"An Essential Element of Strong Friendship Is Ongoing Conversation"
VATICAN CITY, FEB. 29, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Here is the address Mary Ann Glendon, the new ambassador of the United States to the Holy See, gave today upon presenting her credentials to Benedict XVI.
* * *
Your Holiness,
It is a distinct honor and pleasure to present to you my credentials as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Holy See. I extend warm greetings from President George W. Bush and the American people. I am grateful to President Bush for the opportunity to represent him and my country to the Holy See.
Your Holiness, in your message for the celebration of the World Day of Peace this year, you wrote “We do not live alongside one another purely by chance; all of us are progressing along a common path as men and women, and thus as brothers and sisters.” The United States of America believes that strong alliances, friendships and international institutions enable us to advance along that path through shared efforts to promote freedom, prosperity, and peace. We recognize a privileged place in such a partnership for the Holy See whose strong moral voice resonates in the hearts of men and women throughout the world.
* * * The United States and the Holy See have collaborated in recent years on many projects to protect and enhance the dignity of the person. The United States is particularly proud of its initiatives to tackle trafficking in human beings. U.S. funded programs have provided anti-trafficking training and support to hundreds of women religious in Europe, Africa, Asia and South America. Similar programs for ...
Your Holiness, poverty, hunger and disease continue to plague too many regions of our world. For the United States, these are not only humanitarian issues but concerns that affect regional stability and security. We are striving, therefore, to provide impoverished nations with the economic and social tools that will empower them to seize hold of their own destiny. The United States is leading the struggle against global poverty with strong education initiatives and with humanitarian assistance programs like our new Millennium Challenge Account which are geared toward strengthening democracy, transparency, and the rule of law in developing nations. The United States is also in the forefront of efforts to combat global hunger. Today, more than half the world's food aid comes from the United States. In his State of the Union address, President Bush referred to an innovative proposal to provide food assistance by purchasing crops directly from farmers in the developing world, in order to build up local agriculture and help break the cycle of famine. The United States is also confronting the infectious diseases that are taking such a toll in developing nations. We are working to cut the number of malaria-related deaths in 15 African nations. Through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the United States is treating 1.4 million people. We can and will bring healing and hope to many more.
Your Holiness, the United States is an instrument of hope in the world because its people are compassionate and generous. That is why we are eager to work in partnership with the Holy See to enhance the lives of all the world’s people, but in particular, those who are caught up in the despair that comes from poverty, hunger and disease. Your Holiness, in your encyclical "Spe Salvi," you reminded us that “our lives are involved with one another, through innumerable interactions they are linked together. No one lives alone.” It is our commitment to this essential human solidarity that inspires the compassionate actions of the United States in and for the human family.
While
I find all this “renounce” and “reject” stuff a bit silly, as long as
we’re playing that game, what is good for the goose should be good for
the gander. With that in mind, I want to give credit to Bill Donohue for calling on John McCain to renounce the support of the anti-Catholic, anti-Semitic John Hagee.
Here's McCain's response to all of this. Pretty weak tea compared to what Russert demanded from Obama the other night:
"Yesterday, Pastor John Hagee endorsed my candidacy for president in
San Antonio, Texas. However, in no way did I intend for his endorsement
to suggest that I in turn agree with all of Pastor Hagee's views, which
I obviously do not.
"I am hopeful that Catholics, Protestants and all people of faith
who share my vision for the future of America will respond to our
message of defending innocent life, traditional marriage, and
compassion for the most vulnerable in our society."
UPDATE: Kudos also to Bainbridge for his discussion of this issue. He calls it "even worse than McCain’s about face on Bob Jones University. It’s extremely disappointing."
America Magazine has an editorial on Castro and Cuba in their March 10 edition. Here is my wife Maria's reaction:
"What a disappointing editorial on Cuba and Fidel Castro! I am one of the Cuban American refugees that you label dismissively as mere 'exiles.' Our family did not leave Cuba because of it's economic conditions but because my father was imprisoned and our family persecuted for its Catholic faith. But economics is the only aspect you seem concerned about. I concur with Pope John Paul II's assessment during his visit to Cuba that the embargo must end. Yet in your narrow focus and overt praising of the questionable "legitimate accomplishments" of Castro's regime you become no different than the secular media--and you offend not only Cubans, but all refugees in this country who have fled repressive regimes in search of religious and other freedoms. What about Cuba's persecuted People of God? Are you aware of the underground Church? What about the hundreds of prisoners of conscience suffering in Cuba's prisons, imprisoned because of their faith or for taking principled stands against Cuban government policies? (see Amnesty International records) I expect more from America than what I read in the New York Times. I expect a thoughtful response from a faithful and faithfilled Catholic perspective."
Not long ago Rick Garnett recommended a blog titled The Immanent Frame: Religion, Secularism, and the Public Sphere. Today a post of mine appears on blog--a post about whether under the establishment clause religious rationales are a legitimate basis of coercive lawmaking. Those who maintain the blog are eager to receive readers' comments on the posts. So, if any of you are so inclined ...
Fr. Daniel Groody, CSC, was on my panel Wednesday afternoon at the Gilvary Symposium at the University of Dayton School of Law. As part of the panel, he showed his 30 minute documentary "Dying to Live: A Migrant's Journey," which is a must see for anyone interested in putting a human face on the immigration debate. The back of the DVD jacket says: "Dying to Live is a profound look at the human face of the migrant. It explores who these people are, why they leave their homes and what they face in their journey. Drawing on the insights of Pulitzer Prize winning photographers, theologians, church and congressional leaders, activists, musicians and the immigrants themselves, this film explores the places of conflict, pain and hope along the US-Mexico border. It is a reflection of the human struggle for a more dignified life and the search to find God in the midst of it all."
Fr. Sirico of the Acton Institute has this reflection on William F. Buckley:
WFB: In Memoriam
Having been my father's remote control, I recall one Sunday afternoon in the 1960s being told to stop and back up to the "educational channel," as it was called.
The Sirico household were not big viewers of what was then Channel 13 in New York, so I wondered what my father was thinking.
I click over to the channel and my father said, "Sit down; you'll learn something."
Indeed, I did.
That was the first time I had heard or seen William F. Buckley, Jr., who died in his study on Wednesday while at work on yet another erudite page of insightful, urbane, and scintillating prose. Buckley (or Bill, as he almost insisted people call him) holds the record of sending me to the dictionary more than anyone I have ever read in the English language.
I hope that MOJ readers (and others) who read Matthew Boudway's open letter to Deal Hudson (to which Michael linked, here) will also read Ramesh Ponnuru's recent piece, "Conscientious Voting," here. A taste:
Feuerherd asks, “[I]s it fair for a Catholic like me to suspect that the liberal economic policies of the Democratic candidate, whether Obama or Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, will result in less dire poverty and thus perhaps fewer abortions? And isn't that supposed to be the goal?” Anyone who wants to cast a ballot on this assumption has a moral obligation to investigate whether it is, in fact, true that 1) Democratic policies would reduce poverty much more than Republican ones would and 2) that abortion and poverty rates correlate in as straightforward a manner as Feuerherd idly (and conveniently) supposes. I am not aware of research that corroborates point two, let alone both of them taken together.
And there is another problem with this argument, which is that a reduction in the number of abortions is not the only goal that pro-lifers should have. Also important is that the law stop treating unborn children as subhuman creatures who may legitimately be denied the protections of the law against unjust killing. Obama himself may be perfectly sincere in willing that fewer women exercise the (supposed) right to abortion even while he supports keeping that option legal and making it subsidized. I have no reason to doubt that he is. But he also wills that unborn children be denied the basic legal protection from homicide that you and I enjoy. The Catholic Church wants voters to take that injustice seriously; more seriously than Feuerherd seems inclined to take it. But of course it cannot (and has no ambition to) force any voter to do anything.
From the First Things blog, this by Ryan Anderson:
Benedict XVI recently asked the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to turn its attention to the ethical challenges that new biotechnologies pose. Aware that the Church “cannot and should not intervene on every scientific innovation,” the pope charged the congregation with “reiterating the great values at stake, and providing the faithful, and all men and women of good will, with ethical and moral principles and guidelines for these new and important questions.”
To help direct the congregation’s reflection, he offered two principles: “(a) unconditional respect for the human being as a person from conception to natural death; (b) respect for the originality of the transmission of human life through the acts proper to spouses.”
. . .
The Western tradition of moral reflection has produced a long line of reasoning about the fundamental worth of people and the immorality of direct killing. Battles over civil and human rights at home and abroad have taken up and developed the historical arguments about human dignity and equality. We have developed traditions of rationality about these questions—competing traditions, no doubt, but traditions of thought on these topics all the same.
So when debates about embryo freezing, manipulation, or killing arise, moral philosophers and theologians have rich resources for identifying the wrongs involved. It’s easy to speak to the public about all this. Start with the science that shows the humanity and individuality of the embryo, and then make philosophical arguments about the equality of all human beings as persons possessing inherent dignity. Finally, add the well-developed moral and legal prohibitions on directly killing innocent persons and you quickly arrive at the conclusion that killing human embryos is wrong.
In other words, religiously grounded thinkers make arguments about killing. They don’t simply pronounce, “God says it’s wrong.” As Benedict charged the CDF, they use arguments that can guide both the faithful “and all men and women of good will.”
With assisted reproductive technologies, things are different. . . .
