O'Neill v. George

A few days ago, Michael P. mentioned that:

Next week, Aidan O'Neill--who is a Catholic and a (British) lawyer--will engage in a disputatio at Princeton University with Robby George, as part a conference on law and religion sponsored by Princeton's Program in Law and Public Affairs.

As it happens, I participated in a panel discussion at the same conference, and also enjoyed dinner and spirited conversation the night before with a number of the participants, including Mr. O'Neill.

I was also in the audience for the "disputatio" that Michael referenced.
O'Neill was folksy, witty, and charming, and had the (sympathetic) audience eating out of his hand at the beginning.  (Many seemed to enjoy, as we all do, the pleasure that comes with having one's own views affirmed).  But, with respect to the subject of the debate -- the whole "Catholics in politics, in the voting booth, and on the bench" thing -- he was (I thought) all-to-willing to skate past important distinctions, to caricature others' views, and to play, in an unattractive way, for knowing laughs at the expense of stodgy pontiffs and prelates.

When it was his turn, Prof. George pointed out error after error in the O'Neill paper, and highlighted many strained and partisan interpretations of the writings of popes and other so-called "conformist Catholics."  At one point, George reminded O'Neill and the audience of Archbishop Rummel's excommunication of three segregationist Catholic politicians in Louisiana in the 1950s, a move that was met with praise from the New York Times and other defenders of pluralist, liberal democracy.  Were they wrong, George asked?  To his credit, O'Neill bit the bullet -- what Rummel did was a violation of conscience, democracy, and the rule of law. 

Precisely because I was so disappointed, I then took the time to read the paper to which Michael linked.  I'm afraid I do not share Michael's positive view.  Of course, the subject is important; of course faithful and intelligent Catholics can and do disagree about it.  In places, the paper is (as Michael wrote) provocative.  Still, I found unhelpful and tendentious his distinction between "conformist" Catholics and "non-conformist" Catholics; I was surprised by his too-quick conflation of judging and legislating (and his mistaken claim that the Church's teachings require this conflation in a constitutional order like ours); and was unmoved by his suggestion that "conformist" Catholics (as he defines the term) are simply unfit participants in the legal and political spheres of a pluralist democracy.

But, like the man says, that's just me . . .  I have no doubt that kicking these questions around with Mr. O'Neill, over a pint, would be a pleasure, but I wish he'd written a different paper.