In the current issue of America, I review a collection of essays entitled Christianity and the Soul of the University: Faith as a Foundation for Intellectual Community. As always, I welcome comments.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Christianity and the Soul of the University
Are Conservatives More Generous? [UPDATE]
A while back, we discussed Arthur Brooks' book, Who Really Cares?, in which Brooks claims to have found an increased tendency among "conservatives" to donate money to charities of all sorts and to volunteer. After offering some preliminary thoughts based on second-hand accounts of the book, I promised to read the book and post some thoughts. I'm working on a full review of the book, and so I don't want to spoil too much. But my read did answer a few of the questions I had based on the news accounts of the book's findings.
First, what do the numbers look like for religious liberals? Here's what Brooks says on page 50:
"Religious liberals bear a
resemblance to religious conservatives in their giving habits. They
are almost as likely to give (91%), but give away about 10% less money
than religious conservatives each year. On both these measures, they
greatly exceed population averages. They are about as likely to give
to secular causes as religious conservatives. Two-thirds volunteer
each year. They are a bit less likely than religious conservatives to
volunteer for religious causes, and a bit more likely to volunteer for
nonreligious causes."
Second, what does he say about secular conservatives?
"Like secular liberals, secular
conservatives are not civically involved, and when it comes to giving
and volunteering, secular conservatives are the least charitable group
of the four. . . . Secular conservatives behave less charitably than
others in informal ways. For example, they are less likely than
average to let someone in front of them in a line, to give up a seat on
the bus, to give a stranger directions, and to help a homeless person."
Third, does he take into account the differential spatial distribution for liberals and conservatives to account for different costs of living and tax burdens? Not that I could tell, and this may go some length towards explaining the differences between religious conservatives and religious liberals. He also rules out any consideration of taxation and government spending as an expression of generosity towards the poor for reasons I find dubious, but that he explains at length. I'll save this discussion for the book review.
So, the giving habits of religious liberals are pretty much the same as those of religious conservatives (maybe not quite as generous, but the differences are small, and liberals tend to live in more expensive places with higher taxes). Secular conservatives, on the other hand, are less generous and less likely to volunteer than practically everyone else, though, again, secular liberals give them a run for their money. It seems like the obvious conclusion to draw here is that religion is doing all the work. But after acknowledging that religious liberals act pretty much like religious conservatives and that secular conservatives act pretty much like secular liberals when it comes to charitable behavior, and after acknowledging that religious views are by far the strongest predictor he has of charitable behavior, he continues to argue throughout the book as if liberal economic positions CAUSE people to avoid charitable behavior while conservative economic positions CAUSE people to give to charity. Given the data he has about secular conservatives and religious liberals, this argument makes very little sense to me.
The book makes some very good points about the importance of charity as a virtue, points that resonate very nicely with Catholic thoughts on the same topic. But these observations are overshadowed, in my view, by his need to color his analysis primarily in liberal-conservative terms. I'm not sure whether this way of framing his findings was his choice or the choice of his publisher, Basic Books. I've looked at some of Brooks's academic writings, and they are far more measured in their tone and conclusions. I can understand that it sells many more books to say that conservatives are more charitable than it does to say that religious people are more charitable. But his own data just does not seem to support the point.
"The Taint of Association"
Rick asks whether Dean Kagan should have told the Harvard students protesting Ropes & Gray that lawyers must be free to provide zealous representation for all clients without the taint of association. I guess my answer depends on what we mean by "the taint of association." If the taint translates into the state trumpeting the lawyers' identities and encouraging the market to punish the lawyers for the sins of their clients, I agree that lawyers should operate taint-free. But if the question is whether there is a moral dimension to a lawyer's decision to represent one client rather than another, then the taint is inescapable.
I once declined a partner's "invitation" to work on a case defending a company that had defied even minimal standards of human dignity. The conduct was evil, and its only possible defense was the statute of limitations. I did not believe that working on the case would make me culpable for the underlying conduct, but rather culpable for devoting my time and talent to their cause. I represented many clients who had behaved badly (why else would they need my services?), but this, for me, was beyond the pale. Nevertheless, there were dozens of attorneys lined up behind me to take the case; rarely, in our legal services market, will the immorality of the client preclude representation. (The client's lack of money is another story, of course.) To paraphrase Bill Kunstler, everyone has a right to a lawyer, but they don't have a right to me.
More broadly, if the Catholic legal theory project has any bearing on the practice of law, doesn't there have to be some degree of moral accountability for the causes we take on? Pope John Paul II, for example, famously (and controversially) instructed that Catholic lawyers “must always decline the use of their profession for an end that is counter to justice, like divorce.” And if I should exercise moral agency in picking my clients, am I not equipped to exercise moral agency -- and to encourage others to exercise moral agency -- in picking my employer?
In this regard, I believe that the moral dimension of legal representation should be recognized in the marketplace. If I was interviewing at a law firm that had devoted all of its pro bono activities to challenging partial-birth abortion bans, would I think twice about whether the ideals of the firm match my own? Absolutely. Do I think it's a healthy sign of moral engagement when law students challenge a firm's decision to devote its resources to a particular client or cause? Absolutely. At the same time, do I think it's a threat to the marketplace when a government official takes on the role of moral arbiter, drumming up support for a boycott against lawyers taking on causes disfavored by the government? Absolutely.
Detainees and Catholic Charities
My friend Paul Horwitz blogged a few days ago about Cully Stimson's now-widely-discussed (and, so far as I can tell, universally rejected) complaints about law firms representing Guantanamo Bay detainees. Paul endorsed (as do I) the view that Stimson is off-base, and agrees with (as do I) Jonathan Adler's statement that "[a]ll individuals, even suspected terrorists, are entitled to a capable legal defense when subjected to legal process, and it is wrong to impugn attorneys on the basis of the clients they represent."
Now, a number of prominent law-school deans have weighed in, with this letter. The deans write:
We teach our students that lawyers have a professional obligation to ensure that even the most despised and unpopular individuals and groups receive zealous and effective legal representation. Our American legal tradition has honored lawyers who, despite their personal beliefs, have zealously represented mass murderers, suspected terrorists, and Nazi marchers. At this moment in time, when our courts have endorsed the right of the Guantanamo detainees to be heard in courts of law, it is critical that qualified lawyers provide effective representation to these individuals. By doing so, these lawyers protect not only the rights of the detainees, but also our shared constitutional principles. In a free and democratic society, government officials should not encourage intimidation of or retaliation against lawyers who are fulfilling their pro bono obligations.
To be clear, I agree entirely with this statement. I wonder, though, if a similar statement was warranted when some students at Harvard Law School protested against Ropes & Gray, during on-campus recruiting (according to this report), for its representation of Catholic Charities, which was at that time seeking an exemption from a non-discrimination law requirement that adoption agencies facilitate adoptions with same-sex couples?
Obviously, statements from government officials like Stimson raise concerns that student protests do not. Still, it strikes me that, "in a free and democratic society," the religious-freedom rights of those with unpopular religious views deserve and require "zealous and effective representation" no less than the rights of detainees. Consider this, from the Boston Globe:
''The words 'boycott-slash-picket' were thrown around," said Peter Renn, a third-year student and Lambda board member who said he had wanted to shame Ropes into ending its work on behalf of Catholic Charities and warn the firm that the issue could hurt recruiting at Harvard.
''Big firms like this are very concerned about public relations, and who in this game is maximally positioned to exert pressure on Ropes & Gray? It's law students," said Renn, who will clerk for a federal district court judge in California after he graduates. ''Attorneys at the firm are in a horrible position, because they don't want to get canned, so they can't say, 'How dare you take that case' and insist the firm withdraw."
In his Stimson post, Paul wrote, "One believes that people are entitled to legal counsel or one does not; one believes that lawyers are entitled to provide that counsel without the taint of association or one does not." Should Dean Kagan (who signed the law-deans' letter regarding Stimson) have made a similar point to Harvard's students?
Troubles in Poland (Martin Marty)
Sightings 1/15/07
Troubles in
Poland
-- Martin E. Marty
Names like Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski, Stanislaw Wielgus, Andrzej Zybertowicz, Stefan Wyszynski, Andrzej Paczkowski, Konrad Stanislaw Hejmo, Michal Czajkowski, Stanislaw Dziwisz, and Janusz Bielanski are likely to become household, or at least church-hold, words in the days ahead. Add to them up to thirty-nine more priestly names to be revealed in a forthcoming book by Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski. Virtually all of the names have titles before them: "Reverend," "Father," "Bishop," "Archbishop," and "Cardinal." Because no sexual and probably no financial scandal is associated with them, they may escape being pursued by paparazzi or featured in the tabloid press. In their homeland of Poland, however, the "crisis" -- the Polish church's name for it -- that they have occasioned is more profound and more troubling than sexual and fiscal matters could be. The public resents churchly non-disclosure most.
If their stories of Communist collaboration, more and more of them corroborated by others or confessed by themselves, prove true, what they have done touches the very heart of the soul, or the soul of the heart, of Polish Catholicism, and thus of Poland. Throw in "and of European Catholicism" or "Pope Benedict" or "Catholicism." This is the case because Polish church resistance, or at least creative foot-dragging in the face of Communist repression, suppression, and oppression, was seen to be so massive, consistent, heroic, and effective that it made for one of the great stories celebrating the triumph of the human spirit in the century past.
These collaborations may not have always produced direct damage. Many say they hurt no one personally by their cooperation with secret police. Indirectly, however, they hurt every Catholic and no doubt every Pole who loved freedom and hated the oppressor. They are not alone. (We) Lutherans are not proud of East German clerics who cooperated even minimally with the hated Stasi, their secret police. It is likely that in almost all cases of totalitarian inflictions some who are weak, or who find it convenient, play along. So they did in Hitler's Germany, on a scale that still is haunting. Recovery, if any, is slow.
Decades ago, when describing the way Christianity is "moving south" globally, I would orally present a map. "Starting west of Poland, crossing Western Europe and the British Isles (except for Ireland), Canada, and the northern United States into Japan is the 'spiritual ice-belt' where many people live who are so remote from church life that they cannot even imagine why Africa, Latin America, and Asia are so religious and 'churchy.'" Later I had to cross off Ireland, as its Catholics increasingly deserted church participation as they reacted to scandal and found salvation in materialist goals. Now church participation in Poland declines precipitously, and this collaborationist scandal will hurt.
In the United States a few books by atheists sell well but probably drive few from the pews and, maybe even against the wills of their authors, lure some people to faith. Pope Benedict XVI has it more or less right when he talks about secularization in the form of desertion of the European churches. That's a less dramatic but more undercutting mode of reducing the sphere of active Christians than atheism ever could be.
References:
The article "In Poland, New Wave of Charges Against Clerics" by Craig S. Smith (New York Times, January 10, 2007) can be read here:
-- Martin E. Marty
Names like Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski, Stanislaw Wielgus, Andrzej Zybertowicz, Stefan Wyszynski, Andrzej Paczkowski, Konrad Stanislaw Hejmo, Michal Czajkowski, Stanislaw Dziwisz, and Janusz Bielanski are likely to become household, or at least church-hold, words in the days ahead. Add to them up to thirty-nine more priestly names to be revealed in a forthcoming book by Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski. Virtually all of the names have titles before them: "Reverend," "Father," "Bishop," "Archbishop," and "Cardinal." Because no sexual and probably no financial scandal is associated with them, they may escape being pursued by paparazzi or featured in the tabloid press. In their homeland of Poland, however, the "crisis" -- the Polish church's name for it -- that they have occasioned is more profound and more troubling than sexual and fiscal matters could be. The public resents churchly non-disclosure most.
If their stories of Communist collaboration, more and more of them corroborated by others or confessed by themselves, prove true, what they have done touches the very heart of the soul, or the soul of the heart, of Polish Catholicism, and thus of Poland. Throw in "and of European Catholicism" or "Pope Benedict" or "Catholicism." This is the case because Polish church resistance, or at least creative foot-dragging in the face of Communist repression, suppression, and oppression, was seen to be so massive, consistent, heroic, and effective that it made for one of the great stories celebrating the triumph of the human spirit in the century past.
These collaborations may not have always produced direct damage. Many say they hurt no one personally by their cooperation with secret police. Indirectly, however, they hurt every Catholic and no doubt every Pole who loved freedom and hated the oppressor. They are not alone. (We) Lutherans are not proud of East German clerics who cooperated even minimally with the hated Stasi, their secret police. It is likely that in almost all cases of totalitarian inflictions some who are weak, or who find it convenient, play along. So they did in Hitler's Germany, on a scale that still is haunting. Recovery, if any, is slow.
Decades ago, when describing the way Christianity is "moving south" globally, I would orally present a map. "Starting west of Poland, crossing Western Europe and the British Isles (except for Ireland), Canada, and the northern United States into Japan is the 'spiritual ice-belt' where many people live who are so remote from church life that they cannot even imagine why Africa, Latin America, and Asia are so religious and 'churchy.'" Later I had to cross off Ireland, as its Catholics increasingly deserted church participation as they reacted to scandal and found salvation in materialist goals. Now church participation in Poland declines precipitously, and this collaborationist scandal will hurt.
In the United States a few books by atheists sell well but probably drive few from the pews and, maybe even against the wills of their authors, lure some people to faith. Pope Benedict XVI has it more or less right when he talks about secularization in the form of desertion of the European churches. That's a less dramatic but more undercutting mode of reducing the sphere of active Christians than atheism ever could be.
References:
The article "In Poland, New Wave of Charges Against Clerics" by Craig S. Smith (New York Times, January 10, 2007) can be read here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/10/world/europe/10poland.html?_r=2&th&emc=th&oref=slogin&oref=slogin.
----------
Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the
University of Chicago Divinity School.
Monday, January 15, 2007
Thermostat or Thermometer?
Relevant to today's holiday is this, taken from a 1965 interview with Dr. King:
[T]he most pervasive mistake I have made was in believing that because our cause was just, we could be sure that the white ministers of the South, once their Christian consciences were challenged, would rise to our aid.... The projection of a social gospel, in my opinion, is the true witness of a Christian life.... The church once changed society. It was then a thermostat of society. But today I feel that too much of the church is merely a thermometer, which measures rather than molds popular opinion.
(Thanks to Professor Friedman.)
The Problem of Authority
A central problem in jurisprudence -- and, therefore, and important challenge for Catholic Legal Theory -- is that of Authority. That said, here is an interesting post, by Rod Dreher -- inspired by the current situation in Poland -- about the problem of Authority. A bit:
chris kaczor on ectopic pregnancy
Chris Kaczor (Loyola Marymount) has written a paper entitled "Ectopic Pregnancy and the Catholic Hospital" that he will present at a meeting of the US Bishops in February. I am sure that he'd send a copy to anyone who is interested. He can be reached at [email protected] or [email protected].
In this paper, Chris considers the various treatment options and concludes that salpingostomy and methotrexate may both be used by Catholic hospitals since the underlying moral issues have not yet been definitively resolved.
Richard M.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
The GOP and the Risen Christ
[From today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution:]
Quoth John Podoretz, National Review Online: "If tonight's speech doesn't herald the beginning of a serious turnaround in Iraq that is plain to see by spring of next year, the Risen Christ could be the Republican nominee in 2008 and He wouldn't be able to win against Al Sharpton." Replied a reader on Andrew Sullivan's Time.com blog: "The premise is ridiculous. The Risen Christ would never make it through the GOP primary."
Prenatal testing
In this op-ed, "What's Lost in Prenatal Testing," Patricia Bauer writes:
What's gone undiscussed in the news coverage of the guidelines seems to be a general assumption that reasonable people would want to screen for Down syndrome. And since nothing can be done to mitigate the effects of an extra 21st chromosome in utero, the further assumption is that people would be reasonable to terminate pregnancies that are so diagnosed.
Certainly, these recommendations will have the effect of accelerating a weeding out of fetuses with Down syndrome that is well underway. There's an estimated 85 to 90 percent termination rate among prenatally diagnosed cases of Down syndrome in this country. With universal screening, the number of terminations will rise. Early screening will allow people to terminate earlier in their pregnancies when it's safer and when their medical status may be unapparent to friends and colleagues.
I understand that some people very much want this, but I have to ask: Why? Among the reasons, I believe, is a fundamental societal misperception that the lives of people with intellectual disabilities have no value -- that less able somehow equates to less worthy. Like the woman in the park, we're assigning one trait more importance than all the others and making critical decisions based on that judgment.
In so doing, we're causing a broad social effect. We're embarking on the elimination of an entire class of people who have a history of oppression, discrimination and exclusion.
Much of what people think they know about intellectual disabilities is inaccurate and remains rooted in stigma and opinions that were formed when institutionalization was routine. In fact, this wave of terminations and recommendations comes as people with Down syndrome and other intellectual disabilities are better educated and leading longer, healthier and more productive lives than ever.
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