A statement by the Consortium of Jesuit Biothics Programs ... here.
[HT: dotCommonweal.]
Thursday, September 3, 2009
"The Moral Case for Insuring the Uninsured"
"Caritas in Veritate: The Truth about Humanity"
Jennifer Roback Morse reflects on Pope Benedict's latest encyclical at the Acton Institute blog. Her essay begins this way:
Many commentators read Pope Benedict XVI’s Caritas in Veritate as if it were a think tank white paper, and ask whether he endorses their particular policy preferences. It is a mistake to read the encyclical in this way. A close look at the document’s introduction makes plain that Benedict is not a man of the Left or of the Right: He is a non-ideological man of God.
The opening sentence soars above any political platform: “Charity in truth, to which Jesus Christ bore witness by his earthly life and especially by his death and resurrection, is the principal force behind authentic development of every person and of all humanity.” This is our first clue that we are not dealing with a technocrat or ideologue. “Authentic development” points away from the deliberations of politicians and policy wonks. Benedict does not define his objectives in material terms, such as maximizing GDP. Neither does he conduct focus groups or consult experts to figure out what people want. Rather in this encyclical, Benedict reflects on what it means to be authentically human and what the human good actually entails. That is to say, he seeks the truth about man in society.
Some readers will no doubt assume that it is hubris to believe that one can know Truth with a capital “T.” Others may fear that Benedict will somehow impose his “ideology” on the rest of the world. Now, how a city state a few miles across, defended by a handful of guys with medieval weapons is going to impose its will on anyone is beyond my imagining, but put that to one side. Truth has taken such a beating in our time that our contemporaries routinely flinch at its mere mention.
But Benedict is not now, nor has he ever been, afraid of the concept of truth. He is not intimidated by postmodern doubts. He knows where the truth is to be found. The Truth is a person: Jesus Christ.
Woodstock at 40
OSV's Greg Erlandson writes:
We really thought for a short while that the past had no hold on us and that the future was entirely within our grasp. Those illusions took a beating in the last four decades, but I think a lot of the Woodstock philosophy survived: a do-it-yourself moral libertarianism that wants to let everyone do their own thing and distrusts authority. This philosophy, contrary to stereotypes, penetrated both the new left and the new right. Both ideological extremes see Big Brother everywhere and long for a world with as few restraints -- be they social or economic -- as possible.
I came away from this era with a chronic distrust as well, but my distrust is for utopianism, and slogans, and charismatic leaders explaining it all. At the end of the day, any change involves small successes and lots of hard work, and enlightenment comes slowly.
It might not make for a good concert or a good movie, but I think it's the only way to make a good life.
For his full essay, click here.
Red Mass This Evening in Lawrence, Kansas
If you are in the Lawrence, Kansas area this evening, consider attending the Red Mass, which will be celebrated at 5:15 pm at St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center. For more information, click here.
HT: Emily Friedman
Brennan on self-love and forgiveness
Our own Patrick Brennan has this interesting paper up on SSRN:
Forgiving is not pardoning, excusing, condoning, forgetting, or reconciling, nor is forgiving just about a change in emotions on the part of a victim. This paper pursues a virtue-theoretic account of the human person in the context of the theology of Thomas Aquinas, arguing that human forgiveness is the form love takes by an offended toward her offender. The paper argues, first, for the priority of the offended person's self-love and, second, for such self-love's extension into love of the offender as another self. The paper explores in depth the challenges of seeing one's enemy as "another self." Forgiving, the paper argues, is the most important act a person performs, because it is an act no one else can perform for us. This has negative implications for its possibility in the criminal law. The argument is developed, in part, in dialogue with contemporary theorists such as Jeffrie Murphy, Joanna North, Charles Griswold, Timothy Jackson, and Gaelle Fiasse.
The Post's suggested reading for the President on educational choice
I am a few days late on this, but I hope readers had a chance to see this op-ed, in the Washington Post, regarding the D.C. school-choice program, which the new Congress has been attacking:
PRESIDENT OBAMA reportedly has a hefty reading list while vacationing this week, but we would like to offer two additions, both hot off the presses. One is an article by the education expert who studied the D.C. voucher program; the second is a study on school safety in the city's public and private schools. Read together, they might cause the president to rethink his administration's wrong-headed decision to shut down the voucher program to new students. . . .
As we've said before, vouchers aren't the answer to Washington's school troubles; we enthusiastically support public school reform and quality charter schools, too. But vouchers are an answer for some children whose options otherwise are bleak. In Washington, they also are part of a carefully designed social-science experiment that may provide useful evidence for all schools on helping low-income children learn. Why would a Democratic administration and Congress want to cut such an experiment short?
Why, in particular, would an administration that some say is, or at least aspires to be, a promoter of the vision shared by the Catholic Social Tradition attack an experiment that enjoys overwhelming support from that Tradition?
Taxing churches
Gerald Russello is concerned (here) that "to tax churches is to muzzle religion." (I explored this and related concerns a few years ago in this law-review article.) A taste:
[T]he existence of churches and their ability to freely practice their faith — including calling politicians to live that faith — exist apart from, and prior to, state power. If taxation is one way for the state to limit and restrict churches to fulfill their mission, and so is limited, the threat of removing tax-exempt status can be used to the same effect. In any event, why can’t churches promote political positions? Involvement of religious organizations with public causes — such as those against slavery or in support of the temperance movement — are a firm part of American history. The evolution of the IRS rules has become another example of a secular culture hostile to the religious traditions of the nation.
For a detailed study of the IRS rules regarding political activity by charitable organizations, and an analysis of these rules in light of the First Amendment and religious-liberty-protecting statutes, see this paper by my colleague, Lloyd Mayer.
Pres. Obama's "dramatic[] change[s]" to the faith-based office
According to Dan Gilgoff, writing in the Washington Post, the President has "dramatically changed" the role of the faith-based office:
Six months after its rollout, Obama's office has dramatically shifted gears from the one that Bush started from scratch in 2001. Bush's office sought to "level the playing field" for faith-based and community groups seeking federal grants to deliver social services, like counseling drug addicts and mentoring at-risk youth. Obama, by contrast, has tasked his office with four broad policy goals: bringing faith groups into the recovery and fighting poverty, reducing demand for abortion, promoting responsible fatherhood, and facilitating global interfaith dialogue. "We're moving from a sole focus on leveling the playing field," says Joshua DuBois, the office's executive director, "to forming partnerships with faith-based and community groups to help solve specific policy challenges." . . .
Reinforcing its new policy role, Obama has brought his office under the purview of his Domestic Policy Council, delighting many faith leaders, particularly on the left. "The Bush office was totally disconnected from policy," says Wallis. "That White House was doing social policy that made poor people poorer, and the faith-based office would try to clean up the mess." The faith advisory council will submit first drafts of policy recommendations in October. "The council has access to experts, policymakers, and administrators [in the White House] at the levels we've asked for," says David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism, who sits on the council.
Such access has upset some on the left, who say religious leaders shouldn't be shaping government policy, and some on the right, who say the work amounts to politically inspired religious outreach. "We would have gotten killed for doing that," says Jim Towey, who directed Bush's faith-based office and notes that religious outreach in the previous administration was handled by the White House Office of Public Liaison, which reported to Karl Rove. "It looks like a political office now."
Are these changes for the better? Thoughts?
"A House Divided"
Jody Bottum has a must-read post over at First Things, about a -- to me -- very disturbing family-law decision in New Hampshire. (Eugene Volokh comments on the same case here.) A "10-year-old daughter lives during the week with her mother, Ms. Voydatch, who homeschools her. The father, Mr. Kurowski, objected to the homeschooling, and the court adopted the father’s proposal that the girl be sent to public school.” And the court said, among other things, that:
The Guardian ad Litem . . . concluded that the daughter would be best served by exposure to different points of view at a time in her life when she must begin to critically evaluate multiple systems of belief and behavior and cooperation in order to select, as a young adult, which of those systems will best suit her own needs. . . .
[T]he Court is guided by the premise that education is by its nature an exploration and examination of new things, and by the premise that a child requires academic, social, cultural, and physical interaction with a variety of experiences, people, concepts, and surroundings in order to grow to an adult who can make intelligent decisions about how to achieve a productive and satisfying life.
The parties do not debate the relative academic merits of home schooling and public school: it is clear that the home schooling Ms. Voydatch has provided has more than kept up with the academic requirements of the [local] public school system. Instead, the debate centers on whether enrollment in public school will provide [the daughter] with an increased opportunity for group learning, group interaction, social problem solving, and exposure to a variety of points of view. . . . [T]he Court concludes that it would be in [the daughter’s] best interests to attend public school. . . .
As Prof. Volokh observes, "the decision [is] constitutionally troublesome, whether implemented in broken families or in intact families. It may well be in the child's best interests to be exposed to more views in public school — or it may well be in the child's best interests to avoid the views that public school will expose her to. Those are not judgments that courts should generally make given the First Amendment."
One suspects that this particular court would not conclude, in a similar case, that a child's best interests would be served by removing her from the public school, and sending her to a Catholic school, given that the Catholic school provides exposure to new points of view and a fuller account of life and living.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Tattooing and cannibalism
I'm reading Walter Rauschenbusch's Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907) for the first time, and my favorite quote thus far is one I'll throw out there for my friends and family members (and perhaps MoJers?) who have tattoos:
Gambling is the vice of the savage. True civilization ought to outgrow it, as it has outgrown tattooing and cannibalism.
(For a more optimistic view of the tattoo craze, read R.R. Reno's thoughtful essay from last year.)
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