hesburgh adroitly put it, a Catholic university is the place “where the church does its thinking.” Learning, in other words, is not indoctrination.

Since those transformative years, the number of Catholic colleges and universities has declined by a third. Some secularized, cutting all ties to the church, in order to survive. Others, especially those for women, closed their doors for lack of applicants. Many more grew through compromise: though nominally Catholic, they offered theology as not much more than a series of selections in a menu of course options.

America can still boast of a monopoly of the world’s best Catholic educational institutions. Some are small liberal-arts colleges that have preserved or reinvented classical Catholic humanism. Others are more sectarian, fashioned in reaction to the demand for orthodoxy by John Paul II. A few universities like Notre Dame (my alma mater) have attained elite status while remaining manifestly Catholic.

I hope Pope Benedict will keep this diversity in mind when tomorrow he discusses the issue of institutional identity. I hope, too, that someone in his entourage will point out that there are more Catholic students at many of the big public universities in the Midwest than at any Catholic college. They are there by choice, their own or that of their parents.

What these students and their teachers need is a vision of what it means to be an educated Catholic, not just a lecture on preserving Catholic institutional identity. If Benedict can manage that, his words will be worth remembering.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Recognizing Israel, Recognizing Palestine

By Susan Stabile

MOJ readers in the Twin Cities may be interested in a talk being given tomorrow night at the University of St. Thomas by Fr. David Smith, Professor Emeritus at the UST and founder of the University's Justice and Peace Program. The title of Fr. Smith's talk is Recognizing Israel, Recognizing Palestine: three months with a peace team in the occupied territories of Palestine. As the title suggests, Fr. Smith has recently returned from three months in the Middle East and will talk about his experience with the peace team. The talk, which is free and open to the public, will be at 7:00 p.m. in Room 126 of the John Roach Center at the UST (Summit and Cleveland Avenue, St. Paul, Minnesota).

The peace team's reports can be accessed here. See here for a video of the Bethelehem checkoint on a typical day at 4:00 a.m.

The Compassion Forum (2): Clinton and Obama on Religion in Public Life

By Greg Sisk

During the course of their separate appearances at the Compassion Forum at Messiah College in Pennsylvania on Sunday evening, Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were asked for their thoughts on the very propriety of the forum itself, devoted as it was to discussion of religion and public life. The contested place of the religious voice in the public square has been a subject of animated debate in both popular and academic circles over the past couple of decades. Many of the members of this Mirror of Justice blog have been leading figures in that important discussion, most prominently our own Michael Perry, whose several books on the subject are essential volumes in any library on religious expression in public life. (In one side-line of my academic writing, I have offered my own thoughts on this subject in the context of what I called the “quintessential religious witness in the public square” of Pope John Paul II (here).)

Was it appropriate to ask presidential candidates to share their views on religious faith and values in public life? While one would not expect politicians to offer reflections that rise to the quality of academic discourse, the responses of the Democratic presidential candidates may be revealing of how this public debate has moved over the years. Vigorously if imperfectly on the part of Senator Obama, and more haltingly on the part of Senator Clinton, their openness to religious participation suggests that we may be witnessing the beginning of a break from what then law professor and now federal judge Michael McConnell identified as a secularist “hold on mainstream thinking” about religion in the elite sectors of American society. The “Naked Public Square,” against which Richard John Neuhaus warned so eloquently many years ago, is becoming better clothed, even among the left-leaning political demographic that had seemed most insistent on denuding the public square of the religious witness.

In yesterday’s post offering my general observations about the candidates’ responses on questions about religious faith at the Compassion Forum, I shared my impression that Senator Clinton more readily and more comfortably connected with the spiritual dimension of faith as central to the lives and identity of so many Americans. Unfortunately, she faltered badly, in my view, on the central question of whether the subject was appropriately raised in the first place. When one of the moderators claimed that “there are a lot of Americans who are uncomfortable with the conversation that we’re having here tonight” and who “believe religion already has way too much influence in political life and public life,” Senator Clinton was immediately solicitous of those objections. She characterized this as “a fair question to ask” and said that she understood “why some people, even religious people, even people of faith might say, why are you having this forum? And why are you exploring these issues from two people who are vying to be president of the United States?” Still, she did conclude that “we want religion to be in the public square,” saying that “[i]f you are a person of faith, you have a right and even an obligation to speak from that well spring of your faith.” But, she insisted, people of faith must “do so in a respectful and inclusive way.”

By responding as she did, Senator Clinton gave considerable credence to the persisting anti-religious impulses of too many in her political party. By stating that it is fair for some to question whether it is proper even to host a forum that allows candidates for the nation’s highest office to share their views on faith and values, she suggested that the exclusionary secularist viewpoint is a legitimate one that deserves consideration, even if on balance but only after careful consideration she had decided to participate in the forum. Reflecting the antipathy to religion in liberal elite circles, Richard Rorty once argued that speaking of religion in the context of public policy should be sharply rebuked as displaying “bad taste” in polite company. While clearly struggling to find a way to do so Sunday evening, and succeeding in other ways, Clinton seemed unable to completely shake off a similar aesthetic discomfort with the topic.

In sum, in this passage from the forum, Senator Clinton offered a less than enthusiastic invitation to people of faith to participate in the public square and indeed set out terms by demanding that they do so in a “respectful and inclusive way.” While most of us desire to be as respectful and inclusive as possible in expressing our religious (and non-religious) views, short of compromising our principles, Clinton did not suggest a similar qualification on participatory rights for anyone else engaging in public discourse.

In contrast, Senator Obama began his response to the same question by rejecting those “elements, many of them in my own party, in the Democratic Party, that believe that any influence of religion whatsoever in the public debate somehow is problematic or violates church and state.” Instead, he explained, “[w]hat I believe is that all of us come to the public square with our own values and our ideals and our ethics, what we believe. And people of religious faith have the same right to come to that public square with values and ideals that are rooted in their faith.” Obama continued: “And they have the right to describe them in religious terms, which has been part of our history. As I said in some of my writings, imagine Dr. King, you know, going up before, in front of the Lincoln Memorial and having to scrub all his religious references, or Abraham Lincoln in the Second Inaugural not being able to refer to God.” Yes, it is unfortunate that Senator Obama felt obliged to toss out the canard that Republicans would abolish separation of church and state (in a passage not quoted above) and that he self-referentially cited his own writings about the essentiality of religious references to Dr. Martin Luther King's civil rights movement (in the passage quoted above), instead of giving credit to such scholars as Stephen Carter who brought that point front and center in our modern public debate about religion in public life. Nonetheless, and importantly, Senator Obama offered a ringing endorsement of religious participation in the public square and did not hesitate to separate himself from the secular exclusionists.

Unfortunately, after having done so, Obama too felt obliged to suggest special constraints on the religious voice, saying that, in the public square, we have to “translate our language into a universal language that can appeal to everyone.” As with Senator Clinton, Obama did not explain why people of faith are required to speak in a different voice, one that is “universal” and “appeals to everyone” before being heard. And having just defended the use of openly religious references, Obama’s insistence that religious language be translated into a universal style was somewhat contradictory. As Obama’s closing remarks in response to this question suggest, his concern apparently is to preclude “a certain self-righteousness,” as when a speaker implies he has “got a direct line to God,” a claim that Obama characterized as “incompatible with democracy.” But by thereby carving out forthright claims of religious truth from discourse that is appropriate for the public square, isn’t Obama’s invitation to people of faith significantly limited? Dr. King certainly claimed Biblical sanction for his views about the equality of all people. Nor, as Obama said should be expected of people of faith, did Dr. King "allow that we may be wrong" in thinking people of color were entitled to fundamental human rights.

While both Senators Obama and Clinton said that they welcomed the religious voice in the public square, and Obama did so in forceful terms, they also felt obliged to suggest that religious participation should be controlled and constrained, in a manner that we do not demand of others. Stephen Carter once wrote that a “cultural discomfort” emerges “when citizens who are moved by their religious understanding demand to be heard on issues of public moment and yet are not content either to remain silent about their religions or to limit themselves to acceptable platitudes.” By demanding “inclusive” or “universal” language or warding against claims of God-given truth as “incompatible with democracy,” is the Obama and Clinton invitation to people of faith effectively conditioned upon their willingness to utter “acceptable platitudes”? I don’t think either of them, and Obama in particular, mean to be so restrictive. But they appear conflicted in their instincts and have not yet thought through what it would mean to regard people of faith as first-class citizens in the public square. And neither Clinton nor Obama appears to be comfortable with what Stephen Carter referred to as the role of “prophetic religious activism,” observing as he did that “[t]he religious voice at its more pure is the voice of the witness.” But maybe that's to be expected. Clinton and Obama are politicians seeking power, and politicians seeking power are seldom comfortable with prophets.

In the next day or two, I’ll move from observations about the general subjects of religious faith in personal and public life as addressed at the Compassion Forum and offer my comments on how the candidates responded to questions about abortion and the sanctity of human life, which sadly if not unexpectedly was the nadir of the evening.

Greg Sisk

The Pope and the Would-Be Presidents

By Rick Garnett

I agree with Michael, certainly, that it is "worth pondering" Mr. Nichols' suggestion that President Bush "might want to listen to what this particular pope has to say about global warming, fighting poverty and, above all, promoting peace", and should not merely use this visit to "bask in the papal glow." Does Mr. Nichols think -- if he doesn't, I think it is worth pondering why he does not -- that Sen. Obama, etc., (who issued a gracious welcome message to the Pope) ought not to merely "bask in the papal glow" (around his own environmental proposals, for example) and should, instead, "listen to what this particular pope has to say about" prioritizing an abortion-on-demand regime that cannot even admit of a ban on partial-birth abortion or a requirement to save children who manage to survive abortions?

The Pope and the President

By Michael Perry

A friend of MOJ sent me this. (From The Nation, 4/15/08.] Certainly worth pondering!

The Pope and the President
by John Nichols

George Bush is certainly not the first American president to try
and take advantage of a timely papal meeting to advance himself and
his agenda.

Pope Benedict XVI, who arrives today for a high-profile visit to the
United States, took his name from Pope Benedict XV, who consulted
with Woodrow Wilson when the 28th president was touring Europe with
the purpose of promoting a League of Nations.

Bush has no such grand design.

The current president is merely hoping that – by greeting the
current Pope Benedict at Andrews Air Force Base, inviting 12,000
people to an outdoor reception with the pontiff and then hosting a
Bavarian dinner for the visitor from the Vatican – his own dismal
approval ratings might be improved by association with a reasonably
popular religious leader.

The initiative has been somewhat complicated by the fact that Pope
Benedict will not attend the dinner.

But that won’t stop Bush by attempting to bask in the papal glow.

Perhaps the president should try a different approach.

Instead of posing with the pontiff he might want to listen to what
this particular pope has to say about global warming, fighting
poverty and, above all, promoting peace.

No one is going to confuse Pope Benedict with the caricature of
a liberal.

But the pontiff has made the Vatican a leader is seeking to address
climate change. Under this pope’s leadership, the Vatican announced
that it would become the world's first carbon-neutral state.

He has said that the leaders of the world must do much more to feed
the poor, fight disease and support the interests of workers rather
than the bottom lines of corporations.

And he has bluntly said that Bush’s preemptive attack on Iraq and the
subsequent occupation of that country does not follow the Catholic
doctrine of a “just war.”

Before the invasion, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was asked whether
the attack might be considered morally justified under the just-war
standard. “Certainly not,” he replied, explaining that "the damage
would be greater than the values one hopes to save."

After the war began, Cardinal Ratzinger said of the global protest
movement to prevent the attack: "it was right to resist the war and
its threats of destruction.”

Rejecting arguments made by the president and many of his supporters
that the United States needed to take the lead, this pope argued, “It
should never be the responsibility of just one nation to make
decisions for the world."

It is not secret that George Bush has trouble taking the counsel of
those who do not tell him what he wants to hear.

But if this president wants to associate himself with the pope, he
should begin by listening to the man who has said, "There were not
sufficient reasons to unleash a war against Iraq. To say nothing of
the fact that, given the new weapons that make possible destructions
that go beyond the combatant groups, today we should be asking
ourselves if it is still licit to admit the very existence of a
'just war.'"

Of course, no rational observer is going to think that George Bush
will be led by Pope Benedict XVI to pacifism. But Bush cannot claim
to be taking this papal visit seriously if he will not even entertain
a discussion of just and unjust wars.