Mirror of Justice

A blog dedicated to the development of Catholic legal theory.
Affiliated with the Program on Church, State & Society at Notre Dame Law School.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Further thoughts on Dr. John Marshall’s letter to The Tablet

By Robert John Araujo, SJ

I sincerely thank Michael P. for posting Dr. John Marshall’s letter to The Tablet regarding his experience as a member of the Papal Commission on Birth Control. I did not know Jesuit Fr. Stanislas de Lestapis to whom Dr. Marshall refers. But I did know Jesuit Fr. John Ford, who like Fr. De Lestapis, was involved with the drafting of the “minority report” which became a harbinger of the encyclical Humanae Vitae upon which several of us have recently commented.

A quarter century ago when I was a Jesuit novice assigned to work in the New England Province Infirmary, I got to meet Fr. Ford who was then living in the infirmary during his last years in this life. One of my duties was to accompany him for his “daily” walks when his health permitted. He was a moral theologian who studied civil law in his later years; I was a civil law lawyer who had a great interest in moral theology and the social doctrine of the Church. We had some good conversations about matters of mutual interest. I learned much from him and his views on the Papal Commission’s work. I came across a recent publication on the Pro-Life Philippines website [HERE] that reminded me of some of Fr. Ford’s reflections. So, with thanks to Fr. Dick Cremins, S.J., I offer the thoughts of Fr. de Lestapis as reported by Fr. Cremins:

A Prophecy FULFILLED

by Fr. Dick Cremins, S.J.

Fr. Stanislas de Lestapis, a French Jesuit, died in 1999 at the age of 94. He had been a member of the Papal Commission on Birth Control and was one of the signatories of its minority report. He had published a book, Birth Control, of which the third edition appeared in 1962, before Humanae Vitae (1968).

In chapter 7, “The Contraceptive Civilization”, he made the following bold prophecies:


• “We do not hesitate to say that the acceptance of contraception will produce profound changes in our civilization, these changes are already taking place in countries that have officially endorsed contraception for one or two generations.”


• “Voluntary numerous families will progressively disappear, and the large family will tend to appear as a monstrosity.”

• “Populations and families which have deliberately become less creative will experience spiritual ageing and premature sclerosis.”


• “The idea and the ideal of family happiness will be downgraded in terms of a so-called right to happiness and of what people think are the ‘techniques’ of achieving it.”

• Morality among the young will deteriorate. The unmarried will be more licentious. The sexuality of women will lose its connection with marriage.”


• “There will be a grave change in the bond of love, due to the reversal of sexual function. It will remain fixed at an ‘adolescent’ stage. Society as a whole will slip into this ‘transitory’ stage.”


• “The maternal instinct will become sterile, due to the repression of the desire for children which is innate in women. There will be a silent hostility toward life and its first manifestations: pregnancy, childbirth and even sometimes towards dolls and babies.”

• “A new concept of sex, now essentially defined as ‘the capacity for erotic play for the sake of the couple,’ all reference to procreation now being only accidental.”

• “A growing tolerance of homosexual behavior, as erotic play that succeeds in expressing personal intimacy between friends or lovers.”

• “Finally, contraception will raise hopes which it cannot fulfill, and will give rise to frustrations and deep dissatisfactions, which will contribute to:


- The crisis of divorce and instability of modern marriages.


- The deterioration of mental health, and lack of sexual desire in women.


- The abdication of parents confronted by their task as educators.


- The ennui secreted by a civilization that is entirely centered on a comfortable way of life and sexual satisfaction.”


• “We may be accused of drawing a rather somber picture. No one will reproach us for not being frank. It only remains to justify these predictions.”


Fr. Lestapis goes on for twenty pages to justify separately each of his predictions, some very clearly, others less so, given the intangible nature of his subject.



However, a simple observation of our contemporary world will tell us that many, if not all of them, have come to pass. Is this just coincidence or is it because “the acceptance of contraception” actually has “produced profound changes in our civilization”?


If that is so, we can hardly treat the assertion of Humanae Vitae that “every use of marriage should be open to the transmission of life” as an open question.

RJA sj

Christian Commitment to Peace

By Susan Stabile

I thought it worth reprinting something from a letter Thomas Merten once wrote:

"It is sometimes discouraging to see how small the Christian peace movement is, and especially here in America where it is most necessary.  But we have to remember that this is the usual pattern, and the Bible has led us to expect it. Spiritual work is done with disproportionately small and feeble instruments. And now above all when everything is so utterly complex, and when people collapse under the burden of confusions and cease to think at all, it is natural that few may want to take on the burden
of trying to effect something in the moral and spiritual way, in political action. Yet this is precisely what has to be done.

"... [T]he great danger is that under the pressure of anxiety and fear, the alternation of crisis and relaxation and new crisis, the people of the world will come to accept gradually the idea of war, the idea of submission to total power, and the abdication of reason, spirit and individual conscience. The great peril of the cold war is the progressive deadening of conscience."

Is it right that even Christians have come to accept the idea of war?

[source: Thomas Merton, letter to Jean and Hildegard Goss-Mayer; The Hidden Ground of Love
William H. Shannon. editor; New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1985]

Bill Stuntz on "Abortion, Fighting Evil, and the Saddleback 'Debate'"

By Michael Perry

Check it out, here.

Monday, August 18, 2008

California decision on religious conscience and medicine

By Rick Garnett

Here is the opinion in the North Coast Women's Medical Care Group case.  According to Bill Duncan, of the Marriage Law Foundation,

The California Supreme Court has just issued a unanimous opinion that a doctor who refused, because of religious objections, to provide a specific artificial insemination procedure for a woman in a same-sex couple (he referred her to another physician) cannot claim a constitutional religious exemption to the state statute banning discrimination on the basis of "sexual orientation." The court said that even under the highest level of protection of religious liberty, the doctor would lose because the state has a "compelling interest in ensuring full and equal access to medical treatment irrespective of sexual orientation, and there are no less restrictive means for the state to achieve that goal." One justice said that interest includes ensuring "a right to full medical assistance in establishing a pregnancy."

(HT:  Kathryn Lopez)

So, does the state's "compelling interest in ensuring full and equal access to medical treatment irrespective of [sex]" override a medical professional's religiously based objection to performing an abortion?

"Redeeming Law: Christian Calling and the Legal Profession"

By Rick Garnett

Check out this conference announcement:

THE LEGAL SCHOLAR’S CALLING

October 10 - 11, 2009
Hyatt Regency Washington on Capital Hill
Washington, D.C.

Professors from around the world will gather at the Sixth Annual Christian Legal Scholars’ Symposium to discuss what it means to be a Christian legal scholar and to examine the implications that a Christian worldview has on the teaching and practice of law.

The Symposium will begin Friday, October 10 at noon with a luncheon address on “The Christian Vocation of the Legal Scholar.” After lunch, a panel of international law professors will share stories about the intersection of their faith and their academic and legal careers, illustrating the depth and breadth of God’s global work in and through the law. The remainder of Friday afternoon and a full session Saturday morning will be devoted to Christian jurisprudence, beginning with an address by renowned political philosopher J. Budziszewski, followed by panels on the implications of jurisprudence for religious freedom issues and the culture of life.

The Christian Scholars’ Symposium is a part of the Christian Legal Society Global Convocation (October 9-12).

"The Servant Lawyer"

By Rick Garnett

Here's a new paper, with a very long title, on SSRN, written by Kristin Fortin, a former student of mine, that should be up the alley of many MOJ-ers:

The Servant Leader Where the Modern Lawyer Should Be and How the Modern Lawyer Can Get There: How the Professionalism Paradigm Fueled by a Lawyer's Ethical Obligation to Inform Clients about Alternative Dispute Resolution Can Revive the Lawyer's Sense of Self, Sense of Vocation, and Sense of Service
Abstract:     
Lawyers need a particular ideal that embodies their skills, qualities, and aspirations - a model to emulate, a standard for judging professional development, and a source of pride in being a lawyer. To accomplish this, the legal profession must function within the professionalism paradigm and re-create the lawyer of practical wisdom who serves clients by informing them of all their options in resolving disputes. The most important step in this movement is to recognize that every lawyer ought to have an ethical obligation to counsel clients about alternative dispute resolution (ADR) as an alternative to adversarial proceedings. By enacting this ethical obligation, lawyers will reacquaint themselves and the law with the professional ideal of putting the client first in a meaningful way. . . .

Humanae Vitae, Revisited

By Michael Perry

What follows is a letter that appeared in the August 2d issue of The Tablet:

Truth and authority

I read your wide coverage of Humanae Vitae (26 July) with interest as I was one of the original six members of the Papal Commission on Birth Control appointed by Pope John XXIII and confirmed by Paul VI. The outstanding feature of the Commission was its dedication to the discovery of the truth. Every argument was carefully analysed and sifted to determine its weight. The other striking feature was the attitude of Pope Paul VI. Because of the international political implications of the Church’s teaching on contraception, the Commission was set up by the Secretary of State, not by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) as might have been expected. The Secretary General of the Commission, the Swiss Dominican, Henri de Reidmatten, reported directly to the Pope. When it became clear that fundamental questions were being raised, the response of the Pope was to continue the study with diligence and integrity.

It was only after the Commission had completed its report and been disbanded that the CDF swung into action, persuading the Pope not to change the teaching for fear of the damage this would do to papal authority. It failed to envisage the greater damage to be caused by maintaining a teaching which is unsustainable. The CDF set up a secret commission entirely of priests to produce a new report. This gives an insight into the curial mindset to think that a group of celibate priests, handpicked for their orthodoxy, would have a better understanding of marriage than a commission of cardinals, bishops, priests and lay people, married couples and single people, drawn from all five continents and embracing a wide range of sacred and secular disciplines.

The fundamental difference between the Commission and the CDF lies in the understanding of the nature of sexual intercourse in marriage. As Charles Curran (“Dangers of certitude”, 26 July) succinctly explained, the hierarchical Church identifies the morality of sexual intercourse with its physical aspects. It would hotly deny this, but the fact that a couple are allowed to choose an act that is nonprocreative but may not make an act non-procreative shows that it is the physical aspect that is sacrosanct. The Commission, looking at the evidence, took a wider view of sexual intercourse, seeing it as part of the wider relationship, expressing and fostering love.

The Commission anticipated that a change in teaching would be a great pastoral challenge and prepared a pastoral document of four chapters, one largely the work of the French Jesuit Père de Lestapis, the finest account of married love I have ever read. What a pity that none of this was ever published.

There have been many tragic consequences of Humanae Vitae, but none greater than that referred to in “A mother’s story – 1” (26 July). For the Popes, especially John Paul II, to teach, in season and out of season, that contraception is wrong and the overwhelming majority of the faithful to reject this undermines the integrity of the Church and weakens its witness in many areas. I hope that your coverage of this issue will promote more open and honest discussion which is so badly needed.

John Marshall

Emeritus Professor of Neurology
University of London

Freedom from poverty as a human right

By Rob Vischer

This book should be of interest to MoJ-ers.  (HT: Solum)

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Stewardship of the Land (and Humility)

By Susan Stabile

As I wandered through the Northern Great Lakes Visitors Center in Ashland, Wisconsin, yesterday, I read this on one of the information plaques: "Long before Europeans arrived, these forests were home to [the Ojibwe Indians].  They  believed that they were inseparable from other living beings with whom they shared the woods and waters and that the region's plants and animals were gifts shared with them to meet their needs.  From this kinship came wisdom, respect and deep knowledge of the natural world."

How nice it would have been if the arriving Europeans learned something about the principle of stewardship from the Indians.  Ironically, however, another plaque not very far from the first I quoted read: "The U.S. Government placed Native American children in boarding schools.  Children were severely punished if they spoke their natural language, practiced their religion or wore traditional clothing.  These schools aimed to eliminate traditional natural culture by separating children from their families and forcing them to adapt to European customs and Christian beliefs."  Not an attitidue that allows much learning from others.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Solidarity with the Marginalized and Powerless

By Susan Stabile

Today the Catholic Church celebrates the feast of the Assumption.  Although the Assumption of Mary is not one of the events that draws me most closely, I am moved by the Gospel reading for today's feast, which includes the passage we know as the Magnificant (also called the Song of Mary of the Canticle of Mary).  Dietrich Bonhoeffer called the Magnificat "the most passionate, the wildest, one might even say the most revolutionary Advent hymn ever sung. This is not the gentle, tender, dreamy Mary whom we sometimes see in paintings; this is the passionate, surrendered, proud, enthusiastic Mary who speaks out here. This song has none of the sweet, nostalgic, or even playful tones of some of our Christmas carols. It is instead a hard, strong, inexorable song about collapsing thrones and humbled lords of this world, about the power of God and the powerlessness of humankind.”

The Magnificant is a message of hope, one desperately needed in the world in which we live today.  But it is not a passive hope.  As I wrote on my blog this morning: "Mary’s song reminds us that we can never ignore the suffering of others if we are to be true disciples of Jesus. In the increasingly individualistic world in which we live, where there sometimes seems to be less and less willingness to reach out to others, Mary’s proclamation stands as a testimony to solidarity with the marginalized and the powerless. It calls us not to passive hope, but to action." 

You can find my full reflection on the Magnificat and its meaning for our world today here.

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