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Friday, August 21, 2009
U.S. Nuns and the Vatican Inquisition: What's going on?
St. Cory?
From John Allen's column today (Disclosure: I chose St. Joan of Arc as my confirmation saint.):
When former President Corazon "Cory" Aquino of the Philippines died from colon cancer on August 1, she was hailed as a popular saint for having led the 1986 "People Power" uprising that toppled the regime of Ferdinand Marco, and then guiding her country into democracy.
At least one former Aquino aide, and a devout Catholic, believes that she deserves the formal kind of sainthood too.
William Esposo, a Filipino journalist who ran Aquino's media operation during the People Power uprising and her presidential campaign, has called her the "Joan of Arc of Asia" and believes that church officials ought to launch a formal canonization process. (I met Esposo, a longtime member of Focolare, some years ago during a Focolare event in Italy. He's a serious Catholic, so his proposal is not some casual journalistic conceit.)
Writing in The Philippine Star, Esposo said that "Like the Maid, Cory electrified her nation into patriotic passion and vanquished the tyrants of the land."
Aquino's central contrast with Joan of Arc, Esposo suggested, is one that almost makes Aquino the more attractive candidate for sainthood: "Cory would only accede to non-violent political activism … Cory discouraged armed struggle and preferred to entrust her fate and that of her people to the love and justice of God."
Esposo's bottom line: "Cory C. Aquino was just about the closest, if not the perfect specimen, that the world of politics will produce that could qualify to be a saint."
It's too early to know whether the Filipino church will indeed set the wheels in motion. Yet given how much emphasis the Vatican is placing these days on the relationship between faith and politics, Aquino could be a powerful role model -- sort of a cross, if Esposo will permit me to extend his image, between Joan of Arc and Thomas More. Needless to say, bestowing such an honor upon a lay woman would also have its own significance.
I'd vote for canonizing Cory, if for no other reason than that the image of thousands of yellow-clad Filipinos flooding St. Peter's Square ought to be a sight to see.
Michael Perry's Question
Michael Perry asked yesterday what it means to identify oneself as Catholic. Although I did not have his question in mind when I wrote my Creo en Dios! blog post this morning, which commented on today's Gospel from St. Matthew, Michael Scaperlanda suggested to me that I cross-post it here, since it provides an answer to Michael P.s question.
As I suggest in the post, "try as we might to complicate things, it really is that simple. No daring or extraordinary deeds like cleaning the Augean stables or capturing a Cerynitian Hind. Just love. Love God. Love one another. 'The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.'” You can read the entirety of the post here).
What does it mean to identify oneself as "Catholic"?
For me it is a willingness to ask God each day for the grace to say "Be it done unto me according to your will" and the grace not to beat myself up when I fail at this a million times everyday.
Kaveny joins the Dershowitz / Scalia debate
My colleague Cathy Kaveny has posted some thoughts in response to the Dershowitz piece we've been discussing. And, she proposes that Dershowitz's debate challenge be expanded to cover a particular text, St. Thomas Aquinas on the duties of a judge with respect to a condemned prisoner he knows to be innocent: Summa Theologica, II-II, q 64 art. 6, rep. ob. 3:
If the judge knows that man who has been convicted by false witnesses, is innocent he must, like Daniel, examine the witnesses with great care, so as to find a motive for acquitting the innocent: but if he cannot do this he should remit him for judgment by a higher tribunal. If even this is impossible, he does not sin if he pronounce sentence in accordance with the evidence, for it is not he that puts the innocent man to death, but they who stated him to be guilty. He that carries out the sentence of the judge who has condemned an innocent man, if the sentence contains an inexcusable error, he should not obey, else there would be an excuse for the executions of the martyrs: if however it contain no manifest injustice, he does not has no right to discuss the judgment of his superior; nor is it he who slays the innocent man, but the judge whose minister he is.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
What does it mean to identify oneself as "Catholic"?
I asked that question earlier today. A reader responds with a quote from Walker Percy:
"What distinguishes Judeo-Christianity in general from other world religions is its emphasis on the value of the individual person, its view of man as a creature in trouble, seeking to get out of it, and accordingly on the move. Add to this anthropology the special marks of the Catholic Church: the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, which, whatever they do, confer the highest significance upon the ordinary things of this world, bread, wine, water, touch, breath, words, talking, listening––and what do you have? You have a man in a predicament and on the move in a real world of real things, a world which is a sacrament and a mystery; a pilgrim whose life is a searching and a finding."-- Walker Percy, "The Holiness of the Ordinary" (from Signposts in a Strange Land)
To hell with the so-called common good! It's all about ME!!
Let's hear it for the preferential option for the elderly--even the well-to-do elderly! Here.
From Santiago to San Diego
Early this morning, I returned from a student-produced constitutional law conference in Santiago, Chile. (What a breathtakingly beautiful city it is--Santiago--surrounded by the snow-capped Andes. If only I had had time to hike.) On Saturday morning, I leave for San Diego, where I will be privileged to spend the fall semester teaching international human rights at the University of San Diego (the law school and the Kroc School of Peace Studies). From a (predominantly) Catholic country to a Catholic university. And yet, I remain deeply puzzled: What does it mean, in these early years of the 21st Century, to identify oneself as Catholic? Plainly, it does *not* mean that one affirms (though one may happen to affirm) what the magisterium of the Church teaches about, say, human sexuality, the fittingness of women to be priests, etc.
But then, what *does* it mean?
Ted Olson ... Doug Kmiec ... and Rick Garnett
Isn't it interesting--not to mention startling, disappointing, unnerving ...--that Ted Olson (with respect to same-sex unions) and Doug Kmiec (with respect to Obama) aren't ... well ... insightful enough to get it. Get what? That they are contradicting their earlier positions in standing where they now stand. Fortunately, my friend Rick Garnett (among others, such as, e.g., Orin Kerr) *is* insightful enough to get it!
(Einstein: "Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.")
Ted Olson
With respect to Michael's shout-out to members of the Federalist Society (yes I am!), Ted Olson's quip -- "I thought, why wouldn’t I take this case? Because someone at the Federalist Society thinks I’d be making bad law? I wouldn’t be making bad law.” -- misses the point of those who are critical of his involvement in the effort to secure a declaration by judges that same-sex marriage is constitutionally required. As Orin Kerr explains, here, the criticism is not that Ted is "making . . . law" that "someone at the Federalist Society" thinks is "bad", but rather that he is making arguments of a type that he has been rejecting and opposing for years:
What makes Olson's involvement in the same-sex marriage litigation so interesting — and among right-of-center lawyers, controversial — is that his position is relying on the kinds of constitutional arguments that Olson is personally so closely identified with rejecting. The Times story touches on this, but I would add a bit more detail. Those who have watched Olson's annual Supreme Court Roundups for the Federalist Society know how harsh Olson tends to be about judges who Olson thinks are constitutionalizing their policy views, especially when that means constitutionalizing social policies popular among elites. Olson hasn't just been critical of those who take a broad view of constitutional meaning in this setting: he has been dismissive and sometimes even brutal.
The surprising aspect of the new case is that it has Olson making same kinds of constitutional arguments that he has specialized in ridiculing for so long. . .
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