One highlight from last week's Conference on Catholic Legal Thought was the conversation about Bill Cavanaugh's Theopolitical Imagination. There were some productive points of tension and clarity, particularly between Cavanaugh's Augustinian and Patrick Brennan's Thomistic leanings, with some healthy skepticism from Cavanaugh toward the political work of John Courtney Murray, and a robust defense of Murray by Brennan and others, including Villanova's Michael Moreland. One refrain shared by everyone was the woeful state of Catholic political theory. Cavanaugh views the state as a product of our imagination, which was not a popular opinion in this group. Echoing Augustine, he believes that the state is temporarily necessary for the restraint of vice, unlike Thomas, who believed that the state is part of the natural order. One realization for me is that I need to read de Lubac, who looms large in Cavanaugh's political theory. Hopefully this conversation will continue to unfold, and will be joined by more Catholic legal scholars, over the coming years.
UPDATE: If the state is part of the natural order, does that mean that a post-state world is contrary to the natural order, or does "the state" in Thomas's writing simply signify the temporal authority, a role that could be filled by an international organization or global authority? Consider this reflection from Brian Tamanaha:
Whether in the name of some ideology, or some image of national purity or dominance, or in the name of religion, or simply to plunder, states have time and again massacred their own people, or conscripted their own people and flung them at others to kill and be killed. The number of human lives extinguished by states, and in the name of states, well exceeds a hundred million.
Learn this history and you will see the price patriotism exacts. For many reasons, I feel fortunate to have been born in the United States, but I don’t love my country. It has no love for any of us. A cold, manipulative, object of affection, the state fans patriotism, then asks those who love it deeply to prove their love by dying or sacrificing their limbs for it.
It will not happen in my lifetime, but I look forward to the day when states are no more. As difficult as it is to imagine what a political future without states might look like, the state system is a relatively recent innovation in human history and there is no reason to think we will be burdened with states forever.
Is such a wish inherently contrary to a Catholic view of the world?
I'm happy to report that the second meeting of the Conference on Catholic Legal Thought, which we hosted here at the University of St. Thomas this year, was a thoroughly successful follow-up to last year's organizational get-together at Fordham. The model that we generated at Fordham seems to have worked very well. The deliberately interactive sessions generated wide-ranging, broad discussions among all the participants, during which we were able to expore multiple dimensions of each issue -- from the theoretical frameworks of the ideas, to the practical challenges of implementing the theories in our teaching and scholarship, to the pastoral challenges of modeling Christianity while engaging the culture.
We began with a day of introduction to Catholic social thought through the lens of economic life, led by the economist/theologian Daniel Finn from St. John's University in Collegeville, MN. (Just before joining our conference, Finn had been presiding over the meeting of the Catholic Theological Society of America, as outgoing President. John Allen's current column describes Finn's Presidential Address there last Sunday as one of the most impressive talks he's ever heard, explaining: "When I say "impressive," I mean not just intellectually provocative or rhetorically satisfying, though Finn's address was both, but also brave and potentially transformative -- not only for the CTSA, but for American Catholicism.")
We then continued with two days of roundtables, panels, workshops featuring, among many other wonderful contibutors, theologians Paul Wojda and Bill Cavenaugh, medical doctor Sr. Marie Paul Lockerd, and MOJer's Amy Uelmen, Patrick Brennan, and Michael Scaperlanda. One of our guests was the sociologist Sr. Edith Bogue of the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth. She has posted a discussion of the conference (with pictures!) on her blog, Monastic Musings (scroll down -- you'll recognize the people in the pictures.) MOJer Susan Stabile graced us with an extraordinary Ignatian prayer excercise, and Fr. Reggie Whitt (who will be rejoining us at UST in a few weeks after 4 years as President of the Dominican House of Studies in D.C.) and Fr. Greg Kalscheur (Boston College) celebrated Masses for us.
And, of course, there was some time for the other goal of this group -- community building. We had a fun (if rather boisterous by the end) dinner together at an Italian restaurant downtown, and a much more mellow outing to the Loome Theological Bookstore in Stillwater (where everyone found at least one book they were looking for or didn't know they needed, but where, we all agree, Patrick Brennan won the prize for buying the most), followed by dinner on the outdoor patio of a bar on the banks of the St. Croix River, on a picture-perfect beautiful summer evening.
Next year, we'll be meeting at Seattle University School of Law. Our introductory day is going to grapple in some way with how we deal with issues of authority in incorporating Church teachings in our work. We'll be putting together segments on legal theory, the pastoral implications of teaching as a Catholic law professor, developing a "scholarly persona" as a Catholic, and workshopping Rob Vischer's current book project on conscience. Although it has been a true joy to work on pulling together this year's meeting, I'm happy to hand over the reins to Russ Powell. I am already looking forward to what I will learn from this extraordinary group of scholars and friends next year! Expect to start hearing from Russ as the year goes on.
Once again, the Rev. Barry Lynn has taken the opportunity to criticize the Catholic Church by taking prominent occasion to highlight Bishop Thomas Tobin’s recent statements in the diocesan newspaper published by his diocese, Providence. Lynn’s organization, Americans for Separation of Church and State, has made a request to the IRS to investigate the diocese as a result of Bishop Tobin’s remarks published in the Catholic journal. [Article HERE] Quoting from the AP article which appears in the major newspaper of Bishop Tobin’s diocese, the Providence Journal:
Americans United for Separation of Church and State, in a news release yesterday, said it took the action because “federal tax law forbids non-profits to use organizational resources to support or oppose candidates for public office.” The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, the group’s executive director, said in the letter that Tobin, “appears to have violated federal tax law by attacking Giuliani.” Tobin made his comments in a piece in the Rhode Island Catholic, questioning Giuliani’s position that abortion is wrong, but that government should not impede a woman’s ability to obtain an abortion. “If the bishop wants to join the political fray, he should do so as an individual without dragging along his tax-exempt diocese,” Lynn said in the news release. “A church is not a political action committee, and it should not act like one.”
I have previously used the analogy of trains headed on a same-track train in a head-on collision to depict contemporary challenges to the proper exercise of religious liberty. Bishop Tobin has acted properly in spite of Rev. Lynn’s commentary and characterization. Since it appears that the trains are once again running toward one another, let us pray for Bishop Tobin, his courage, and his fidelity to his teaching and pastoral office.RJA sj
The bishops of Massachusetts quickly issued a statement [HERE] in response to the Massachusetts legislature's denial of the referendum on the definition of marriage. Will more action follow? In the meantime, we may reflect on the frank words of the bishops:
In the Commonwealth, our state laws provide for the process whereby the citizens have a right to vote on a constitutional amendment. However, the leadership of the Democratic Party refuses to allow citizens and elected officials to vote their conscience on social issues. Their ideological positions undermine the common good. Today, the common good has been sacrificed by the extreme individualism that subordinates what is best for children, families and society... The question for those elected officials who opposed allowing the marriage amendment to be voted on by the people is: do we live in a country where people are free to vote their conscience or are we controlled by what is viewed as politically correct and by powerful special interest groups?
The Massachusetts legislature has just voted to prohibit the citizens of Massachusetts from a referendum on the Constitutional amendment that would define marriage as the union of one man and one woman. The Boston Globe’s characterization of the proposed amendment is flawed, but the Globe reports other relevant issues concerning today's legislative activities. [HERE] As a consequence of this vote by the legislature, the citizens will not be able to have the 2008 referendum on the meaning of marriage. It will be interesting to see what the citizen’s response will be. It will also be interesting to see how the four bishops in Massachusetts respond.RJA sj
Some years ago, Rep. Tip O’Neill suggested that all politics are local. This observation came from a man who was not only a powerful national legislator but also a leader of Congress and Speaker of the House of Representatives. Over the past several weeks several MOJ contributors have discussed a number of issues that involve the important question of church/state relations on the national front. Some of the issues discussed in these postings have addressed abortion, embryonic stem cell research, and marriage. One catalyst for these discussions has been the nationally televised debates of Democratic and Republican candidates for the Presidency.
But tomorrow, Thursday, June 14, politics of great importance will take place on a local level. The General Court of Massachusetts (the state legislature) is scheduled to take up the important question of the state constitutional convention concerning the amendment to the Massachusetts constitution that would define marriage as the union between one many and one woman. [HERE] The four Catholic bishops of Massachusetts have spoken on this issue a number of times including on June 12. [HERE] However, a number of prominent members of the legislature who are either Catholic or represent areas of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts with large Catholic majorities have taken the approach that religious belief cannot trump public duty. An example of their position is reported [HERE].
I am inclined to think that many legislators will look for ways to avoid the vote tomorrow so as to postpone this important matter for another day. But should the vote proceed and thereby allow the issue to go to a popular referendum, the citizens of Massachusetts will most likely decide the matter. But, if the legislature deems the proposed amendment “discriminatory” and refuses the public referendum, the bishops of Massachusetts, who have been exercising their pastoral and teaching duties on this issue, will have another duty to perform: what must they do about the legislators who claim membership in the Church but defy its teachings?
At this late hour there is one thing that those of us who are not Massachusetts legislators (and lobbyists) can do: we can once again pray for courage and wisdom in our bishops as they exercise their pastoral and teaching office. Let us also pray for the fidelity of our Catholic legislators for whom matters of faith may or may not be convenient, depending on the political issue that rests before them. It is interesting that some Catholic legislators can profess strong adherence to the faith when the issues in a debate involve education, poverty, or immigration; however, it is equally interesting when they assert that their faith cannot “interfere” with their public duties when abortion “rights,” the public funding of embryonic stem cell research, or the definition of marriage is at stake. RJA sj
Larry Solum and Colin Farrelly have put together a volume of essays titled Virtue Jurisprudence. Here is the description:
This book is the first authoritative text on virtue jurisprudence - the belief that the final end of law is not to maximize preference satisfaction or protect certain rights and privileges, but to promote human flourishing. Scholars of law, philosophy and politics illustrate here the value of the virtue ethics tradition to modern legal theory.
In response to Michael's post: we've discussed income inequality before, here and here for example. My brief reaction is that Catholic thought regards absolute deprivation of the poor as the most serious problem, followed by a lack of economic mobility, and income inequality in itself as only third in the list of problems. But large or increasing income inequality is a matter of some concern in itself for a few reasons that I tried to argue in the first link above: (1) it can strain the bonds of solidarity (as people of wildly different incomes lead lives incomprehensible to each other); (2) it prima facie makes economic mobility more difficult (as the spread from one level to the next higher becomes greater); (3) and it can hurt the poor through what economist Robert Frank has called "expenditure cascades" (in which high expenditures by the wealthy raise the bar for what modest-income people must pay -- and not through mere envy, but because those expenditures become part of society's expectations).
It's hard to respond to RIck's post because the WSJ article is only available to paying subscribers.
Most bishops have resisted calls to excommunicate [abortion-rights-supporting] politicians or even to impose lesser sanctions, including denying them Communion. The very idea of these actions appalls most liberals, both inside and outside the Church. They consider ecclesiastical punishment undemocratic, an attack on personal conscience and a violation of the separation of church and state. "I believe the church has a role in guiding parishioners and people in public life, but I don't believe the Church should be using the sacrament of Communion as a political weapon," Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D., Conn.), a pro-choice Catholic, recently told the Connecticut Post.
Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY) is leading the charge to undo the so-called "Mexico City policy," which prevents taxpayer funds from going to groups that do abortions or lobby other nations to overturn their anti-abortion laws.
And, pro-abortion-rights representatives in Congress, including Sen. Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Rep. Maloney (D-NY) have introduced legislation that would require objecting pharmacists to dispense the morning-after pill, or face very heavy fines.
