I haven't read Ratzinger's Jesus of Nazareth, but some of the points raised by Michael S's post on it have been on my mind lately. I'm in the extremely fortunate position of being able to spend much of my time over the next year as a student, working on a Master's Degree in Catholic Studies here at St. Thomas. I'm taking two courses this summer, one an introductory survey, "Catholic Thought & Culture I" (covering the first 13 centuries of Christianity in one semester....), the other "The Church and the Biomedical Revolution." In both classes, we started off with some reading and discussion of the beginnings of Christianity. My imagination has been utterly captured by the struggle of the early Christians to define and explain this revolutionary new religion, both for themselves and for the rest of the world, the pagan world they were trying to live in and make peace with.
For the Catholic Thought & Culture class, we read an excerpt from Robert Wilken's The Spirit of Early Christian Thought. The very first chapter talks about the efforts of Justin Martyr and Origen to respond to the pagan philosophers challenging this new religion. Wilken makes the point that, despite the brilliance of the arguments these early Christians formulated to engage the philosophers on their own terms, they never lost their awareness that the truly revolutionary thing about this religion was that it was centered on the life of Jesus. He writes:
What had been handed on in the church's worship and practice, in prayers and catechetical instruction, in the words and images and stories of the Bible was set on a firm intellectual foundation. Yet, and this is the central point, the biblical narrative was not reduced to a set of ideas or a body of principles; no conceptual scheme was allowed to displace the evangelical history. Christianity, wrote Leo the Great, bishop of Rome in the fifth century, is a "religion founded on the mystery of the Cross of Christ." Christian thinking did not spring from an original idea, and it was not nourished by a seminal spiritual insight. It had its beginnings in the history of Israel and the life of a human being named Jesus of Nazareth, who was born of Mary, lived in Judea, suffered and died in Jerusalem, and was raised by God to new life.
It just stuck me, reading that, how easy it would have been for all of these brilliant Church fathers to take the "sayings" of this historical person, Jesus, and take on the pagan world intellectually by reducing the words to a "set of ideas or a body of principles" or a "conceptual scheme." But that's not what happened. It's really a rather extraordinary thing, when you think about it on the human level of very smart people (not unlike, say, law professors) trying to explain themselves and their revolutionary faith to a secular world.
In my other class, "The Church and the Biomedical Revolution", I learned another fascinating thing about the early Christians, perhaps not really related to Michael's point, but something that has similarly seized my imagination. We read a chapter from a book by Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity: A SociologistReconsiders History. In a chapter called "Epidemics, Networks, and Conversion", Stark suggests that contributing to the rapid rise of Christianity throughout the Roman Empire were two epidemics, one in 165 (probably smallpox) and another in 251 (probably measles). One of many interesting points that Stark makes is that far greater numbers of Christians survived those epidemics than pagans, for the simple reason that they were living basic Christian values of love and charity. The simple act of not abandoning the sick -- as their pagan neighbors generally did -- but instead sticking around and providing for their elemental needs for food and water, greatly reduced mortality. (He writes "Modern medical experts believe that conscientious nursing without anymedications could cut the mortality rate by two-thirds or even more.") In addition to the higher survival rates of the Christians, the fact that the Christian ethic led them to care for pagans as well, and the power of the seemingly "miraculous" survival of so many Christians, affected the subsequent conversion of surviving pagans. I'm not sure what that has to do with CLT, and I'm not sure why it has so seized my imagination, but isn't it fascinating?
And next week, we get to Augustine, organ transplantation, and the theological foundations of medical research ethics. Am I not just the luckiest girl around?
I have just started Joseph Ratzinger, Benedict XVI's, book "Jesus of Nazareth," which I picked of at Loome's during our meeting of the Conference of Catholic Legal Scholars last week. The first thing I noted is that the author is Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI and not Pope Benedict XVI. He retains his given name, I suspect, because, as he explains in the foreward: "It goes without saying that this book is in no way an exercise of the magisterium, but is solely an expression of my personal search 'for the face of the Lord' (cf. Ps. 27:8)." In other words, Ratzinger is inviting us to consider with him, the face of Jesus as he has encountered Him. And, so far it is a great journey.
Since God's entry into the human condition in the person of Jesus, the Son, affects all aspects of our life, it should not be surprising that the book raises questions for our Catholic Legal Theory project.
On page 29, in the chapter on the temptations, Ratizinger says: "God is the issue: Is he real, reality itself, or isn't he? Is he good, or do we have to invent the good ourselves? The God question is the fundamental question, and it sets us down right at the crossroads of human existence." If Ratzinger is correct, and I think he is, what are the implications for CLT?
On page 33, he quotes the martyred (by the Nazi's) German Jesuit, Alfred Delp: "Bread is important, freedom is more important, but most important of all is unbroken fidelity and faithful adoration." Ratzinger presses the point: "When this ordering of goods is no longer respected, but turned on its head, the result is not justice or concern for human suffering. The result is rather ruin and destruction even of the material goods themselves." He continues: "The aid offered by the West to developing countries has been purely technical and materially based, and not only has left God out of the picture, but has driven men away from God. And, this aid, proudly claiming to 'know better,' is itself what first turned the 'third world' into what we mean today by that term." He agains returns to the theme: "The issue is the primacy of God. The issue is acknolwedging that he is a reality, that he is the reality without which nothing else can be good. History cannot be detached from God and then run smoothly on purely material lines." If Ratzinger is correct, and I think he is, what are the implications for CLT?
On page 39, he says: "Without heaven, earthly power is always ambiguous and fragile. Only when power submits to the measure and the judgment of heaven - of God, in other words - can it become power fro good. And only when power stands under God's blessing can it be trusted." If Ratzinger is correct, and I think he is, what are the implications for CLT?
Today (barely!) is the feat of St. Thomas More. (Thanks to MOJ-friend John Breen for the reminder.) Here is Pope John Paul II's motu proprio proclaiming St. Thomas to be the patron of politicians and statesmen.
And, I can't resist observing, tomorrow is the feast of St. Thomas Garnet (no, I'm not kidding), which also happens to be the birthday of one Thomas William Garnett, of South Bend, Indiana.
I would like to thank Prof. Steve Shiffrin for his thoughtful post of June 20 responding to my earlier remarks regarding Bishop Tobin’s Rhode Island Catholic May 31 article entitled My R.S.V.P. to Rudy Giuliani. Steve suggests disagreement with me on some matters. His comments also indicate that I may have been too brief and should have fleshed out more wholly my perspective on the Tobin-Lynn question. Of course, one of the problems that is characteristic of most web log postings is that they are not designed to study in depth any matter or issue. But, Steve does appear to agree with me on one important point. At the end of his post he states that government actions against religious groups (i.e., “the spectre of government bribing leaders of religious organizations to stay out of politics… even when their conscience dictates otherwise”) present problems. To quote a line from the old English cases, I am of the same opinion. As I see the situation, these problems can include using the tax code as a means of pressuring the proper exercise of the Constitutional guarantees pertaining to the free exercise of religion and freedom of expression.
What is presently at issue in the matter on which I previously wrote is the allegation by Barry Lynn and Americans United for Separation of Church and State that Bishop Tobin violated Section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code when he, Tobin, stated in his Rhode Island Catholic article that he would never defend a candidate who supports legalized abortion. Under this provision of the Internal Revenue Code, tax exempt organizations are forbidden from publishing or distributing statements in “any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.” The Rev. Lynn and Americans United are renewing the argument that was essentially made by Abortion Rights Mobilization, Inc. (ARM) against the Catholic Church in the 1980s. ARM sued the U.S. Bishops Conference and the U.S. Treasury that the latter should revoke the Church’s tax exempt status because of the Church’s public teaching on abortion and the political position this teaching conveyed. In this lawsuit, the courts did not disturb the IRS’s findings that the Church was in compliance with Section 501(c)(3). I suggest that the current circumstances surrounding the concerns of Americans United for Separation of Church and State are no different.
The IRS has determined that the Church’s teaching on the abortion issue does not violate the tax code. As one leader of the Church, Bishop Tobin has the responsibility in his teaching office to continue this fundamental instruction. Some may argue that while there are Constitutional protections upon which the Church and Bishop Tobin rely in this regard, there are also statutory provisions, such as the Internal Revenue Code, that must be honored as well. But when there is perceived tension between the Constitution, the supreme law of the land, and a particular statute, the primary way of avoiding any conflict between these two legal authorities is to read the statute in a way that is consistent with the applicable Constitutional provisions. In this case, Section 501(c)(3) is to be interpreted in a manner that is consistent with the First Amendment.
But if this is not possible, it may be argued that the statute which remains in conflict with the Constitution is, in fact, unconstitutional. Steve suggests this possibility in his posting.
In the meantime, I think it is helpful to keep in mind that Americans United for Separation of Church and State is another tax exempt organization that relies on the protection of Section 501(c)(3). While Americans United for Separation asserts that “we are careful to make sure we are always in compliance [with the requirements of 501(c)(3)]… [by not] making any statements supporting or opposing any candidate or party…” its actions indicate otherwise. For example, the website of Americans United for Separation has a menu where the reader can click on the voting records of elected officials including state officials and Members of Congress. By selecting the entry on a particular official, the reader can see if that office holder voted “with us” or “against us.” While this information provided by Americans United for Separation is nuanced, it nevertheless indicates that this tax exempt organization is presenting a position on and the suitability of this office holder and future candidate by indicating whether he or she is “with us” or “against us.” Perhaps Americans United for Separation would disagree with my analysis. But since a part of their mission is to educate the public “about religious freedom issues and organize local chapters all over the country,” their actions speak more clearly than their words. The Rev. Barry Lynn and the organization of which he is executive director understandably want to exercise their Constitutional rights. This is essentially the position of the NAACP, another tax exempt organization, took when President Julian Bond delivered a speech in July of 2004 that made implications about candidates in the then upcoming presidential election. Has Bishop Tobin done anything different? No. He has exercised his Constitutional liberties to protect the unborn and to teach about the evils of abortion and to agree with Mr. Giuliani that abortion is “morally wrong.”RJA sj
From today's op-ed by journalist Melinda Henneberger:
Over 18 months, I traveled to 20 states listening to women of all ages, races, tax brackets and points of view speak at length on the issues they care about heading into ’08. They convinced me that the conventional wisdom was wrong about the last presidential contest, that Democrats did not lose support among women because “security moms” saw President Bush as the better protector against terrorism. What first-time defectors mentioned most often was abortion. . . .
Many of them, Catholic women in particular, are liberal, deep-in-their-heart Democrats who support social spending, who opposed the war from the start and who cross their arms over their chests reflexively when they say the word “Republican.” Some could fairly be described as desperate to find a way home. And if the party they’d prefer doesn’t send a car for them, with a really polite driver, it will have only itself to blame.
The title that the editors chose overstates what the op-ed actually claims, which is only that the Democrats should respect pro-lifers and should give some on things like partial-birth abortion bans (and maybe some other regulations? -- it's unclear) because of the widespread public support for them. But what the author found about the importance of abortion as an issue for the women to whom she talked looks interesting. The book based on these interviews is available here.
I recently read your post on same-sex relations on Mirror of Justice, and was puzzled by the following passages:
"I am, of course, aware that the Vatican teaches otherwise. I do not agree with positions the Vatican has taken on many issues involving sexuality, women, and marriage.
"I should say once again that when I think of the Church, I do not think of the Vatican. I think of Jesus, the Communion of Saints, the People of God. I pray for the Pope and the Bishops (for the difficulty of their task and in particular that they will be better servants of a pilgrim church, as we all do), but I also pray on many issues that the Church will not be lead by them."
I do not understand how you can affirm your assent to certain doctrines taught by the Pope and the bishops--like the doctrines concerning Jesus and the Communion of Saints--and yet affirm your dissent from other doctrines issuing from the same authority. Either the Pope and the bishops possess a valid teaching authority or they do not. If they don't, then it makes no sense to believe anything they say touching faith and morals. If they do, then it makes no sense to deny anything they say touching faith and morals. Within that sphere, they have either plenary authority or none at all, precisely because that authority comes from God or does not. If it comes from God, then we ignore it or deny it at our peril; if it does not come from God, then it is objectively irrelevant.
Your position seems to me analogous to saying that one accepts the authority of the scientific method for all areas of scientific inquiry except those pertaining to chemistry and planetary science; there one prefers the teachings of alchemy and Ptolemaic cosmology, respectively.
If one is going to reject the authority of the hierarchy or of the scientific method, that's perfectly within one's rights. But, at least as a matter of logic, it only makes sense to do it whole hog.
Sincerely, Nicholas E. Salazar
Whether Richard McCormick and others were right in thinking that the Magisterium is entitled to less (or no) deference when it addresses questions regarding women and sexuality (taking lack of experience, lack of consultation, the silencing of theologians, and the failure to take the experience of others into account), they were not making a logical mistake. Assuming God speaks on some subjects through the Bishops does not necessitate the view that God speaks on all subjects that it claims to have authority over. To assume otherwise is to assume that God has gotten it wrong in the past. The Vatican has spoken on many matters of morals in a non-infallible way, and the the extent to which Catholics are bound on those matters has been much debated on this site. Of course, those Catholics who follow their conscience on moral matters do so at their peril. But it is sometimes forgotten that those who follow the teachings of the Vatican do so at their peril. Consider those who endorsed and implemented religious persecution in the past, for example.
M.Z. Forrest has a post at Vox Nova discussing corporatism, distributism, and freedom. And, in the comments section, there are some suggested policy / legal reforms - including "abolishing LLCs" -- that, M.Z.F. believes, flow from the analysis. On the other hand, there's Steve Bainbridge's paper, "Catholic Social Thought and the Corporation."
In this essay in Policy Review, Mary Eberstadt explores a theory about "How the West Really Lost God":
[W]hat secularization theory assumes is that religious belief comes ontologically first for people and that it goes on to determine or shape other things they do -- including such elemental personal decisions as whether they marry and have children or not.10 Implied here is a striking, albeit widely assumed, view of how one social phenenomenon powers another: that religious believers are more likely to produce families because religious belief somehow comes first.
And therein lies a real defect with the conventional story line about how and why religion collapsed in Western Europe. For what has not been explained, but rather assumed throughout that chain of argument, is why the causal relationship between belief and practice should always run that way instead of the other, at least some of the time. It is as if recent intellectual history had lined up all the right puzzle pieces -- modernity, belief and disbelief, technology, shrinking and absent families -- only to press them together in a way that looks whole from a distance but leaves something critical out.
This essay is a preliminary attempt to supply that missing piece. It moves the human family from the periphery to the center of this debate over secularization -- and not as a theoretical exercise, but rather because compelling empirical evidence suggests an alternative account of what Nietzsche's madman really saw in the "tombs" (read, the churches and cathedrals) of Europe.
In brief, it is not only possible but highly plausible that many Western European Christians did not just stop having children and families because they became secular. At least some of the time, the record suggests, they also became secular because they stopped having children and families. If this way of augmenting the conventional explanation for the collapse of faith in Europe is correct, then certain things, including some radical things, follow from it.
UPDATE: On this matter, as on so many others, Lisa Schiltz was way ahead of me. Here's her June 9 post on the same essay. Thanks to Elizabeth Brown for the tip.
The Court has already issued a dozen rulings this term that limit damages and make it harder for people to sue corporations. The court is seen as tilting more toward business than even the Rehnquist court.
As for all those good pro-life people who cheered when Bush appointed Roberts and Alito to the Court-- I recommend the song that ended the Sopranos franchise: Don't Stop Believing...
I don't understand the complaint here. Is the suggestion that, because Justices Roberts and Alito are declining to endorse plaintiffs' proposed interpretations of federal laws, their pro-life bona fides are somehow in question? I'm not sure how much -- as a Catholic -- I should worry about the Supreme Court's willingness to "limit damages and make it harder for people to sue corporations." Again, I assume we're talking about cases where the Court is interpreting acts of Congress that, the Court thinks, "limit damages and make it harder for people to sue corporations." The suggestion that a willingness to sustain plaintiffs' lawsuits, or uphold huge damages awards, is a marker of fidelity to Catholicism, seems pretty unappealing; don't we need to know *something* about the merits of the disputes?
Catholic new urbanist and MOJ-friend Philip Bess is blogging over at "Right Reason" on the subject, "Why Architecture Matters." Click here and here. The posts are thorough and thoughtful, and too rich to blurb. Nutshell: Joel Kotkin says that cities should be "sacred, safe, and busy." But what does it mean, really, for a city (today) to be "sacred"? (And, we lawyers might ask, what work does law do in supporting, or undermining, the "sacred"?)
