Saturday, November 25, 2006
The Washington Post reports:
As much of Washington started to shut down for the Thanksgiving holiday yesterday afternoon, Brian O'Neill Jr., a Georgetown University undergrad and founder of the Apostles of Peace and Unity, sat outside the office of the city zoning administrator, angry.
His sentences were short, his tone frustrated. His faith, the college junior said, was being challenged, and he didn't like it.
"I don't know what we're going to do right now," he said.
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Benedict XVI Urges Prudence on Highways
VATICAN CITY, NOV. 19, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI appealed for respect of road-safety norms on the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims.
After praying the midday Angelus with the crowds gathered in St. Peter's Square today, the Pope recited in French a prayer to the Lord to receive "in his peace all the persons who died in traffic accidents."
Remembering that the injured often suffer long-lasting problems, the Holy Father appealed "emphatically to automobile drivers to respect traffic norms vigilantly and to pay ever more attention to others."
Traffic accidents are one of the main causes of deaths in the world. In a 2005 report, the World Health Organization (WHO) revealed that these accidents, especially frequent in urban areas of developing countries, cause 1.2 million deaths a year, or 3,000 a day. Tens of millions of people are injured.
WHO estimated that, at current trends, by the year 2020 victims of traffic accidents will exceed those of AIDS.
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Here's a bit from a Boston Globe op-ed by Cathy Young (of Reason magazine):
BEHIND THE political divide in America, there is also a religious divide. The split is not just between people who believe and people who do not; it is between those who see religious faith as society's foundation and those who see it as society's bane. So far, the debates on this subject have generated more heat than light, as both sides preach to the converted and talk at, not to, those who disagree.\
. . . Each side in the faith wars is angry and afraid. Secularists see a creeping theocracy in attempts to outlaw same-sex unions, abortion, and stem cell research and to promote government funding for faith-based charities. Believers see assaults on their values everywhere from education to television and movies. Non religious Americans feel they are a beleaguered minority; in fact, more than half of Americans hold a negative view of people who don't believe in God. Religious Americans feel, also with some justification, that they are held in contempt by intellectual and cultural elites (remember Ted Turner's reference to Catholics as "Jesus freaks"?)
Unfortunately, the current polemics only reinforce these fears. Religious people see atheists who are hateful and intolerant toward faith, to the point of wanting to ban it; secularists see champions of religion who promote hostility toward non believers and wield religion as a political club. Under these circumstances, there is little prospect for dialogue or true understanding -- only for more shouting.
Here (thanks to Amy Welborn) are some most excellent thoughts on religious freedom from il Papa:
Religious freedom is not only the individual right of each person to profess and display one’s faith, but it is also the collective right of families, groups and the Church itself, and engages civil power to “create conditions favourable to the fostering of religious life, so that citizens are truly able to exercise their religious rights and fulfil their respective duties.” The cordial meeting between the Pope and the President of the Italian Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, gave occasion to Benedict XVI to reinforce the concept of religious freedom and to reaffirm the respect due to it by States, as occurs in Italy and other countries.
. . . "It would however be reductive,” the Pope went on to say, “to consider that the right of religious freedom is sufficiently guaranteed based on the absence of violence against or interference in personal convictions or when it is limited to respecting manifestations of faith that occur in the ambit of places of worship. Not to be forgotten in fact is that ‘the social nature of man itself requires that he should give external expression to his internal acts of religion: that he should share with others in matters religious; that he should profess his religion in community’ (ibid). Thus religious freedom is not only a right of the individual but also of the family, of religious groups and of the Church herself (cf Dignitatis humanae, 4-5.13) and the exercise of this right has an influence on the multiple ambits and situations in which the believer finds himself and operates. An adequate respect for the right to religious freedom implicates, therefore, the engagement of civil power to “create conditions favourable to the fostering of religious life, in order that the people may be truly enabled to exercise their religious rights and to fulfill their religious duties, and also in order that society itself may profit by the moral qualities of justice and peace which have their origin in men's faithfulness to God and to His holy will’ (Dignitatis humanae, 6).”
Now, regular readers will note the consonance between the Pope's statement and the work of a certain blogging law professor (ahem). Accordingly, I have decided to borrow a bit of magisterial authority, and canonize, sua sponte, this man. I'll also be issuing a motu proprio, or bull, or some other document, banning the liturgical use of songs written by Marty Haugen and Bernadette Farrell. And . . . I'm just gettin' warmed up. . . .
Notre Dame philosopher John O'Callaghan passes on some thoughts about our recent discussion about charitable giving:
While I support taxation that, among other things, puts wealth to the use of ameliorating poverty, it is important to distinguish the apple of taxation from the orange of charitable giving. The discussion has tended to throw taxation and charitable giving into the same basket, in order to ask, "who does more for the poor, liberals or conservatives?". But the government's use of the wealth of my neighbor to ameliorate poverty is not a charitable act on the government's part, or my neighbor's part simply because of his participating in it. It may be an act of justice--but it certainly isn't in any ordinary sense a charitable act. And when I place my wealth at the service of the common good through taxation I may be participating in an act of justice. But as such it is no more a charitable act on my part than it is for my neighbor, even if I do it willingly and he unwillingly. Government putting the wealth of the community to the use and service of the common good, even wealth that is possessed privately according to human law, is a primary task of government required in justice by the natural law.
Charity, on the other hand, is an infused theological virtue--the love of God and the love of neighbor in God. Acts of charity need not be conceived of along strictly individualist lines, as if individual persons cannot enter into voluntary communities, and act charitably in common. And being an act of charity does not necessarily exclude being an act of justice. So, perhaps as an individual citizen, informed by that theological virtue, one can participate in the just acts of government. But given the condition of our modern desacralized political communities, to equate the just acts of government with charitable acts would be to attribute grace to the activities of government in pursuit of justice. But that would appear to resacralize the modern state in a way that I suspect most of your readers, even your liberal readers, would want to avoid. To entrust the gift of charity to the managers of the modern state empties it of its supernatural power, a practical argument for subsidiarity if there ever was one.
So it would still seem to be the case that conservatives, according to the study mentioned, are indeed more charitable than liberals, charitably assuming of course that those acts identified by the author of the study do in fact proceed from the theological virtue of charity. And as you pointed out, conservatives also pay their taxes. But in the end, does it matter who has the upper hand in serving the needs of the poor, the conservatives or the liberals? Consider the words of St. Robert Bellarmine: "it matters little whether one goes to hell for lack of justice or from lack of charity."
In the December 2006 issue of First Things (not yet available on line), there is a short piece by John F. Crosby, "The Witness of Dietrich von Hildebrand," discussing the launch of the Dietrich von Hildebrand Legacy Project. Crosby quotes a short review by Hildebrand, "The Struggle for the Human Person," which includes this:
All of Western Christian civilization stands and falls with the words of Genesis, 'God made man in His image.'
We could also say, I think, that "all of Catholic legal theory" stands and falls with these same words. (Note: the same issue of First Things includes a great essay by Mary Ann Glendon, "Looking for 'Persons' in the Law." Check it out.)
Monday, November 20, 2006
Eduardo is unimpressed by the evidence, to which I linked here, suggesting that religious conservatives are more generous than secular liberals. The evidence is provided in a forthcoming book by Arthur Brooks, "Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth about Compassionate Conservativism," referenced in the linked-to post. Brooks finds that "conservatives who practice religion, live in traditional nuclear families and reject the notion that the government should engage in income redistribution are the most generous Americans, by any measure." Eduardo writes, though:
I'm not sure what the comparison between religious conservatives and secular liberals proves, but it certainly doesn't prove, to quote Instapundit (quoting Beliefnet), that conservatives are more generous "by any measure." At most, it shows that religious conservatives are more generous donors to private charities. But, if I define "generous" to encompass, say, support against one's financial interest for social programs funded through redistributive taxation, then wealthy liberals (secular or religious), who generally support such taxes and such programs, do well and conservatives (religious or not) don't look so hot.
I have not read the Brooks book, but again, his claim is that the evidence does, in fact, make it claer that "conservatives who practice religion, live in traditional nuclear families and reject the notion that the government should engage in income redistribution are the most generous Americans, by any measure."
As for Eduardo's proposed expansion of the definition of "generosity" (to include, in my words, "supporting the government taking money from others and directing it toward uses of which I approve"), I'm not sure the proposed expansion does much to blunt the force of (what I gather is) Brooks's case. After all, whether they support redistributive policies or not, religious conservatives pay their taxes, just like "wealthy liberals"; they just give away more on top of that. Their opposition to the policies that reduce the size of the pot from which they can donate to charity hardly diminishes -- indeed, I would think it exhances -- their "generosity."
Eduardo also writes:
I would be interested to know whether the "private charities" canvassed for the study include the religious conservatives own churches. [RG: My understanding is that it does.] I'd also like to see the magnitude of the differences, especially on some of the non-monetary measures noted in the beleifnet article, such as blood donation. [Apparently, Brooks finds that the differences hold up for volunteering time; I do not know about blood donation.] Finally, I'd want to see the numbers for secular conservatives and religious liberals, since the presence of religious involvement is a potentially conflating variable in this analysis that cuts across political orientation. [I would, too.]
Eduardo writes:
Given egalitarian liberal views about the role of the state in solving certain widespread social problems, one would expect them (egalitarian liberals) to support state over private solutions and to view at least some sorts of private charitable contributions as wasted money.
Maybe. But, Brooks's point (I gather) is that religious conservatives, who believe that redistributive taxation to fund government efforts to "solv[e] widespread social problems" is often also "wasted money" (that the conservatives are nonetheless legally required to provide), also give money to private charity. And, I would be surprised to learn that "wealthy liberals" think that *all* private charities are a waste of money. Surely, there are *some* that they think do good work? And yet, they do not give as much, or so Brooks claims.
Finally, Eduardo is too quick, in my view, when he says that "religious conservatives" are those "who will give money to private charities but oppose state intervention in the service of social justice." I am confident that the "religious conservatives" studied by Brooks support all kinds of "state intervention in the service of social justice," even if they do not support the same package of policies, or the same level of spending, as Eduardo does.
UPDATE: Here's more on the Brooks book, and the evidence, and the issue generally, from Jim Lindgren (Northwestern). He writes, among other things:
[S]ome commenters speculate that the pattern of greater donations to charity by anti-redistributionists is trivial in size or simply a function of religion. But anti-redistributionists give more to secular (non-religious) charities as well. Brooks reports (p. 56) that strong anti-redistributionists gave 12 times more money to charity than strong redistributionists, and 9 times more to secular (non-religious) causes.
It's not quite "Catholic," but there's some "legal theory", so . . .
Here is a debate, on the web site -- "PENNumbra" -- of the Penn Law Review, between Prof. Kermit Roosevelt (Penn) and me about his new book, "The Myth of Judicial Activism." Here is the teaser:
“Judicial activism,” writes Professor Kermit Roosevelt, of Penn, has been employed as an “excessive and unhelpful” charge—one “essentially empty of content.” As a substitute, Roosevelt reviews here the framework for analysis of Supreme Court opinions that receives fuller treatment in his recent book, The Myth of Judicial Activism. Professor Richard W. Garnett, of Notre Dame, is willing to go along with “much, though not all, of Roosevelt’s position. Ultimately, Garnett suggests “that ‘judicial activism’ might be salvaged, and used as a way of identfying and criticizing decisions . . . that fail to demonstrate th[e] virtue” of constitutional “humility.”
. . . are the Evangelicals, John Wilson explains.
Ever since Jerry Falwell and his Moral Majority began making headlines in the 1980s, it has served the purposes of certain conservative activists and their ideological foes to exaggerate the influence they wield among evangelical Christians. In fact, it is both a strength and a weakness of evangelicalism that the “movement” lacks a center. Yes, a significant majority of evangelicals voted for George W. Bush. Big deal. At the moment, it appears unlikely that a Republican of any stripe will win the White House in 2008, though the Democrats may yet find a way to squander their advantage. So much for theocracy.
From Instapundit:
ARE CONSERVATIVES more charitable? "The book's basic findings are that conservatives who practice religion, live in traditional nuclear families and reject the notion that the government should engage in income redistribution are the most generous Americans, by any measure. Conversely, secular liberals who believe fervently in government entitlement programs give far less to charity. They want everyone's tax dollars to support charitable causes and are reluctant to write checks to those causes, even when governments don't provide them with enough money."
Apparently they're not big on paying the taxes to support those entitlement programs, either: "Bono demands more of the taxes he won't pay."
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