Tuesday, May 4, 2010
"Wrong-headed friends"
Speaking of Steve Smith, he has a (characteristically) nice post, over at "Law, Religion, and Ethics", called "wrong-headed friends." Go read the whole thing.
Smith, "The Disenchantment of Secular Discourse"
I was delighted to receive in the mail the other day my copy of Steven Smith's latest book, "The Disenchantment of Secular Discourse." Run (or, double-click), don't walk, to get yours. As one of the back-cover blurb-ers (ahem, me) puts it, "[t]his book presses us to look harder at closely held beliefs and to question deeply rooted premises and commitments with which we are perhaps too comfortable."
Friday, April 30, 2010
Infanticide
Recently, in Italy, a 22-weeks-old infant who had survived an attempted abortion -- the reason for the abortion, apparently, was the child's cleft-palate -- was found hidden but alive by a hospital chaplain, 20 hours after birth. The child died the next day. The full story is here.
. . . Eugenia Roccella, the under-secretary of state in the health department, on Wednesday night promised a government inquiry into the incident.
“The minister of health will send inspectors to the hospital in Rossano Calabro to investigate what actually happened, and to see if the Law 194, which prohibits abortion when there is a possibility of the foetus living separately from the mother, and permits it only when the continuation of the pregnancy would result in life-threatening danger to the mother.”
She said that if initial information is correct, “this would be a case of deliberate abandonment of a seriously premature neonate, possibly also with some form of disability, an act contrary to any sense of human compassion but also of any accepted professional medical practice".
She added: “We must remember that a baby, once born, is an Italian citizen equal to all the others, and is entitled to all fundamental rights, including the right to health and therefore to be given full support.” . . .
My sense of the abortion debate in this country is that many would disagree with the claims that a child who is born alive, despite (or in the course of) an abortion attempt, is -- without regard to the mother's wishes -- "entitled to all fundamental rights", including a right to life-sustaining medical care. Am I wrong?
"Abortion neutral"? Someone tell Planned Parenthood . . .
Following up on Robby's post, from a few days ago, on the debate over the "abortion neutrality" of the new health-care law . . . this story, out of Michigan, caught my eye:
[T]he new national health care law, combined with a bottomed-out Michigan economy, is changing the landscape for Planned Parenthood of Mid and South Michigan, which serves 55,000 women every year.
An early sign of health care reform's impact is Planned Parenthood's decision to open a new Oakland County clinic within the next 18 months, adding to 15 locations, including Detroit, Warren and Livonia. Unlike other Detroit area centers, the new location is likely to include abortion services.
Richards and Lori Lamerand, executive director of Planned Parenthood of Mid and South Michigan, are ramping up for a boom in birth control and other reproductive services -- what Lamerand calls "an onslaught" of women poised to gain new access to reproductive health care. Recession has heightened demand for contraception and for abortion, especially from clients who wouldn't have gone to Planned Parenthood in better times.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
More on the new Arizona law
Several of us have weighed in, with reactions to the new illegal-immigration-related law enacted in Arizona. (Disclosure: my family moved to Arizona 25 years ago, and I love the place.) My initial reaction was -- and I think my view still is -- that the law is misguided. That said, I have an uneasy sense that many of the law's critics are engaging in hyperbole (this is not surprising, of course -- it's an election year) and failing to take seriously enough the concerns that, in my view, the law (for the most part) reflects. (I say "for the most part" because, as Eduardo hints, it is probably the case that some of the law's supporters are in the grips of an unattractive nativism. But, in my view, the vast majority are not.)
In today's New York Times, there is an op-ed by Prof. Kris Kobach (a law-school classmate of mine), who was one of the drafters of the new law. He responds to the leading criticisms of the law, and concludes that:
[The law] takes a measured, reasonable step to give Arizona police officers another tool when they come into contact with illegal aliens during their normal law enforcement duties.
Again, I think there are good reasons to worry about this law. But, Rob's earlier expressed concerns about Cardinal Mahoney's reaction to it ring more and more true for me.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Mahoney, immigration, language
Like Eduardo and others -- including, apparently, Cardinal Mahoney -- I think the recently enacted Arizona law is misguided. Rob asks about the appropriateness of Mahoney's language condemning the bill. I have to admit (and, of course, this might reflect badly on me) that I thought the language was in-bounds. This, in particular, seemed sensible to me:
What led the Arizona legislature to pass such a law is so obvious to all of us who have been working for federal comprehensive immigration reform: the present immigration system is completely incapable of balancing our nation's need for labor and the supply of that labor. We have built a huge wall along our southern border, and have posted in effect two signs next to each other. One reads, "No Trespassing," and the other reads "Help Wanted." The ill-conceived Arizona law does nothing to balance our labor needs.
A fair critique of the Arizona law can recognize, it seems to me, that the national government is failing badly at dealing with the problem of, and costs associated with, illegal immigration . . . and that people in states like Arizona are being forced to bear a disproportionate share of those costs. And so I was glad that Mahoney did not, in a sweeping and unfair way, simply attack all of those who support the law as racists or nativists. (I suppose I should say that this defense does not reflect any great respect for the way that Cardinal Mahoney has performed as a bishop.)
That said, I'll defer to Michael S., who (unlike me) actually knows, writes, and studies about immigration.
UPDATE: Well, thinking more about it, and re-reading Mahoney's statement, I feel differently. Rob's concerns ring true; the statement goes too far, with the Nazi and Soviet bits, I now think. I'd delete my initial post, but that would be too easy, since it would hide my too-hasty initial reaction.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Reading Amy Uelmen
A friend of mine, at the University of Chicago, passed on this helpful link, where many of our own Amy Uelmen's wonderful writings (and of others, who form a context for Amy's reflections) are collected. Take the day off . . .
"The Permanent Scandal of the Vatican"
I thought that this essay, by Jody Bottum, captured well another sense in which "the Catholic Church" and "scandal" are connected:
The day the Antichrist is ripped from his papal throne, true religion will guide the world. Or perhaps it’s the day the last priest is gutted, and his entrails used to strangle the last king, as Voltaire demanded. Yes, that’s when we will see at last the reign of bright, clean, enlightened reason—the release of mankind from the shadows of medieval superstition. War will end. The proletariat will awaken from its opiate dream. The oppression of women will stop. And science at last will be free from the shackles of Rome.
For almost 500 years now, Catholicism has been an available answer, a mystical key, to that deep, childish, and existentially compelling question: Why aren’t we there yet? Why is progress still unfinished? Why is promise still unfulfilled? Why aren’t we perfect? Why aren’t we changed?
Despite our rejection of the past, the future still hasn’t arrived. Despite our advances, corruption continues. It needs an explanation. It requires a response. And in every modernizing movement—from Protestant Reformers to French Revolutionaries, Communists to Freudians, Temperance Leaguers and suffragettes to biotechnologists and science-fiction futurists—someone in despair eventually stumbles on the answer: We have been thwarted by the Catholic Church. . . .
. . . There must be a reason for the unfulfilled promise of modern sex and modern life. There must be a mystical, magical key that will unlock the door to paradise. Why have we been thwarted? Why aren’t we there yet?
The Catholic Church, of course. That’s the answer.
I'm reminded of the scene, in the film "Gladiator", when the (usurping) emperor, Commodus, says to Maximus ("father to a murdered son," etc.), "What am I going to do with you? You simply won't... die." Sounds like Chris Hitchens . . .
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Celebrating Alasdair MacIntyre and the Center for Ethics & Culture
If you are in "Chicagoland", or "Michiana", tomorrow, consider joining the community at Notre Dame as we celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Center for Ethics & Culture with a wonderful event:
On April 22, 2010, we will celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the founding of the Notre Dame Center for Ethics & Culture. The day will begin at 11:30am with Mass celebrated by The Most Reverend John M. D’Arcy, Bishop Emeritus, in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. At 4:00 p.m. in McKenna Hall Auditorium, we will host a symposium on the widely celebrated new book by our senior fellow, Alasdair MacIntyre: God, Philosophy, Universities: A Selective History of the Catholic Philosophical Tradition. Commentators include: The Reverend John I. Jenkins, C.S.C. (philosophy), Professor John Cavadini (theology) and Dean John McGreevy (history). Professor MacIntyre will respond.
For registration info, go here.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Interesting data about "political" churches
It is often asserted, and -- it seems to me -- widely believed that "conservative" Evangelical churches and congregations are pervasively and distinctively politicized. Maybe not.
First, notwithstanding extensive media coverage of political mobilization within conservative churches, conservative white Protestant churches do not stand out in their level of political activity. Catholic and black Protestant churches, overall, are more politically active than either liberal or conservative white Protestants. About three-quarters of Catholics and black Protestants attend churches that engaged in at least one of these eight political activities, compared to about half of white Protestants, either conservative or liberal (Synagogues’ political activity rates, by the way, are as high as the Catholic and black Protestant rates).
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