The Pope Should Be Pleased

Before being elected pope, Joseph Card. Ratzinger invited three Catholic Universities in the United States to convene conferences to study the question of the possibility of a common morality in this global age, and last weekend -- or, rather, from l;ast Thursday through Sunday -- The Catholic University of America rose to the challenge.  CUA, acting through its new Center for Law, Philosophy and Culture, which is under the direction of our friend William Wagner, hosted a standard-setting conference on the theme "A Common Morality for the Global Age: In Gratitude for What We Are Given."  The principal papers will be published in the Center's Journal of Law, Philosophy and Culture.  We are all in the debt not only of Bill Wagner but also of CUA President Fr. David O'Connell and CUA Law Dean Veryl Miles for warm hospitality and both scholarly and ecclesial vision.  To name the list of heavy-hitters is only a beginning: Stanley Hauerwas, Sir John Polkinghorne, Kenneth Schmitz, Nicholas Boyle, Michael Sandel, Jean Porter,Gilbert Meileander, Kathryn Tanner, Thomas Hibbs, Robert George, Paul Weithman, Hadley Arkes, Francis Oakley, Richard Helmholz, Kenneth Pennington, Jean Elshtain, William Schweiker, Brian Tierney, David Hollenbach SJ, Kevin Hart, Robert Wilken, Mahmoud Ayoub, Rabbi Barry Freundel, Robert Burt, and many others.  It was, as Lisa Schiltz said to me in conversation during a break on Saturday, the feel of the event -- the way in which the conference theme of "gratitude for what we are given" animated and disciplined the hard discussion of pluralism, terrorism, disagreement, "rights," etc.  There was a palpable sense throughout the conference that it has become exigent for Christians to come together with others to give witness to the reality of moral norms that should guide and protect us all.  I found particularly insightful the papers by Jean Porter and Frank Oakely; Porter spoke to the theological basis of natural law and the need for Christians to witness by sharing natural law norms even with those who cannot affirm the theological premises, and Oakley mapped out the voluntarist and rationalist strains in the natural law tradition from Plato to 18th century. 

There's much more to say about this, but I'll end for now by congratulating CUA on a most successful, and hope-generating, gathering.  It's apt that Pope Benedict will visit CUA only weeks after the university hosted the conversation he inspired.