COMMONWEAL
December 1, 2006
Stay the Course?
The Editors
Meeting last month in Baltimore, the United
States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) issued a number of
statements, including guidelines for the pastoral care of “persons with
a homosexual inclination” and an instruction-titled “Happy Are Those
Who Are Called to His Supper”-on who should or shouldn’t receive
Communion.
Overshadowed in the media reaction to the
guidelines and the bishops’ “hard saying” about Communion was Bishop
William S. Skylstad’s “Call for Dialogue and Action on Responsible
Transition in Iraq.” Skylstad is president of the USCCB and his
statement on the war has much to recommend it. Dismissing the idea that
there are only two options in Iraq, either “cut and run” or “stay the
course,” Skylstad pleads for a “collaborative dialogue that honestly
assesses the situation, acknowledges past difficulties and
miscalculations, recognizes and builds on positive advances.”
These are sensible recommendations, necessary
steps in bringing about a responsible resolution to a tragic and
untenable situation. The USCCB would do well to adopt just as sensible
a policy in confronting the laity’s doubts about church teaching on the
meaning of human sexuality. For instance, 95 percent of married
Catholics do not find the teaching on contraception persuasive. And how
do the bishops respond? “Stay the course or get out of the Communion
line” might be a rough paraphrase of the USCCB statements.
Homosexuality is not a sin, write the bishops further, but engaging in
homosexual acts is. Increasingly, Catholics find this distinction hard
to square with what they know about homosexual persons. The bishops’
response? “Stay the course or get out of the Communion line.”
It is especially disappointing that before
issuing their statements, the bishops didn’t bother to listen in any
systematic way to either homosexual or married Catholics. If one’s
syllogisms are all in order, why bother talking with people who possess
such “inclinations,” or who have tried to reconcile the church’s
teachings with actual marital life? Instead, the bishops stumbled on
the brilliant strategy of reminding the faithful that in the church’s
view, resorting to contraception and engaging in homosexual acts are
equally “disordered.” Evidently, the bishops believe that equating
homosexual acts with a sexual “sin” committed by 95 percent of married
Catholics makes their pastoral guidelines “welcoming” to homosexual
persons.
Echoing John Paul II’s idiosyncratic
“theology of the body,” the USCCB’s statement on “Married Love and the
Gift of Life” argues that the use of contraception introduces “a false
note” into the spousal sexual relationship. By such acts, the bishops
explain, you begin to make yourself “into the kind of person who lies.”
When fertility is “suppressed”-rather than merely outwitted through the
diagnostic calculations of Natural Family Planning (NFP)-the sexual act
becomes “something less powerful and intimate, something more
‘casual.’” Married Catholics may be surprised to learn they are
inveterate liars obsessed with having “casual” sex. What is not
surprising is how unconvincing the argument for NFP remains. Why is it
morally permissible to avoid pregnancy by using NFP, but “disordered”
and an “intrinsic evil” to act on the same intention using a different
contraceptive method? When the bishops can explain that, perhaps
Catholics will resume listening to what they have to say about marital
love.
Some outspoken conservative Catholics argue
that it was the failure of the bishops to strongly affirm Humanae
vitae, and not the teaching itself, that explains the encyclical’s
rejection by the laity. Will the condemnation of contraception now be
vigorously preached from the pulpit? If so, the effect may be the
opposite of what is hoped for. Telling married Catholics that their
sexual lives are seriously “disordered” will likely only increase their
doubts about the church’s understanding of sexuality, while
strengthening the growing moral solidarity felt between heterosexual
and homosexual Catholics. Ironically, perhaps that is what the Holy
Spirit has been up to at the USCCB. As the saying goes, God writes
straight with crooked lines.
The point is that when “stay the course” and
“cut and run” are the only alternatives in the battle over human
sexuality, too many Catholics will opt for the latter. Just as Iraq
requires, in Bishop Skylstad’s formulation, an honest collaborative
dialogue-one that “assesses the situation, acknowledges past
difficulties and miscalculations...and builds on positive advances”-so
too is such a dialogue desperately needed between the laity and the
bishops concerning the church’s teachings on sexual morality. The
current situation, to adapt Skylstad’s words again, is indeed “taking a
terrible toll,” and “moral urgency, substantive dialogue, and new
directions” must be found. While “stay the course” is not an option,
“cut and run” cannot become the default position. What Catholicism has
to teach us about the meaning of sexuality should not be reduced to NFP.
Professor Robert Miller has some thoughts here, at the First Things blog, in response to Pope Benedict XVI's recent remarks on global development:
Speaking about the many people in the world who go hungry, Pope Benedict XVI says that we need “to eliminate the structural causes linked to the system of government of the world economy, which allocates the greater part of the planet’s resources to a minority of the population.” (See the ZENIT Daily Dispatch for November 12, 2006.)
In focusing on the allocation of goods, however, Benedict misdiagnoses the problem, which really concerns economic growth. Like most non-economists, he speaks as if the world’s stock of goods and services were fixed, the only issue being how properly to distribute them. In fact, the total amount of goods and services in the world has been increasing very rapidly for a long time. . . .
It is thus true, as Benedict says, that the greater part of the planet’s resources is enjoyed by a minority of the population, but this is because the greater part of those resources is produced by that same minority of the population. The world economy is not rigged in favor of the rich nations. South Korea did not get rich, and Zimbabwe did not stay poor, because the captains of industry and the Wall Street bankers met in a smoke-filled room and decided that they loved South Korea but hated Zimbabwe. The South Koreans got rich because they earned their riches and continue to do so, year in and year out. Zimbabweans are poor because they produce little—and less now than twenty years ago. People who produce wealth naturally think they are entitled to keep most of it for themselves and their children. I don’t dispute that such people ought to give away more of what they have, but we should be clear that they have this wealth in the first place because they are producing it themselves, not wrongfully taking it away from others.
When some people are producing a tremendous amount of wealth and others are producing little, it is fine, as a stopgap measure, to tell those producing much that they should share what they produce with those producing little. The immediate needs of the poor must be met. But any permanent solution to the problem requires that those producing little start producing more. The conditions needed to generate sustained economic growth are well known: political stability, transparent and just government, respect for the rule of law, strong property rights, free trade, free flows of capital, disciplined monetary policy, and an educated and hard-working population. Most people in the poor nations are willing to work hard, but the other conditions for economic growth rarely obtain in such nations. This is the fault, primarily, of their leaders—sometimes, it is true, aided and abetted by the governments of developed countries—who have largely prevented the emergence of the other factors needed for sustained growth. The tyranny of Zimbabwe’s Mugabe is a particularly spectacular example, but the conditions for economic growth are fragile, and pathological political, legal and economic regimes nowhere near as bad as his are quite sufficient to stifle economic growth.
In our fallen condition, such problems may be intractable. After all, we have it on good authority that we shall always have the poor with us. Still, we have to try to help when we can, and doing so begins with understanding clearly why the poor nations are poor. The problem is one of production, not distribution. Pretending otherwise only makes the problem harder to solve by obscuring its true nature.
In this post, and in this article, Professor Jack Balkin proposes and fleshes out the argument that we should think in terms of two abortion rights, not one:
The first right to abortion is a woman's right not to be forced by the state to bear children at risk to her life or health. The second right is a woman's right not to be forced by the state to become a mother and thus to take on the responsibilities of parenthood, which, in our society are far more burdensome for women than for men. Although the first right to abortion continues throughout pregnancy, the second right need not. It only requires that women have a reasonable time to decide whether or not to become mothers and a fair and realistic opportunity to make that choice. . . .
The state's interest in protecting unborn life is most compelling in the later stages of pregnancy. But letting states vindicate this interest when it is strongest is not necessarily inconsistent with the second right to abortion. When a woman's health and life are not at risk, the second right requires that women have a right to a fair and realistic opportunity to choose whether or not to become a mother, and in most cases this choice can usually be made in the earlier stages of a pregnancy. . . .
There's a lot more (about, among other things, the "discourse shaping" character of his approach). Take a look. For my own part, two quick thoughts: First, it seems that Balkin's handling of the "first" abortion right does not say enough about what he means by "health." Does he mean to say -- and, his discussion of self-defense might suggest that he does -- that the first abortion right is not timebound because women always have a right not to be forced to bear children at the risk to her life or physical health? Or, would he incorporate into his first right the much more expansive understanding of "health" that seems to be at work in the Court's cases?
Second, I wonder if the discussion, or the analysis, change if, instead of asking when the interest of the state in protecting fetal life justifies limiting the exercise of the "second" abortion right, we ask instead about the point at which the moral claims of the unborn child -- his or her own moral claims, and not just the interests of the "state" -- justify such limits?
In recent months, Andrew Sullivan has been flogging to death his favorite new epithet, "Christianist." Here is an interesting post, from The American Scene, on "Christianism" and Christian Democracy. (The latter movement / tradition was discussed on MOJ recently, here and here.)
In this Weekly Standard essay, "Putting Parents First," Yuval Levin outlines a "new domestic policy approach for conservatives":
American conservatives have worked politically in recent decades to advance two sets of goods: the family and the market. They have advocated traditional values that sustain cultural vitality, and economic freedom that brings material prosperity. These two sets of ideals are mutually reinforcing to an extent. The market relies on a stable and orderly society made possible by sturdy families and strong social institutions; and freedom from unduly coercive authority is an essential prerequisite for making moral choices.
But markets and families are also in tension with one another. The market values risk-taking and creative destruction that can be very bad for family life, and rewards the lowest common cultural denominator in ways that can undermine traditional morality. Traditional values, on the other hand, discourage the spirit of competition and self-interested ambition essential for free markets to work, and their adherents sometimes seek to enforce codes of conduct that constrain individual freedom. The libertarian and the traditionalist are not natural allies. . .
The tension between family and market is a source of unease for American families, and has often been a source of friction in the conservative movement. But the present moment offers an opportunity to turn that tension into a font of energy for conservatives, and to turn the conservative movement into the long-term home of the parenting class.
In this effort, there is a role for government. The conservative insight that government power is inherently corrosive of the roots of self reliance must not be forgotten, and surely remains true. But it must also not be turned into a case against all uses of public policy for public ends. Some balance must be found, so that limited government can be turned to positive purposes, and there is no better way to seek that balance than keeping in mind the two competing but complementary goals of strong families and free markets, while also keeping in mind the interests of the parenting class. Looking toward the 2008 election and beyond, conservatives confront a tremendous opportunity, if we are ready to seize it.
Yesterday on the First Things blog Wesley Smith posted a striking comparison of two ways of looking at the life of a child with Down Syndrome -- that of an actual parent loving such a child (Simon Barnes, chief sports writer for the London Times) and that of Peter Singer. Smith closes his remarks with the powerful claim that, "The choice we make about these contrasting paths will determine whether we remain a moral society committed to the pursuit of universal human rights."
Because I can't figure out how to link directly to Smith's comments (and because they are so wonderful) I'm pasting them below. I also encourage you to read Barnes' whole article.
November 28, 2006
Wesley J. Smith writes:
Like Fr. Neuhaus, I too was taken with the article “I’m Not a Saint, Just a Parent” by Simon Barnes in the Times of London. It recalled to my mind a speech I gave several years ago to a medical school in which I urged the students to always look at their patients through the lens of universal moral equality.
After the speech, an earnest young man approached me. “I am a genetic counselor,” he said. “What am I supposed to do when I meet with a woman carrying a baby with Down syndrome? I mean, I have to counsel her.” I suggested that perhaps he could bring in parents who have actually lived the experience of parenting a child with Down to keep the “counseling” from becoming a one-way street.
Barnes’ loving tribute to parenting a Down child is precisely the kind of input that I had hoped the earnest young genetic counselor could provide to his clients. Five-year-old Eddie has Down syndrome, and Barnes reports that he “is not to be pitied” for having to father a disabled child “but to be envied.”
Here are three key paragraphs from Barnes piece:
By the way, I hope you are not too squeamish. This piece is not going to pull any punches. If you find the idea of love uncomfortable or sentimental or best-not-talked-about or existing only in the midst of a passionate love affair, then you will find problems with what I am writing. I am writing of love not as a matter of grand passions, or as high-falutin’ idealism, or as religion. I am writing about love as the stuff that makes the processes of human life happen: the love that moves the sun and other stars, which is also the love that makes the toast and other snacks. Love is the most humdrum thing in life, the only thing that matters, the thing that is forever beyond the reach of human imagination. . . .
What is it like to have Down’s [sic] syndrome? How terrible is it? Is it terrible at all? It depends, I suppose, on how well loved you are. Like most other conditions of life. Would I want Eddie changed? It’s a silly question but it gets to the heart of the matter. Of course you’d want certain physical things changed: the narrow tubes that lead to breathing problems, for example. But that’s not the same as “changed,” is it? If you are a parent, would you like the essential nature of your child changed? If you were told that pressing a button would turn him into an infant Mozart or Einstein or van Gogh, would you press it? Or would you refuse because you love the person who is there and real, not some hypothetical other?
I can’t say I’m glad that Eddie has Down’s syndrome, or that I would wish him to suffer in order to charm me and fill me with giggles. But no, I don’t want his essential nature changed. Good God, what a thought. It would be as much a denial of myself as a denial of my son. What’s the good of him, then? Buggered if I know. The never-disputed terribleness of Down’s syndrome is used as one of the great justifications for abortion: abortion has to exist so that we don’t people the world with monsters. I am not here to talk about abortion—but I am here to tell you that Down’s syndrome is not an insupportable horror for either the sufferer or the parents. I’ll go further: human beings are not better off without Down’s syndrome.
By contrast, let us now consider Peter Singer’s harshly sterile views about the options parents should have if faced with a Down baby. One acceptable answer, Singer asserts in Rethinking Life and Death, is establishing the right of parents to have their unwanted Down child killed if they would prefer not to raise a disabled child:
To have a child with Down syndrome is to have a different experience from having a normal child. It can still be a warm and loving experience, but we must have lowered expectations of our child’s abilities. We cannot expect a child with Down syndrome to play the guitar, to develop an appreciation of science fiction, to learn a foreign language, to chat with us about the latest Woody Allen movie, or to be a respectable athlete, basketballer or tennis player. Even when an adult, a person with Down syndrome may not be able to live independently. . . . For some parents, none of this matters. They find bringing up a child with Down syndrome a rewarding experience in a thousand different ways. But for other parents, it is devastating.
Both for the sake of “our children,” then, and our own sake, we may not want a child to start on life’s uncertain voyage if the prospects are clouded. When this can be known at a very early stage of the voyage we may still have a chance to make a fresh start. This means detaching ourselves from the infant who has been born, cutting ourselves free before the ties that have already begun to bind us to our child have become irresistible. Instead of going forward and putting all our efforts into making the best of the situation, we can still say no, and start again from the beginning.
What a stark difference between the attitudes of these two men toward the weakest and most vulnerable among us, a difference that can be described literally as the distinction between loving and killing. And indeed, for those familiar with Singer’s writing, it is striking how often he writes of satisfying personal desires and how rarely he writes of sacrifice and love. Which, when you think about it, provides vivid clarity about the stakes we face in the ongoing contest for societal dominance between the sanctity/equality of life ethic and Singer’s proposed “quality of life” ethic: The former opens the door to the potential for unconditional love, while the latter presumes the power to coolly dismiss some of us from life based on defective workmanship. The choice we make about these contrasting paths will determine whether we remain a moral society committed to the pursuit of universal human rights.
Lisa
John Finnis has posted his new paper, Religion and State: Some Main Issues and Sources. Here is the abstract:
Public reason's default position is not atheism or agnosticism about the dependence of everything on a transcendent Creator. On the contrary, there is good reason to judge that there is such a transcendent cause, capable of communicating with intelligent creatures, that one of the world's religions may be essentially true and others substantially truer than atheism, and that there is a human or natural right to immunity from coercion in religious inquiry, belief (or unbelief, precisely as such), and practice so far as is compatible with public order, that is with the rights of others, public peace and public morality. Contrary to the arguments of legal theorists such as Dworkin, Eisgruber and Sager, and the "mystery" passage in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the right to religious freedom should not be regarded as a mere instance of a general right to choose one's lifestyle and ethical beliefs or passionate choices. At the same time, any religious beliefs or practices which deny or overlook that right to religious liberty, and which encourage or license intimidation in relation to religious belief or in the name of religion, are not immune from coercive defensive measures where necessary for the protection of the rights of others or of the other aspects of public order. Such measures discriminate amongst religions justifiably.
