This week, the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology is hosting an interdisciplinary conference, "Can You Tell Me What a Parish Is?", at Loyola University in Chicago, Illinois. More information is available here. Our own Mark Sargent is presenting a paper on Wednesday, and I will provide a response to a paper by Mark Chopko (called "The Schizophrenic Constitution?") on Tuesday. Francis Cardinal George is providing the keynote address. Should be interesting!
Sunday, July 16, 2006
Chicago conference on The Parish
Friday, July 14, 2006
Bastille Day
Today is Bastille Day, and so thoughts turn -- naturally! -- to the Terror, the September Massacres, the "Temple of Reason," the suppression of religious orders and the confiscation of church property, and the genocide in the Vendee. (Here is a recent essay, by Sophie Masson, "Remembering the Vendee," that might be of interest). And also, maybe, to some recent, relevant thoughts of Pope Benedict XVI:
Although the Holy Roman Empire had been in decline since the late Middle Ages, and it had faded also as an agreed-upon interpretation of history, it was not until the French Revolution that the spiritual framework it provided—and without which Europe could not have been formed—would shatter in a formal sense. This process had a major impact on both politics and ideals. In terms of ideals, there was a rejection of the sacred foundation both of history and of the state. History was no longer measured on the basis of an idea of God that had preceded it and given it shape. The state came to be understood in purely secular terms, based on rationalism and the will of citizens.
The secular state arose for the first time, abandoning and excluding any divine guarantee or legitimation of the political element as a mythological vision of the world and declaring that God is a private question that does not belong to the public sphere or to the democratic formation of the public will. Public life was now considered the realm of reason alone, which had no place for a seemingly unknowable God. From this perspective, religion and faith in God belonged to the realm of sentiment, not of reason. God and His will therefore ceased to be relevant to public life.
In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, a new schism thus developed, the gravity of which we are only now grasping.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Is innocence a "distraction"?
A few weeks ago, David Dow -- a law professor who is expert on death-penalty matters -- had a provocative opinion piece in the New York Times, "The End of Innocence," in which he suggested, among other things, that "innocence is a distraction" in the capital-punishment debate:
For too many years now, though, death penalty opponents have seized on the nightmare of executing an innocent man as a tactic to erode support for capital punishment in America.
Innocence is a distraction. Most people on death row are like Roger Coleman, not Paul House, which is to say that most people on death row did what the state said they did. But that does not mean they should be executed.
Focusing on innocence forces abolitionists into silence when a cause célèbre turns out to be guilty. When the DNA testing ordered by Gov. Mark Warner of Virginia proved that Mr. Coleman was a murderer, and a good liar besides, abolitionists wrung their hands about how to respond. They seemed sorry that he had been guilty after all.
I, too, am a death penalty opponent, but I was happy to learn that Mr. Coleman was a murderer. I was happy that the prosecutors would not have to live with the guilt of knowing that they sent an innocent man to death row. . . .
As Justice Scalia has said elsewhere, of course we are going to execute innocent people if we have the death penalty. The criminal justice system is made up of human beings, and fallible beings make mistakes.
But perhaps that is a price society is willing to pay. If the death penalty is worth having, it might still be worth having, despite the occasional loss of innocent life. . .
[We] ought to focus on the far more pervasive problem: that the machinery of death in America is lawless, and in carrying out death sentences, we violate our legal principles nearly all of the time.
Dow makes a good point, I think. (I would probably not characterize the "machinery of death" in America as "lawless"; but, certainly, even putting aside moral objections to capital punishment, it is badly flawed.) To be sure, any decent people will and must care about the accuracy of the results of its criminal-justice process. At the same time, a decent people will and must accept the possibility -- indeed, the reality -- of error even in the context of a criminal-justice process that is morally justifiable. It seems to me that the heart of the matter is whether it is wrong for the political authority to kill a human being, lawfully convicted of murder, as punishment for that matter. And, as I have argued elsewhere --
[W]hat the public square needs from engaged Christians is a counter-cultural argument about the dignity and destiny of the human person. Such an argument could help our fellow citizens reach the right conclusion about what to do with convicted murderers not so much by dusting the usual arguments with God-talk as by challenging our culture to understand who and what these condemned persons are, and why it should make a difference.
Monday, July 10, 2006
A new blog from Georgetown
The faculty at the Georgetown University Law Center have started a blog. It doesn't look like it will be devoted to "Catholic Legal Theory" (or even to "Legal Theory in the Catholic Tradition"!), but it promises to be a must-read in any event. Check it out.
Great Issue of "Journal of Catholic Legal Studies"
The new volume of the Journal of Catholic Legal Studies (formerly The Catholic Lawyer) is available on-line, and is chock-full of good stuff: Michael Perry on capital punishment and human rights, Mark Sargent on law-and-economics, Michael Scaperlanda and others on education, etc. Check it out.
The Constitution and "Islamic renewal"
Professor Friedman (Religion Clause blog) reports:
USIP Urges US Support of "Islamic Renewal"
Yesterday's Morocco Times covered a special report by Abdeslam Maghraoui issued recently by the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) in Washington. The report argues that the only way for the U.S. to effectively counter Islamic extremism is to back "Islamic Renewal", a growing social, political, and intellectual movement whose goal is a deep reform of Muslim societies and policies. The USIP is an independent, nonpartisan institution established and funded by Congress. Here is the USIP's summary of the report and a link to the full text of the document titled American Foreign Policy and Islamic Renewal.
I wonder . . . how does -- or how should -- the Constitution constrain the United States in its efforts to support "a growing social, political, and intellectual movement whose goal is deep reform of Muslim societies and policies"? For example, is the purpose to promote, endorse, or instigate changes in Islam or in Muslims' beliefs and practices a "secular purpose"? Are there limits on the ability of officials to promote what they regard as the true version of a particular religion, as opposed to a version that, it is claimed, has "highjacked" that religion?
I have suggested elsewhere that -- for better or worse -- the content of religious doctrine and the trajectory of its developments are matters to which even secular, liberal, and democratic governments will almost certainly attend; and that it is not the case that governments like ours are, or can be, "neutral" with respect to religion's claims and content. Religion shapes what people think -- it shapes their values, commitments, loyalties, priorities, etc. -- and so a government that depends (as many think ours does) on the formation of citizens with certain dispositions and capacities will care what religions teach. Are they allowed, though, to try to change what religions teach? If not, why not?
Saturday, July 8, 2006
"The Disbeliever"
Salon.com has this profile of the currently-very-hot author Sam Harris, author of "The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason" (link), and of the forthcoming "Letter to a Christian Nation" (link). It's well worth a read. Among other things, Harris makes clear his view that "religous moderates" are as much -- if not more -- the problem as "fundamentalists":
Well, I think religious moderation is a politically correct discourse about all religions truly being benign in their essence and just being hijacked by people who are psychologically unstable or political megalomaniacs. This is a false view. And it's giving cover to religious extremists. This respect for faith, this taboo against criticizing faith, prevents us from saying the necessary things that we must say against religious fundamentalism.
Friday, July 7, 2006
More from Robby George on stem cells
Robby George sends in the following, in response to Tom's post yesterday, "Stem Cells Without Moral Corruption":
I'm grateful to Tom Berg for linking to, and extensively quoting from, the op ed piece on stem cells by Eric Cohen and myself that appeared in the Washington Post yesterday. He ends with what he refers to as a "nit": "I wonder if others who know more about this think that there also significant dangers of hype and pressure for results concerning the non-embryonic research." The answer is yes, there is a potential danger here. It is very important for those of us who are pressing for non-embryo-destructive methods of obtaining pluripotent stem cells to avoid this danger. In our advocacy, we must tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Recently the President's Council on Bioethics, on which I serve, issued a "white paper" on alternative sources of pluripotent stem cells. The Council recommended pursuing research on several possible non-embryo-destructive sources. I attached a statement (joined by Mary Ann Glendon and Alfonso Gomez-Lobo) that concluded with the following paragraph:
"One final point: the effort in which I am happy to join to find morally legitimate means of obtaining embryonic or embryonic-type stem cells should not be interpreted as indicating any acceptance of the hyping of the therapeutic promise of embryonic stem cell research that has marred the debate over the past four years. This promotion of exaggerated expectations dishonors science and shames those responsible for it by cruelly elevating the hopes of suffering people and members of their families. It should be condemned."
Even if scientists are able to perfect altered nuclear transfer or the epigenetic reprogramming of somatic cells to the pluripotent state, it is not at all clear that stem cell lines developed using these techniques will prove someday to be therapeutically useful. The problems are the same problems that have frustrated the desire to put stem cells produced by destroying embryos to use therapeutically.
Thursday, July 6, 2006
Relationship Rights of Children
Professor James Dwyer (Wm & Mary) has a new book out, called "The Relationship Rights of Children." According to Cambridge Press, the book:
presents the first sustained theoretical analysis of what rights children should possess in connection with state decision making about their personal relationships, including legislative and judicial decisions in the areas of paternity, adoption, custody and visitation, termination of parental rights, and grandparent visitation. It examines the nature and normative foundation of adults’ rights in connection with relationships among themselves and then assesses the extent to which the moral principles underlying adults’ rights apply also to children. It concludes that the law should ascribe to children rights equivalent (though not identical) to those adults enjoy, and this would require substantial changes in the way the legal system treats children, including a reformation of the rules for establishing legal parent–child relationships at birth and of the rules for deciding whether to end a parent–child relationship.
From the sound of it, this book continues and develops arguments that Professor Dwyer has made elsewhere, including in an earlier book, "Religious Schools v. Children’s Rights," where he contended (among other things) that many religious schools damage, and violate the rights of, children by imposing upon them certain religious beliefs and religiously grounded constraints on their development and critically examined the idea (see, e.g., Pierce v. Society of Sisters) that, in a free society, parents have the right and duty to supervise and control the education and upbringing of their children.
I’ve tried elsewhere (for example, in "Taking Pierce Seriously: The Family, Religious Education, and Harm to Children") to engage, and indicate my disagreements with, Professor Dwyer’s approach and with some of his claims. It strikes me, though – and this touches on matters raised in Brooks' post from a few days ago, and perhaps also to Dan, Ethan, and Jennifer's "Family Ties" paper – that a parents’ relationships with their children are morally and otherwise prior to the obligations and powers of the state, and that we should not regard the state so much as assigning rights to parents or as constructing the parent-child and other family relationships, but instead as standing outside those relationships, authorized -- of course -- to intrude in order to prevent harm (properly understood) to vulnerable persons. (I recommend Steve Gilles' article, from a decade ago, "On Educating Children: A Parentalist Manifesto." And, of course, our own Michael Scaperlanda's review of Dwyer.). In any event, and notwithstanding my very strong disagreements, I have found Dwyer’s work challenging and instructive.
Tuesday, July 4, 2006
Obama and "religious reasons": Questions for Steve and Tom
Thanks to Steve and Tom for their recent posts about the place and role of "religious reasons" in public discourse and policy. A few thoughts:
First, Steve says -- and I agree, I think -- that "[i]t is not the role of government to tell us what God has to say about any subject." Does this mean, though, that government ought not -- or, even, may not -- reflect, through expression and legislation, what the political community thinks God has to say about various subjects?
Next, Steve writes -- and I agree -- that we do not want government "using state power to put forth theological propositions." What counts, though, as a "theological proposition"? What if, as Michael P. has contended, human-rights claim rest foundationally on propositions about human beings (e.g., that they are "sacred") that are, or can reasonably be, regarded as, in the end, "theological"?
Third, Steve and Tom agree that those enacting legislation must "provide secular reasons to meet constitutional requirements." This is, of course, descriptively accurate -- in that it re-states Lemon's "secular purpose" requirement. Do Steve and Tom think, though, that there is more to the word "must" here? Would it be wrong, illegitimate, unjust, etc., for those enacting legislation to not bother providing "secular reasons" for legislation? What if those enacting legislation are skeptical (having read, say, a lot of Steve Smith's work) about the distinction between "secular" and other reasons?
Happy Fourth!
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