Here is Zachary Calo's "Constructing the Secular: Law and Religion Jurisprudence in Europe and in the United States." Abstract:
This paper compares the law and religious jurisprudence of the U.S. Supreme Court and the European Court of Human Rights across three legal areas: individual religious freedom, institutional religious freedom/freedom of the church, and religious symbols/church-state relations. Particular focus is given to the manner in which this jurisprudence reveals the underlying structure and meaning of the secular. While there remains significant jurisprudential diversity between these two courts and across these different legal areas, there is also emerging a shared accounting of religion, secularity, and moral order in the late modern the West. These legal systems will increasingly be defined by their similarities more than their differences.
Something on the interwebs steered me to this paper, by George Weigel, called "Truths Still Held? John Courtney Murray's 'American Proposition,' 50 Years Later." ( Download Weigel on WHTT). It might usefully be read in connection with the ongoing debate about "radical Catholicism", American liberal constitutionalism, etc. Here is just a taste:
. . . The bonds of this civic friendship or solidarity in America reinforced that founding consensus that gave philosophical content to Murray’s American Proposition. This consensus was, in Murray’s words, “an ensemble of substantive truths, a structure of basic knowledge, an order of elementary affirmations” that reflect the truths we can and must know by reason about how we ought to live together. No true City, and certainly no true democracy, is possible if everything is in doubt. If there is to be genuine argument, and not just cacophony or the will-to-power, there must be, Murray wrote, “a core of agreement, accord, concurrence, acquiescence,” because only if certain truths are held can there be genuine arguments. Much of modernity, Murray knew, had this exactly backwards, thinking that argument ends when agreement is reached. The opposite is more fundamentally true, in both the sciences and the humanities: real argument is only possible within a pre-existing context of agreement on certain truths. . . .
I continue to find a lot to like in We Hold These Truths, and in Murray's work, stance, and approach generally (especially regarding the church/state/society nexus) -- notwithstanding the fact that I find a lot to like in the more critical writings of Brad Gregory, Alasdair MacIntyre, Patrick Deneen, etc. At the same time, I definitely and increasingly share what I took to be Weigel's worry that "the third truth within [Murray's American Proposition] – that the state exists to serve society, which is ontologically and historically antecedent to the state – has become attenuated in its grip on our public culture."
My own view is that we are in challenging times for Catholic institutions and the challenge -- but also the need and the importance -- will only grow. At Distinctly Catholic, Michael Sean Winters has a really good piece up, talking about Notre Dame's Alliance for Catholic Education (A.C.E.) program (for which the brilliant and talented Prof. Nicole Stelle Garnett works, in addition to her Notre Dame Law School gig). Also, here is a piece I did ("Treasure A.C.E.") on the program, about 5 years ago. MSW's post opens with this:
On Monday mornings, the staff and faculty associated with Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) gather in a small chapel on the ground floor of Visitation Hall for Mass. This past Monday, Father Timothy Scully, CSC, who started ACE in 1993, was the celebrant when I joined the group for the Mass. The service is simple: guests, including myself, are welcomed, an introductory hymn (2 verses, very RC), a short homily, a song at communion. The passing of the peace takes awhile as these colleagues embrace each other at the beginning of their work week. Afterwards, I threaten to report the group to the Congregation for Divine Worship because I am not sure the passing of the peace was as somber as the CDW thinks it should be. After Mass, everyone heads upstairs for a breakfast together before heading off to their offices to set about their work.
And, what precisely is that work? In shorthand, some people think that ACE is trying to save Catholic parochial schools, the educational equivalent of an architectural preservation firm. This could not be more wrong. During a morning of meetings with different staff members it becomes clear that the group has no interest in maintaining the Church’s nineteenth century infrastructure for its own sake: They are passionate about educating today’s young people in schools that are not surviving but flourishing. . . .
The regional body that accredits colleges and universities has given Gordon College a year to report back about a campus policy on homosexuality, one that may be in violation of accreditation standards.
The higher education commission of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges met last week and "considered whether Gordon College's traditional inclusion of 'homosexual practice' as a forbidden activity" runs afoul of the commission's standards for accreditation, according to a joint statement from NEASC and Gordon College. . . .
There's a lot going on here, obviously. The premise of the one-year review, it appears, is that a body like the NEASC is now authorized to declare, and to enforce the declaration, that the mission and practices of a Christian college or university must conform with -- must be, as some put it, entirely "congruent" with -- (the current understanding of) the mission and practices of the liberal state in order to actually be a "college" or a "university." But, this premise seems wrong to me. (More here on that point.) It is, it appears, not only that governments and officials and laws are constrained by the Lawrence decision but that civil-society institutions are (or should be), too.
Check out John Inazu's recent paper, "Confident Pluralism," here, for a different take.
Here is a very interesting post about an interesting report on what sounds like an interesting event! As between the "accommodationists" (Neuhaus, Murray, etc.) and the "radicals" (my colleague Patrick Deneen, Brad Gregory, etc.), I think I say, "well, some of both." Is it alright to think that We Hold These Truths and After Virtue are both very important to the project of thinking about where we are and how we got here? (Or . . . is it just that "I contain multitudes"?). I think Prof. Delahunty is right about, inter alia, this:
The accommodationists can point to a period like the 1940s and 1950s to show that American society can be, not just tolerant, but even receptive, to Catholicism. They would probably distinguish between two kinds of American liberalism – the classical liberalism of the Founders, and the liberalism of the present. The former regarded government as, essentially, a scaffolding or a set of neutral procedures, allowing citizens to pursue their private projects peaceably within an agreed-upon framework. The latter kind of liberalism posits that the State exists to pursue certain substantive goods. Both forms of liberalism rest on a conception of the sovereignty of the individual, but the latter form assumes that the State must play a more active role in bringing about the conditions in which individual choice can flourish. Since that form of liberalism regards the family and the Church as inimical to the sovereignty of the individual, it is inimical to Catholicism. But the earlier, historic kind of liberalism is not hostile to such institutions, and indeed draws sustenance from them. (This, of course, was Tocqueville’s argument.) Thus, for the accommodationists, the task ahead for American Catholics seems to be to restore the pristine form of liberalism to American politics. . . .
. . . The radicals will have to explain more clearly how the liberalism of the present is continuous with, indeed grows out of, the classical liberalism of the early Republic. They will have to demonstrate the historical and conceptual linkages between the Calvinist and consumerist conceptions of human nature, and how the one eventually developed into the other. . . .
In an editorial that purports to welcome the "end to the politics of cultural division," the NYT refers disparagingly to "old right-wing nostrums about the 'sanctity of life' . . . [that] have lost their power, revealed as intrusions on human freedom." What, one wonders, can make "human freedom" not-to-be-intruded-upon in a world in which "sanctity of life" is an "old right-wing nostrum"?
A very thoughtful essay, by Yuval Levin, at First Things. Here is a bit, from the end:
The permanence of the human longings for attachment and transcendence means that the endless parade of temptations and distractions we confront in modern life can yield an endless series of opportunities for the truth to recapture our imagination and prove itself indispensable. Traditionalists should therefore work to build room for their ways of living in the modern world not only as a means of defense and survival but as a means of persuasion and progress.
They should see themselves fighting not against the liberal society but for it. They should live out their faiths and their ways in the world, confident that their instruction and example will make that world better and that people will be drawn to the spark. This means traditionalists must see both the good and the bad in modern life, and must accept that our society is always getting both better and worse.
And it means that traditionalists must be committed to the preservation of spaces for private life that are protected from the perverse shortsightedness of politics. It means, in other words, that we should be intensely engaged in the struggle for the soul of our society—knowing we can expect no ultimate victory from politics, but also that we are by no means destined to defeat, and that by persisting in the struggle we make room for another generation to rise and thrive and seek to embody the good. Politics can do no more than that, but it must do no less.
Tom Farr has this, over at Public Discourse. A bit:
There are two powerful reasons for a coordinated, comprehensive American strategy to advance religious freedom. The first is a moral imperative.
Last year in Rome, Iraqi Patriarch of the Chaldeans, Archbishop Louis Raphael Sako, said something that still haunts me: “If they kill us all, will you do something then?” We have a responsibility to that man, and to the others of Iraq and Syria—Christian, Yazidi, and Muslim alike—who are fending for, or fleeing for, their lives.
Patriarch Sako said something else. The title of his speech was: “What Happens to the Middle East if Christians Flee?” The answer was twofold: terrible suffering for the Christians, but also increased instability and harm to the societies themselves.
Here lies the second reason for a coordinated, comprehensive US strategy on religious freedom. Religious freedom is not simply a “nice to have” human right, consisting mainly of the right not to be tortured or killed, or a right to private worship. It is a fundamental human right that has distinct and inevitable public dimensions. As such it is utterly necessary, not only for individual human flourishing but for the success of any state—especially highly religious nations like Iraq, Pakistan, or Egypt.
Ample research demonstrates what common sense suggests: democracies cannot consolidate without religious freedom. Economies cannot develop without religious freedom. And—perhaps most important for American national security—religious freedom is a counter to religion-based terrorism.
Over at Arc of the Universe, my friend Tim Shah has a great post about Jacque Berlinerblau's "gutsy" (I agree) piece in The Chronicle of Higher Education, "The Crisis in Secular Studies." Fans of Benedict XVI's "healthy secularity" will definitely want to check this out. (And this.)
Here's a short piece I did for the Cornerstone blog, which is a project of the Berkley Center's Religious Freedom Project. A taste:
“Religion,” said Justice William Douglas in his Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972) opinion, is “an individual experience.” The opinion was a partial dissent, and this statement is partially correct. But, it does not tell the entire story. Many “religious experiences” are those of monks, mystics, and prophets—and of salesmen, coaches, teachers, and cops. But, many are also of peoples and tribes and congregations. As Justice Douglas’s colleague, Justice William Brennan, insisted in Corporation of the Presiding Bishop v. Amos (1987), “[f]or many individuals, religious activity derives meaning in large measure from participation in a larger religious community. Such a community represents an ongoing tradition of shared beliefs, an organic entity not reducible to a mere aggregation of individuals.” “Religion” is famously difficult (some would say “impossible”) to define and the distinction between “religion,” on the one hand, and “culture,” “tradition,” “identity,” and “politics” is much more contested than clear. The idea that it is only, or even primarily, an “individual experience” is relatively new on the scene. In any event, it seems clear that “religion” involves more than—even if it certainly does involve—the commitments, values, beliefs, professions, and practices of particular persons. It also involves—and it is exercised both by and through—communities, families, associations, societies, authorities, and institutions. . . .
