Both sides do this, obviously. While those of us who work and aspire to think and vote in accord with the ideals of Faithful Citizenship might wish that the lines dividing our two major parties were in a different place, and while we might be inclined to cheer those (few) who depart from the party-line in a way suggested by Catholic teaching (e.g., a pro-life Democrat or an anti-death-penalty Republican), at the end of the day (sigh), politicians in tough spots tend to return to the well. See, e.g., this report about the Senate race in Washington:
You knew it was coming.
Democratic U.S. Sen. Patty Murray has launched a new TV ad hitting Republican Dino Rossi for his conservative positions on abortion rights and related women's health issues.
The ad, called "Trust," dusts off some old votes Rossi took as a state legislator, such as his vote against requiring insurance companies to cover female contraceptives.
In an accompanying news release, Democrats also cited anti-abortion comments Rossi made early in his political career, when he talked more about he subject.
During his two runs for governor in 2004 and 2008, Democrats frequently accused Rossi of hiding the extent of his conservatism on such social issues.
They're resurrecting that argument now with ballots due to be mailed out shortly for the Nov. 2 election. . . .
In the New Republic, Bill McKibben wonders why Republicans have become so uniformly resolute over the past few years in their opposition to the conclusions of scientists regarding climate change. (Only 1 in 10 believes that climate change is a very serious problem.) He also speculates that religious believers may eventually bring the GOP around to a more nuanced view.
Elizabeth Scalia takes the anti-bullying conversation in an interesting (and, in my view, helpful) direction:
I wonder if [the Church's] bishops and religious leaders will, for example, have to acknowledge with loving support the numerous celibate homosexual priests who, throughout history and still today, serve her faithfully, courageously, and with great joy. Such an acknowledgment could go a long way repairing that disconnect that keeps everyone talking about tolerance while walking away from it.
It would speak to the value of the human person as he is created; it would reinforce the church’s own teaching that the homosexual inclination is not in-and-of-itself sinful; in a sex-saturated culture where “gay” has become in some minds synonymous with “promiscuous” and both heterosexual and homosexual couples see no particular value in chastity, it would present the radical counter-narrative.
Most importantly, such an acknowledgment would be call of olly-olly-oxen free for the church herself. Battered by the revelations of the past decade, poorly served by past psychological studies suggesting that child abusers could be “cured” and therefore distrustful of more recent findings that homosexuals are no more inclined to pedophilia than heterosexuals, the church has reflexively pulled the curtains over a number of her priests, and in doing so, she has hidden the idea of “acceptable otherness” from a flock that is sorely in need to see some of it.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Our friends at Villanova are hosting (yet) another great conference, on Oct. 22, 2010. The Annual Joseph T. McCullen Symposium on Catholic Social Thought and the Law will explore issues and questions raised in and by Jean Porter's new book, "Ministers of the Law: A Natural Law Theory of Legal Authority." In addition to our own Patrick Brennan, Nick Wolterstorff, Bradley Lewis, Michael Moreland, and many others will be presenting. More information is available here.
My OU colleague, Allen Hertzke, has an important and insightful article, "The Supreme Court and Religious Liberty: How a 1990 decision has come back to haunt us, and how its damage might be undone," in the most recent Weekly Standard. Comments on his analysis are welcome.
Given our recent conversations on MoJ, I took an interest in a speech over the weekend by Carl Paladino, the GOP candidate for governor of New York. His prepared remarks included a couple of eyebrow-raising assertions, including: "there is nothing to be proud of in being a dysfunctional homosexual." Whether or not the bishops would agree with this assertion on its face, I'm guessing that they don't exactly welcome the often abrasive and, at times, racially/ethnically insensitive Paladino covering his comments with the Church's imprimatur. His spokesman explained, “Carl Paladino is simply expressing the views that he holds in his heart as a Catholic . . . Carl Paladino is not homophobic, and neither is the Catholic Church.”
I think Paladino's text (he did not actually deliver that line in the speech) is an example of a message that teenagers struggling with their sexuality do not need to hear. I'm not suggesting that they (or straight teenagers) need to hear the opposite message -- "Act on, and define yourself by, whatever desires you're experiencing!" -- but there must be space for something in between.
Since a number of MoJ contributors and readers write in the field of legal ethics, you might be interested in this call for papers from MoJ-friend Sam Levine:
Submissions and nominations of articles are now being accepted for the first annual Fred C. Zacharias Memorial Prize for Scholarship in Professional Responsibility. To honor Fred's memory, the committee will select from among articles in the field of Professional Responsibility with a publication date of 2010. The prize will be awarded at the Professional Responsibility Section program at the 2011 Annual Meeting in San Francisco. Please send submissions and nominations to Professor Samuel Levine at Touro Law Center: [email protected]. The deadline for submissions and nominations is November 1, 2010.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Thank you, Rob, for your clarification. I am sincerely grateful to you.
You make an interesting and important statement regarding the role of the media when you say, "the only mention of the Church's advocacy during that news cycle focused on the DVDs." That implies incorrectly that the archdiocese is only concerned about certain matters when, in fact, that is not true. When reporting sensitive and strong-response raising issues, do those who control, direct, manipulate the "news cycle" have a duty to state fully the efforts of the Church and anyone else involved with the issue being reported and whose role is either being critiqued or will reasonably be critiqued by others? It strikes me that if the media are going to publish "all the news that's fit to print" they should do precisely that in order that the public who will be exposed to the reporting will be fully rather than partially informed. Otherwise, the publishing motto will become "all the news that's fit to tint."
RJA sj
