Lessons bishops should learn from the '08 election
Fr. Richard McBrien
NCR, November 24, 2008
Regardless
of how individual Catholics voted in this year’s historic presidential
election, there are at least three important lessons for their pastoral
leadership to absorb.
First, Catholic voters are paying less and less attention to the
urgings of the most theologically rigid and politically partisan
bishops of the U.S. bishops’ conference. Catholics this year returned
to their traditional allegiance to the Democratic Party by a margin of
53 percent to 45 percent. And Hispanic voters, most of whom are
Catholics, supported the Democratic ticket by an astonishing margin of
66 percent to 31 percent.
Essays in Theology by Fr. Richard McBrien
This was in spite of the efforts of a vocal handful of bishops,
including Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver and Bishop Joseph Martino
of Scranton, to try to persuade Catholics that a vote for the
Democratic ticket was tantamount to a vote for abortion and, therefore,
gravely sinful.
Some Catholics evidently accepted this line of argument, but one can
at least ask how many of them would have voted Republican for other
reasons, even if the abortion issue had not been a factor.
By an overwhelming margin of some 60 percent, voters this year
identified the economy as their number one concern. The issues that
right-wing pressure groups tried to use on fellow Catholics with
voter-guides -- abortion, gay marriage, homosexuality and embryonic
stem-cell research --gained little or no traction this time around.
This vocal minority of bishops have to ask themselves whether their
one-issue approach is actually counter-productive, not only in terms of
its effectiveness with Catholic voters but also in its effectiveness in
actually reducing the number of abortions in the United States.
This year, in any case, their narrow approach to life issues has
stirred other pro-life Catholics to fight back and to reject the focus
on the abortion issue to the practical exclusion of all others.
Second, there is also a question to be put to the all-too-silent
majority of bishops who have failed to remind Catholic voters that the
bishops’ conference supports a “consistent-ethic-of-life” approach to
moral issues, that it has gone on record as neither endorsing nor oppos-ing
candidates for public office, and that it insists that the Catholic
church is not a one-issue church, notwithstanding the moral urgency of
the abortion issue.
While it is true that bishops do not wish to interfere in their
fellow bishops’ governing of their own dioceses, the vocal minority of
bishops who have spoken out in politically partisan fashion have a
national impact beyond the confines of Denver, Scranton, or wherever
else.
The media and many in the general public do not usually make a
distinction between the personal views of a few outspoken bishops and
the official teachings and policies of the entire bishops’ conference.
In the future, conference leaders must make it unmistakably clear
that, while individual bishops are free to issue statements and take
stands within and for their own dioceses, such bishops have no personal
authority beyond their dioceses, and indeed that their views are
contrary to the stated teachings and policies of the conference itself.
Third, beyond the concern for political and moral credibility and
effectiveness, there are other, equally significant statistics to be
drawn from the recent presidential election. The Democratic ticket won
the support of 66 percent of voters between the ages of 18 and 29, and
57 percent between the ages of 30 and 44.
These voters are not only the future of the country; many of them
are also the future of the Catholic church. Do our pastoral leaders
really want to be so far out of step with this crucially important
constituency?
Can our leadership not make a more concerted effort to understand
the thinking of under-45 Catholics, as well as of many older Catholics
who are aware of, and in full agreement with, the official teachings
and policies of the conference but who disagree strongly with the views
of the conference’s aggressively conservative minority?
And what, again, of the 66 percent of Hispanic voters, many of whom
are Catholics? The same questions should be applied to the bishops’
pastoral responsibility toward Hispanic Catholics, young and old alike.
Ninety-five percent of African Americans voted for Sen. Barack
Obama. Relatively few are Catholic, but should the entire black
community be written off?
The bishops also need to recognize that women voted for the
Democratic ticket by a margin of 56 percent to 43 percent. The same
concerns that apply to Catholics in general and to younger and Hispanic
Catholics in particular apply also to the leadership’s pastoral
challenge of addressing the alienation of many Catholic women.
The sexual-abuse scandal in the priesthood has had a devastating
effect on the credibility of our bishops. They must take care not to
worsen the problem.
[© 2008 Richard P. McBrien. All rights reserved. Fr. McBrien is the
Crowley-O’Brien Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame.]
Sally Quinn, writing in The Washington Post, encourages President Obama and his family to select the National Cathedral as their new church home. That's fine. But her supporting argument is ridiculous:
I am drawn to the cathedral over all of the other sacred spaces in Washington because it is the most pluralistic of the places of worship I've been to.
On Nov. 12, Deepak Chopra, a Hindu, spoke there to a packed house. Asked about Obama in the question-and-answer session afterward, he said that the president-elect "has transcended religious identity. Just imagine when he puts his hand on the Bible to be sworn in and says, 'I, Barack Hussein Obama' . . . How wonderful!"
It would indeed be wonderful for the country to have a president who worshiped at a place most likely to welcome all Americans and all people of the world alike.
Don't get me wrong. I like America's commitment to pluralism. But the value of American pluralism is its facilitation of spaces in which communities can maintain their own distinct and authentic identities, including religious identities. Pluralism as a relevant criterion for our evaluation of a religious community's identity is nonsensical. If we reach the day when we can transcend religious identity -- or when our President's church is expected to transcend religious identity -- what exactly is our nation's commitment to pluralism supposed to be protecting?
Friday, November 21, 2008
I join with my former colleagues at St. John's University School of Law, and with her many other friends and academic colleagues in mourning the death of Dean Mary Daly.
I've tried twice to link to the St. John's press release without success. So following is the statement of St. John's University President Donald Harrington, C.M.:
"Our University community is saddened by the death of Mary C. Daly, Esq., Dean of the School of Law and John V. Brennan Professor of Law and Ethics. Since coming to St. John’s in 2004 from Fordham, where she served as James H. Quinn Professor of Law, Director of the Graduate Program, and co-Director of the Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics, she has been an energetic and effective leader. We shall miss her presence among us and will be forever grateful for all that she has been and done for us.
"Her impact on the School of Law has been nothing short of transformative. She established a global focus within the School through the creation of new academic programs and initiatives. Among these was the L.L.M. program in U.S. Legal Studies for Foreign Law School Graduates, launched in fall of 2008, that provides opportunities for lawyers from other nations to achieve a grounding in the United States legal system. Another is a program that permits St. John’s Law School students to spend a summer studying in Rome. She also increased the number of law clinics, which provide students with invaluable opportunities for both practical experience and service to underserved individuals within the community.
"She infused within the faculty a desire to enhance their scholarly and professional development activities. And she did so by example. An accomplished and prolific scholar with a national and international reputation, she published widely in law journals and also authored several books. In addition, she broke ground through her expertise in the emerging discipline of transnational ethics, a field which has assumed increasing prominence with mergers among Asian, American, and European law firms to form a truly global legal community.
"Her outreach to alumni was extraordinarily effective. She traveled throughout the country, hosting receptions and other meetings designed to keep graduates abreast of activities at their alma mater. And she increased gifts to the School of Law substantially during her tenure as Dean.
"I know that members of our University community will want to share their memories of Dean Daly, to come together to remember her at the prayer service slated for next Tuesday, and to pray with her family at the wake and at the funeral service which we will hold on campus on a date that will be announced soon. I am sure I speak for all of us in extending our deepest sympathy to her family as well as our appreciation to them for sharing her with us. St. John’s is a stronger and better University because she was part of it."
Rev. Donald J. Harrington, C.M.
President, St. John’s University
