Shortly before Christmas, Michael P. posted Cathy Kaveny’s response (here) to my post (here) criticizing an entry of hers posted at dotCommonweal (here).
Thanks to Michael P. for seeking to further the conversation.
In her remarks, Cathy suggests that I failed to grasp the point she was making in drawing an analogy between the process whereby Pius XII and John Paul II were declared “venerable” by the Church and the process whereby Notre Dame chose to honor President Obama by selecting him as its commencement speaker and awarding him an honorary degree. Thus, she says “John, I’m utterly flummoxed why you can’t see the analogy. But I’ve done my level best to lay it out for you fully.”
I did not, in fact, fail to appreciate the point Cathy was trying to make. Indeed, the point of Cathy’s original entry on dotCommonweal was readily apparent to any reader, viz., that Obama, and Pius, and John Paul have, in the office each has held, addressed a number of important issues – some in a salutary manner, others in a way that was less than satisfactory. We should resist the urge to focus on only one issue but should instead view the person in the entire context of his life’s work before determining whether or not he is worthy of praise. If this is the proper method for determining whether or not a person should be regarded as “venerable” by the Church (which it appears to be), it should also be regarded as a proper method for a Catholic university to use in identifying a suitable commencement speaker and honorary degree recipient.
Admittedly, this analogy has a certain superficial appeal such that, from a distance, Cathy’s basic point is unobjectionable. But when one examines the analogy more closely, when one pushes the analogy further, it soon breaks down. And this was the main point of my post – the very point Cathy chose not to address.
For Cathy, as for me, the point of intersection between the cases of Pius, John Paul and Barack Obama is how the Church, the people of God – whether in the Congregation for the Causes of Saints or in the University of Notre Dame – should assess the worthiness of a person whom some propose for honor. Cathy says that she acknowledges that “there are doubtless differences in detail” but that “all three men arguably have a morally deficient stance toward grave moral and social evil which they are in some position to protest or prevent” and that this is the premise of her analogy.
The problem is that the very differences she glosses over matter and matter deeply. Indeed, distinctions – between acquiescing in, endorsing, or opposing a certain kind of conduct, between taking steps that restrict or augment that form of conduct – are at the heart of careful moral analysis, as any self-respecting casuist would readily admit.
There would indeed be a profound difference between, on the one hand, a pope who was an avowed anti-Semite, who supported the program of genocide carried out by the Nazis and who assisted in that project either by providing material assistance or by deliberating failing to act against it and, on the other hand, a pope who deplored the Nazis and their philosophy but through some lack of courage or prudence failed to take certain actions within his power.
That is not to say that the latter should be declared “venerable” or otherwise honored by the Church, but it is to say that the views of the former would immediately disqualify him from consideration.
I should make clear that, as with my prior post, I take no position on the actual merits concerning Pius XII’s cause for canonization. But that is not the point. The point is that, to use Cathy’s words, in assessing “the appropriateness of th[e] honor” one may “look[] at their entire life and context,” but that “the recipient's stance on . . . one issue” may be dispositive.
Indeed, history proves the point. There are, in fact, many individuals throughout the Church’s history who have not been declared saints precisely because of their views on particular matters, notwithstanding their many virtues in other respects – Tertullian and Origen come immediately to mind.
Similarly, there would indeed be a grave difference between, on the one hand, a pope who practiced pederasty, who spoke in favor of it, and who worked to protect fellow priests and religious who engaged in the act and, on the other hand, a pope who faithfully embraced the Church’s teaching regarding sexual morality in both his private life and in his public ministry, but who failed to take decisive steps to protect young men and boys from abusive clerics. Even if the former individual worked tirelessly to spread the word of God, to increase vocations to the priesthood, to renew devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, and to bring about world peace, his position on that one issue would preclude him from serious consideration as a candidate for veneration.
So, if we are to apply this same standard – looking at a person’s entire life but recognizing that certain issues may preclude one from consideration from the contemplated honor, and bearing in mind that there are still vast differences between candidates for veneration and candidates for commencement addresses – how does the President fare?
In my prior post I provided a summary of the President’s views with respect o abortion and how his actions in office have served to broaden and deepen the culture of death.
In response to this summary Cathy accused me of “reading the facts about Obama[‘s] [position on abortion] in the worst possible way.” By way of reply, it would, I think, be fair to say that, to the extent Cathy has consulted the facts at all, she has read them in the best possible way – musing that the President supports a constitutional right to abortion “perhaps because he thinks it’s the best, prudentially, we can do” and simply declaring that the President “doesn’t think abortion is a good thing.” Of course Obama did say ( see here and here) during the campaign that “nobody is pro-abortion, abortion is never a good thing," but how does this statement match up with what he said (here) with respect to what he would want for his daughters in the case of an unplanned pregnancy? He may not view abortion as a good thing in the abstract, but he does appear to view it as a good thing under certain (not uncommon) circumstances.
More importantly, how does this statement match up with Obama’s actions in public office – from his days in the Illinois senate and his voting against the Victims Born Alive Act (see here and here), to his early days in the White House reversing the Mexico City policy (see here and here), to his support for overturning the Dornan Amendment so that federal tax dollars may be used to pay for abortions in the District of Columbia (here).
Cathy has chosen not to address these sorts of details and what they say about the man whom, it was proposed, a Catholic university should deem worthy of honor. She has preferred instead to refer to the President’s stated desire to reduce the number of abortions – a policy which, it seems in practice, will only mean greater availability to contraceptives through government assistance.
Although much more could be said on the subject, it is enough to note that construing Obama’s statements in such a favorable way while ignoring the bulk of his record on abortion is not the stuff of rigorous casuistry.
