Monday, May 14, 2007
From the anti-illegal-immigration commentator at CNN:
The separation of church and state in this country is narrowing. And it is the church, not the state that is encroaching. Our Constitution protects religion from the intrusion or coercion of the state. But we have precious little protection against the political adventurism of all manner of churches and religious organizations.
The leadership of the Catholic Church and many Protestant churches, as well as Jewish and even Muslim religious organizations, are driving that political adventurism as those leaders conflate religion and politics. And while there is a narrowing of the separation between church and state, there is a widening schism between the leadership of churches and religious organizations and their followers and members. . . .
This week the head of the Los Angeles Archdiocese, Cardinal Roger Mahoney, basically threatened his faithful with denial of heaven if they don't support amnesty for illegal aliens. The good Cardinal said: "Anything that tears down one group of people or one person, anything that is a negative in our community, disqualifies us from being part of the eternal city."
The nation's religious leaders seem hell-bent on ignoring the separation of church and state when it comes to the politically charged issue of illegal immigration. A new coalition called Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform Wednesday will begin lobbying lawmakers with a new advertising and direct mail campaign on behalf of amnesty for illegal aliens.
Dobbs thus joins the long line of political debaters -- abortion-rights advocates, gay-rights advocates, segregationists during the 1960s -- who have tried to disqualify their opponents' religiously grounded values by invoking the separation of church and state.
Perhaps anticipating the familiar (unanswerable) argument that people's religious values can and do play a role in democratic political debate, Dobbs shifts to theology, quoting Romans 13 on the duty to submit to the governing authorities, who are ordained by God. This would make a prima facie theological case against Christians who join the illegal-alien-sanctuary movement or otherwise break or help break the immigration laws (although one would still have to deal with the claims for civil disobedience against fundamentally unjust laws). But it's not much of a case, is it, against those who petition the governing authorities to enact a law granting amnesty? That's working with the system, not rebelling against it. True, amnesty would be a law granting forgiveness from previous law violations (under certain conditions), but if the governing authorities could never take any such action we wouldn't have bankruptcy laws, truth and reconciliation commissions, executive pardons, and probably several other features of legal systems that don't come to my mind offhand. The advisability of granting amnesty in the context of immigration reform is a legitimate matter for debate, as is the question whether bishops and other clergy have accurately interpreted their traditions in pushing for it as a legislative priority. But Romans 13 and the separation of church and state are both beside the point.
Tom
Finally! I was wondering when she was going to weigh in . . .
Why I won't stay silent anymore
By upholding the ban on "partial-birth" abortion, the Supreme Court has injected rigid Catholic teaching into law. That's a crime against the Constitution and women.
By Frances Kissling
. . . Kennedy's opinion, which affirms "the government's right to use its voice and its regulatory authority to show its profound respect for the life within the woman" as it cavalierly dismisses the need a few specific women might have for this procedure, could easily have been written by the late Pope John Paul II or the current Benedict XVI. Women are invisible in this decision as they are invisible in the writings of recent -- and not so recent -- popes. Now it's impossible for me to remain silent. . . .
On the "invisibility" question, perhaps Ms. Kissling needs to read the works of, say, Professors Stabile and Schiltz!
"Says priest."
The priest of the Manhattan church where Rudy Giuliani had his second wedding says he would deny the presidential contender Holy Communion because of his public support for abortion.
"Because he publicly is against church teaching, the answer would be no" if Giuliani requested the sacrament, said Msgr. Thomas Modugno. . . .
Betty O'Connor, 76, of Florham Park, N.J., said abortion is too difficult for her to accept. "I love Giuliani, but that's what's holding me back on him," she said. "I don't like to see all those little babies die."
But Cornelius Stapleton, 60, a parishioner at Our Lady Queen Mary's Catholic Church in Forest Hills, Queens, was squarely behind the mayor.
"I don't support abortion but I'd vote for Giuliani tomorrow morning - twice or three times, if I could," he said.
I very much appreciate the further comments from Karen Stohr, Tom Berg, and Father Araujo. I am not sure I have a lot to add. I do think that Karen makes a good point about drawing a distinction between Catholic and non-Catholic speakers. While I think it would be inappropriate for a Catholic university to give an honorary degree to the Governor of Michigan (Jennifer Granholm), who stated that she was 100% pro-choice the last time she ran for office, it would make it make it worse in my mind if a Catholic university did so because she is prominently identified as a Catholic.
I think there are a range of cases here. We mentioned this a bit last Spring with regard to Condoleezza Rice. The opposition to her focused on her position on the war. I mentioned that critics might also have cited her mildly pro-choice views. I think one could argue that since her views on abortion had not been a part of her public responsibilities that it would be appropriate not to disqualify her on these grounds alone. I guess one could think about other cases when the speaker's identification with (and role in implementing) a position that is in conflict with Church teaching might be more or less clear. People seem to agree that it would not be appropriate to honor someone such as Kate Michelman even if she were being honored for her work on a worthy cause (e.g., breast cancer awareness). Other cases might be tougher. What about honoring (by inviting the person to give a conference keynote speech) the head of the ACLU who would speak on free speech. The connection of the ACLU with the abortion rights perspective would in my mind make this choice inadvisable. I suppose it's better to look at concrete examples because I am not sure that I've thought about this enough to know whether it is possible to come up with a set of principles in advance.
With regard to candidates, I don't have a problem with debates or with something close to a debate (a series of talks by candidates). There may be some risks with this though because I think candidates sometimes use their Catholic identity when it is clear they don't share the Church's moral beliefs. So, a Catholic candidate for Governor might emphasize her role as a Eucharistic minister at her parish or feature in her campaign literature a talk she gave to a local Catholic high school. I don't think a Catholic institution ought to be wary about being used by the politician.
Maybe, as Father Araujo suggests, Catholic schools shouldn't be so eager to have the "benefits" of having speakers in lofty positions (presidents, governors, etc.).
Richard M.
This conference, "Pluralism, Politics, and God? An International Symposium on Religion and Public Reason", looks interesting. It's going to be at McGill University's Newman Center ("Centre") in September. Here's the blurb:
In his controversial Regensburg lecture, Pope Benedict XVI sought to re-frame the interaction of religious traditions on the principle that ‘not to act reasonably is contrary to the nature of God’. He also called on the universities, and on all partners in the dialogue of cultures, to rediscover this principle by engaging ‘the whole breadth of reason’ – appreciating its grandeur and repudiating reductionist approaches to reason.
This unabashedly hellenistic emphasis raises important questions about the relation between faith and reason, and about the role of religion in the exercise of public reason. Is religion necessary to sustain reason? Do different religions represent competing claims about reason and rationality as well as about revelation? Does religious diversity mean that public decision-making, even as regards moral or ethical matters or human rights, should seek to bracket the God-question? Or is that not possible without undermining the rational basis for deciding and acting?
Scholars from across North America and Europe will gather at McGill University to consider such questions, with presentations on a variety of related issues from Nicholas Adams (Edinburgh), Gregory Baum (McGill), Mark Cladis (Brown), Michael Ignatieff (formerly Harvard), George Smith II (Columbus School of Law), Janice Stein (Toronto), John Witte Jr. (Emory), and many others.
John Allen reports (here and here) on Pope Benedict's criticism of capitalism in Brazil. If the growing gap between rich and poor is considered a problem by Pope Benedict, does that mean that it should be considered a problem by Catholics? Or is this an example of the pope imprudently speaking about issues that are beyond his area of expertise?
Over the years, I've posted dozens of times about the nuances of subsidiarity. Apart from Patrick Brennan and a couple of corporate law types who think I'm talking about the regulation of subsidiaries, folks don't get too fired up. This weekend I've learned that the way to light up my inbox is to say something heretical about the sacrament of reconciliation. My question about the exclusivity of reconciliation as the certain path of God's forgiveness prompted a flurry of uniformly helpful (and charitable) responses, all of which concluded that my RCIA training was a bit off the mark. For those who need a refresher, John Paul II explained:
[F]or a Christian the sacrament of penance is the primary way of obtaining forgiveness and the remission of serious sin committed after baptism. Certainly the Savior and his salvific action are not so bound to a sacramental sign as to be unable in any period or area of the history of salvation to work outside and above the sacraments. But in the school of faith we learn that the same Savior desired and provided that the simple and precious sacraments of faith would ordinarily be the effective means through which his redemptive power passes and operates. It would therefore be foolish, as well as presumptuous, to wish arbitrarily to disregard the means of grace and salvation which the Lord has provided and, in the specific case, to claim to receive forgiveness while doing without the sacrament which was instituted by Christ precisely for forgiveness.
