Friday, September 28, 2007
The Tablet
September 29, 2007
Twenty-first-century sin
Julie Clague
Moral
theology, once the preserve of priests, has changed profoundly. Gone
are the confessors’ manuals and instead there is debate among its
students and scholars about the way we live our lives. But how much
division can be tolerated?
To read the article, click here.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Apropos of the Georgetown Law reversal, here is some news [HERE] about Verizon's reversal of its earlier refusal to allow NARAL instant text messaging. Borrowing from popular culture of the 1960s, second verse same as the first. RJA sj
Here is a new paper of mine, called "Are Churches (Just) Like the Boy Scouts?", which I presented at a (great) law-and-religion conference last Spring at St. John's. The paper talks about, among other things, the account provided by Professors Eisgruber and Sager of the church-autonomy principle; the idea of the "Freedom of the Church" (which I've tried to engage in more detail here); and an "institutional approach" to the Religion Clauses (which is also the subject of a paper I'm doing for our friends at the Villanova Law Review.) Here is the abstract:
What role do religious communities, groups, and associations play – and, what role should they play – in our thinking and conversations about religious freedom and church-state relations? These and related questions – that is, questions about the rights and responsibilities of religious institutions – are timely, difficult, and important. And yet, they are often neglected.
It is not new to observe that American judicial decisions and public conversations about religious freedom tend to focus on matters of individuals' rights, beliefs, consciences, and practices. The special place, role, and freedoms of groups, associations, and institutions are often overlooked. However, if we want to understand well, and to appreciate, the content and implications of our constitutional commitment to religious liberty, we need to broaden our focus, and to ask, as Professors Lupu and Tuttle have put it, about the “distinctive place of religious entities in our constitutional order.” Are religious institutions special? May and should they be treated specially? If so, how? Why?
For some other, in-places-different views on the subject, see this new paper by Cass Sunstein.
I largely agree with Patrick’s sentiments in his posting earlier today about the future of Catholic higher education, which, of course, would include legal education. I also share some sympathy with his statement about the Catholic academy being inclusive. After all, our Lord reminded us that it is not the healthy who need the physician.
While the Miscamble, Steinfels, and McGreevy essays offer differing views about particulars and emphases, they appear to agree on the matter regarding mission-fit for hiring. One does not have to be a Catholic to endorse, support, and contribute to the Catholic intellectual tradition where faith and reason and the integration of knowledge that leads to wisdom. But, that is a crucial point essential to the success of Catholic higher education. When there is a proliferation of faculty members who do not subscribe to these elements essential to Catholic education, serious problems begin to emerge. Rick’s posting earlier today about the recent development at Georgetown University Law Center demonstrates this. As the article in The Hoya illustrates, there are, according to the correspondent, faculty who are behind the reversal that will open the door for supporting pro-abortion advocacy (and, I suspect, eventually other things incompatible with Catholic teachings). If you recall, when Georgetown University was involved in litigation regarding its Catholic identity and matters dealing with sexual orientation issues in the mid-1980s, several Georgetown Law faculty were prominently posed against the University in this lawsuit.
Another matter to keep in mind is that, today, the academy often prizes research and the development of theories that are not compatible with or sympathetic to the integration of knowledge. Narrow specialization is favored. Pope Benedict has spoken of this fragmentation of knowledge in the past and the need to counter it with integration of learning, a traditional goal of Catholic higher education. Those faculty members who are not sympathetic to the Pope’s view are often advocates for the specialization that leads to the fragmentation of learning. There is little doubt that folks in favor of increased specialization can be clever about the particulars of certain subjects, but can it be said that they are also wise? While firing-for-mission could be problematic, hiring-for-mission should not. Moreover, it is necessary and essential for the survival and the flourishing of Catholic higher education. RJA sj
Rick's post about Georgetown's decision to back away from its policy prohibiting funding for students at summer internships at organizations that promote abortion rights calls to mind Fr. Richard John Neuhaus' comments on Villanova's policy in this area:
Some schools mean it when they say they are Catholic. For instance, Mark A. Sargent, dean of the law school at Villanova University in Philadelphia, writes, “Our Catholic identity is not casual, sentimental, or merely historical.” While the school has many non-Catholic faculty and students, he observes, Villanova remains a Catholic university. The occasion for clarifying all this was a fellowship program in which some students elected to work for pro-abortion organizations. The argument was made that, if the program cannot support abortion, it should just as clearly not support capital punishment. Dean Sargent’s response is marked by what might be described as uncommon lucidity: “Occasionally, we will not do something because we are Catholic. We will not do something that conflicts with our Catholic identity. Such situations are rare, but sometimes we must take a stand. We do so when the conflict is so fundamental and unambiguous that we, in effect, have no choice. Association of Villanova with advocacy for abortion rights presents one such conflict. The fellowship program provides summer stipends for Villanova law students working without pay for public interest organizations. It is funded by an auction, in which Villanova students, faculty, staff, and alumni participate. The program is not an independent student activity. Our name is associated with every aspect of it and makes it go. Our tax-exempt status is used. The auction takes place in our building. The law school administers the funds, and our staff members help organize the program as part of their jobs. Students receiving the stipends are known as Villanova Public Interest Fellows. It is indisputably a Villanova Law School program. A Villanova program obviously cannot be associated with advocacy for abortion rights. Though many individual Catholics believe that there should be some legal right to abortion, the Church’s teaching on the topic is fundamental and unambiguous. We have no choice but to ask program fellows working in our name to agree not to engage in such advocacy. They are, of course, free to take jobs outside the program doing whatever they want. But as program fellows they represent us, and they cannot represent us in advocacy for abortion rights. Some might accuse us of hypocrisy in not banning the program work with advocates of capital punishment and other causes that they believe have the same status as abortion in Catholic teaching. What they do not understand is that the status of these issues in Catholic teaching is very different from that of abortion. Take capital punishment, for example. The Pope has asked Catholics to conclude that capital punishment is insupportable. I agree with him completely. But his statements on the issue were not made with the authority that requires the faithful obedience of all Catholics and Catholic institutions, unlike the Church’s position on abortion. Indeed, many orthodox supporters of the Pope have disagreed with him on this issue and argued that the Catholic tradition does not support abolition of capital punishment. The law school is thus not compelled to disassociate itself from advocacy for capital punishment as it is from advocacy for abortion rights. This is significant, because we are reluctant to constrain our students unless we absolutely must. With respect to abortion, we must. With respect to capital punishment, it is a matter of choice. We could choose to disassociate ourselves from it on Catholic grounds because we are convinced by the Pope’s arguments. And during the next academic year we, as a community, will consider the difficult question of whether we should make that choice. To take time to think hard about what we should do regarding capital punishment is not hypocrisy, but prudence. The need to make a prudential decision about the ambiguous question of capital punishment does not make a principled decision about the unambiguous question of the Church’s teaching on abortion hypocritical.” One hopes that Dean Sargent’s argument will be read, and emulated, by leaders of other schools for whom the name Catholic is not “casual, sentimental, or merely historical.”
I guess it either wasn't read at GU or GU's Catholic name "casual, sentimental, or merely historical."
According to The Hoya:
Administrators at the university’s Law Center reversed earlier this month a policy prohibiting funding for students at summer internships at organizations that promote abortion rights, after a widely publicized case in the spring which drew protest from hundreds of students.
Under the new policy, announced by Law Center Dean T. Alexander Aleinikoff in a letter published in the Law Center’s student newspaper, the university will no longer consider the mission of each organization when determining grants provided by a student-run organization to students for summer internships.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
One of the problems (I mean, joys) of having a young baby is that all my time is pretty much accounted for. So I'm a little late off the blocks in thanking Mark and Villanova for hosting such a great conference last week. It was great to finally meet him, and Rob, and Susan and Pat in person after getting to know you on this site for these past couple of years. For those of you who couldn't make it this year or haven't made it before to one of the JCST conferences, I definitely recommend it for you for next year.
The questions that Fr. Miscamble, Peter Steinfels, John McGreevy, and others are working through are hard, and I admire all concerned for their clear acknowledgment that something -- but what? -- needs to be done to reverse the trend according to which formerly "Catholic" universities no longer deserve that predicate.
Approaching the issue from a slightly different angle than any I've seen in the recent discussions, I'll take Villanova, where I am privileged to work, as an example. Villanova University is, as it has been from its founding, an aposolate of the Order of St. Augustine. The Augustinians have chosen to allow lay men and women (along with other religious and clerics) to join with them in that apostolate at Villanova. It would be self-defeating, indeed perverse, for those charged with this apostolate to attract to Villanova those who either don't support or are hostile to the apostolate. Obviously, those doing the hiring at Villanova will and must look for qualities in addition to ones bearing directly on support of and contribution to the apostolate, but it's hard to see how one can justify adding folks who do not in some way further the apostolate as such -- unless by outright denying that the University should be engaged in its declared apostolate (a point to which I return below).
As a matter of fact, however, most "Catholic" colleges and universities, including Villanova, do most of their hiring without regard for apostolate or mission. It would seem to me, therefore, that the first necessary step is to try to get agreement that support of apostolate/mission is as imporant in potential faculty hires as are intelligence, education, collegiality, and the like. With most people in most Catholic places of higher education not even granting the legitimacy of hiring for apostolate/mission (let alone its desirability or exigence), it's no wonder we cannot begin to reach consensus on whether hiring Catholics (with a numerical goal in mind) is the way to go or hiring "for mission" is the preferred path. In each of the several Catholic law schools I know, non-Catholics are among the biggest supporters of mission, but in most Catholic universities, including their law schools, controversy rages over whether or not to hire "for mission."
I think it's virtually beyond serious question that, whatever has been going on over the last generation has delivered a raft of Catholic places of higher learning that are no longer meaningfully Catholic. In my judgment, the sponsors of those institutions with charismatic and canoncial apostolates should either acknowledge as much and stop pretending the contrary or take the necessary action to renew the religiosity of their institutions. What that action would be, I'm not entirely sure, and obviously it would to some extent vary from place to place. It's worth bearing in mind, though, that (as Bernard Lonergan observed) extraordinary action may be required to reverse a cycle of decline. I can understand why some people are uncomfortable, for example, with numerical goals for hiring engaged *Catholics* (rather than hiring "for mission"), but it would seem to me that the burden is on those who oppose such numerical goals to demonstrate an alternative that will likely do better. Personnel are policy, and engaged Catholics are at least prima facie on the side of the sponsoring Catholic religious order's apostolate.
Peter Steinels worries about a "top-down fiat [that will be] disruptive of the university community." In my judgment, such disruption may be exactly what is needed to reverse the unhappy trend that seems to move forward with inexorable force. But, granting Steinfels's concern, what about the "disruption of the university community" that occurs when colleagues deny that hiring for mission is even legitimate, claim that the Catholic quota is filled, or openly mock and actively subvert the religious identity of the institution? What about this disruption that quietly but insatiably eats away at the core season after season, day after day? I don't disagree with Steinfels that "hiring for mission" has promise, but it has to be done. How many pro-mission faculty can one find at such "Catholic" schools as Georgetown, Fordham, Boston College, Santa Clara, and the rest? I suspect that if the incumbents were pro-mission, hiring "for mission" wouldn't be so controversial as to be the exception rather than the rule.
Let me be clear: In my judgment, Catholic places of higher education should be inclusive, both at the faculty level and at the student level. But there is no inconsistency between being authentically Catholic and genuinely inclusive. The arms of the Church are wide.
Over at First Things, Monica Migliorino Miller reviews a new book by Sister Sara Butler titled The Catholic Priesthood and Women:
Butler points out that Inter Insigniores and Ordinatio Sacerdotalis both insist on Christ’s sovereign freedom in his choice of male apostles. And this is an enormously important point. Indeed, much of the legitimacy of the “fundamental reasons” is based on the fact that, not only did Christ act in a certain way, thus setting up a permanent norm, but that Christ acted in freedom. History does not constrain him, culture is not a barrier, history is not a force that may dictate to Christ his choices. Christ is the Lord of history, he is the Lord of his Church. Behind the “fundamental reasons” is a christological one, and while the Church’s documents insist on Christ’s freedom, it is the theologian’s task to explain why this is important. Butler does not provide this much-needed explanation. What is at stake is the very person of Christ—the divine Logos—in a gesture by which the constitution of the entire new covenant depends. If we follow the arguments of the dissenters, we are forced to conclude that in the very founding of the Church Christ (perhaps innocently) was guilty of an act of injustice to half of the human race. This, of course, is untenable.
All of the apostles were also Jewish, of course, so gender must somehow be different, though Miller believes that Butler's explanation on this point is weak. Miller expands it:
Arbitrary or no, Christ’s male gender, as Butler recognizes, is constitutive of the economy of salvation. But this means we are not dealing any longer with merely theological reasons for the ban on women priests. After all, Christ’s male gender is as much a historical fact, as much a willful historical choice on the part of the Redeemer, as was his choice to call only men to be among the Twelve. Thus Christ’s having called only male human beings to be apostles, having called only male human beings to share in his priestly ministry, is preceded by the fact of his own masculinity in relation to the Church. Thus the “fundamental reasons” and the “theological reasons” are closely intertwined. If the Church believes she must remain faithful to an original gesture of Christ when he called only males to be apostles, she is even less free to dismiss the male gender of Christ in the economy of salvation upon which the meaning of that gesture depends. The ban on women priests is not simply a matter of the Church remaining true to a fact—Christ only chose men—but a matter of the Church remaining faithful to the fundamental truth of the relation between the order of redemption and the order of creation—an order the Church has no power to undo.
The book seems well worth reading; perhaps it will take up the questions Eduardo asked back in March 2006.
The theme for this year's Fall conference at Notre Dame's Center for Ethics and Culture is "The Dialogue of Cultures." All the info you need is here.
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