Yesterday, I finished teaching my seminar, "Law and the Catholic Social Tradition," at the University of Chicago. (Here's an earlier post, which includes the syllabus.) We met for 8 weeks, two hours each week. The group was a bit large for a seminar (30 students), but the class still proceeded as a discussion, rather than a teacher-led lecture. The students were a wonderfully diverse and engaged group -- Catholics and non-Catholics, religious believers and non-believers, liberals and conservative.
I enjoyed the experience immensely. I thought that the "thematic" approach (rather than, say, a chronological examination of the leading encyclicals) worked well, as did the incorporation of disagreeing Catholic views (e.g., Sargent v. Bainbridge) but also the incorporation of standard legal materials and articles (e.g., the Ten Commandments case, Geoffrey Stone's op-ed on public moralism, an Andy Koppelman article on religious freedom, etc.).
I hope, over the next few weeks, to post some short reflections by some of the students who took the course. (If any of them are reading this: "Thanks!").
If there was any one theme, it was, I think, "integration."
Here's the Washington Post story about the Senate's immigration bill, which basically reflects -- so far as I can tell -- the Bush / McCain / Kennedy approach to the matter. It's probably tougher than the U.S. Catholic bishops would like, but much less tough than some in the "bases" of the two political parties would like.
Frankly, my initial take is to say that this looks like a good proposal. (Hats off to Sen. McCain for continuing to support it, even though this support will probably doom his chances at the GOP presidential nomination.) It takes seriously a political community's right to protect itself and to control its physical borders, and it has elements designed to encourage assimilation and language-learning; it does not grant "amnesty"; at the same time, it is realistic about the impossibility -- and, frankly, the cruelty -- of mass-deporting more than ten million people who contribute to our economy, our culture, and our community. But, of course, people like Mike S., Amy Uelmen, and Mary Ann Glendon know more than I do about this . . .
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Morning's Minion, over at the (excellent) Reasons and Opinions blog, says "yes." My view is a bit different. But, as Michael and Eduardo have argued, I could be wrong . . .
Morning's Minion writes:
"[T]here are those who will undoubtedly defend the actions on the majority on legal technical grounds. There are those who will argue that there is no authoritative Church teaching directing how to vote on these kinds of procedural grounds. But this is surely misguided. While the Church does not claim that the death penalty is always and everywhere wrong (like abortion), it does carve out conditions under the death penalty may and may not be immoral, namely, that there must be no other way to defend society (see here, here, here, here, and here for more). No death penalty in the United States meets this strict condition, and hence Catholics are obliged to oppose capital punishment in this country. In the present case, it would seem that "erring on the side of life" calls for granting a new trial.
It is not clear me, though, that the "hence", above -- which I agree applies to Catholic citizens and legislators -- applies to Justices deciding cases presenting technical questions of criminal procedure. In any event, Reasons and Opinions is a great blog.
Thanks to Michael at Evangelical Catholicism for giving Mirror of Justice a "Thinking Blog" award. Back 'atcha!
"Religious Groups Reap Federal Aid for Pet Projects," is the headline of Diana Henriques's latest religion-related piece for the Times. As MOJ readers probably remember, Ms. Henriques produced a five-part series for the Times, a few months ago, on religious exemptions (or, on "how American religious organizations benefit from an increasingly accommodating government").
Here's the article's basic story:
Religious organizations have long competed for federal contracts to provide social services, and they have tried to influence Congress on matters of moral and social policy — indeed, most major denominations have a presence in Washington to monitor such legislation. But an analysis of federal records shows that some religious organizations are also hiring professional lobbyists to pursue the narrowly tailored individual appropriations known as earmarks.
A New York Times analysis shows that the number of earmarks for religious organizations, while small compared with the overall number, have increased sharply in recent years. From 1989 to January 2007, Congress approved almost 900 earmarks for religious groups, totaling more than $318 million, with more than half of them granted in the Congressional session that included the 2004 presidential election. By contrast, the same analysis showed fewer than 60 earmarks for faith-based groups in the Congressional session that covered 1997 and 1998. . .
Clyde Wilcox, a Georgetown University professor who has written extensively on religion and politics, said religious groups would naturally justify earmarks. But their moral authority in Washington — “the extra prophetic power of the religious voice,” as he put it — largely arises from the fact that they are not seen as self-interested, he said. “The loss of that prophetic voice would be profound.”
Kenneth Wald, a professor at the University of Florida who also studies religion in the political arena, foresees a more pragmatic danger for religious organizations that lobby for earmarks. “If they start to act like any other special interest, they’ll start to be treated like any other special interest,” he said. “I think it’s nuts to take that risk.”
I was critical of the earlier five-part series. This article, though, struck me as informative and (in a good way) provocative, raising important questions.
Here's a good read, by Peter Meyer, about the story, state, and future of Catholic schools. A bit:
So, if they are so good, why are Catholic schools disappearing? And if there are so many more Catholics, why are there fewer schools? No more nuns? No more money? Charter schools? Loss of faith? Indolence? Scandal? Irrelevance? The answer seems to be all of that—and less.
“The answer is fairly simple,” says James Cultrara, director for education for the New York State Catholic Conference. “The rising cost of providing a Catholic education has made it more difficult for parents to meet those rising costs.” . . .
If only it were that simple.
The loss of nuns has undoubtedly added to the financial burden. But demographic change, and the failure to respond to it, has created other burdens. Since the Catholic school “system” is actually a loose and quite decentralized confederation of 7,500 schools supported, for the most part, by 19,000 parishes in more than 150 dioceses, it took “the Church” some time to see the trends, much less develop new strategies to respond to them.
“We have a system of schools, not a school system,” explains Newark’s new vicar for education, Father Kevin Hanbury. “The local parishes traditionally have been responsible for the schools.” Those parishes, and their schools, feel change at the local, neighborhood level quite quickly. But it takes time for the huge, theologically monolithic, and institutionally undemocratic Church to react.
This might be a good time to re-read the recent report, "Making God Known, Loved, and Served," issued by Notre Dame's Task Force on Catholic Schools.
Here's the story, in the New York Times, on Falwell's death today:
Jerry Falwell, the fundamentalist preacher who founded the Moral Majority and helped bring the language and passions of religious conservatives into American politics, died today shortly after he was found unconscious in his office at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va.. He was 73 years old.
R.I.P.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Finally! I was wondering when she was going to weigh in . . .
Why I won't stay silent anymore
By upholding the ban on "partial-birth" abortion, the Supreme Court has injected rigid Catholic teaching into law. That's a crime against the Constitution and women.
By Frances Kissling
. . . Kennedy's opinion, which affirms "the government's right to use its voice and its regulatory authority to show its profound respect for the life within the woman" as it cavalierly dismisses the need a few specific women might have for this procedure, could easily have been written by the late Pope John Paul II or the current Benedict XVI. Women are invisible in this decision as they are invisible in the writings of recent -- and not so recent -- popes. Now it's impossible for me to remain silent. . . .
On the "invisibility" question, perhaps Ms. Kissling needs to read the works of, say, Professors Stabile and Schiltz!
