Michael Scaperlanda asks: "Can Catholics - whether we voted for Obama or not - come together
and agree that President Obama's nomination of Kathleen Sebelius is an
extremely poor choice; one that is likely to further divide the nation
rather than bring us together?"
I think this question underestimates the diversity of Catholics, assumes that division of the nation on issues is a bad thing (it strikes me that a unified view may be evidence of stagnation) and may wrongly inflate the possibility of national unity (in Obama like fashion - will 2012 bring an Obama-Scaperlanda ticket now that they have struck this important note of agreement on the possibility of national unity?).
I say this without any view of the wisdom of the Sebelius appointment.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Unity Among Catholics
State Financing for Catholic Schools
The Acton Institute's Rome office put on a good conference recently on state financing for Catholic schools (and did an excellent job, I must add, providing hospitality for speakers). The issue is heating up again in Italy. Both Acton's own Dr. Sam Gregg and I gave papers emphasizing the complexity of the question and the fact that seeking state funding has the downside of inviting increased regulatory strings, a perspective perhaps more typical in American than European Catholic circles. Zenit reported on the conference and on Sam's paper:
[W]hat needs to be done to secure permissible state financing for Catholic schools while helping such institutions remain faithful to the magisterium? Gregg believes the whole issue needs to be rethought in ways consistent with magisterial teaching. He then presented two possible options. One would be for Catholic schools to opt out of public funding altogether. He believes that would show how much some schools are reliant on such funding rather than faithful support of other groups. It would also reduce bureaucracy and re-engage the laity on how to best educate their children.
A second option would be to shift from direct subsidies to a policy of tax breaks, whereby Catholic parents could nominate a particular school they would like their taxes to go to. That, argued Gregg, would create "major incentives" to educators to pay more attention to parental wishes rather than "the whims of state officials and politicians pushing politically correct agendas."
I presented my own position, which is that the increased ability in the U.S. (at least in theory) to access funding, permitted by recent cases like Zelman and Mitchell, is "a positive development, ... although a highly qualified one" because of the conditions that come with funding. "It is better that legal rules offer the funding option. [It's true that c]onditions on the funds can affect the schools’ integrity and mission. But so too ... can the financial disadvantage of being excluded from assistance that competing schools (and their students) receive."
The effect that financial pressures (intensified by a rule of no funding) can have on religious schools' integrity and mission was dramatized just before the conference by the announcement of a plan to "save" several distresased Catholic schools in New York City by turning them into public charter schools. As I put it, "The change would permit them to receive funds but would require them to eliminate their religious components entirely—not just in selected classes as [earlier] Supreme Court decisions [reading the Establishment Clause broadly] had required. That scarcely advances the cause of pluralism in education."
(See also this report from Vatican Radio.)
Monday, March 2, 2009
Powell on Zakat
Our own Russ Powell has posted a new paper, Zakat: Drawing Insights for Legal Theory and Economic Policy from Islamic Jurisprudence. Here's the abstract:
The rapid development of complex income taxation and welfare systems in the 20th century may give the impression that progressive wealth redistribution systems are uniquely modern. However, religious systems provided similar mechanisms for addressing economic injustice and poverty alleviation centuries earlier. Zakat is the obligation of almsgiving and is the third pillar of Islam--a requirement for all believers. In the early development of the Islamic community, zakat was collected as a tax by the state and the funds were distributed to a defined set of needy groups. As a theoretical matter, there are three insights that make zakat an especially relevant subject for modern legal scholars. First, zakat is an example of a modest wealth tax combined with an income tax that may be illustrative in the discourse regarding wealth taxes. Second, the jurisprudence of zakat supports the ethical conclusions of scholars who contend that property rights are attached to post rather than pre-tax income. Third, to the extent that zakat is considered a principal source of revenue for public programs, it might imply a limited role for government, focusing on equitable distribution of goods. This paper begins with a thorough evaluation and synthesis of the traditional Islamic jurisprudence related to zakat. The next section identifies three broad approaches to zakat adopted by modern Muslim states, with particular emphasis on ways that zakat is institutionalized legally. This is followed by an empirical analysis of the correlation of the approaches to zakat with (1) individual income and (2) wealth stratification. The article concludes with observations and policy recommendations related to zakat and broader legal theory based on the earlier qualitative analysis and empirical findings.
I find this paper especially helpful since I've started including zakat in the economic justice segment of our "Foundations of Justice" course at St. Thomas. More broadly, though, I think that Islamic thought remains a relatively wide-open field for mining insights for the law-and-religion project and for articulating potential points of engagement with Catholic legal theory. Nice work, Russ!
Gov. Kathleen Sebelius as Secretary of HHS
Can Catholics - whether we voted for Obama or not - come together and agree that President Obama's nomination of Kathleen Sebelius is an extremely poor choice; one that is likely to further divide the nation rather than bring us together?
Happy Texas Independence Day!
Sunday, March 1, 2009
The Human Dignity of the Accused and the Vocation of the Public Defender
The eternal principle behind all of Catholic social teaching is human dignity, that all of us are created in the image of God. From time to time on the Mirror of Justice, I’ve returned to the theme of human dignity in the particular contexts of the accused and the prisoner.
In the United States, to our tribute, we have a history of extending compassion to the disadvantaged, enhancing rights for the vulnerable, and creating opportunity for all. But our beneficence tends to be withdrawn precipitously when a person stumbles badly and commits a criminal act. For in the United States, to our shame, we have a history of throwing away those human beings who have committed serious (and, increasingly, not so serious) crimes against the public.
No cause generates less sympathy than a proposal to grant rights, create opportunities, or simply ensure a minimal quality of life to those who stand accused of a crime and those who languish in prison. Consider, as examples, our public failure to guarantee a defense in court to those who are charged with a crime, the mindless imposition of mandatory minimum sentences against those convicted of relatively minor and non-violent offenses, the persistence of a death penalty in a stable civilization with a secure prison system, the decline in the use of pardons or clemency for cases where the punishment exceeds the wrong, the institution of no tolerance rules in schools and elsewhere that too often transfer disciplinary problems involving our children into criminal court, or the continuing problem of rape in prison that destroys so many lives hidden away in our criminal warehouses.
With respect to the first of these examples, the public duty to provide a true defense for every person charged with a crime, public defenders are among the first to be cut when governments face budget deficits. And those who remain take on ever greater burdens, handling far too many cases while striving always to remember and uphold the dignity of the persons they are representing.
In today’s Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Michael Holland of the Hennepin County (Minneapolis) public defender’s office is the subject of a well-deserved and eye-opening profile. Here’s a few excerpts (the full article may be found here):
Holland spent the morning meeting new clients. A guard led them one by one from their cells to a shoebox-sized interview room, but Holland ran out of time after conferring with only 12 of the 15. They join the 50 others he already represents. Dozens more new cases will come his way next week. . . .
Advocating for the poor in a swamped court system, Holland is not only juggling more cases than ever, but he's also trying to balance his sense of justice with the realities of budget cuts and a sour economy. He is one of a dwindling number of not quite 400 public defenders in Minnesota who speak for more than 85 percent of those charged with crimes. . . .
“When I go to court, I'm the only other one looking out for that client and that's a lot of pressure,” [Holland] says. “But public defenders are eternal optimists, like Don Quixote. We march up the hill every day and we attack this windmill that's not going to move. Occasionally, we do move it.”
For those of us who think and write about the law as a vocation, and especially for Catholic legal scholars who are united in our commitment to human dignity as the measure of a just legal system, Michael Holland and his colleagues in the public defender community are exemplars of the servant-leader model.
In the video that accompanies the on-line version of the Star-Tribune story, Mr. Holland says: “I love my clients, I do. When my client goes to prison, a little bit of me goes too.” Wow! Our Lord promised the blessings of heaven to those who cared for the destitute, including prisoners, saying: “Whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.” (Matt. 25:35-40). I am humbled to be part of a legal profession that includes a man like Michael Holland.
Greg Sisk
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