Friday, October 30, 2009
"The worst thing that you . . . can do"
Apparently,it's having babies. The odd thing is, the person who said this probably thinks of himself as a humanist.
Dawkins: Catholic Church in the running for world's "greatest force for evil"
First Maureen Dowd, now hipster-atheist Richard Dawkins:
What major institution most deserves the title of greatest force for evil in the world? In a field of stiff competition, the Roman Catholic Church is surely up there among the leaders. . . .
The Anglican church does not cleave to the dotty idea that a priest, by blessing bread and wine, can transform it literally into a cannibal feast; nor to the nastier idea that possession of testicles is an essential qualification to perform the rite. . . .
I suppose we in the academy are used to smart people saying dumb things. But this latest outreach by the Pope to Anglicans seems to bringing out the worst in people. One wonders if the United Kingdom's increasingly vigilant hate-speech police will come knocking on Dawkins' door? (Probably not.)
Rep. Stupak on abortion and health-insurance legislation
"I am not trying to kill health reform", says Rep. Bart Stupak. What a world. A congressman who is trying to get the leadership to allow a vote on the question whether public funds should subsidize the "kill[ing]" of unborn children is having to fight off charges that he is trying to "kill" health-care reform.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
"The Nuns' Story", about Maureen Dowd
Like, unfortunately, many things that Maureen Dowd writes, this recent screed (which, as Michael noted a few days ago, was very, very widely read), "The Nuns' Story", tells us much more about the bile that sloshes around in Maureen Dowd -- bless her heart -- than it does about the alleged topic of the piece or about the real world generally.
There are, to be sure, many reasonable questions for reasonable, faithful people to raise and debate regarding those matters -- the role (and treatment by the Church) of women religious, the recent outreach to "conservative" Anglicans, etc. -- that the piece purports, in places, to be about. But, at the end of the day, the piece is really just a blunderbuss bucket of half-informed, pandering hate. I know we are supposed to be lamenting the state of public discourse, wringing our hands about the popularity of Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh (and Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann) but it's hard to see how this New York Times feature columnist is any better.
More here, at America.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Pope Benedict's invitation to Anglicans: Two Takes
Here's Ross Douthat and David Gibson on the Pope's recent invitation to Anglicans. Gibson wonders if the move is "liberal", in that
Benedict has signaled that the standards for what it means to be Catholic -- such as the belief in the real presence of Christ in the Mass as celebrated by a validly ordained priest -- are changing or, some might argue, falling. The Vatican is in effect saying that disagreements over gay priests and female bishops are the main issues dividing Catholics and Anglicans, rather than, say, the sacraments and the papacy and infallible dogmas on the Virgin Mary, to name just a few past points of contention.
It does not seem to me, though, that Benedict is, in fact, signalling that what we might call substantive "standards for what it means to be Catholic" are changing. I could be wrong, but my understanding is that there is nothing in this invitation that relieves crossing-over Anglicans from the need to affirm and profess as true all that the Catholic Church teaches as true.
Douthat, on the other hand, sees this as an "unusual effort at targeted proselytism, remarkable both for its concessions to potential converts — married priests, a self-contained institutional structure, an Anglican rite — and for its indifference to the wishes of the Church of England’s leadership. . . . [T]he pope is going back to basics — touting the particular witness of Catholicism even when he’s addressing universal subjects, and seeking converts more than common ground. [T]he pope has systematically lowered the barriers for conservative Christians hovering on the threshold of the church, unsure whether to slip inside. This was the purpose behind his controversial outreach to schismatic Latin Mass Catholics, and it explains the current opening to Anglicans."
That tricky Pope Benedict. He keeps 'em all guessing.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
A perceptive observation
On Saturday, my son Tommy and I were at the ND v. Boston College game. After agreeing with me that it was “cool” that the Notre Dame players run out of the tunnel, down to the south endzone, where they (almost) all kneel and pray, he observed the Boston College players mosey out and over to the sideline, and asked me (loudly), “Daddy, why didn’t the Boston College guys pray? I thought you said it is a Catholic school.”
Heh.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study: Call for Fellows
Notre Dame's new Institute for Advanced Study announces its inaugural annual conference, on "Beauty", to be held on Jan. 21-23, 2010, here. Note also the "call for Fellows." I hope a number of Catholic legal scholars will apply! Here's some info on the IAS:
Contemporary scholarship has advanced our understanding of specific disciplinary questions. But the need remains to ask ultimate questions, to reflect morally, and to integrate fact and value. The Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study (NDIAS) favors research that extends beyond analyzing particular problems to the examination of larger, frequently ethical questions that modern academic disciplines often do not explicitly address. Such questions can be addressed wherever the human intellect flourishes. But a Catholic university that aspires to integrate the normative and the descriptive and to foster the unity of knowledge across disciplines is duty bound to nurture that project.
The NDIAS focuses on three major topics: Traditions — Sciences — Modernities. The modern world has been created by using science to reshape traditional life-worlds, often dominated by religious beliefs. Whereas ancient science was mostly disconnected from technology, the essence of modernity is the combination of science, technology, and capitalism. Any understanding of the formative categories of traditions, sciences, and modernities must recognize the pluralism within each of them. Just as different conceptions of modernity and of science compete with one another, so the traditions that have informed our current understanding are diverse.
The NDIAS welcomes scholars who, in addition to pursuing specific disciplinary questions, also seek to integrate into their research overarching questions, such as: What different types of modernities have arisen in the last centuries? How do these competing modernities use science and engineering in varying ways? How do these modernities relate to the traditions of the pre-modern world? In addition, investigations into the moral dimensions of the world are welcome, including questions such as: What in the process of modernization is morally justified, even obligatory, and what is not? Can we envisage a modernity that is able to maintain the obvious advantages of scientific modernity, such as increased life-expectancy, without having to pay the price, such as increased environmental destruction? What must we change in order to help us bridge the gap between the world as it is and the world as it should be?
At the NDIAS these and related questions, including their broad reach and moral import, are based in a vision of Catholicism that full-heartedly accepts the basic ideas of modernity as a legitimate step in the history of humankind, while at the same time embracing a moral interpretation of the world. Interdisciplinary and integrative research in the twenty-first century can find inspiration in the search for the unity of knowledge characteristic of Catholic thinkers and writers as well as of other thinkers — often pre-modern — even as this research seeks to take account of the diversity of contemporary sciences and concepts of modernity.
More on Catholic judges
Thanks to Rob for linking to the AP piece, which quoted me, on Catholic judges. I also think, I should say (and did say, to the author of the piece) that a Catholic judge -- like, I would think, any judge -- has a moral duty to avoid doing evil. So, if playing conscientiously the role of a judge ever put one in a position of having to do or cooperate culpably with evil, I think that one (Catholic or not) should quit the role.
As for Justice Scalia, I have always figured that he was too quick to say -- perhaps he was after dramatic effect? -- that (something like) he was glad that the death penalty was not, in fact, immoral in Church teaching because, if it was, he would have to resign. I do not think the death penalty's immorality requires faithful judges (or any morally sensitive judges) to quit entirely cases involving or touching on the penalty's application. As John Garvey and Amy Coney Barrett explained, a while back in a law-review article, it's complicated.
UPDATE: Over at America, Michael Sean Winters pushes back against Justice Alito (and me), and insists that there should be a Catholic difference, even for judges. I agree entirely that the faith should (must!) make a difference for legislators, and do not deny that it inevitably (if taken seriously) will make a difference to judging, at least in some contexts. But, judging is not legislating, and a worthy judge -- including a Catholic judge -- is one who is sensitive to the fact that, in a democracy that aspires to the rule of law, he or she should regard the enforceable content of legislation and constitutional provisions (we are not talking about "common law" judging here) as other-given, not self-made.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
March for Life in Spain
I feel confident that there's better coverage available elsewhere, but here is the BBC:
A broad cross-section of Spanish society were represented, says the BBC's Steve Kingstone in Madrid - old and young, parents with babies, priests, nuns, immigrant families and organised groups coached in from all over the country.
They gathered in the heart of Madrid under an enormous blue banner the height of a two-storey building emblazoned with the simple message: "Every life matters."
Blomquist, Tillman, et al. on the Founders and Religion
Prof. Blomquist comments (link) on some recent work by Seth Tillman (here) and Geof Stone:
In this Essay, Professor Blomquist responds to the remarks of Seth Tillman, which critiqued an article by Professor Geoffrey Stone on whether or not the Founders contemplated a “Christian Nation."
We Americans—We the People—relish our national Constitution and delight in the game of constitutional interpretation. The game of American constitutional interpretation recalls the complexity and nuance of other great games like the Glass Bead Game and Chess. In never-ending iterations about the meaning of our Constitution we pontificate and debate about intellectual antecedents, historical background, provisions of the Constitution, ratification, contemporary exigencies, and much more.
Seth Barrett Tillman has provided constitutional law “gamers” with two hard-hitting legal think pieces—one, a full-blown article in Penn State Law Review, the other, an abridged version of that article in Cardozo Law Review De Novo—evaluating and critiquing Professor Geoffrey R. Stone’s Melville B. Nimmer Memorial Lecture and Essay published in the UCLA Law Review. In this modest and concise Essay, I seek to praise Tillman’s intellectual virtues (while empathizing, in part, with Professor Stone). My pivoting gambit and larger purpose, however, is to urge legal scholars, jurists and lawyers to strive for what I call contextual constitutional intelligence in playing the vital game of interpreting our American Constitution.
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