Mark is a great dean, and so I'm not surprised at all by his charitable and irenic post, in which -- responding to my thoughts about Cathy Kaveny's "Perfect Storm" essay -- he cheers the fact that MOJ-friend and veteran Paolo Carozza and I agree with Kaveny that "[o]ur important task [in Catholic universities] . . . is building capacity for critical engagement with culture, which is what Cathy is challenging us to do."
For my own part, I am very pleased (and not surprised) that Mark appears to agree with Paolo and me that "meaningful 'engagement' . . . is not possible absent a commitment to distinctive Catholic identity and sound formation and education in the faith. That is, [a] focus on [a university's Catholic] identity is not in the service of moralism, or sectarian separation, but is precisely on the conditions for meaningful engagement." In other words, talk about "engagement" with the culture as the mission of a Catholic university -- as opposed to the mission of a few experts in things Catholic who work at universities -- is not likely to get us very far, absent a focus on what Mark calls "capacities", or on what I called the "conditions," for meaningful engagement. These conditions, again, will necessarily include a Catholic faculty -- not just some faculty trained in the "Catholic intellectual tradition," but Catholic engineers, chemists, accountants, and business-law scholars who serve as Catholic role models, mentors, parents, and friends. These conditions include also a shared commitment to the university's Catholic identity -- not in a narrow, sectarian, fearful, or moralistic sense, but in the sense of knowing what we are called to be -- and to the formation in the faith of students. And, of course, a deep sense of the Catholic university's place in "the heart of the Church" -- as well as in the "current of engagement" -- is essential.
In John Cavadini's excellent open letter, he warned that the "Catholic university" project cannot be reduced to providing a platform for select faculty, trained in a disembodied "Catholic intellectual tradition," who are interested in engaging or conversing with "the culture." The point of a Catholic university, in other words, is not merely to be the home base for a few gnostic priests and priestesses. Cavadini puts it well:
The ancient Gnostic heresy developed an elitist intellectual tradition which eschewed connection to the "fleshly" church of the bishop and devalued or spiritualized the sacraments. Are we in danger of developing a gnosticized version of the "Catholic intellectual tradition," one which floats free of any norming connection and so free of any concrete claim to Catholic identity?
Any understanding of a Catholic university (or, for that matter, a law school) that is worthy of the description has to include an account of the moral, spiritual, and intellectual formation of students, and of the way the university serves and participates in the Body of Christ -- in Cavadini's words, the "real, incarnate Body of Christ, the Church as it is with all its blemishes and not the abstract, idealized Church in our minds - is the lifeblood and only guarantee of our identity as a Catholic university. There is no Catholic identity apart from affiliation with the Church. Appeal to 'the Catholic intellectual tradition' apart from some explicit relationship to the Church risks reducing the tradition itself to an abstraction."
Were I a member of the faculty at Boston College, I would applaud Professors Himes and Hollenbach for voicing an objection to an award of an honorary degree by Boston College at its commencement to a public official whose positions on public policy they sincerely believe to contradict fundamental Catholic values. And then, having welcomed the initiation of a conversation, I would argue on the merits that the proposed university recognition of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice nonetheless was appropriate.
Let me explain: First, I would appreciate the reminder by members of the faculty that a Catholic institution ought to behave in a manner consistent with its Catholic character. Second, I would encourage our educational community to regularly engage in dialogue about the Catholic mission of the institution. And, third, if I were a participant in that particular debate, I would submit that Secretary Rice’s support of the use of force in Iraq to remove a dangerous regime with a horrific human rights record constituted a legitimate and reasonable, even if mistaken, exercise of prudential judgment. In her message posted recently, my colleague Elizabeth Brown passionately and appropriately insists that the merits of this question—the propriety of extending an honor at a Catholic institution to Secretary Rice—not be side-stepped. I agree with my colleague on the importance of such an examination, although I do not arrive at the same answer. But even should my view of the merits of the honor not prevail, I still would regard the precedent of an affirmative institutional commitment to uphold Catholic values as an important victory.
In other words, whether at Boston College, at my own institution (the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota), or at another Catholic institution of higher education, I regard the sincere and persistent asking of mission-focused questions—e.g., how should this Catholic college or university uphold Catholic values and how should the distinct Catholic identity of this institution be invigorated—as being of greater importance than how the questions are answered on each occasion. Moreover, I expect the discussion that follows the asking of such questions to be enlightening to us all and to manifest diversity within the Catholic community about how basic and sometimes abstract principles of Catholic social teaching are to be applied to particular and often complex situations to arrive at an acceptable range of answers.
As we pursue this vital exploration of Catholic identity, I expect that we often will arrive at an institutional approach that respects faithful difference, humbly concluding that reasonable people of good faith are not of a single mind as to the implications of Catholic teaching. Whether we are considering issues of academic direction or matters of public controversy, we will find that analysis of many, even most, questions involves prudential judgment that must be guided by fundamental moral principles, but upon which persons of good will and common faith reasonably may differ. On a few occasions, despite sincere disagreement, we may be faced with an unavoidable choice, where tolerant non-action is not possible or is not advisable, thus requiring us simply to do the best we can, if imperfectly, to affirm Catholic character. And on still other occasions, we will be obliged to uphold fundamental Church teachings that cannot be compromised. For example, in contrast with the realm of prudential policy judgments that describes most issues of social justice, certain forms of societal behavior that implicate public policy are so manifestly and grievously wrong as to be categorically prohibited. In these instances of intrinsic evil—slavery, genocide, racist oppression, torture, and abortion—moral principle and policy effectively merge, sharply circumscribing prudential judgment. Because there is no room for equivocation, qualification, or compromise of elemental principles, the Catholic institution cannot subordinate these principles when making institutional decisions. In sum, while the project of affirming and refreshing Catholic character for the institution is a long-term and difficult task, and will not always achieve consensus, I again applaud Professors Himes and Hollenbach, as well as my colleague, Elizabeth Brown, in calling for concerted and faithful action by a Catholic university to adhere to and manifest Catholic teaching in its public disposition.
As we struggle with the question of Catholic character, we of course must also strive for consistency, both as a matter of faithfulness to the principles affirmed and as a matter of fair and equal treatment. This is the question which our former St. Thomas student Patrick Shrake honorably raised in his message posted on the Mirror of Justice. Pat’s posing of the pertinent inquiry about consistency in application of Catholic teaching when considering honors granted to speakers by a Catholic institution was not a diversion from the merits of a particular case. Rather, it was an appropriate supplementation to that question. Both sets of questions—the particular question pursued in Elizabeth Brown’s message about whether Secretary Rice’s position is in fundamental conflict with Catholic teaching and the consistency query offered by Pat Shrake—are well-presented.
Importantly, and in fairness, Pat Shrake’s introduction of a related but quite pertinent question should not be viewed as an “attack [on] the integrity” of anyone. Nor was Pat’s listing of pro-choice individuals who have spoken at Boston College commencements, apparently without objection, rendered unreliable because he identified his source as the Cardinal Newman Society’s report. If the list of speakers is accurate, which no one has contested, then the source of that accurate information does not detract from its accuracy. Facts, as John Adams said two centuries ago, are stubborn things.
Both my colleague Elizabeth Brown and our former student Pat Shrake wish to pursue legitimate and related if separable issues that deserve deliberative consideration on the Mirror of Justice and elsewhere in our diverse Catholic community. Elizabeth sincerely and plausibly wishes to press the argument that the Bush administration’s position on the war in Iraq is inconsistent with Catholic teaching and therefore that a Catholic college or university would betray its Catholic character by honoring a member of that administration. Pat suggests that any policy or approach that disqualifies some or another person from a university honor because of a fundamental conflict with Catholic values ought to be applied consistently—with special attention to the Church’s clear and emphatic teachings about such intrinsic evils as abortion. One could agree with both points (or not). That Elizabeth is more interested in the former question than the latter does not make Pat’s question any the less relevant. Pat admittedly (and forthrightly) does not address Elizabeth’s area of interest. But then neither does Elizabeth’s summation on the academic credentials of certain faculty members provide any answer to Pat’s query about principled consistency.
In the end, that little section of the public square that we call the Mirror of Justice is quite big enough to include both lines of inquiry, and both sets of questions are fairly explored here. We’re fortunate to have both Elizabeth and Pat wading into the fray about these issues.
On Prawfsblog, Rick Garnett takes
the view that: “I certainly share Marty [Lederman]’s (and Madison's) concern about religious faith
being reduced to a convenient means for achieving the government's ‘secular’
ends. That said, I'm not sure why it should be unconstitutional -- or, in
any event, why it would be ‘profoundly disturbing’ -- for the government, as a
general matter, to take, and act on (in non-coercive ways, of course, and
consistent with the freedom of conscience), the view that ‘religious transformation
[and] faith’ are good (when freely embraced).” It is not clear to me that an
announcement by government that religious faith is good without any
accompanying action is unconstitutional though I think we would have a better
Constitution if it were.
I think it
might well be constitutional because it is constitutional for the government to
put “In God We Trust on the Coins,” to say “God Save the United States and This
Honorable Court,” and to issue a Pledge of Allegiance “Under God.” I think
these practices affirm religion over non-religion and monotheism over
non-monotheism. And I think that claims that the motto, the prayer, and the
Pledge are non-religious lack integrity. I argue this in The Pluralistic Foundations
of the Religion Clauses, 90 Cornell L.Rev. 95 (2004). Michael Perry also argues
this in a forthcoming article in St.Thomas and I believe he has also expressed the view in
print previously as well.
I think a government
statement to the effect that religion is good might cross a line in it that might
be encouraging religion, and that is unconstitutional. I certainly do not think that government is entitled
under the Establishment Clause to proselytize (thus intelligent design
can not be taught in the schools) and it is not entitled to say what
God has to say about any subject (it should be
inappropriate for government to post versions of the Ten Commandments).
Whatever
its constitutionality, I would find it disturbing for government to announce that religious faith is good, let alone
to act on it. First, I think government neutrality on this subject is more
respectful of citizens who disagree. I do not believe that a person’s religion
or lack of it should have any bearing on their relationship to the state.
Statements like these including “In God We Trust” mark out two classes of
citizens: those who do not trust in God are not part of the “We.” They are
marked as outsiders. Just as important, I do not trust government to help
religion. I believe that close ties with government have hurt the Church in Europe. The Church made the horrible mistake of thinking
that close ties with monarchs, Vichy France,
Salazar, Franco, Mussolini, and the like would be good for the Church. This not
only interfered with the kind of witnessing that was called for. It put the
Church on the wrong side of history in the eyes of millions of Europeans.
Close ties
with government risk alliances with corruption and dependency. I do not
maintain that phrases like In God We Trust have hurt religion much (though it has robbed the phrase of spirituality, and has married religion with money at the same time it asserts a theological proposition), but it is hard
for me to imagine that they help. It may be that demagogic politicians might
try to curry favor by saying that In God We Trust needs to be put on the
currency or to forge alliances with merchants in highlighting Christmas – a special
form of blasphemy. But I believe religion can get along quite well (I am sure
Rick does too) without government announcements that religious faith is good.
There is a
special irony here. Religious conservatives ordinarily are suspicious of
government in a broad swath of areas, but they seem comfortable with government
promoting religion (I have no basis to assume that Rick is part of this irony).
I am genuinely curious as to why.
Check out the comments section of my "Religion in Prisons" post over at Prawfsblawg. Marty Lederman, in particular, raises some really important questions. And, he has explicitly invited MOJ-ers and readers to weigh in, there and here.
UPDATE: Also, check out Marty's post (and invitation to comment) at Balkinization.
Regarding the "Should Sec. Rice get an honorary degree from BC" issue . . . check out Mark Sargent's post over at the Commonweal blog. (The post might also be relevant to the back-and-forth we had here, a few weeks ago, about the relative outspoken-ness of the Catholic "right" and "left" on mistreatment of detainees and sexual morality, respectively). He concludes:
I have no objection in principle to challenging Catholics, particularly Catholic intellectuals on both sides of the cultura/political split, with the unevenness of their concern for these different issues, but I don't like that challenge being used as a rhetorical ploy to avoid dealing with the real issue before us right now: are Hollenbach and Himes correct in their claim that a Catholic university that honors Catholic teaching on war should not honor Ms. Rice?
Fair enough. Are Hollenbach and Himes correct? What do we think?
And -- although I agree entirely with Mark's "no gotcha" proposal, I do think it is fair to demand not that all of those who question the appropriateness of honoring Ms. Rice also have opposed BC's various controversial honorees, but that all of those who oppose an honorary degree for Ms. Rice, on the ground that her views and / or actions conflict with Catholic teaching, employ arguments (e.g., about how much conflict is too much, about what counts as conflict, about the room for prudential judgment, etc.) that they would be willing to apply, or see applied, with respect to other controversial proposed honorees. And, vice-versa.
With a prod from the United States, the government of Sudan and the biggest Darfur rebel faction signed a complex peace plan yesterday that diplomats and experts said would require careful implementation to ensure an end to a conflict that has left as many as 450,000 people dead and 2 million homeless.
Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick, who pushed the parties to an agreement during three days and nights of almost continuous negotiations in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, warned of the tough task ahead in a conference call with reporters.
Here's a new paper, "Federalism and Faith," by Chip Lupu and Bob Tuttle, two of the country's leading and most prolific law-and-religion scholars:
Should the U.S. constitution afford greater discretion to states than to the federal government in matters affecting religion? In recent years, a number of commentators have been asserting that the Establishment Clause should not apply to the states. Justice Thomas has embraced this view, while offering his own refinements to it. Moreover, the Supreme Court’s decision in Locke v. Davey (2004) ruled that a state did not run afoul of the Free Exercise Clause when it refused to subsidize religious studies, in a context in which the Establishment Clause would have permitted the subsidy.
This paper offers a focused (re)consideration of federalism and faith. Part I offers a succinct look at federal-state relations on the subject of religion prior to Reconstruction. Part II confronts the constitutional developments that emerged from the Civil War and Reconstruction, and traces the Reconstruction story into the 20th century, when the Supreme Court first applied the Religion Clauses to the states. Part III then briskly chronicles the rise of Separationist interpretations of both Religion Clauses, and the incomplete recession to narrow interpretations of the Religion Clauses that mark the past several decades.
Part IV represents our contextualized effort to add value to the conversation about faith and federalism. State discretion over religion policy is a function of two considerations - the substantive content of the First Amendment, and the extent to which the First Amendment binds the states. In order to test a series of intuitions about faith and federalism, we analyze in Part IV a series of three problems– one in which the state pursues Separationist goals, and the other two in which the state appears to be promoting or aiding religion. Part IV considers these problems within three, distinct regimes of federalism: 1) the current regime of full incorporation of the First Amendment’s Religion Clauses; 2) a regime in which the states remain bound by the Free Exercise Clause but are liberated from the Establishment Clause; and 3) an imagined regime of partial incorporation, designed to maintain core non-Establishment norms while explicitly expanding state discretion in the periphery of non-Establishment. We believe that exploration of these problems, and of contrasting regimes of state discretion, will cast considerable light on what is at stake in the battle over federalism and faith.
A pall will hang over commencement at the University of Notre Dame this year --- the pall of a great opportunity missed. Temporarily, one must hope.
Notre Dame's new president, Holy Cross Father John Jenkins, got off to a brilliant start this past fall, with an inaugural address that located Notre Dame solidly within the ancient tradition of Catholic higher learning. Father Jenkins then led a pilgrimage to Rome, an act that embodied a key plank in the reformist platform announced in his inaugural address: to "think with the Church" means both to think and to think "with the Church."
Then, in April, things changed, dramatically and for the worse. After a campus-wide debate, Father Jenkins announced that "the creative contextualization of a play like 'The Vagina Monologues' can bring certain perspectives on important issues into a constructive and fruitful dialogue with the Catholic tradition." Therefore, Father Jenkins decreed, the V-Monologues could continue to be produced on campus.
It was difficult, bordering on impossible, not to read Father Jenkins' decision as a surrender to the most corrosive forces eating away at the vitals of Catholic higher education. That view is shared by numerous Notre Dame faculty.
It was difficult, bordering on impossible, not to read Father Jenkins' decision as a surrender to the most corrosive forces eating away at the vitals of Catholic higher education.
That view is shared by numerous Notre Dame faculty, among whom Holy Cross Father Wilson Miscamble stands tall, literally, intellectually and spiritually. In a public letter to his brother Holy Cross priest, Father Miscamble told Father Jenkins that "your decision is being portrayed as involving your 'backing down,'" in part because of an untoward deference to "the convictions of certain senior Arts and Letters faculty that any restriction on this play would damage our academic 'reputation' --- and especially among those 'preferred peer schools' whose regard we crave."
"Indeed," Father Miscamble continued, "it is hard to understand [your decision] in any other terms."
Then Father Miscamble got down to cases: "In your recent...statement you reveal a level of naivete about the process of a Catholic university engaging the broad culture that is striking and deeply harmful to our purpose as a Catholic university. We live at a time, as Yale Law School professor Stephen Carter pointed out some years ago, when the elite culture is programmed to trivialize religion. Further more, much of popular culture is deeply antithetical to religious conviction and practice. It offers a worldview completely at odds with any Catholic vision. It is a worldview from which none of us can be sequestered and, indeed, many of our students arrive here far more influenced by the reigning culture than by faith convictions.
"Amidst this larger context you are to permit the continued production and promotion of a play which, as our colleague Paolo Carozza rightly puts it, 'seems to reduce the meaning and value of women's lives to their sexual experiences and organs, reinforcing a perspective on the human person that is itself fundamentally a form of violence.' Dialogue with this point of view is ridiculous. It should be contested and resisted at Notre Dame but never promoted. Notre Dame must hold to a higher view of the dignity of women and men. Might I ask that if this play does not meet your criteria of an 'expression that is overt and insistent in its contempt for the values and sensibilities of the University,' then what would?"
Father Miscamble ends by asking his brother priest to "go back to your best self and to your original instincts and position on this matter. Don't embarrass those of us who want to work with you to build a great Catholic university. Lead us."
Anyone who cares about the flagship university of Catholic higher education in America must pray that Father Miscamble's plea is heard by Father Jenkins, a man who has shown courage in the past. The V-Monologues is trashy, pornographic nonsense, like a lot of other stuff available in the movies and on cable-TV. A great university can't monitor what its students watch on TV or in theaters. But it can teach them about stupidity.
The V-Monologues are stupid, and one of the things a great Catholic university ought to teach its students is to avoid the stupid. It can't do that by the "creative contextualization" of stupidity.
George Weigel is a senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C
Cathy Kaveny's new piece in America, "The Perfect Storm," linked and commented upon by Rick below, is terrific, as usual, and raises an important challenge to all of us in Catholic schools. In observing the debates over The Vagina Monologues at Notre Dame and Loyola MD, and thinking about the issue's significance for my effort to develop a meaningful Catholic identity for the law school where I am dean, I am left with the conclusion that debates such as that one, while unavoidable, are a major distraction from what should be our real goals and purposes. In the public mind, and on many campuses, the question of whether an institution of higher education is authentically Catholic is defined primarily in terms of what it should NOT do, ie, permit the performance of the Monologues, allow pro choice speakers etc. Now, sometimes we must not do certain things -- those familiar with my career here at Villanova will remember that there have been circumstances in which we have not done certain things because they involved strongly endorsing unacceptable positions -- although Catholics of good faith can disagree about what those things are and when we should not do them. I would argue, however, that the performance (for example) of the Monologues at many Catholic schools is problematic not so much in itself, but because it is performed in a setting in which its point of view is not questioned, challenged or criticized from a thoroughly informed, sophisticated and well articulated Catholic perspective. We have voices saying "ban it," but how many voices do we have on our campuses willing to confront specifically and through reasoned criticism the challenges that it (or other arguments, points of view, beliefs etc.) pose to Catholic values? In other words, when something like the Monologues is presented on a Catholic campus can we respond to it through distinctively Catholic intellectual and moral discourse and criticism as an artifact of contemporary culture? Are our faculty and students able to understand its presumptions, values and procedures any differently than those in a secular school would? If the answer to that is no, then we really are in big trouble. So, for me, the question is not so much what we should exclude or not do, but what we should do affirmatively to develop faculties and students who are able to engage critically with the culture and its artifacts in a way that expresses the Catholic world view and imagination. If we are not able to do that, then banning offensive productions from campus would be of little importance; the campus would already be lost. Our important task thus is building capacity for critical engagement with culture, which is what Cathy is challenging us to do. And I am glad to see Rick and Paolo essentially agreeing with her.
I would like to offer a few thoughts for Michael P. and the rest of us who wonder if we are called to be saints.
My first point is this: I think I am called to be a good priest. For Michael, a good husband and father. For the rest of us, probably more a combination of the latter (spouse/parent) than the former (priest). For all of us: good teachers.
The second point comes from Amy Welborn's web page that could offer us all some insight about sainthood: ""She could never be a saint, but she thought she could be a martyr if they killed her quick" RJA sj
