We've all heard it before -- something like, "why doesn't the Church sell all its fancy art and care for the poor?" etc. etc. Sarah Silverman is only the latest person (who is not as smart as he or she thinks he or she is) to imagine she's onto something new (as if the early Protestants didn't see the rhetorical potential in the attack). John Allen, five years ago, smacked down those who lob this lazy charge:
In the public’s imagination, the Vatican is awash in priceless art, hidden Nazi gold, plundered treasures from around the world, and vast assets tucked away from prying eyes in the Vatican Bank. Reality is far more prosaic. To put it bluntly, the Vatican is not rich. It has an annual operating budget of $260 million, which would not place it on any Top 500 list of major social institutions. To draw a comparison in the non-profit sector, Harvard University has an annual operating budget of a little over $1.3 billion, which means it could run the equivalent of five Vaticans every year and still have pocket change left over. The Holy See’s budget would qualify it as a mid-sized American Catholic college. It’s bigger than Loyola-Marymount in Los Angeles (annual budget of $150 million) or Saint Louis University ($174 million), but substantially less than the University of Notre Dame ($500 million).
The total patrimony of the Holy See, meaning its property holdings (including some 30 buildings and 1,700 apartments in Rome), its investments, its stock portfolios and capital funds, and whatever it has storied up in a piggy bank for a rainy day, comes to roughly $770 million. This is substantial, but once again one has to apply a sense of scale. What the Holy See calls “patrimony” is roughly what American universities mean by an “endowment” – in other words, funds and other assets designed to support the institution if operating funds fall short. The University of Notre Dame has an endowment of $3.5 billion, meaning a total 4.5 times as great as the Vatican’s.
But what of the some 18,000 artistic treasures in the Holy See, such as the Pietà, that don’t show up on these ledgers? From the Holy See’s point of view, these artworks are part of the artistic heritage of the world, and may never be sold or borrowed against. Michelangeo’s famous Pieta statue, the Sistine Chapel, or Raphael’s famous frescoes in the Apostolic Palace are thus listed at a value of 1 Euro each. In fact, those treasures amount to a net drain on the Holy See’s budget, because millions of Euros have to be allocated every year for maintenance and restoration.
Charlotte Allen is on the case, in The Weekly Standard. (For another MOJ treatment of this case, go here.)
The implications for religious liberty in the EEOC's newly-arrived-at decision to ignore the good-faith beliefs of a religious institution closely affiliated with a religious order (Benedictines still do much of the teaching at Belmont Abbey) are obvious. "This is the first time that an unelected bureaucrat has expounded a novel -theory of law in this fashion and applied it to a 150-year-old small religious college in North Carolina," Eric Kniffin, legal counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which has taken on Belmont Abbey's case, told me in a telephone interview. Right now the college has the option of trying to arrive at a mutually satisfactory "conciliation" with the EEOC and, if those efforts fail, bringing a lawsuit against the commission. Neither Belmont Abbey nor the EEOC will discuss the current status of, or provide further details about, what sort of negotiations might be taking place. . . .
I am proud to say that Eric Kniffin is a graduate of Notre Dame Law School. Go, Becket, go!
Prof. Blomquist comments (link) on some recent work by Seth Tillman (here) and Geof Stone:
In this Essay, Professor Blomquist responds to the remarks of Seth Tillman, which critiqued an article by Professor Geoffrey Stone on whether or not the Founders contemplated a “Christian Nation."
We Americans—We the People—relish our national Constitution and delight in the game of constitutional interpretation. The game of American constitutional interpretation recalls the complexity and nuance of other great games like the Glass Bead Game and Chess. In never-ending iterations about the meaning of our Constitution we pontificate and debate about intellectual antecedents, historical background, provisions of the Constitution, ratification, contemporary exigencies, and much more.
Seth Barrett Tillman has provided constitutional law “gamers” with two hard-hitting legal think pieces—one, a full-blown article in Penn State Law Review, the other, an abridged version of that article in Cardozo Law Review De Novo—evaluating and critiquing Professor Geoffrey R. Stone’s Melville B. Nimmer Memorial Lecture and Essay published in the UCLA Law Review. In this modest and concise Essay, I seek to praise Tillman’s intellectual virtues (while empathizing, in part, with Professor Stone). My pivoting gambit and larger purpose, however, is to urge legal scholars, jurists and lawyers to strive for what I call contextual constitutional intelligence in playing the vital game of interpreting our American Constitution.
This morning, the Holy See and the Archbishop of Canterbury made two important announcements, [HERE] and [HERE]. It is expected that Pope Benedict XVI will be issuing in due course an Apostolic Constitution that will prepare the way for amending the Church’s law to bring into communion with the Roman Catholic Church certain members of the Anglican Communion. While the impact of this communiqué will develop over the ensuing months, it is clear at this stage that some of our discussions here at the Mirror of Justice will be enhanced. As they say in the media business, more at eleven…
Brian Leiter argues, here, that there is no good reason to privilege religious freedom over moral freedom (though BL does not use the latter term).
Michael Perry argues, here, that given the best--in the sense of most ecumenical--argument for privileging religious freedom, liberal democracy should also privilege moral freedom.
1. Do BL and MP converge in their conclusions?
2. If so, do their arguments in support of that conclusion differ--and if so, how?
3. If their arguments differ, which is the better argument in the context of the dominant religious &/or moral convictions and commitments of the citizenry of the United States? Please explain.
Or, at least, that's how I choose to interpret Prof. Caron's latest rankings. Only two blogs out of the "top 35" saw a larger percentage-change in hits and page-views over the past year than we did. No doubt, it is the new blue banner.
Prof. Mary Ann Glendon's lecture, given on the occasion of her recent receipt of a well deserved reward, is available here, at the First Things blog.A bit:
One of the main reasons for our slow but steady progress, I believe, is the success of the pro-life movement in demonstrating by word and deed that our position on protection of the unborn is inseparable from our dedication to compassion and assistance for women who are so often the second victims of abortion.
Unlike the movement that calls itself pro-choice, the prolife movement has thought deeply about choice. We know that choices last: We know that individual choices make us into a certain of person; and we know that collective choices make us into a certain kind of society.
Indeed. Congratulations, and thank you, to Prof. Glendon.
This exchange, between Profs. Sam Calhoun and Geof Stone, looks worth a read. Here's Calhoun's abstract:
Professor Geoffrey Stone’s Essay, The World of the Framers: A Christian Nation?, seeks to state “the truth about . . . what [the Framers] believed, and about what they aspired to when they created this nation.” Doing so will accomplish Professor Stone’s main objective, helping us to understand what “the Constitution allows” on a host of controversial public policy issues. Regrettably, Professor Stone’s effort is unsuccessful. Although he clearly tried to be fair in his historical account, the Essay ultimately presents a misleading view of the Framers’ perspective on the proper relationship between religion and the state.
And, here's Stone's:
Professor Samuel Calhoun insists that my thesis is “wrong,” that I “overstate” the evidence, present “a misleading view,” “distort” the authorities, argue by “assertion,” offer “no convincing corroborating evidence,” “mislead my readers,” and defend a “historically indefensible” position. In short, Professor Calhoun accuses me of failing to meet the “no distortion” standard. Whew!
Revealing my gracious side for just a moment, I must acknowledge that some of Professor Calhoun’s observations are both constructive and interesting. For example, some of his insights about American deism, the decline of Christianity, the Declaration of Independence, and George Washington identify useful points of historical uncertainty and disagreement. Too often, though, Professor Calhoun’s criticisms miss the mark, not only because he exaggerates their significance, but also because he seems not to have noticed that he was critiquing a lecture, rather than a formal scholarly article. A lecture, to succeed, must be clear, concise, easy to follow, and readily accessible to a general audience. It will not do for a lecturer to inflict upon his audience too many subtle qualifications, complex asides, and convoluted clarifications. Professor Calhoun’s criticisms are primarily of the dotted-i and crossed-t variety, though he obviously thinks they add up to something more. I think not.
Our own Patrick Brennan has the honor of presenting the Yves Simon Memorial Lecture on Wednesday, November 4th at 4:30 pm in the Swift 3rd Floor Lecture Hall at the University of Chicago. Professor Brennan's lecture is entitled "Are Catholics Unreliable from a Democratic Point of View? Reflections on the 60th Anniversary of Paul Blanshard's American Freedom and Catholic Power."
Paul Blanshard's American Freedom and Catholic Power was originally published in 1949, and grew out of a series of articles which Blanshard had published several years earlier in The Nation. In those articles and the book developed from them, Paul Blanshard argued that American Catholic citizens had to choose "between a church hostile to fundamentals of democracy and a state where contrary views are implicit under our Constitution." Blanshard went on to clam that "the American Catholic hierarchy has entered the political arena, and that it is becoming more and more aggressive in extending the frontiers of Catholic authority into the fields of medicine, education and foreign policy. As we shall see in this book, the Catholic hierarchy in this country has great power as a pressure group, and no editor, politician, publisher, merchant or motion-picture producer can express defiance openly - or publicize documented facts - without risking his future." Selling over 300,000 copies, Blanshard's book set off a firestorm of controversy. And the shadow of the book and its author loomed far into the next decade: John F. Kennedy's famous speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association on Sept. 12, 1960 was in many respects a direct result of Blanshard's power and influence.
On the sixtieth-year anniversary of American Freedom and Catholic Power, it seems fitting that we return to consider Blanshard's thesis in light of the past several decades. We are therefore pleased and honored to have Patrick Brennan pose Blanshard's question once again: "Are Catholics Unreliable from a Democratic Point of View?"
