As the dust settles from Tuesday’s
election, various pundits are seeking the ambo to proclaim that the results are
consistent with Catholic teaching or not. One illustration of this is from a
faculty member at the Jesuit theologate and school of theology at Berkeley, CA
[HERE]. She begins her dotCommonweal contribution by proclaiming that Tuesday’s
results in four states were historic for advancing the cause of same-sex
marriage.
The professor/author argues that
the increasing support for same-sex marriage is a “generational issue,” and by
this I think she means that, with the passage of time, more and more Americans
will agree that opposition to same-sex marriage, for whatever reason, puts one “on
the wrong side of history” as she quotes a member of a California-based
organization which favors the recognition of same-sex marriage.
The professor/author appears to be
in favor of the changes reflecting this “generational issue” and does not want
to be “on the wrong side of history” when she asserts that some Catholics “are
hanging on to the good news of Catholic Social Teaching, at least as they see
it” by claiming that Catholics for “pro-gay marriage” justify their position on
“centuries of Catholic social teaching” which is based on “Christ’s primary
message… of love.”
The professor/author is critical of
Magisterial teaching to the contrary which she considers limited and faulty.
She concludes that Tuesday’s approvals of same-sex marriage in various legal
redefinitions of marriage demonstrate that “Catholics voting for marriage
equality are showing that they have indeed learned the lessons of Catholic
teaching, both the social teaching of the equal dignity of all people and our
own rich heritage on marriage.”
I am not sure where she gets her
support to substantiate these conclusions, and her views necessitate a response
on several fronts.
I can see how she contends that
increasing Catholic support is becoming a “generational issue” because more and
more young people are being subjected to teachings which use the moniker “Catholic”
but, in fact, are not. As the “More than a Monologue” initiative partly
sponsored by Fordham and Fairfield Universities illustrated and which I have
previously discussed on these pages, nominally Catholic institutions of higher
education, which have an extraordinary influence on the young, are not teaching
what the Church teachers; moreover, these institutions are not exploring why
the Church teaches what she teaches in spite of assertions to the contrary. For
the most part at many institutions that claim the moniker “Catholic”, students
are being exposed to a shadow magisterium which is a corruption of rather than
intellectual fidelity to Church teachings on the neuralgic issues of the day
including marriage. While these young may be receiving a great deal of
education, they are not receiving the wisdom of the Church; hence, their
knowledge of what the Church teaches and why she teaches what she does is being
eviscerated. In addition, both catechesis and evangelization are suffering
rather than prospering as a result of false doctrine being disseminated by a
growing number of teachers who are employed at the once-traditional but
now-nominally Catholic institutions.
But more needs to be said about the
professor/author’s dotCommonweal
posting. My next point concerns her contentions about centuries of Catholic
social teaching supporting the generational shift that erroneously believes
that Catholic social doctrine is in favor of same-sex marriage. A brief
excursion through applicable papal encyclicals, dicastery documents, Conciliar
documents, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and the Compendium of the
Social Doctrine of the Church will rectify her contentions about advocacy for
same-sex marriage and the positions of those she favorably quotes in this
regard which she believes accurately reflect “the equal dignity of all people”
as advanced by Catholic social thought.
This brings me to her understanding
of the meaning of equality. John Courtney Murray was on to something when he
explained that norm making consistent with the natural moral law process that
undergirds our federal republic is founded on objective human intelligence
comprehending objective reality. I have, both here and elsewhere, delved into
the equality argument for same-sex marriage. But in brief, let me demonstrate
why her equality argument falters by illustrating with one argument the truth that
same-sex marriage is not equal to opposite-sex marriage: let us consider that
two planets similar to earth, alpha and beta, are being colonized by humans.
Opposite-sex couples are sent to alpha; same-sex couples are sent to beta.
Neither planet will have the capacity to rely on technology-assisted reproduction.
In one hundred years, more earthlings go to planets alpha and beta. What will
they find? They will find that alpha is still populated with humans but beta
will not be. Her equality argument fails because the claims upon which it is
based are false.
Another point requiring some
attention here is the professor/author’s claim that “Christ’s primary message
is one of love.” Is it really? There is no question that our Lord taught and
lived love, but I submit that his primary message was about salvation when he exhorted
us to avoid sin and its near occasion. Moreover, the Lord came to remind us
that we have free will that ought to be exercised in the direction of virtue
and away from vice and sin. As he told the woman who sinned: go and sin no
more. And, when one turns from sin toward seeking forgiveness, redemption is at
hand as the prodigal son discovered. Regrettably, the professor/author’s
misunderstanding of Christ’s “primary message” can be used to lead people away
from salvation and into sin and the loss of salvation. Should a professor of
moral theology really be exhorting such a thing?
This brings me to my final point
for today, a point that I have previously made here at the Mirror of Justice and elsewhere but a point requiring repetition
once again. This point is founded on another of Christ’s teachings: he is the
vine, and we are the branches. Our Lord reminded us that we, as vines, can
prosper and bear fruit if we remain faithful to him. But, if we so choose, we
can sever our relation with him and with what God asks of us; when we do, we
shall wither. When the latter occurs, we can be bound up and consigned to a
status in which we are permanently removed from him and what God promises. In
the context of Catholic higher education, we might recall Archbishop Michael
Miller’s reliance on this very theme from Saint John’s Gospel (the vine and the
branches) when he developed the notion of evangelical pruning of educational
institutions which claim to be Catholic but, in fact, are not. If I may borrow
from a tack taken by the professor/author, might this be a moment when
Catholics need to understand what Catholic social teaching really is and, if
necessary, relearn it in order to avoid withering on the vine of Christ?
RJA sj
Thursday, November 8, 2012
A book that really changed my life is Fr. James Schall, S.J.'s,
Another Sort of Learning (buy it
here). I gather that he has announced his plans to retire from Georgetown University.
Here (HT
: First Things) is the announcement of his "last lecture", "The Final Gladness", at Georgetown, on December 7. Seriously: If you are in D.C., don't miss this.
One of my favorite events of the year is upon us: The Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture -- founded by David Solomon and now led by Carter Snead -- is hosting its annual Fall Conference. Here's the line-up. If you are in or near South Bend, come on down! Many highlights, including a moderated conversation between Robby George and Michael Sandel on "The Moral Limits of Markets", and a lecture by Alasdair MacIntyre, "Catholic Instead of What?"
And, for the early-morning crowd (or the all-night Justice-contemplators), you can come hear, Saturday morning at 10:30, Paul Horwitz, Michael Moreland, and your humble correspondent present on "religious liberty and justice." Horwitz and Moreland will, of course, be great.
Here's the conference blurb:
In his famous work, De Officiis, Marcus Tullius Cicero wrote that in justice, we see “the crowning glory of the virtues.” Countless treatises, encyclicals, verses, and artistic endeavors by a vast array of philosophers, theologians, poets, and painters have explored the manifold aspects of justice, particularly its meaning and its manifestation in our souls and societies.
The Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture will devote its thirteenth annual Fall conference to the theme: The Crowning Glory of the Virtues: Exploring the Many Facets of Justice. In customary interdisciplinary fashion, this conference will take up the many questions related to both the nature of justice and the varied and often-conflicting ideas of how to establish justice in our hearts and in our world. These questions will be pursued in the disciplinary contexts of philosophy, theology, political theory, law, history, economics, the biosciences, literature, and the arts.
Congratulations to our fellow MOJ-er Robby George, and to his colleagues Sherif Girgis and Ryan Anderson, on the publication of What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense. Here's the Amazon page. (Here's an online essay, by Ryan Anderson, which sets out, in shorter form, parts of their argument.) And, of course, you can go to the Facebook page and "like" it!
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Humility is seldom sought and usually imposed. Once humbled, however, the wise person learns
from the experience and become more open to alternatives that previously may
have been dismissed.
As they woke up this morning, Republicans obviously had many
reasons to be humble.
Despite a struggling economy, rising debt, persistently high
unemployment, and most Americans thinking the country is going in the wrong
direction, Governor Romney managed to lose the election by a rather large margin
in the Electoral College.
With more than twice as many Democratic-held Senate seats
being on the ballot, many in “Red” states, Republicans should have taken
control of the Senate this year. Instead,
with weak candidates, a poor message, and repeated mis-steps, Republicans have
actually gone backwards and lost a couple of seats.
While it may not be so obvious today, and appears thus far to
have eluded most pundits and celebrating Democrats, Democrats have many
reasons to be humble as well.
Yes, President Barack Obama won a second term as President,
and he did so against the head winds of a weak recovery, high unemployment, and
an approval rating that always hovered below 50 percent.
But it was hardly a convincing win.
President Obama’s biggest fans pretend that he is a
transformational figure, a Democratic version of Ronald Reagan. But President Reagan was re-elected in a
landslide in which he carried 49 states and won by an increased popular vote margin
of more than 18 points.
In sharp contrast, President Obama’s popular vote margin
shrank from 7 points in 2008 to 2 points in 2012. If the present popular vote margin stands
(with nearly 99 percent of the precincts reporting nationwide), President Obama
will pass the 50 percent dividing line by only a few tenths of a percent. He becomes only the second President in
history to be re-elected with a smaller margin of the vote than in his first
election — the last one being Woodrow Wilson in 1916.
Moreover, while President Obama stays in the White House, Republicans
remain in firm control of the House of Representatives. After a “wave” election, such as we saw in
2010, things tend to move back toward balance in the next election cycle, with
representatives who had seized swing districts being removed. Instead, with several congressional races
still too-close-to-call, projections are that Republicans will have lost fewer
than half a dozen seats and thereby maintain a healthy majority in the House.
And Republicans increased their hold on state houses
yesterday. Nearly two-thirds of the
Governors are now Republicans. Then-Senator-now-President
Obama being the exception that proves the rule, the farm team for presidential candidates in the last half-century has been the state executives, not federal legislators. [Note: Sentence revised in light of comments.]
Thus, Republicans now have a leg up on the executive training for the
next generation of presidential candidates.
So both of our major political parties have ample reasons
for humility today.
In light of that, could there be a bipartisan moment? Is there any prospect during a second Obama
term for both Democrats and Republicans to come together and accomplish
something important for the common good?
William Galston of the Brookings Institute is skeptical,
saying that he doesn’t “think there is anything in this election that has
pointed a way forward.” I beg to differ — or at least to hope. I think we have a genuine
chance — to be sure, only a chance — for meaningful bipartisan progress on such
things as entitlement reform (and deficit reduction) and immigration reform. Below the break, I
further explain my cautious optimism.
Continue reading
I thought it might be a good time to review our own Michael Scaperlanda's series of posts, from Nov. 2008, "Beyond Politics." The first installment is available here:
Now that the election is past, I’d like to encourage us to move beyond politics (at least for two years but maybe longer) and to think more creatively about how MOJ and the development of Catholic Legal Theory can contribute its small part to the transformation of our culture. . . .
