This statement, "On All of Our Shoulders: A Catholic Call to Protect the Endangered Common Good", is signed by a number of Catholic theologians and scholars and it says a number of things that, in my view, are true and important. That said, and at the risk of being dismissed, given yet another post about Ryan, as one of those "Republican Catholics who have been attempting to provide Catholic cover for the Ryan budget" (see Michael Sean Winters' discussion of the statement, here), I think the statement has some flaws and is disappointing in some respects.
First, the statement reminds readers, correctly, that the Church's social doctrine has a kind of unity, integrity, and coherence and that it needs to be engaged and applied in a way that is true to this fact about it. Second, the statement notes, correctly, that Ayn Rand's "objectivism" is inconsistent with the Gospel, and that an excessively individualistic libertarian stance with regard to social-policy questions is not compatible with Christian moral anthropology or social teaching. Third, the statement, correctly, insists that, even when it comes to questions regarding economic and social-welfare policy, some answers will plausibly cohere with Christianity and others will not. "Prudence", as the statement says, "demands both knowledge of the principles of Catholic Social Doctrine and honest attention to the details and realistic consequences of policies." And, the five "principles" that the statement says are in danger of being "forgotten or distorted" are, indeed, fundamental principles of the Church's social doctrine that should not be forgotten or distorted.
But, the statement also misfires, I think. First, the statement, like much of the "Ryan is a Randian!!" business, overstates significantly the extent to which the policies that are being proposed -- and certainly the policies that have even a remote chance of being enacted, should Gov. Romney be elected -- are, in fact, "libertarian" (let alone Randian). If programs and policies are described tendentiously, and contrasted with rival programs that are described idealistically, they will (no surprise) seem less compatible with Christianity. This is important, because the political choice that the statement is clearly trying to inform has to involve, again, "honest attention to the details and realistic consequences of policies." It is not, notwithstanding what is said by those who are trying to make this election about the extent to which Ryan's thinking has been shaped by Ayn Rand, really likely, given political and social realities, that, in a Romney presidency, we would see changes that can fairly be described as "radical" (or "draconian", or "cruel", or "gutting" . . . or Randian). We might, though, spend several trillion dollars less, over the next ten years or so, and maybe improve the debt-and-deficits situation somewhat, and maybe reform (in a way the preserves them by making them sustainable) important (and expensive) social-welfare programs.
Relatedly, I think the statement overstates generally the influence in our politics of "Randian," or even "libertarian" thought. The statement says, "We live at time when the social indifference of libertarian thought is achieving broad cultural legitimacy and political power. This vision of the human person and society are fundamentally at odds with the Gospel and the principles of Catholic Social Doctrine." As I see it, though, the "libertarianism" that is operative in our politics is not a deep, philosophical individualism or "social indifference." It's not a disciplined, "no government! tax is theft!" program, but just a sense, or mood -- a frustrated but sincere one -- that government at all levels is spending too much and doing too much in some areas (and not enough in some others). "Libertarianism" can be "fundamentally at odds" with the Gospel, if it actually involves "social indifference" and lone-individual atomism. And, some rhetoric on the political right today does seem to involve these mistakes. More common, though, and more influential in reality (David Brooks' complaints notwithstanding), is a "libertarianism" (if it can be called that) that worries about the sustainability of our current practices, that is concerned about the liberal state's tendency and present-day efforts to crowd out civil society and illiberally impose a certain understanding of liberalism on mediating and religious institutions, that thinks its important to have judges and administrators who are faithful to the Constitution and appropriately respectful of the limits on their power, and that is entirely compatible "the Gospel and the principles of Catholic Social Doctrine."
Third, while the statement notes several times the Church's teaching on the dignity of the human person, and agrees that it is important for the Church's teachers to speak clearly on the issue of abortion, it does not, in my view, do enough to take advantage of what it clearly regards as an important "teaching moment" (my quotes, not the statement's). It is the fact of Ryan's candidacy, and the fact of his Catholicism, that seems to make this, to the statement's authors, a "teaching moment," and yet the serious and glaring inconsistency between the Church's social teaching and the policies and views of the other Catholic candidate for Vice President are almost entirely ignored. I realize that the statement's authors think that inconsistency has already been addressed, and is not in danger of being forgotten. After watching and reading about much of the convention of the political party for which many Catholics will, as Catholics, enthusiastically vote, I think they are wrong to think this.
In my view, a statement that aspires to be more than a partisan, day-before-the-debate intervention -- a statement that sees our "common good" as "endangered" and the unity and integrity of the Church's social teaching as being misunderstood -- would frame the "moment" as one in which both tickets include a Catholic. It would, in addition to what this statement says, note to "liberal"-leaning Catholics attracted to the Democrats' social-welfare-spending policies that the Democrats' commitments and policies on abortion, religious liberty, and school choice -- and, for that matter, an indifference to the burdens we are imposing on future generations through our current spending practices -- are inconsistent with the unity of the Church's social teaching about the "common good."
Here, at Whispers in the Loggia (HT: Peter Nixon), is Cardinal Wuerl's opening address to the Synod of Bishops on the New Evangelization. Like Nixon, I was struck by Cardinal Wuerl's emphasis on "Christian anthropology" -- an account of who and what the person is and what the person is for -- as a theological foundation for this new evangelization. (See this essay for some thoughts of mine on Christian "moral anthropology".) Here's a bit:
If secularization with its atheistic tenden-cies removes God from the equation, the very understanding of what it means to behuman is altered. Thus the New Evangelization must point to the very origin of ourhuman dignity, self-knowledge and self-realization. The fact that each person is created in the image and likeness of God forms the basis for declaring, for example, the universality of human rights. Here, once again, we see the opportunity to speak with conviction to a doubting community about the truth and integrity of realities such as marriage, family, the natural moral order and an objective right and wrong. . . . The New Evangelization must rest upon thetheological understanding that it is Christ who reveals man to himself, man’s true identity in Christ, the new Adam. This aspect of the New Evangelization has a very practical meaning for the individual. If it is Christ who reveals to us who God is and, therefore, who we are and how we relate to God, then God is not remote or distantly far off. . .
That's not how the New York Times and the state's teachers union see the matter, of course, but that's how it is. According to critics, efforts to get rid Florida's originally-anti-Catholic constitutional provisions banning "sectarian" institutions from receiving public funds, and to bring Florida law in line with the First Amendment, seek to "soften the barrier between church and state." Nonsense.
Put aside (for now) justified complaints and doubts about some Nobel Prize winners. The announcement that the Prize this year in Medicine is going to Dr. Shinya Yamanaka is great news, as Will Saletan explains. Yamanaka (among other things) "showed how 'induced pluripotent stem cells' could be derived from adult cells and potentially substituted, in research and therapy, for embryonic stem cells."
The President, I hope, will revisit his earlier decision to overturn his predecessor's Executive Order promoting this sort of research.
Yoni Appelbaum explains, at The Atlantic. Meanwhile, the Knights of Columbus help to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Columbus Memorial Fountain in Washington, D.C.
This (critical) review, by Brian Leiter and Michael Weisberg, makes me wants to read this book, by Thomas Nagel: Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False. Here's OUP's description:
The modern materialist approach to life has conspicuously failed to explain such central mind-related features of our world as consciousness, intentionality, meaning, and value. This failure to account for something so integral to nature as mind, argues philosopher Thomas Nagel, is a major problem, threatening to unravel the entire naturalistic world picture, extending to biology, evolutionary theory, and cosmology.
Since minds are features of biological systems that have developed through evolution, the standard materialist version of evolutionary biology is fundamentally incomplete. And the cosmological history that led to the origin of life and the coming into existence of the conditions for evolution cannot be a merely materialist history, either. An adequate conception of nature would have to explain the appearance in the universe of materially irreducible conscious minds, as such.
Nagel's skepticism is not based on religious belief or on a belief in any definite alternative. In Mind and Cosmos, he does suggest that if the materialist account is wrong, then principles of a different kind may also be at work in the history of nature, principles of the growth of order that are in their logical form teleological rather than mechanistic.
In spite of the great achievements of the physical sciences, reductive materialism is a world view ripe for displacement. Nagel shows that to recognize its limits is the first step in looking for alternatives, or at least in being open to their possibility.
Here's a new book by my friend and colleague, Dr. Kenneth Garcia, "Academic Freedom and the Telos of the Catholic University." The blurb:
This book presents a theologically-grounded understanding of academic freedom that builds on, completes, and transforms the prevailing secular understanding. Academic freedom in the secular university, while rightly protecting scholars from external interference by ecclesiastical and political authorities, is constricting in practice because it tends to prohibit most scholars from exploring the relation of the finite world to the infinite, or God. In the Catholic university, true academic freedom means both the freedom of the scholar to pursue studies unencumbered by external interference, and freedom to pursue knowledge beyond the boundaries of specific academic disciplines toward an infinite horizon.
At Vox Nova, Morning's Minion identifies "Three Fallacies about Catholic Social Teaching". They are:
1. The Church has no expertise in economics, which is a technical area best left to experts.
2. We should emphasize private charity over state action.
3. We should draw a hard line between non-negotiable teachings and prudential judgments.
For what it's worth, I pretty much agree with him that these statements are not true (or, that they are sometimes deployed or understood in ways that are not true). I also think, though, that the argument that, all things considered, the common good (understand as CST-embracing Catholics should understand it) will be better (not best, but better) served if Gov. Romney is elected, does not depend on any of those fallacies. (So, his exposition of the fallacies strikes me as not-right in places.)
Anyway, I wonder what Morning's Minion would think of these (friendly) amendments:
First, while it is true that it is a "fallacy" to say that the Church has nothing to say about "economic" questions is false (those questions are human questions, after all), it is correct to note that Church leaders, as such, do not have any particular expertise when it comes to identifying the likely costs, benefits, effects, and implications of this or that particular menu of policies. And so, pronouncements about "economic" questions need to be made with caution -- not because the questions are "economic", but because the questions are really, really complicated.
Second, while there is a role for the public authority in promoting the common good -- i.e., in creating the conditions necessary for the flourishing of persons -- it is essential that this role not be exercised in a way that crowds out civil-society associations, private charity, and the social-welfare and evangelical activities of the Church.
Third, while it is a mistake to think that questions involving "prudential" judgments do not have wrong answers -- even gravely wrong ones -- it *is* true that we are justified in having more confidence that this or that answer is the right one when we are talking about the "non-negotiables."
Check out this post (which has a nice shout-out to this article, by my colleague Lloyd Mayer) by Paul Horwitz on the church-autonomy principle and "pulpit freedom Sunday."
As I wrote in the comments to Paul's post, I agree with him (I think) that the notion of there being *some* limit on the political activities of tax-exempt organizations, including churches, is not itself inconsistent with "church autonomy" / "the freedom of the church." At the same time, I also think there are fuzzy, "yay for pluralism and diversity among civil-society institutions that serve as checks on government power" reasons for thinking that we should give even tax-exempt religious institutions a lot of lee-way in this area.
For more, see my "A Quiet Faith? Taxes, Politics, and the Privatization of Religion" (here).
At First Things, Patrick Deneen has a powerful essay, "President Obama's Campaign for Leviathan," in which considers "the actual significance of the HHS mandate" and contends that "[t]he origin of the mandate lies in an impulse that can be dated back to the beginnings of the modern era and the rise of the state." Read the whole thing, but here's a bit:
At a recent conference in which I participated at the Georgetown Law Center, a number of speakers and participants described the HHS mandate as the necessary requirement that will liberate women from the “coercion” of the Church that seeks to restrict their access to free contraception—including abortifacients—and sterilization. The expansion of state power is justified for its liberative effects, freeing women from the oppression of an antiquated institution (its irrelevance was reinforced by frequent citation of the questionable statistic that 98% of Catholic women use contraceptives).
Note the conceit: Employees at Catholic (or other similarly informed religious institutions) are “coerced” by not having free contraceptives provided as part of their health plans. The state, through the threat of punitive fines (estimated by President John Garvey of the Catholic University of America to be $62 million per year should CUA refuse to comply), acts as the liberator of these oppressed people. This narrative seems plausible to many, because we have been deeply shaped and trained to associate the word “liberty” with the freedom of individuals “to pursue their own ends”—requiring, among other things, the liberation of recreational sex from any consequences—and not the rights, privileges, immunities and liberties of groups, societies, associations, even a corpus mysticum like the Church. In such a view we find Leviathan run rampant . . . .
