Mirror of Justice

A blog dedicated to the development of Catholic legal theory.
Affiliated with the Program on Church, State & Society at Notre Dame Law School.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

A Catholic "Sullivan Principles"

By Elizabeth Schiltz

John Allen's newest column describes a very promising initiative to draft a Catholic template for business ethics in the 21st Century, something analogous to the "Sullivan Principles", which worked so effectively to focus the world on practical steps that could be taken to pressure South Africa to abandon apartheid.  This initiative was kicked off last week by a conference hosted by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, co-sponsored by St. Thomas's John A. Ryan Institute for Catholic Social Thought of the Center for Catholic Studies.  (The initiators of this effort include Bob Kennedy, who co-directs the Murphy Institute with me.)  As Allen describes it:

As [Michael] Naughton [director of the Ryan Institute] put it, the idea would be to produce a short “primer” on Catholic social principles as they apply to concrete business challenges – maybe ten pages, designed to appeal to business people who won’t read Caritas in Veritate or the recently published “Compendium” of Catholic social teaching, but who are nevertheless eager to bring their moral and spiritual convictions to bear on their business activity.

Though the Sullivan Principles are likely the best-known model for such a project, Naughton said there are other examples to draw upon, including the U.N. Social Compact and the principles of the “Caux Round Table,” an international organization of business executives that aims to promote ethical practice.

As Naughton laid out the argument, the Catholic church has unique resources to get the job done. Three in particular stand out:

  • Arguably the most extensive tradition of social thought, teaching and practice of any religious body in the world.
  • A extensive network of groups and associations of Catholic business professionals, such as the Brussels-based “International Christian Union of Business Executives,” founded by Catholics in the early 20th century though now ecumenical;
  • More than 1,000 Catholic colleges and universities around the world, most of which have business schools – though many, Naughton said, don’t actually draw upon the Catholic social tradition in any systematic way.

Naughton said the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace is the logical aegis under which a Catholic set of “Sullivan Principles” ought to be elaborated. Business is a global reality, and the Vatican is a global institution. Moreover, he said, such a “primer” would be a template for how the church can engage culture, of which business is one key expression.

Are Christians who oppose homosexuality fit to be foster parents?

By Rob Vischer

Perhaps not, at least in the U.K.  While postponing the ultimate decision, the Queen's Bench division of the High Court of Justice issued this opinion yesterday:

If children, whether they are known to be homosexuals or not, are placed with carers who . . . evince an antipathy, objection to or disapproval of, homosexuality and same-sex relationships, there may well be a conflict with the local authority's duty to "safeguard and promote" the "welfare" of looked-after children. There may also be a conflict with the National Minimum Standards for Fostering Services and the Statutory Guidance. Religion, belief and sexual orientation are protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010. . . . While as between the protected rights concerning religion and sexual orientation there is no hierarchy of rights, there may . . . be a tension between equality provisions concerning religious discrimination and those concerning sexual orientation. Where this is so, Standard 7 of the National Minimum Standards for Fostering and the Statutory Guidance indicate that it must be taken into account and in this limited sense the equality provisions concerning sexual orientation should take precedence.

HT: Howard Friedman

Schragger on the Beneficent Underenforcement of the Establishment Clause

By Marc DeGirolami

I am a fan of Richard Schragger's work on the Religion Clauses, especially his superb piece a few years ago on the role of localism in religious liberty in which he claimed, in part, that decentralized decisions that benefit or burden religious liberty ought to be given greater deference than analogous centralized decisions.

Professor Schragger recently posted The Relative Irrelevance of the Establishment Clause, a very interesting looking piece sounding related notes about the advantages of underenforcement of the disestablishment norm.  From the introduction to the piece:

This Article argues (1) that a pervasive feature of the Court’s Establishment Clause jurisprudence is that the Court’s stated doctrine is underenforced or is irrelevant to a whole range of arguably pertinent conduct; (2) there are some legitimate reasons for this judicial underenforcement or irrelevance; and (3) to the extent the Court is capable of enforcing its stated nonestablishment principles, it can only do so indirectly by managing establishment in the political/legal culture that exists beyond constitutional law.  How the Court does or fails to do (3) is the main subject of this Article.

Choosing Haiti

By Rob Vischer

Some family friends of ours are missionaries in Haiti, and while some of their children are adopted Haitians, others are American-born.  In light of our conversation yesterday about parents' purported "obligation" to value their kids' ability to choose over the substance of the choice, I was struck by the example of our friends, living with their kids among the poor in a country where medical care, schools, and opportunities to develop musical/artistic interests, etc. all fall short of what is available in America.  As they put it, "We've always wanted to be sure that school does not get in the way of other ways for our kids to be educated."  (They're getting a bit more publicity than normal b/c their daughter just translated for Miley Cyrus during her visit to Haiti.)  You can check out their blog here.

"God's Century"

By Rick Garnett

My colleague, Dan Philpott, and his co-authors Tim Shah and Monica Toft, have a new, must-read book coming out, called "God's Century."  Here's some bits from the press release:

Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche famously proclaimed, “God is dead.” Many have insisted on the accuracy of his observation, believing that religion would wilt in the modern world. On the contrary, religion has flourished globally, and over the past four decades its political influence has surged. Drawing on original analysis and dramatic case studies, scholars Monica Duffy Toft, Daniel Philpott, and Timothy Samuel Shah address this thorny phenomenon in their new work, GOD’S CENTURY: Resurgent Religion and Global Politics [W. W. Norton & Company; March 14, 2011; $25.95 hardcover]. In the tenth anniversary year of the 9/11 attacks and just as religious groups around the world such as Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood are poised for greater influence, GOD’S CENTURY shows why religion’s influence has soared, what it means for today’s politics, and what religion’s political place ought to be.

Despite claims that religion is exclusively irrational and violent, its political influence is in fact diverse, promoting democracy, reconciliation, and peace in some countries while fostering civil war and terrorism in others. Why is the politics of religion so varied? Among many factors, two stand out: religious actors’ political theology and their independence from the state.

For much of history, religious actors and political authorities formed integrated relationships―they were willingly interdependent, both institutionally and ideologically. However, beginning with the Protestant Reformation in 1517, new developments in Europe—including the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 and the French Revolution of 1789—caused political authorities to flex their power and increase their control over religious actors. But after the 1960s this relationship surprisingly and dramatically changed yet again as religious actors began to expand their independence, some through conflict and struggle and others through mutual consent and constitutional change. Religious actors increasingly abandoned political theologies of passive obedience in exchange for a more active mindset that often legitimates, if not demands, intense political engagement. What is more, religion has resurged with the help rather than the hostility of the very forces many imagined would weaken it: democratization, globalization, and modernization. . . .

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