Friday, August 24, 2012
Who is "extreme" on abortion?
In the wake of Todd Akin's idiotic and insensitive (albeit quite overhyped in the press and by partisans) recent remarks, and following up on Robby's post about the strikingly abortion-and Akin-centric character of the developing Democratic Convention schedule, it seems worth remembering who is actually in, and out, of the "mainstream" when it comes to the morality and regulation of abortion.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Mark Movsesian on "The Paradox of Catholic Social Thought"
My friend Prof. Mark Movsesian (St. John's) writes at the CLR Forum, responding to this excellent piece by Fr. Barron -- on the "paradox of Catholic Social Thought." Check it out.
Barron's piece concludes with this:
In his wonderful Orthodoxy, written over a hundred years ago but still remarkably relevant today, G.K. Chesterton said that Catholicism is marked through and through by the great both/and principle. Jesus is both divine and human. He is not one or the other; nor is he some bland mixture of the two; rather, he is emphatically one and emphatically the other. In a similar way, the Church is radically devoted to this world and radically devoted to the world to come. In the celibacy of its priests, it is totally against having children, and in the fruitful marriage of its lay people, it is totally for having children.
In its social teaching, this same sort of "bi-polar extremism" is on display. Solidarity? The Church is all for it. Subsidiarity? The Church couldn't be more enthusiastic about it. Not one or the other, nor some bland compromise between the two, but both, advocated with equal vigor. I think it would be wise for everyone to keep this peculiarly Catholic balance in mind as the debate over Paul Ryan's policies unfolds.
And, Movsesian's with this:
Christianity always asks the believer to accept seemingly incompatible assertions: Christ is at once God and Man; the world is at once good and evil; the Christian must at once care for the world and focus on eternity. For non-Christians, these are nonsensical pairings; but for Christians, they help define the mystery of faith. If there is to be a Catholic — or, more broadly, Christian –social theory, it must somehow endorse community and individuality, in Barron’s words, “with equal vigor.” It must embrace the paradox that Christians are called to be in the world but not of it — an undoable something that somehow must be done.
Monday, August 20, 2012
"Bishops, Budgets, and Getting Moral Theology Right"
David Cloutier has a good post over at Catholic Moral Theology, called "Bishops, Budgets, and Getting Moral Theology Right," in which he is (respectfully) critical of a recent open letter by Rep. Paul Ryan's bishop, Robert Morlino. Bishop Morlino said, among other things:
Making decisions as to the best political strategies, the best policy means, to achieve a goal, is the mission of lay people, not bishops or priests. As Pope Benedict himself has said, a just society and a just state is the achievement of politics, not the Church. And therefore Catholic laymen and women who are familiar with the principles dictated by human reason and the ecology of human nature, or non-Catholics who are also bound by these same principles, are in a position to arrive at differing conclusions as to what the best means are for the implementation of these principles — that is, “lay mission” for Catholics.
Thus, it is not up to me or any bishop or priest to approve of Congressman Ryan’s specific budget prescription to address the best means we spoke of. Where intrinsic evils are not involved, specific policy choices and political strategies are the province of Catholic lay mission. . . .
I think that Prof. Cloutier helpfully reminds us that "intrinsic" evils are not necessarily more "grave". That said, I think I read Bishop Morlino's letter a bit differently than he did. He wrote, among other things, that Bishop Morlino "suggest[ed] that Catholic teaching involves certain absolutes – such as the right to life and the right to private property – and beyond these, bishops have no competence to make moral pronouncements." But, I didn't take Bishop Morlino to be questioning the competence (and obligation!) of bishops to make "moral pronouncements" about matters outside the "intrinsic evil" category (killing the innocent, etc.). Instead, I took the Bishop to be saying that, when it comes to the identification and enactment of the best package of social-welfare and budgetary programs, the "moral prouncements" that it is appropriate for a Bishop to make authoritatively are going to be more at the level of principle and less at the level of conclusive evaluations of particular proposals.
Of course a Bishop may and should remind Catholics -- including Catholic politicians -- that the Gospels and the Church's social doctrines speak to matters of taxation, budgeting, and spending, as well as to laws regulating abortion. I didn't hear Bishop Morlino suggesting otherwise. But, it seems to me that he's right to say that authoritative evaluations -- that is, a determination that it does, or does not, meet the criteria proposed by the Church's social teaching -- of something as complex as a ten-year budget plan is almost certainly going to depend on factual questions and predictions that a Bishop might not have the expertise to answer or make.
Does this mean that all specific policy proposals -- outside the intrinsic-evil arena -- are beyond evaluation or criticism by Bishops? I guess I don't think so. There will be situations, I am sure, where the policy in question is simply beyond any defense as a reasonable, good faith application of the Church's social teachings. But, those situations are going to be pretty rare.
Thursday, August 16, 2012
A possible Ryan response to Reid
Rob links here to Chuck Reid's HuffPo piece on Paul Ryan, Ayn Rand, and Catholic Social Thought. After what I think is, for Reid, an uncharacteristic misstep -- "The record of [Ryan's] public life is that of a man in thrall to a curdled, warped individualism" -- Reid asks, "I, for one, would like to know what he thinks about the magisterium of the Church regarding the positive value of the state."
The Hill reported, a while back, that Ryan had this to say, in a CBN interview:
“Through our civic organizations, through our churches, through our charities, through all of our different groups where we interact with people as a community, that’s how we advance the common good, by not having Big Government crowd out civic society, but by having enough space in our communities so that we can interact with each other, and take care of people who are down and out in our communities,” Ryan said.
“Those principles are very, very important, and the preferential option for the poor, which is one of the primary tenets of Catholic social teaching, means don’t keep people poor, don’t make people dependent on government so that they stay stuck at their station in life, help people get out of poverty, out into a life of independence.”
And, in his recent speech at Georgetown, he said:
Simply put, I do not believe that the preferential option for the poor means a preferential option for big government.
Look at the results of the government-centered approach to the war on poverty. One in six Americans are in poverty today– the highest rate in a generation. In this war on poverty, poverty is winning. We need a better approach.
To me, this approach should be based on the twin virtues of solidarity and subsidiarity–virtues that, when taken together, revitalize civil society instead of displacing it.
Government is one word for things we do together. But it is not the only word. We are a nation that prides itself on looking out for one another– and government has an important role to play in that. But relying on distant government bureaucracies to lead this effort just hasn’t worked.
It seems to me that these two quotes -- whether or not one agrees with them -- do not reflect a "curdled, warped individualism", but rather a healthy appreciation for civil society institutions, and also that they are not inconsistent with the view (which Reid and I, I'm sure, both hold) that the political authority -- "the state" -- has a positive role (albeit only a $40 trillion, and not a $47 trillion, role) to play in promoting the common good and protecting the vulnerable.
As Julie Rubio urges, in a really thoughtful and generous post over at Catholic Moral Theology, by all means let's engage and argue about the question whether the common good -- understood as Catholics understand it -- is better served (with "better" being identified with reference to criteria supplied by the Church's social doctrines) by the policies proposed by the President and the Democrats in Congress, or by Gov. Romney, Rep. Ryan, and the Republicans in Congress. But this engagement is far more likely to avoid the pitfalls of mere "I'm with my team!" partisanship if we don't charge that Ryan's views and proposals are reducible to Rand or that concerns about the inefficiencies and "crowding out" effects of big government, or the sustainability of current social-welfare programs, reveal "warped individualism" and a denial of the positive role to be played by the state.
Remembering John Courtney Murray, S.J.
John Courtney Murray, one of the most important Catholic intellectuals of the 20th century, died 45 years ago today. This site collects a whole bunch of his work, and also work about his work. Check it out. And, of course, if you don't own We Hold These Truths, well, you should.
Requiescat in pace
Saturday, August 11, 2012
A response to Morning's Minion on the Bishops' Religious Freedom efforts
A recent post of mine led to some correspondence between Morning's Minion, of the Vox Nova blog, and me about the work of the Bishops' Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty (which I serve as a consultant). He called my attention to a post of his, from a few weeks back, in which he outlines his "concerns" with that work, and asked for my thoughts. With his permission, I'm posting an edited version of my response to his request:
. . . With respect to your [concern that the Bishops' statements have been too nationalistic]: On the one hand, I do think there are some aspects of American constitutionalism that are distinctively good, and my sense is that the Church has recognized as much. (In various documents, for example, our separation-of-powers and checks-and-balances structures are praised.) And, I think that the teaching in Dignitatis Humanae owes a lot to the American experience with religious freedom, warts and all. That said, and obviously, religious freedom is a human right, not an American right; it is a gift from God, not from James Madison. Still, I think it’s fine for a document, written by American bishops and addressed to Americans primarily, to highlight the centrality in the American experience – at least in its aspirations – of religious liberty. True, in an academic paper, one would want to complicate the narrative, but the basic point is sound, and worth emphasizing: Religious freedom is protected by modern democracies, true, but it was (at least aspirationally) protected here, first. This something that we can celebrate, and try to live up to.
Your second concern, namely, that the Bishops' campaign sounds too much in a not-really-Catholic individualism is one that several more liberal Catholic bloggers have also voiced. I agree that the Church’s religious-freedom teaching cannot be reduced simply to “conscience." Still, it is clear to me that Dignitatis endorses, *at least for purposes of the juridical order*, the idea that the public authority should respect (to the extent possible, given the needs of public order) the religious conscience of all persons, because they are persons. True, there is more to freedom than negative liberty, but I think Murray was right (and right in his understanding of DH) that, for the *limited* purposes of the juridical order, it is appropriate to “operationalize” religious freedom (in an incomplete way) through negative, constitutional restrictions on state actions that burden religious freedom. I share concerns about excessive or un-situated individualism but, again, would insist that the freedom of the individual’s religious conscience is – even if it’s not the whole story – to be protected in law. Can it be overcome by the needs of the public order and the common good? Of course. But the Bishops and the HHS-lawsuit plaintiffs never suggest otherwise.
You are right that the religious-freedom claims of religious institutions are meaningfully different from those of individuals, or of non-religious entities. (The latter sound in "church autonomy" and "separation", for one thing.) But, it does not follow from this that individuals and non-religious entities don't have religious-freedom rights, or that they should lose if they sue to vindicate those rights. I think the way to think about it is that (a) the nature of the burden is different, when it is imposed on a religious institution, (b) but there can still be a burden in the case of an individual or a non-religious entity, (c) the strength of the *government* interest – the public-order, “compelling interest” interest – might be stronger in the case of a burden applied to an individual or a non-religious entity, and (d) the ease-of-accommodation will almost certainly be different.
So, as you say, the government cannot be expected to give everyone a religion-based-conscience exemption from general taxation duties. We agree. But, the HHS case is different. The mandate is NOT a generally applicable law (there are – to use a technical term – gabillions of exemptions) and it is NOT the extraction of money into the general government coffers. . . .
Finally, with respect to your third concern, i.e., that the campaign risks making the Bishops look partisan. In my view, it just cannot be right that the Church, to avoid looking partisan, has to stand quiet on issues that are politically salient. It is not the Church’s fault that it is Sec. Sebelius, and not Sec. Thompson, who is doing this. (Nor is it the Church's fault that it tends to be Republicans who call for wrongheadedly severe immigration policies.)
Friday, August 10, 2012
"A very sober view of the state"
Is what Christians should have, said Joseph Ratzinger in his 2006 Values in a Time of Upheaval. "It is not the task," he said, "of the state to create man's happiness, nor is it the task of the state to create new men. It is not the task of the state to change the world into a paradise . . . nor can it do so." Two years earlier, in Truth and Tolerance, he had written, "Wherever politics tries to be redemptive, it is promising too much. Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes, not divine, but demonic."
A quick response to a few pro-Obama arguments at Vox Nova
At Vox Nova, Morning's Minion contends that "Obama is acceptable, with some major caveats. Romney is not." My view would be that "the President is not acceptable, but that -- admittedly, with some caveats, having to do with some issues about which I suspect MM and I agree -- Romney is." I don't think there's much point -- and, in any event, this is not the best forum -- in trying to set out my reasons for having concluded this in similar detail to that of MM's post. This strikes me as one of those situations in which two people -- both reasonably engaged and intelligent and both doing their best to be Catholic -- just see the world differently.
That said, I think three particular points of MM's are pretty weak, and have to do with matters that I see as being in the Mirror of Justice portfolio. First, MM says that the President is a "Social Democrat who, in the name of liberal tolerance, is not always respectful of the appropriate role of subsidiary mediating institutions in the social order." I agree entirely, though I think this way of putting things understates the problem. But, this strikes me as a pretty big deal -- and a very strong reason for thinking that another Obama administration, staffed with people and by people who are also "not always respectful" of mediating institutions' role, or the limits on state power -- and not just a regrettable personal characteristic. It is a very bad thing, I think, for the leaders and administration in a political community that aspires to be a constitutional democracy to be disrespectful of this "role."
Second, MM downplays the significance of the President's positions and policies with respect to abortion. It is not new, I realize, to point out that Roe isn't everything, and that electing Republicans will not end abortion. But, the suggestion that it doesn't make a difference -- MM says that the President's "office has extremely little control over policies that affect abortion directly (as opposed to indirectly through economic, social, and health care policies)" -- is misguided. The fact -- yes, it is a fact -- is that GOP legislators are more likely to enact reasonable regulations of abortion; GOP executive-branch officials and administrators are more likely to use their discretion in ways that regulate, rather than subsidize, abortion; and judges appointed by GOP presidents are (dramatically) more likely to uphold reasonable regulations of abortion than are their Democratic counterparts. If one wants to say, given all the givens, that abortion should not matter too much, compared to other issues, that's fine, but the suggestion that it's kind of a wash, when it comes to abortion, which party (at this moment in our history, unlike, say, the 1970s) is in power, is nonsense.
Finally, and related both to the first point (about mediating institutions) and the 7th (about same-sex marriage): I think MM downplays the threats posed to religious freedom -- understood, I suspect, as he and I both understand it -- by certain understandings, which are dominant in this administration's relevant offices, of the role and power of antidiscrimination law. This is not merely a "state and local issue", but one that increasingly involves federal courts and federal agencies.
Again, I suspect that most people pick their teams, and then pick their arguments and facts. I imagine we're all -- including me -- guilty of this sometimes. I am doing my best to act politically in a way that makes progress toward the common good more likely, that makes gross injustices less likely, that realistically evaluates facts and predicts effects, and that reflects my grateful embrace of Christianity. I imagine I'll get it wrong sometimes.
Thursday, August 9, 2012
An election-is-approaching observation (again)
Because I have a bunch of things on my list that I should be doing, I have (of course!) spent some time today reading old MOJ posts, and also catching up on some (broadly speaking) Catholic blogs. Maybe it's just because there's an election coming up -- one that committed citizens on both sides think (a) is really important and (b) just has to go their way, or else -- but this post, from a few months ago (which I called, at the time, a "gloomy observation"), seemed worth re-posting:
Over the course of the last few days and weeks, consuming lots of (and contributing some) commentary in various forms about, e.g., the preventive-services mandate, the Bishops' religious-freedom statement, the Ryan budget and Catholic Social Thought, the Supreme Court arguments in the ACA and SB 1070, the presidential campaign and election, etc., I was struck by what seem to me to be some characteristics of our (and by "our" I'm thinking mainly of "reasonably engaged, informed, and formed Christian citizens) conversations about law, politics, policy, and faith.
It seems to me that, generally speaking, the following are true:
(1) People object indignantly to tu quoque, "so's your mother!", and "if only you were consistent . . ." arguments and charges, and to double-standards, and also deploy, and apply, them often.
(2) People assume that those who disagree with them are, at least in part, motivated by something undisclosed, or by ideological precommitments that overdetermine the content of their claims, while they themselves are candid and transparent, and able to transcend ideology in order to identify what the right answer really is.
(3) People object to pronouncements by religious authorities about "political" matters selectively and strategically / tactically.
(4) People are clear-eyed about the weakness of guilt-by-association arguments, and also entirely happy to press them.
(5) People are sensitive to the important truth that there is (this side of Heaven) almost always room for reasonable disagreement among intelligent, faithful, reasonable people about how best to apply principles, standards, and rules to those facts that are known; and also to the reality that such people will also often disagree about what the "facts" (which include, I suppose, predictions about the effects of particular interventions or omissions) . . . except when they aren't.
(6) People say that we should assume the best of others and their arguments, and avoid a "hermeneutic of suspicion", but don't.
To be clear: I am, I am sure, among these "people." I am not claiming innocence. Sure, the merits matter, and I tend to think (as we all do) that, basically, I'm right about those matters about which I disagree with other people (assuming we are talking about matters about which it's possible to be right). But still -- I'm not pretending to have entirely clean hands. (I guess I'm overcompensating, in anticipation of (1)).
So, a serious question: Given (1)-(6), is there really any hope for productive, charitable, and enlightening conversation and argument (about these matters), among people who don't already (pretty much) agree, outside the context of close personal relationships where trust (and even love) can reduce the incidence of the phenomena described in (1)-(6)?
I very much want the answer to be "yes", but it strikes me that it might be "no." Hence, the gloominess of my observation.
I have to believe the answer is "yes", but pre-election blog-reading (especially blogs that touch on the relationships among religion, law, policy, and politics) can make it hard -- again, outside the context of "close personal relationships where trust (and even love) can reduce the incidence of the phenomena described" above. Thank God for such relationships.
Five years ago today, at MOJ: Science & Politics, the "new atheists", and mistakes about "discrimination"
On August 9, 2007, the posts here at MOJ had to do with the question whether the Bush Administration was "politicizing science" (here); the sad goings-on at Ave Maria School of Law (here); Harvey Mansfield's spot-on critique of the "new atheists" (here); and what I was even back then characterizing as my broken-record obsession with the misuse of the term, and idea, "discrimination" (here). In the latter post, I wrote:
I've objected, a number of times, on this blog to the use of the term "discrimination" to describe what it is that religious institutions do when they hire-for-mission. Sure, the word has a meaning which fits. But, in our public debate, "discrimination" is always "unjustified" or "unwarranted" or "unfair" or "prejudiced" discrimination. In my view, that which makes "discrimination" wrong is simply not present when authentically religious institutions hire-for-mission.
That said, here's an article in USA Today, "Case Involves a Collision of Rights: Calif. Doctors Accused of Using Faith to Violate Law Against Anti-Gay Bias" ("using" faith?) which asks, "When does the freedom to practice religion become discrimination?" I guess the "freedom to practice religion" never "become[s] discrimination", but put that aside. Why isn't the answer, "the freedom to practice religion necessarily involves, sometimes, what could be characterized -- but is not helpfully characterized -- as 'discrimination.'" (I realize that the case discussed in the story is not really a hiring-for-mission case, but more of a conscience-based-exemption case, of the kind Rob Vischer knows a lot more about than I do.)
Hmmmm. It's as if I keep saying the same thing over and over . . .
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