I have now posted Lawmaking, Administration, and Traces of Civic Republicanism: Thoughts on Jean Porter's Ministers of the Law, a short paper I prepared for Villanova's recent Catholic Social Thought conference that was devoted to Porter's new book. I heartily recommend the book (though there's plenty in it that I disagree with). Some of my friends at the Fed Soc won't like some of what I've got to say in favor of Porter's account of the purpose of law, but that's okay.
Friday, November 19, 2010
Ministers of the Law
Worst op-ed of the year
There is an art to crafting good anti-Catholic commentary. I enjoy reading Christopher Hitchens, for example, because he's smart, writes well, and, beneath the bluster and hyperbole, many of his allegations need to be taken seriously. It seems, though, that the bar to getting anti-Catholic commentary published is getting lower by the day. In the Star-Tribune this morning, an op-ed by Bonnie Erbe opened with the following:
There's a raging debate about the state of the Catholic Church in America. Some church officials still cling to the hope that massive influxes of recent immigrants will fill the pews left empty by more educated, fallen-away parishioners. But clearly the Church has receded as a religious and cultural force, like a steroid-pumped bicep to a withering muscle.
Aside from offending immigrants (who are, by definition apparently, less educated), Erbe premises her inquiry on the equation of the Church's proper role with brute power. Even in the purported "glory days," would any Christian want to think of the Church as a "steroid-pumped bicep?" The whole problem, of course, is that the Church is too strict with all those darn rules:
Dogmatic, dictatorial churches do not resound with today's spirituality, and young people are not clamoring to join them. So sending a message that says, in essence, "Follow my rules or go to hell" might be a good way of retaining older parishioners used to such harsh boundaries. But as elderly parishioners die off, they take the church's message with them.
Hmmm. Let's take a complicated cultural dynamic and dumb it down so that we can assign clear blame to the folks with whom we disagree. If the mark of a healthy church is that we have young people clamoring to join, then we probably want to keep hell in the picture: evangelical megachurches are doing a lot better among younger Americans than the mainline.
Since this is Minnesota, of course, the attention eventually turns to Archbishop Nienstedt's DVD mailing:
[He] defended his mailing anti-gay marriage DVDs to the area's 800,000 churchgoing Catholics, a tactic that angered many of them. Machiavellian diplomacy has never won followers. In case the church hierarchy has not already noticed, it's too late to return to the Middle Ages.
What? Has she read Machiavelli? Why is open advocacy for a policy position "Machiavellian?" And since when does teaching on a matter of public concern represent "a return to the Middle Ages?" Let's debate the merits of Church teaching without substituting cheap labels for real argument. Taking potshots at the Church in print is by no means a new phenomenon, but our quality control seems to be slipping. I'll take Hitchens any day over this drivel.
Whom Would Jesus Offend? (Plenty of people.)
Relying on various stories from the Gospels, Mark Galli offers some interesting observations about the limitations of using Jesus as the model for peacemaking discourse. In some of the stories, Jesus is clearly intending to humiliate the Pharisees, even though there were options that could have accomplished the same miraculous result but allowed the Pharisees to save face:
The point is this: There were moments in Jesus' ministry when he denigrated—that is, according to the dictionary definition, "attacked the reputation of another"—and inflamed—"excited to excessive or uncontrollable actions or feelings." What we find in the Gospels is an uncomfortable reality: There is something about Jesus that makes some people want to kill him.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
On the Intellectual Origins of the Crime of Barratry
I've just concluded a session in my Professional Responsibility class dealing with the selling of legal services by non-lawyers and their solicitation of legal business. In this particular section of the excellent book by Stephen Gillers, there is a brief discussion of the common law crime of barratry: the instigation of a law suit, including by payment and other inducements, with the intent to obtain economic advantage. Suffice it to say that Gillers is skeptical about the offense for at least some good reasons, one of which is the issue of vagueness. A number of jurisdictions have dispensed with barratry altogether, and my own class generally dismissed it as the relic of a bygone era.
I tried to sketch out for them some of the intellectual heritage of the crime. In Dante's Inferno, i barratieri are punished way down in the 8th Circle along with other fraudulent types. They are perpetually dipped in boiling pitch by several unsavory and disgusting little demons. Barratry in that time was understood as the selling of public duties or civil offices (Dante himself had been accused of barratry and exiled from Florence by the Black Guelphs). I wondered how it was that the crime of selling public offices -- what sounds naturally like bribery to the modern ear, or perhaps some other public corruption offense -- over time took on the rather different meaning of the practice of instigating law suits, of inciting legal malcontent for profit. It might be that these are simply unconnected meanings, and that is the way they are presented in various on-line sources.
But I think that's not right at all. There are deep-rooted connections between what I'll call the ancient and modern meanings of barratry.
Orsi on modernity and Catholicism
Over at The Immanent Frame, a number of scholars were asked to reflect on the question -- occasioned by the launch of a new research project at Notre Dame called "Contending Modernities: Catholic, Muslim, Secular":
What is gained by framing research on religion, secularity, and modernity in terms of “multiple” or “contending” modernities, and what “new paths for constructive engagement” might such a frame afford?
The response of Robert Orsi, who holds the Nagle Chair in Catholic Studies at Northwestern, was particularly, well, bracing:
. . . The various goods of modernity were hard won; the language of multiple modernities obscures the fact that Catholicism was one of the major obstacles to their achievement. This is not to absolve the modern of its horrors or to deny that sometimes Catholics stood in courageous and necessary opposition to it (although the church itself mostly did so for its own ends, otherwise it was quite willing to come to terms with even the vilest moderns). It is to call into question the positive valence of the phrase “multiple modernities,” to question the history it elides, and to recognize the brave opposition of secular modernity to Catholicism, which has been on balance a great good. . . .
The "brave opposition of secular modernity to Catholicism . . . has been on balance a great good." I'd say the issue is joined!
Adventures in labeling
Get Religion tries to make sense of the labels being thrown around to describe the election of Archbishop Timothy Dolan as president of the USCCB.
Deneen on Linker's proposed "religious test"
Damon ("Theocracy!") Linker has a new book out, called The Religious Test. (Here is an interview with Linker, from the Economist.) Patrick Deneen shares some not-in-the-usual-categories thoughts about the book, here. He concludes:
Linker’s story is finally informed by its own triumphalist and Providentialist storyline, the history of the victory of Liberalism and the need for it to maintain firm control of what he calls the “skirmish line” between religion and politics. This storyline wholly obscures what I think to be the real story – the story of how modern economic conservatism and modern identity liberalism have combined in support of titanic inequalities in our society, the former in the name of corporate profit and the latter in the name of lifestyle autonomy and the “secession of the successful.” Truly homeless today are the religious conservatives whose voices Linker would silence rather than engage. America needs the older lyrics that religious voices once raised as a prophetic witness to the Republic, that language of equal dignity that demands more than indifference and more than the private reveries and worse, the self-congratulation of today’s autonomous individuals. It calls for the language of community, fidelity, memory, and a belief in our shared fate that was ever the greatest contribution of American faith to the Republic. So long as contemporary liberalism insists that those voices be shut out of the public sphere, they will continue to sing a querulous and tinny song, one that remains out of tune with the better angels of their own beliefs.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
"In Defense of Culture" by Patrick Deneen
If you haven't seen this essay/lecture by Prof. Deneen on Front Porch Republic, it is worth the read. Here is one paragraph:
The political philosophy as a whole that has effected this destruction of culture is the dominant school of thought – and life – of the modern period, namely liberalism. Liberalism, in its many forms – whether classical or progressive, whether purportedly on the Right or the Left – shares one basic feature in common, namely a hostility to cultural forms that are a pre-modern inheritance. Whether in the form of classical liberalism that forefronts individualism, or in the form of progressive liberalism that aspires to collectivism, both forms of liberalism seek to effect their ends by the same means – namely, the displacement of culture. Indeed, I would go farther to argue that the two have combined in a pincer movement, alternating in their claims toward the common end of detaching people from traditional forms and ways of life in favor of various visions of liberation.
Hiring-for-mission and discrimination, again
"Religious hiring by faith-based institutions is not illegal job discrimination," argues the Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance. And, they are right. Joseph Knippenberg has an excellent post on the issue, here, in which he takes issue with this piece, written by Marci Hamilton. The occasion for all this is an important hearing, scheduled for tomorrow, before the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties of the House Committee on the Judiciary. My fervent hope is that the views of Doug Laycock (one of the witnesses) will carry more weight with the relevant legislators than those of Barry Lynn (another).
As the IRFA explains:
The religious hiring freedom is a vital "tool" for faith-based organizations determined that their services, practices, and staff should exemplify the religious convictions that inspired the creation of the organization. And faith-based organizations are vital "tools" by which people of various religions put "hands" on their convictions -- ways to put their convictions into practice in serving the needy, caring for the sick, contributing to the renewal of their neighborhoods, or responding to disasters, disease, or poverty overseas. Putting religious convictions into practice is the heart of the "free exercise of religion" that is guaranteed by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. So leaving faith-based organizations free to consider religion when hiring staff, whether or not a service will be funded by government, is a key instance of the First Amendment's religious freedom, as applied to organizations. . . .
UPDATE: The President's recent Executive Order on relevant matters is here.
Catholic Legal Theory and the Curious Case of California and Texas
This article in Forbes highlights the declining fortunes of the people of California and the rising fortunes of the people of Texas. Both states are far from perfect, but I wonder, from the perspective of a Catholic concerned about social and economic justice, which state does a better job? Thoughts?
Recent Posts
Categories
Monthly Archive
StatCounter
PageViews
Since February 19, 2008
