Over at First Things, you can read Archbishop Chaput's March 17 lecture, "Of Human Dignity: The Declaration of Religious Liberty at 50." In his address, "outline[s] what the Church teaches about religious freedom"; "list[s] some of the key religious liberty challenges heading our way"; and "talk[s] about why the Council was right." Like the man says, "highly recommended."
Here's a bit:
In the mind of the Council, religious liberty means much more than the freedom to believe whatever you like at home, and pray however you like in your church. It means the right to preach, teach and worship in public and in private. It means a parent’s right to protect his or her children from harmful teaching. It means the right to engage the public square with moral debate and works of social ministry. It means the freedom to do all of this without negative interference from the government, direct or indirect, except within the limits of “just public order.”
And, in his discussion of threats and challenges, there's this:
The biggest problem we face as a culture isn’t gay marriage or global warming. It’s not abortion funding or the federal debt. These are vital issues, clearly. But the deeper problem, the one that’s crippling us, is that we use words like justice, rights, freedom and dignity without any commonly shared meaning to their content.
We speak the same language, but the words don’t mean the same thing. Our public discourse never gets down to what’s true and what isn’t, because it can’t. Our most important debates boil out to who can deploy the best words in the best way to get power.
And he concludes, quoting St. John Paul II's "be not afraid!", with this:
There’s too much beauty in the world to lose hope; too many people searching for something more than themselves; too many people who comfort the suffering; too many people who serve the poor; too many people who seek and teach the truth; too much history that witnesses, again and again, to the mercy of God, incarnate in the course of human affairs. In the end, there’s too much evidence that God loves us, with a passion that is totally unreasonable and completely redemptive, to everstop trusting in God’s purpose for the world, and for our lives.
I must admit -- or confess -- to an increasing inability to really embrace and express the hope that Archbishop Chaput holds up. As my friend and colleague, Bob Rodes (RIP), put it:
Gods plan made a hopeful beginning
man spoiled its chances by sinning
we hope that this story
will end in Gods glory
but at present the other sides winning.
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
I am delighted by the news that the University of Notre Dame will award this year's Laetare Medal to Aaron Neville. (I admit, I have nominated Neville several times, including this year.) Although I'm not a huge fan of some of his biggest pop hits, the Neville Brothers are, in my view, one of the country's all around best bands. Take a few minutes to read this nice piece about Neville's faith. Then go listen to his Ave Maria. And then -- why not? -- kick out the jams with "Fiyo on the Bayou" (here).
Thursday, March 12, 2015
This piece, by Profs. Sarah Barringer Gordon and Nomi Stolzenberg, presents what I think is an inaccurate account of the current efforts to secure religious exemptions and accommodations in various states. Now, authors rarely get to pick the titles of their pieces (in my experience, anyway), and so I don't think Profs. Gordon and Barringer should be blamed for the headline, "State Legislatures Pit Religious Freedom Against Civil Rights." Still, as I tried to set out, in this forthcoming essay,
the right to religious freedom is a basic civil right, the increased appreciation of which is said to characterize our “age.” Accordingly, I push back against scholars’ and commentators’ increasing tendency to regard and present religious accommodations and exemptions as obstacles to the civil-rights enterprise and ask instead if our religious-accommodation practices are all that they should be. Are accommodations and exemptions being extended prudently but generously, in as many cases and to as many persons and entities as possible, in a sincere effort to welcome religious minorities, objectors, and dissenters as fully as we can into what Justice Harlan called “the dignity and glory of American citizenship”? What barriers exist to the promotion and achievement of civil-rights goals through religious accommodations and how might these barriers be overcome? Are civil-rights laws being designed and enforced in ways that guard against unintended or unjustified disregard for or sacrifices of the civil (and human) right to religious liberty?
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
I'm one of the contributors to today's "Room for Debate" feature at the New York Times. The theme is "Parents' Beliefs vs. Their Children's Health" (which, in my view, might be a bit question-begging, but anyway . . .). My contribution, "Parents' Beliefs Should Be Honored, Within Reason," is here (and has a title that I did not select). A bit:
If a regulation – even a sensible one that serves well the public good – imposes a significant burden on someone’s religious practice or conscience, we are willing to consider an accommodation if, all things considered, it would not undermine our ability to promote important government interests and public goals. Religious beliefs and objections do not and should not supply an absolute license to violate general laws, but they do and should deserve special care and consideration by policymakers. . . .
Here is a Heritage Foundation backgrounder, by Ryan Anderson and Gene Schaerr, on the upcoming SCOTUS marriage cases. The paper focuses on the question of the appropriate role of the federal judiciary in directing or concluding the current debate about both what marriage is and what our laws regarding marriage should be. I expect the Court to decide that the Constitution requires states to include same-sex couples within their category of legal marriage but also think that the rationale the Court majority offers could well matter, going forward, for purposes of religious accommodations, etc. (See this, for more.)
It appears that the good folks at the Pepperdine Law Review put together a really interesting conversation about Steven Smith's most recent book, The Rise and Decline of American Religious Liberty. (A must-read, in my view.) Here is his response, "Situating Ourselves in History," to contributions by Nelson Tebbe ("What Is at Stake?"); Andy Koppelman ("Theorists, Get Over Yourselves"), and Paul Horwitz ("More Vitiating Paradoxes").
I'm with Steve, I admit, in thinking that "Barzunesque" "gloom" might be the appropriate response to the current state of religious-freedom law and conversations, and that Nelson's and Andy's "don't worry, it won't be too bad" assurances don't quite dispel it for me but . . . we'll see. In any event, this is a very engaging collection of papers.
Monday, March 9, 2015
Here's another new paper by Prof. Steven Smith, to my mind one of the most perceptive legal scholars around:
This paper, written for a conference at Pepperdine on “Wisdom, Law, and Lawyers,” begins by considering the meaning of wisdom as well as some possible tensions between wisdom and “reason.” The paper then argues that the kind of reason celebrated in the classical common law tradition can be interpreted as an (imperfect) embodiment of the insights associated with wisdom, but that modern legal thought tends to aggravate the tensions between wisdom and reason, and thus to reduce law to foolishness. The tendency is evident in the recent rush of decisions invalidating traditional marriage laws.
Friday, March 6, 2015
I re-encountered this very good bit, thanks to Jacob Levy, from Lord Acton's The History of Freedom and Other Essays (1907):
The modern theory, which has swept away every authority except that of the State, and has made the sovereign power irresistible by multiplying those who share it, is the enemy of that common freedom in which religious freedom is included. It condemns, as a State within the State, every inner group and community, class or corporation, administering its own affairs; and, by proclaiming the abolition of privileges, it emancipates the subjects of every such authority in order to transfer them exclusively to its own. It recognises liberty only in the individual, because it is only in the individual that liberty can be separated from authority, and the right of conditional obedience deprived of the security of a limited command. Under its sway, therefore, every man may profess his own religion more or less freely; but his religion is not free to administer its own laws. In other words, religious profession is free, but Church government is controlled. And where ecclesiastical authority is restricted, religious liberty is virtually denied.
For religious liberty is not the negative right of being without any particular religion, just as self-government is not anarchy. It is the right of religious communities to the practice of their own duties, the enjoyment of their own constitution, and the protection of the law, which equally secures to all the possession of their own independence.
He said it (natch) better than I did.
