Sunday, February 12, 2012
"If the church is not the church . . . ."
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
FCC v. Fox -- the "fleeting expletives" case
The Supreme Court recently heard oral argument in FCC v. Fox, for the second time. The first time the Court heard the case, it denied relief on administrative law grounds: the agency's changing a rule (regarding the censorship of expletives and nudity on public broadcasts) did not require that the agency *explain* why it considered the new rule to be better than the former rule. This time the First Amendment issue in the case seems unavoidable: what is the constitutional authority of the FCC to regulate indecency on broadcast media? Some of my thoughts on that question are on this recent podcast.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Distributism
Rick raises several compelling questions concerning how contemporary and earlier advocacy on behalf of "distributism," as an alternative to both socialism and capitalism, should be approached and evaluated. I don't know of any single author whose work has remotely begun to cover the field, but lawyer Christopher Ferrara has made many fine and sound contributions, the quality of which can be glimpsed in his recent essay here. Ferrara's observations about the nature of the *reasons* individuals and societies have to make the required transitions from virtually unbridled capitalism to distributism return us to those more funadmental questions (which I've been raising here on MOJ) concerning what happens when we mistakenly consider the Constitution -- rather than the divine natural law and the law of the Gospel -- to be the "supreme law of the land." Again, my denying that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land does not commit me to "judicial activism" of the sort I'm sometimes accused of advocating. My views on what our federal judges, for example, are licensed to do is really quite strict and disciplined (cf. my disagreements with Hadley Arkes)! The point is that recognizing the *truly* higher law for what it is calls the rest of the law into question, in a way that must be resolved *lawfully*, naturally.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
The rather-larger-than-asserted competence of "the state"
Rick is surely right when he reports that the Kingship of Christ is a theological doctrine that Catholic preachers by and large don't know how to handle. Even many of those who grant that Christ reigns now as King take the position, implicitly or occasionally explicitly, that, like Elizabeth II, Christ reigns but does not rule. Some defend the proposition that there are zones that are not ruled by Christ, on the ground that sometimes secularity is "healthy." As I was saying the other day at the marvelous conference on "Radical Emancipation: Confronting the Challenge of Secularism" sponsored by Notre Dame's Center for Ethics and Culture," however, the absence of the Gospel is never a good. To be absolutely clear, non-Christians must never be forced to embrace the Christian religion, but this does not entail that socio-political life should not be blessed by the leaven of the Gospel. The penetration of civil society by the principles of the Gospel is a good to be pursued -- and it is, indeed, a good that Christ the King commands. Here is what Card. Ratzinger said in 1984 on the question of the basis on which the state should be formed and shaped: "The state must recognize that a funadmental system of values based on Christianity is the precondition for its existence." (Church, Ecumenism & Politics, 207, emphasis added). It's a worthy question why the Holy Father recently said something rather less to the Bundestag.
Many leading American Catholic neo-cons are embarrassed by the doctrine of the social Kingship of Christ. If you have any doubt about that, listen to the silly things George Weigel, Jodi Bottum, and Raymond Arroyo say (and observe the awkward body language and snark on their faces) in this discussion on EWTN . Weigel concludes by asserting that "The state does not have the capacity to make the judgment that Christ is King." But this is patently absurd, at least taken as a statement about states as such. As I've argued before, surely a group of Catholics founding a state would be competent to install leaders who would be competent to recognize what their installers recognize, viz., the Kingship of Christ. To be sure, many states, including our own, are contingently incompetent to recognize the Kingship of Christ and its social consequences, but the fulfillment of such an unfortunate contingency does not lay a finger on the traditional Catholic teaching that Christ is King over political society. Nor does the Second Vatican Council alter that teaching. See Par. 2105 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. How could it? Jodi Bottum claims in the video that "Christ is king of we [sic] as individuals." It is by nature (and supernature) that we associate, however, and I cannot understand the claim that, when we do in fact associate in political society to achieve the natural common good, Christ pro tanto loses his jurisdiction. Bottum is right that this is an "unAmerican idea," but that's hardly a fatal condition.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Equality and Authority
Many thanks to Rick Garnett for calling my (and others') attention to Anthony Esolen's rich essay "Authority in the Education of a Human Being". As Rick stated, there's a lot going on in the essay, and, as it happens, the argument involves the intersection of three areas in which I've spilt a fair amount of ink: equality, childhood and education, and authority. I agree with Esolen that the affirmation that all humans are ontogically equal is -- though he doesn't put the point quite this way -- liberating. Those who believe, as I do, that "all men are created equal" have reason not to despair over the obvious and ineliminable differences in ability and opportunity that are everywhere and undeniable. We remain obligated by the demands of justice and of the Gospel, of course, to strive to assure every person certain securities and opportunities, but the belief in equal human worth -- even of those who by bad luck, so to speak, know nothing of eudaimonia -- deprives us of the cheap and labor-saving fallacy that the unlucky are worth less than the rest. What possible basis we have for believing that humans are equal is not, however, pace Jefferson et al., "self-evident." I would suggest that it requires belief in a God who calls all men and women to a supernatural end. The argument in my book (with Coons) By Nature Equal is roughly to that effect, though there are some things said in the book that I would say differently more than a decade after Coons and I said them. The point is, though, that even ontologically equal humans require the fruits of authority on the pilgrimage both to natural happiness and to supernatural happiness. After all, without the authority of the Church, how are we to know even of our equality before God?Without civil and parental authority, moreover, how are we to have access to conditions of justice? Authority, both religious and natural, makes possible a world that respects our freedom by allowing us to make our pilgrim way toward conditions of natural justice and, moreover, the supernatural common good, as the essays in the two books I've edited Civilizing Authority: Society, State, and Church and The Vocation of the Child argue from a range of Catholic and other Christian perspectives. Except on the ground of the authoritative teaching of the Church about God's *universal* call to the Kingdom, I discern no basis for affirming an ontological equality among humans. Other proffered bases for affirming human equality turn out to be trivial or even illusory, as Michael J. White shows in his book Partisan or Neutral? The Futility of Public Political Theory
Saturday, October 29, 2011
More on the Pope's recent Address to the Bundestag
Before expressing my respectful disagreement with some of the personal theological opinion Pope Benedict shared in his Address to the Bundestag on September 22, 2012, I would underscore the importance of the Holy Father's calling the German government and people back to the touchstone of the natural law. The Pope is certainly correct that "[i]dea of natural law is today viewed as a specifically Catholic doctrine, not worth bringing into the discussion in a non-Catholic environment, so that one feels almost ashamed even to mention the term." I am grateful for the Pope's reminder to the Germans -- and to all of us -- of the truth that "[m]an too has a nature that he must respect and that he cannot manipuate at will. Man is not merely self-creating freedom. Man does not create himself. He is intellect and will, but he is also nature, and his will is rights ordered if he respects his nature, listens to it and accepts himself for who he is, as one who did not create himself. In this way, and in no other, is true human freedom fulfilled." This language enjoys the clarity and precision we have come to expect from Ratzinger-Benedict, and while I would have preferred for the Pope to return to the natural law in his exposition of the conditions of human freedom, there is, in my view, nothing to quarrel with in the quoted language. It reflects Catholic teaching about matters that are true not *just* for Catholics.
On the other hand, however, I have some serious questions about the *truth* of the following assertion made by the Pope in the same Address: "Unlike other great religions, Christianity has never proposed a revealed law to the State and to society, that is to say a juridical order derived from revelation. Instead, it has pointed to nature and reason as the true sources of law . . . ." While I concede that the common English translation I have just quoted is not adequate to the (gramatically odd) German text
|
("Wie erkennt man, was recht ist? In der Geschichte sind Rechtsordnungen fast durchgehend religiös begründet worden: Vom Blick auf die Gottheit her wird entschieden, was unter Menschen rechtens ist. Im Gegensatz zu anderen großen Religionen hat das Christentum dem Staat und der Gesellschaft nie ein Offenbarungsrecht, eine Rechtsordnung aus Offenbarung vorgegeben. Es hat stattdessen auf Natur und Vernunft als die wahren Rechtsquellen verwiesen – auf den Zusammenklang von objektiver und subjektiver Vernunft, der freilich das Gegründetsein beider Sphären in der schöpferischen Vernunft Gottes voraussetzt."),
serious questions remain, at least for me. Specifically, has the Church not *authoritatively* taught that Christ is king over all peoples and a giver of law that all those to whom it is promulgated must obey? Here is what the Magisterium taught in Quas primas (1925): "17. It would be a grave error, on the other hand, to say that Christ has no authority whatever in civil affairs, since, by virtue of the absolute empire over all creatures committed to him by the Father, all things are in his power. Nevertheless, during his life on earth he refrained from the exercise of such authority, and although he himself disdained to possess or to care for earthly goods, he did not, nor does he today, interfere with those who possess them. Non eripit mortalia qui regna dat caelestia.[27] 18. Thus the empire of our Redeemer embraces all men. To use the words of Our immortal predecessor, Pope Leo XIII: "His empire includes not only Catholic nations, not only baptized persons who, though of right belonging to the Church, have been led astray by error, or have been cut off from her by schism, but also all those who are outside the Christian faith; so that truly the whole of mankind is subject to the power of Jesus Christ."[28] Nor is there any difference in this matter between the individual and the family or the State; for all men, whether collectively or individually, are under the dominion of Christ. In him is the salvation of the individual, in him is the salvation of society." |
Prescinding from questions of theology and philososphy for now, I think it's demonstrably *historically* false that the Church has not "proposed a juridical order derived from revelation." On the contrary, the Church has taught that the laws of civil society should be shaped in part by the divine positive law (e.g., the state's law of marriage should respect the Pauline privilege), recognizing, of course, that in countries where Catholics are not in the majority, this is not likely to happen.
I do not discover in the teachings of the Second Vatican Council any language that undertakes to contradict the language I have quoted from Quas primas.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Helping parents to be parents
Jack Coons has long been one of our nation's most articulate and, to my mind, persuasive defenders of law that helps parents to be parents by allowing them to send their children to schools that they judge to be best for their children. It's easy for the rich to send their children to the best schools. Non-rich parents need the help of good law. Jack and his allies in the project of guaranteeing parents' opportunity to choose their children's schools have advocated, season in and season out, law reform that will meet the needs of non-rich families. Jack's most recent defense of "school choice" can be found here. It deserves a wide circulation.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
From Finnis to +Chaput
As Michael Moreland recently observed here, we at Villanova did a great job last Friday of celebrating and exploring the work of rockstar jurisprude John Finnis. The conference was extraordinarily well attended, and, as one speaker commented to me afterwards, he learned more on that day than on any other single day of his life. There was a lot going on! The further good news is that, thanks to the speakers' generosity, nearly all of the papers delivered at the conference, including Prof. Finnis's keynote address, will be published in the Villanova Law Review. That keynote address was a breathtakingly penetrating response to the eight papers and several formal comments delivered earlier in the day.
Moving from strength to strength, I am delighted to announce that the Most Reverend Charles Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., the recently installed Archbishop of Philadelphia, will deliver the keynote address at Seventh Annual Scarpa Conference on Law, Politics, and Culture to be held at Villanova early next fall. Archbishop Chaput requires no introduction here, of course, and I'll only add that the pre-election season will be an ideal time to hear from Archbishop Chaput on how Catholics can serve the nation by living their Catholic beliefs in political life.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
The *other* Finnis-fest, at Villanova Law
In addition to the great upcoming conference at Notre Dame on the work of John Finnis, don't forget that other Finnis-fest to be held at Villanova Law School on September 30, 2011. The schedule and registration details are here. The conference is free and open to the public. We have an incredible line-up:
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Opening a new chapter in the history of Villanova Law
Villanova Law: Restoring a reputation
VSL Dean John Gotanda
by Jeff Blumenthal -- Philadelphia Business Journal
Mark Sargent certainly left an imprint on Villanova University School of Law. But that appears to have taken the form of two black eyes.
Sargent, the school’s dean for 12 years, resigned in June 2009 after being linked to a prostitution ring. Then Monday, an American Bar Association American Bar Association Latest from The Business Journals Villanova Law censured by ABANakasone picked to replace McKenna on First Circuit CourtAmerican Bar Association censures Villanova Law Follow this company investigation indicated that Sargent “directed” three other law school administrators to knowingly report falsified admissions data. The report doesn’t specifically name Sargent, but it says a “former dean” directed the misreporting and that dean and the three other administrators are no longer employed by the school. Sargent was dean when the alleged false reporting occurred from between at least 2002 to 2009. Villanova Law said it could not speak about any former employees but confirmed that the responsible administrators are no longer working at the school.
When longtime Villanova Law professor John Gotanda was elevated to dean this past January, he immediately inherited the false reporting scandal that was uncovered that month through an internal investigation. Already burdened with succeeding Sargent, Gotanda had to spend the next six months trying to get to the bottom of the reporting discrepancies while trying to preserve the school’s reputation and openly communicate with its various constituencies.
Gotanda told me Monday afternoon that the wrongdoing was committed by a “small group of people in secret. There’s no question there was wrongdoing, but we hope people see that once it was uncovered, we stepped up and did the right thing by self-reporting [to the ABA] and taking steps to not just remedy the situation but set up a compliance program equivalent to Sarbanes Oxley.”
The ABA said that is what saved Villanova Law from a more serious penalty such as probation or removal from the list of approved law schools. Instead, it received a public censure that must be posted on its website and the ABA’s Section on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar for the next two years. The school is also required to issue a public statement of correction approved by the ABA and hire a compliance monitor for at least two years.
Villanova Law hired accounting firm KPMG to assess and recommend improvements to all of its procedures revolving around ABA compliance and law firm Freeh Sporkin & Sullivan to develop and monitor all ABA compliance matters and serve as independent compliance officer for the next two years.
Villanova Law students and alumni I’ve interviewed over the past several months said Gotanda was very open with them during course of the investigation. While he took some heat for not speaking publicly on the matter until yesterday, Gotanda said the ABA had asked the school not to speak publicly while the investigation was ongoing.
In addition to seeing its reputation disparaged, Villanova Law also incurred a financial hit. Gotanda said its investigation and compliance remedies cost more than $500,000. Gotanda said he knows the mess is not behind the school.
“It was really damaging to the institution,” Gotanda said. “Once you lose your integrity, it’s hard to regain it. But the entire [Villanova Law] community came together to try and restore our reputation and right the wrong. Students could have abandoned the school but 120 of them helped recruit. And so did alums.”
Gotanda recognizes he still has work to do when it comes to repairing Villanova Law’s reputation. While the school’s most recent U.S. News and World Report ranking fell. Gotanda said the Villanova Law still attracted “high achieving” students whose bar exam passage rates increased in recent years. But only time will tell if the scandal produces any lingering negative residue.
Recent Posts
Categories
Monthly Archive
StatCounter
PageViews
Since February 19, 2008
