Yesterday, in my "Catholic Social Thought and the Law" seminar, we talked about a group of readings having to do not so much with the "what does CST tell us about what law and / or policy should be, in a political community likes ours?" question, but with the "how do I go about constructing and living an integrated life as a Catholic lawyer?" question. And so, we read my colleague Amy Barrett's 2006 Notre Dame graduation speech; Greg Kalscheur's 'Ignatian Spirituality and the Life of the Lawyer", Lisa Schiltz's "Should Bearing a Child Mean Bearing All the Cost?", John Breen's "The Catholic Lawyer and the Meaning of Success", and (I hearby declare an honorary MOJ-er) Tom Shaffer's "Roman Catholic Lawyers in the United States". Lots of fun.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
MOJ-fest in my Catholic Social Thought class
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
What can we expect (and does it matter what we can expect) from people with disabilities?
Here is a fascinating exchange (read also the comments) between Peter Singer (Princeton) and Michael Berube, whose child has Down's Syndrome. This comment, from "Father of Tommy", seems especially important:
Why should our expectations of others be a criterion for moral judgment as to their rights? Is it that our expectations are some kind of reliable indicator of what others are capable of? As your examples show, that is likely false, particularly in instances where theorizers are trying to come up with reasons for killing other human beings.
Why don’t we actually look at what they are capable of, rather than sit in our offices and seminar rooms talking about what we expect of them?
But then why should what they are actually capable of be a criterion for moral judgment as to their rights? Do we recognize disabilities? To recognize a disability tacitly recognizes that an individual of a certain kind is suffering. It is not a disability for a worm not to be able to see. But if one recognizes the suffering of another human being, why then not do what one can to alleviate the suffering, rather than destroy the sufferer?
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
The Hedgehog Review
In this very interesting-looking new(ish) journal, I believe I have discovered (yet) another diverting time-suck. "An interdisciplinary journal of critical reflections on contemporary culture" . . . what's not to like?
Institutional pluralism, religious identity, and . . . Bob Jones University
A former student of mine -- also a graduate of Bob Jones University -- has been involved in an effort (on Facebook and elsewhere) called "Please Reconcile", which is seeking to push the University to confront, and apologize for, its history of racial discrimination. Apparently in response, the University has issued this statement. Interesting.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Responses to "Excluding Religion"
As (I think) Tom Berg mentioned a few days ago, he and I (and also Steven Smith) have published short responses to Nelson Tebbe's very interesting new paper, "Excluding Religion", on the PENNumbra site of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. My own response is also available here, and here is the abstract:
In a thorough and thoughtful article, Excluding Religion, Prof. Nelson Tebbe asks "whether the government may select religious entities for exclusion from its support programs?" and concludes that, sometimes, it may. "The government," he contends, "need not remain neutral toward religion in its support programs[.]"
In this short response to Tebbe's paper, I first suggest that the reasons Tebbe offers for such exclusion - including "promoting equal citizenship for members of minority faiths . . . , fostering community concord, [and] respecting taxpayers' freedom of conscience", are not particularly strong. Next, I turn to the various "limits" that Tebbe imposes on his permissible-exclusion claim, and attempt to show that, in fact, these limits fit uneasily with the claim they constrain. The aim of this attempt is not to cheer state efforts to - in Tebbe's words - "shape the content of citizens' beliefs through government speech and other means," but instead to warn that the inevitability of such efforts poses a real threat to religious freedom, one that is not likely to be repelled with assurances that the state must act nonpreferentially, or must act with a secular purpose, or must not make theological judgments. If we believe, as Tebbe and I do, that there should be limits on the power, and on the ambition, of governments when it comes to the content of citizens' commitments and the objects of their loyalty, it is essential that we think hard not only about the location of these limits, but also about the reasons for them and the worth of what it is that they protect.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Campaign-spending regulations build up the "culture of life"?
Let's concede that, in his long career, Sen. Kennedy has sometimes championed legislation that has promoted the common good, well understood, and has sometimes even moved the ball in a positive direction (when he has not been pushing it in the wrong direction) on the "culture of life." Let's concede (not that it was ever really disputed) that the Church's teachings on life implicate more than the status of Roe v. Wade. But seriously . . . Does Doug Kmiec really now believe that Kennedy has "built up" the "culture of life" by "curbing the corrupting influence of money in politics with the public financing system for presidential candidates in 1974"?
Religious schools and civic education in Canada
We've talked a lot over the years, here at MOJ, about the importance of non-state associations and their expression to a free, authentically pluralist society. So, the developments described in this story might be of interest:
A Roman Catholic private school sued the Quebec Education Department, demanding the right to continue teaching its own curriculum rather than a new series of ethics and religious culture courses mandated by the province.
Loyola High School and a student's parent, John Zucchi, say the courses imposed by the province are "fundamentally incompatible with its Catholic convictions and mission" as it propounds an ideology of "normative pluralism" that trivializes religious belief.
Loyola asked to be exempted from the province's new courses in a formal letter to Education Minister Michelle Courchesne. Loyola wrote that it intended to adjust its program to make it compatible with the province's new courses. Its request was denied in early August. . . .
The school asserts that the minister denied its proposal for an alternative course of study due to her desire to achieve "complete uniformity in education throughout Quebec." In doing so she disregarded a section of the Education Act that allows religious schools to seek exemptions from the province's required programs of study if an equivalent program is provided, Loyola maintains. . . .
The state has no place in imposing its views about religion on children," the complaint states. Loyola said it strives to instill in its students an appreciation for other religions, but the province's courses are "unacceptable in that it would amount to inculcating in students two diametrically opposed world views."
Stay tuned!
UPDATE: A reader (from Canada) writes:
In Quebec
The Quebec
I won't be surprised to find the courts rule in favour of the government. The schools only choice would be to reject the operational funds. They would have been far better to not challenge the government and to build a course which taught Catholicism within the syllabus of the new course.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Response to Michael
My pal Michael P. is on the case, looking out for me, and so has commended to the attention of those of us who opposed Sen. Obama's election this letter -- published on the very fine new-ish website, "Public Discourse", from John Haldane to "America" (!!!). As it happens, I, like Michael, am a regular reader of that site, and had already read, and reflected on, Haldane's letter. Obviously, much of what Haldane says is correct (and little of what he says -- i.e., lots of "conservatives" opposed the current wars, the Republicans are not perfect as vehicles for conservative policies, etc. -- has ever been denied by any MOJ bloggers who opposed Obama's election). Still, I would be assisted greatly, I'm sure, in my reflections if Michael were to share with us, more specifically, what *he* thinks of the letter (that is, besides the fact that it is commendable).
Haldane writes:
Social conservatives who look to politics should be seeking to work within both parties, and in the case of the Democrats, seeking to return them to a historical position that was once more in line with Christian moral values and Catholic social teaching than was that of the Republicans.
There is also a further reason to be wary of confusing moral concerns with the fortunes of a political party. Those within a chosen party whose primary interest is pursuing electoral victory may prove fiercer enemies of one’s moral position than political opponents in other parties.
Now, in a way, this is not very controversial. I'd be surprised if any "conservatives" on this blog -- or many people who read it -- ever had any doubts that the merits of the Republican Party consist entirely in its ability to deliver policies that, in their / our view, are more consistent with freedom, human dignity, and the common good, properly understood.
Still, the letter is food for thought(s). And so, again, I'd welcome Michael's: Given all the givens (including, for example, the careers and views of those whom Sen. Obama is choosing to be his chief advisors), where, and how, would Michael advise "social conservatives" to "work within" the Democratic Party, in its current form? Politics being what it is -- after all, Democrats, no less than Republicans, have "pursuing electoral victory" as their "primary interest" -- it is not clear (to me, and to many political observers and strategists) that the Democrats really need (very many) "social conservatives" to win. (Haldane notwithstanding, it seems clear that the overwhelming majority of "social conservatives" voted for McCain, which is not to say that no pro-lifers voted for Obama.) Where are the openings? What, specifically, does Michael have in mind? What reasons are there to think -- I would, certainly, like to think -- that the current Democratic Party has any political need to return, or interest in returning, "to a historical position" -- on religious freedom, pro-life issues, etc. -- that "was once more in line with Christian moral values and Catholic social teaching than was that of the Republicans"?
A "phantom"?
Michael links here to (and, I assume, agrees substantially with?) this Commonweal post, suggesting that the Freedom of Choice Act is just a "phantom" onto which defeated and depressed Republican pro-lifers have latched in the wake of the recent election. In my view, it is true, as the post indicates, that Obama was merely "pandering" when he promised abortion-rights activists that the FOCA would be his "first priority" (which is not to say, of course, that he would not sign it if it were enacted, or that he would not spend capital to get it enacted, were it possible such an investment would pay off, or that a candidate -- of either party -- should not be judged at least in part with reference to those to whom he feels the need to pander). It would be a mistake, though, for anyone to think that, because the Act itself is not likely to pass the current Congress in its current form, there are not serious, and non-phantom-ish, legislative threats to religious freedom and the pro-life cause looming. See this piece, by Melinda Henneberger, on "Obama's threat to Catholic hospitals". And, of course, the odds against FOCA do nothing to change the facts that non-phantom changes are almost certainly coming with respect to public funding of embryo-destroying research and of elective abortions, here and abroad.
"Education and Soulcraft"
In a recent issue of First Things magazine, Gilbert Meilaender has a review of Stanley Fish's new and much-remarked book, "Save the World on Your Own Time." As has been widely observed, Fish's book is, among other things, an argument that the task of university teachers is instruction, not formation. "I haven't the slightest idea," Fish says, "of how to help students become creative individuals. And it is decidedly not my job to produce citizens for a pluralistic society or for any other. . . . To be sure, some of what happens in the classroom may play a part in the fashioning of a citizen, but that is neither something you can count on . . . nor something you should aim for."
I know that, when I reflect on what I see as my "vocation" as a law teacher, I *do* emphasize my aspirations to contribute helpfully to the formation of my students and to the integration of their lives. Am I wrong? (For my own "take" on the connection between education and "soulcraft," take a look at this essay.)
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