The “Occupy Wall Street” [OWS] movement has manifested itself across the country. The ability to assemble and to present grievances to the government is a part of American life and the political and legal fabric that form a part of this life. But the OWS is not quite that as the foci of the protests are directed toward private institutions that do have an enormous impact on public life. Nevertheless, the OWS movement is, within reason, protected by the peaceful assembly and freedom of expression clauses of the Constitution. Should the intent of the protesters incorporate actions designed to interfere with the lives and work of others—many of who are sympathetic—the protections guaranteed by the Constitution become thin to the point of non-application.
Now, Professor Thomas Beaudoin of the Fordham University Graduate School of Religions and Religious Education (GSRRE) has taken the OWS movement into another dimension by suggesting that it could be attempted and should be applied in the Catholic Church. [HERE]
But why does he make this claim? His wonder about the suitability of using OWS methods in parishes and other places where Catholics worship is triggered by his “passion for and grievances with [the] church.”
Taking stock of the Beaudoin suggestion, I suppose that those folks who wonder about what is going on in the American academy of higher education, including that which uses the moniker “Catholic”, could just as easily target these institutions with OWS methods in order to air their grievances against colleges and universities—but I digress.
It does appear that the professor has, if not grievances then, disagreements with the Church that are shared by some of his colleagues from the academy in that he is “a part of the Fordham conference ‘Learning to Listen: Voices of Sexual Diversity and the Catholic Church’.” As the GSRRE website states, he and a colleague are “part of a larger collaboration between Fordham, Union Theological Seminary, Yale Divinity School, and Fairfield University, titled ‘More Than a Monologue: Sexual Diversity and the Catholic Church ’” which I and Robby George have addressed at the Mirror of Justice on earlier occasions. Any disagreements or “grievances” which Beaudoin has regarding “sexual diversity and the Catholic Church” are apparently being voiced and heard by those interested in his views without the need of the OWS model being employed. I am certain that if he chose, he could air his “grievances” on other elements of the Church’s teachings somewhere other than houses of worship, perhaps even in his classroom.
But would it make sense to use the OWS model in parish churches? What goes on there? High level discussions addressing policy, doctrine, and dogma? No. What does go on in these venues is worship and the administration and receipt of the sacraments. Yet, Beaudoin wants to disrupt this in order to “name, protest and change what is intolerable about [the] church today.”
I wonder if he thought about those who are happy with the fact that they have a parish or other place where they can go and pray and receive the sacraments? It appears that he has not, for as he says he has a “vision of a different Catholic Church,” and he is not interested in the one that he wishes to disrupt. He wants a “Catholic version of the Arab Spring, to combat the long Catholic Winter.” But his fiery rhetoric fails to take stock of the fact that programs like “More Than a Monologue” are offering the “vision of a different Catholic Church” that he apparently desires. So, why bother the faithful laity and the presbyterate whose vision of the Catholic Church differs from his? He offers no response to this kind of straight-forward question.
As one progresses through the balance of manifesto, it is clear he is not satisfied with the Church’s teachings on a variety of fronts for he complains of the Church’s “structures, teachings, and practices [that] become steadily more incredible in contemporary society.”
Did it occur to him that the teachings of the Church are not designed to reflect what any society appears to want at any given time? Still, he imaginatively pits the “overwhelming majority (all non-ordained persons)” against “the small minority (the ordained).” I happen to be in the latter category, but I find the reality of being one of the ordained unlike the broad characterization offered by Professor Beaudoin does not pit me against those whom I am called by my particular vocation to serve. Having served on most weekends in local parishes for the last eighteen years since my ordination, I don’t find myself or the other clergy with whom I labor being pitted against the faithful. Rather, what I have found and continue to find in parishes across the country is that the People of God, the Body of Christ, whom I encounter, come together to pray, to celebrate and receive the sacraments, and ask God to help us reinforce our faith so that we may be worthy disciples of His Son. I do not see anyone from either segment of the Church as Professor Beaudoin describes it, “Looking at the world and the church in this moment” and declaring “that now may be some kind of privileged time for [OWS] action.” Beaudoin asks in oratorical fashion: “Will Catholics take it [i.e., OWS action] up?”
Why should they, for most of the faithful, be they clergy or laity, have what they seek in the Church as she has existed, as she continues to exist, and as she will exist: guiding and perfecting their way on the human destiny of union with God. The Church is not a political event; rather, it is a divine institution established to bring salvation to those who, in spite of our sinfulness, chose the standard of Christ.
Professor Beaudoin does not mention anything like this, so I don’t think his OWS-like plan makes much sense for anyone in the Church to pursue, be they of the laity or of the clergy.
RJA sj
Both Stephen White and Matthew Franck have posts up at First Things in which they lodge objections to certain features of John Garvey's recent opinion piece in The Washington Post and of the recent letter that Notre Dame's President, and my colleague, Fr. John Jenkins, sent to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, urging her to improve the dramatically inadequate religious-employer exemption to the new health-care law's contraception-coverage mandate. I say it with great respect, but these posts strike me as unfairly critical and as insufficiently appreciative of the specific context in which Fr. Jenkins's letter was submitted (i.e., commentary to an administrative agency's proposed interim rule) and of his letter's specific goal.
First, it seems wrong to fault Fr. Jenkins for (entirely sensibly) attempting to move Sec. Sebelius to the right decision by saying nice things about her connections to Notre Dame and its mission and by reminding her that Pres. Obama did call publicly (even if we might reasonably suspect that he didn't really mean it) at Notre Dame for a more religious-freedom-friendly approach than the one he and his Administration seem (unfortunately) to be taking now (on several fronts).
Fr. Jenkins, in his letter, is trying to effect a better outcome than the one proposed in the relevant interim rule. He is not writing as a scholar (though he is one) or making a general intervention as a public intellectual. He is the representative of a large institution that would be seriously and negatively affected by the proposed interim rule. It makes little sense, in my view, to fault him for not using this particular occasion to denounce the immorality of the mandate itself.
Second, Mr. White seems to impute to Fr. Jenkins the claim or view that there is a moral equivalence between dropping employee health coverage and paying for abortion-causing contraceptives and sterilization. I don't think Fr. Jenkins said that, even if he did say that he thinks it would violate Catholic Social Teaching to fail to provide employees and students with insurance.
Next, Matt Franck, in his post, finds much to praise in Fr. Jenkins' letter, and correctly reminds us all that abortion is wrong, not "wrong for Catholics." He writes:
Father Jenkins and President Garvey admirably defend the institutional conscience rights of their universities, and that is rightly their foremost concern. But by not going on the offensive against the basic immorality of the Obama administration’s rule, they backed into a purely defensive stance. The Obama administration may not budge from its rule as proposed. But one danger is that it will accept a “Jenkins-Garvey” solution, expanding the “religious employer” exemption in the HHS rule and then trumpeting the administration’s “reasonableness.”
Franck and I agree entirely about the basic immorality of the administration's rule. (I am sure that Fr. Jenkins also joins us in agreement.) But, with all due respect, I think it is entirely reasonable (and not cause for criticism) for Fr. Jenkins and Pres. Garvey to proceed on the basis of the (sound) assumptions that the mandate itself is not going to be dislodged unless the next election dislodges it and that this Administration is not open, at all -- it should be, but it is not -- to a conscience-exemption to the mandate for those (in Franck's apt words) "marooned outside the ambit of the rule’s exemption, as insurers, employers, and employees." Yes, given the givens, Fr. Jenkins and Pres. Garvey are in a "defensive stance," but sometimes events and facts-on-the-ground make such a stance the only feasible one.
As I see it, response by the folks at the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture to Fr. Jennkins's letter is a better one:
We commend the President for speaking out for Catholic institutions across the country who refuse to pit the Church's moral teaching against the Church's social teaching. His is a voice which needs to be heard in this debate, and we hope other university presidents and directors of Catholic hospitals will follow his lead in proclaiming the truth.
To be sure, I agree entirely with Matt Franck that the Hyde Amendment was and remains a great success, and will be very happy if the Administration is moved by the powerful arguments set out in the response to the proposed rule of the Witherspoon Institute’s Task Force on Conscience Protection. I see no need, though, to focus on or complain about what else could have been in Fr. Jenkins' and Pres. Garvey's interventions when (i) there is so much in them that is good and (ii) they reflect (what seem to to me to be) sound conclusions about strategy-and-tactics.
In her report on the Hosanna-Tabor oral arguments, Dahlia Lithwick says, "[t]he Supreme Court asks which is more important: preventing discrimination or protecting religion?" But, this is not the question. That is, this case is not about the "importance" of preventing discrimination." That a goal is "important" does not mean that the government has the power to pursue it by any and all means. As I see it, the claim in H-T is not that the government's interest in preventing that discrimination that it has the power to prevent is not important; it is, instead, that -- given our commitment to religious freedom and its church-state-separation dimension -- there are some contexts in which the government's otherwise available power to prevent discrimination is blocked.
For all current and aspiring law faculty who are attending the upcoming hiring conference, here is the information about this year's reception sponsored by the Religiously Affiliated Law Schools. I am not going to the conference this year, but have always enjoyed this reception in the past.
