I was in Cuba for the past week, doing some preliminary research for a project on Cuban property law and the inevitable transition to a market democracy. The trip was, as always, depressing and frustrating, but it left me with a few thoughts relevant (to varying degrees) to our blog:
(1) Anyone who doubts the wisdom of the Church's opposition to communism need only visit Cuba for a short while to become a believer. There can be no doubt, as Leo XIII recognized (along with every Pope to write a social encyclical thereafter), that Marxist economic systems leave insufficient room for individual dignity and self-expression in the economic sphere. Moreover, the centralization of virtually all employment leaves dissenters with few options. The Church's dual criticism of the injustice of unfettered capitalism, and the inadequacy of the Marxist solution, continues to strike me as incredibly wise.
(2) Like many college students, I often sympathized with the egalitarian rhetoric of Marxism. But my first trip to Cuba in 1995, at the height of the post-Soviet economic hangover, made me a (qualified) believer in the market system. The profound effect that my first-hand exposure to the folly of communism had on me gives me reason to doubt the wisdom of the US embargo as a tool for change in Cuba. One of the key strategies of government control in Cuba is the denial to ordinary Cubans of access to information. Satellite TV is banned in Cuba, and Cubans (unlike foreign tourists) are not allowed to use the Internet. More people-to-people contact would help to circumvent the isolation fostered by these restrictions. And, because Cuba's system would clearly lose in a head-to-head comparison by almost any measure, it seems to me that more contact between the two countries could only enhance the pressure for reform on the island. In addition, the embargo provides Castro with a convenient excuse for the economic failures largely caused by the island's inept management. As many, many Cubans have told me, the embargo is Castro's best friend.
(3) The Church's stance with respect to the Castro government is an interesting one. The Archdiocese of Havana has taken a non-confrontational approach to the regime. In light of Pope John Paul II's strong opposition to communist regimes in Eastern Europe, I find the hierarchy's acquiescence in dictatorship in Cuba to be somewhat disappointing. While those of us on this blog might disagree about the value of greater lay participation in Church governance, I think we can all agree that there is no excuse for dictatorship in secular government. No doubt the global Church has more pressing issues, but it would be nice to see the official Church in Cuba take a more prophetic stance in favor of liberty and justice. (And, to give credit where it is due, some diocese in Cuba have done precisely that.)
(4) Finally, political rhetoric in Cuba is colored by constant references to external threats to Cuban security. Billboards everywhere proclaim that Cuba remains under seige, in a state of war, and under constant threat of attack. This is, mind you, over four decades after the Bay of Pigs. In light of this supposedly ever-looming threat, dissenters are tarred as unpatriotic and treasonous, as knowing (and unknowing) dupes of a hostile foreign power. In other words, I felt right at home. Can there be any doubt that Karl Rove's shameful attempts to use the (permanent) war on terror as a tool of domestic partisan politics bears a strong resemblance to the fear-mongering used by the Castro government, as well as virtually every totalitarian state in history? If people of good will do not speak out against the political climate of permanent war and stifled dissent that has emerged under this administration since September 11, I fear for the long-term health of our democracy.
With registration materials available, I'm re-posting information on "Public Policy, Prudential Judgment, and Catholic Social Tradition," the annual conference of the Murphy Institute at St. Thomas (co-sponsors, Law and Catholic Studies), coming up in Minneapolis on April 7 and 8. The list of 8 plenary speakers, including Chris Wolfe (Marquette Poli Sci), John McGreevy (Notre Dame History), and our own Rob Vischer, is here. They'll be joined by 15-20 panelists in concurrent sessions.
Tom
"PUBLIC POLICY, PRUDENTIAL JUDGMENT, AND THE CATHOLIC SOCIAL TRADITION"
April 7-8, 2006, University of St. Thomas School of Law, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Registration Information
There is no fee to attend the conference. However, participants must make their own travel and lodging arrangements. Attendees must complete and submit registration form by Wednesday, March 29, 2006.
General Conference Information
In the Catholic moral tradition, prudence is understood to be a moral virtue that enables a person to reason well about things to be done. Prudence concerns reasoning both about goals to be pursued and means to be employed to accomplish them. The tradition acknowledges the importance of moral principles, which shape practical reasoning in very fundamental ways, but it also insists that concrete actions are also determined by prudential judgment, which wisely takes account of particular conditions.
In recent years a number of public policy questions, such as the permissibility of the death penalty, the morality of the war in Iraq, and the justice of welfare reforms, have provoked controversy among Catholics. Advocates of very different policies have claimed that their positions follow from the Catholic social tradition and, at times, some have even insisted that their positions alone are faithful to this tradition. These controversies highlight enduring questions about the proper relationship between moral principles and prudential judgment.
In much the same way, controversies have also accompanied some of the formal positions adopted by the American bishops and even the Vatican on questions of public policy. Here again there has been an indistinct line between direct inference from moral principles and sound prudential judgment, where the former invites commitment and the latter tolerates disagreement.
Because of the importance of prudential judgment in public policy matters, the time is ripe for a careful and comprehensive discussion of the topic. The Murphy Institute's 2006 conference, held April 7-8 at the School of Law building in downtown Minneapolis, will investigate these questions with a roster of approximately 25 speakers in concurrent and plenary sessions.
The lead story in Sunday's NYTimes business section asks "Why Do So Few Women Reach the Top of Big Law Firms?" (when entry-level hiring is now pretty equal between the sexes). There are lots of answers, including one, the "maternal wall," that ought to be of particular interest to Catholic legal and social theory:
Research conducted by the Project for Attorney Retention, a program sponsored by the University of California's Hastings College of the Law, has also identified an inflexible, billable-hours regime as an obstacle to job satisfaction for both sexes, a trend that is more pronounced among the most recent crop of law school graduates. Some veteran lawyers witness this dissatisfaction firsthand and say that it tugs more powerfully at women than men because of social expectations about household roles and child-rearing. . . .
Research conducted by the New York City Bar Association and other groups indicate that women who temporarily give up their professional dreams to pursue child-rearing or other personal goals have a difficult, if not impossible, time finding easily available on-ramps when they choose to re-enter the legal world.
Catholic social thought might well be ambivalent (or internally divided) about the idea that "household roles and child-rearing" with respect to one sex vs. another are no more than "social expectations." But setting that aside, Catholic legal and social theory ought to have a lot of things to say about the problem of sex, family, and the workplace: things such as (1) the proper priority of family concerns; (2) the inadequacy of having the logic and demands of the marketplace drive so much else in life; and (3) the importance of having women in positions of influence in economic and public life so as to bring distinctive contributions, meaning that it's wholly inadequate from a Catholic standpoint just to say "the domestic sphere is important and that's where women should concentrate." (The last of these three points appears in the Times article under, among other things, the familiar rubric of the workplace advantages of "diversity.") My St. Thomas Law colleague Lisa Schiltz, one of the few addressing these problems from a Catholic point of view, is bringing out all of the above points in what promises to be a rich series of articles. The first, posted here, includes the following summary argument:
Catholic teachings on the role of women, particularly the powerful arguments in Mulieris Dignitatem about women's contributions to the realization of a truly humane social order, could provide support for feminist arguments for more radical restructuring of the workplace to ensure mothers' access to the public sphere. At the same time, I argue that the work of Catholic scholars on these topics could be enriched by engaging the dependency-based theories of justice being developed by the feminists, and by considering the feminist perspective that women, including mothers, have a significant role to play in the public as well as the private sphere.
It would be good to see a number of others join Lisa in making questions like this a major focus of Catholic social and legal thought. (I realize there are other entry points into the problem of the work-family split, for example Nicole Stelle Garnett here on home-based businesses and the zoning and other legal problems they face.) In any event, just to conclude on a provocative note: isn't this a case where the recent trend in Catholic thought to accept (if not embrace) market logic really creates theological problems and needs to be qualified?
I wonder if you'all saw this item in this week's Word From Rome: John Allen interviews the Jesuit General Hans-Peter Kolvenbach. Among Allen's questions and Kolvenbach's responses are the following.
Allen: One early controversy of his papacy centered on Fr. Tom Reese from America magazine. What are the lessons of that episode for Jesuit-sponsored publications?
Kolvenbach: America magazine, under the competent and
dynamic guidance of Fr. Tom Reese, believed that the best service to a
mature Catholic public was to let the two sides of a controversial
question to defend their views. … However, this orientation did not
meet the approval of some pastorally concerned priests who were worried
about a negative effect on the faith-growth of the Catholics. They
expect that Jesuit publications will offer clear standings to meet the
questions of the day, avoiding confusion and relativism. Unhappily,
instead of changing his policy, Fr. Reese resigned. This episode takes
us back to St. Ignatius when he speaks about sentire cum ecclesia
(feeling with the church). …
Allen: Did the initial concerns about America come from the United States rather than the Vatican?
Kolvenbach? Yes, from clergy outside the Jesuits in the United States, including some in senior positions.
Steinfels: Most issues have three or four sides, not just two. How
can the Catholic church and its tradition have a credible presence in
U.S. culture if it can't even talk about two sides of a controversy,
much less three or four.
America has, in fact, held up well under its new editor,
but if the head of the Jesuits and other senior clergy, i.e., U.S.
cardinals and bishops, think that debate and contestation are not among
the tasks of Catholic journals and intellecutals, they're heads are
deeper in the sand than I believed possible. Not to toot Commonweal's horn, or NCR's, but
there is considerable virtue in publications that are willing and able
to grapple with the dark issues of the day by presenting more than one
side of an issue precisely because they know there are mature Catholics
reading their pages.
More than liberals or conservatives, what the Catholic church needs
are wirters, editors, intelllectuals who make it their business to
sustain a credible Catholicism. _______________ mp
[An excerpt from a review of Kevin Phillips's new book, American Theocracy. To read the whole review, click here. The reviewer, Alan Brinkley, is the Allan Nevins professor of history and the provost at Columbia University.]
New York Times March 19, 2006
Clear and Present Dangers
ALAN BRINKLEY
...
Phillips is especially passionate in his discussion of the second
great force that he sees shaping contemporary American life — radical
Christianity and its growing intrusion into government and politics.
The political rise of evangelical Christian groups is hardly a secret
to most Americans after the 2004 election, but Phillips brings together
an enormous range of information from scholars and journalists and
presents a remarkably comprehensive and chilling picture of the goals
and achievements of the religious right.
He points in particular to the Southern Baptist Convention, once a
scorned seceding minority of the American Baptist Church but now so
large that it dominates not just Baptism itself but American
Protestantism generally. The Southern Baptist Convention does not speak
with one voice, but almost all of its voices, Phillips argues, are to
one degree or another highly conservative. On the far right is a still
obscure but, Phillips says, rapidly growing group of "Christian
Reconstructionists" who believe in a "Taliban-like"
reversal of women's rights, who describe the separation of church and
state as a "myth" and who call openly for a theocratic government
shaped by Christian doctrine. A much larger group of Protestants,
perhaps as many as a third of the population, claims to believe in the
supposed biblical prophecies of an imminent "rapture" — the return of
Jesus to the world and the elevation of believers to heaven.
Prophetic Christians, Phillips writes, often shape their view of
politics and the world around signs that charlatan biblical scholars
have identified as predictors of the apocalypse — among them a war in
Iraq, the Jewish settlement of the whole of biblical Israel, even the
rise of terrorism. He convincingly demonstrates that the Bush
administration has calculatedly reached out to such believers and
encouraged them to see the president's policies as a response to
premillennialist thought. He also suggests that the president and other
members of his administration may actually believe these things
themselves, that religious belief is the basis of policy, not just a
tactic for selling it to the public. Phillips's evidence for this
disturbing claim is significant, but not conclusive. ...
On Wednesday, March 1st, 2006, in Annapolis at a hearing
on the proposed Constitutional Amendment to prohibit gay marriage, Jamie
Raskin, professor of law at American University, was requested to testify.
At the end of his testimony, Republican Senator Nancy Jacobs said: "Mr.
Raskin, my Bible says marriage is only between a man and a woman.
What do you have to say about that?"
Raskin replied: "Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed
your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You did not
place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible."
The room erupted into applause. _______________ mp
Recent comments posted on MOJ by Mark, Rick and Rob have served as catalysts for this posting. Both Mark and Rick have reacted to the Joan Vennochi Boston Globe essay (dealing with “enlightened” and “liberal” Catholics, to use Ms. Vennochi’s modifiers) upon which I commented earlier in the month. Rob had a series of observations about another Boston Globe report on the Harvard Law Lambda group, Ropes & Gray, and my earlier posting on that matter. Rob presented his disagreement with the law students’ view in this case when they may have pressured the law firm to drop Catholic Charities as a client over the gay adoption issue, but he also expressed admiration for students who consider the moral dimension of legal work.
Their important postings have prompted me to reflect on a common current that I believe runs through both Globe pieces. The common theme involves those who teach the law students and those who teach people in public life, be they newspaper writers or holders of public office. A good teacher has many tasks. One is to convey information. That is the most basic task of education or instruction, but if one wishes to be a good teacher—even a great one, to borrow from Thomas More—something in addition is required. What might that be? Surely to show students how to think carefully and completely and to extend investigation beyond one’s self. When a teacher does this, he or she is far more likely to take on with students the moral issues that involve what is right and what is wrong in the world and how to make proper corrections. This teacher also makes students realize that there is something and someone beyond self interests. I am not sure the Lambda students or Ms. Vennochi understand this. The Church has an obligation to teach Christ, salvation, and redemption. It teaches about virtues and sin. It teaches about hope and being in the presence of God both now and forever. If any of the Church’s teachers fail in their office, they have no one to blame but themselves. But, if they are true to their office and its responsibilities, should they bend to the criticism of Ms. Vennochi or the Lambda law students?
Perhaps the Church’s teachers, when true to their calling, will not gain the favor of the Lambda members or Ms. Vennochi, but to have the favor of God and others, well, as More responded, “Not a bad public, that...” RJA sj
Thanks to Rick for linking to the op ed by one Joan Vennochi in the Boston Globe arguing that "liberal Catholics" should leave the Catholic Church. When I lived and practiced law in Boston 20 plus years ago, I loved the Globe because it had the best sports page around, which I could admire even though I was (and am) a die-hard Yankees fan. Its sports page is still excellent, but the rest of the paper makes me gag. Between the gleefulness of its coverage of the sexual abuse crisis, its patronizing suggestion of the formation of a new "catholic charities" and its publication of Vennochi's inane suggestion, it has abandoned any attempt at evenhandedness or even understanding toward the complexities of these issues, particularly the importance of religious liberty. Rick is quite right in suggesting that liberal Catholics (at least this one) would not find her argument "comprehensible," let alone appealing. After all, what is she trying to say? It seems to be that if one accepts "liberal ideology" (whatever she means by that) one should abandon the Church, because the Church persists in taking positions inconsistent with liberal ideology. Where to begin in refuting this non sequitur? First of all, what does "ideology" have to do with religious belief? "Liberals" who are Catholic are Catholic because they believe in Jesus Christ and the one holy, catholic and apostolic church. So long as one holds that core spiritual belief one does not "leave" the Church. Second, many of us who define ourselves as "liberal Catholics" are as much as odds with elements of "liberal ideology" as we are with elements of Catholic teaching, particularly the fetishization of the autonomous rights bearer and a tendency towards moral relativism. Third, we recognize that the Church is a battleground, in which doctrine changes and evolves, moral discernment by mortal humans is imperfect, and that the People of God are pilgrims struggling to find their way with the guidance of the Hoiy Spirit. We reject the awful certainty of ideologues such as Vennochi. Perhaps that is what makes us "liberal."
I will cross post this at dotCommonweal to see what my fellow blogistas there have to say.
Daniel Henninger in Opinion Journalblames "sex wars" for the broader, and dangerous, loss of religious and serious moral influences in public life.
Roe v. Wade, decided in 1973, ignited a 33-year war over sex, bowdlerized for political discourse as "privacy." [The categorization in the 2004] Pew [public opinion poll] collapses all moral life in America down to abortion and gay rights because the political class believes those issues move votes. And the result is that anything else important, like what Messrs. [Barry] Bonds or [Enron's Andrew] Fastow represent, is ignored. . . .
Our political culture's preoccupation with sexual boundaries has smothered the more important ability of religious or ethical formation to function in the U.S. Currently the most rigorous whole-person moral system resides among evangelical right--at least in terms of keeping one's earthly life in perspective. But because the religious right has "positions" on abortion and homosexuality, politics seeks to undermine its entire function in the life of the nation.
Inner-city parents desperate to use vouchers to send their children to values-forming parochial schools can't, because the reigning political calculus holds this would somehow "advantage" an abortion-resistant Catholic Church. . . .
Maybe it's time for the sex obsessives on the left and right to take their fights over abortion and gay rights into a corner somewhere and give the rest of society space to restore some ethical rootedness in an endlessly variable world.
This certainly voices the frustration I (and I think others) feel over how two or three issues have driven the whole "religion and politics" debate, distracted from the myriad crucial contributions that "conservative" religion makes every day to civil society, and led "progressives" to exalt individual autonomy and denigrate their own history of religious-moral judgments. But what does "taking [the sex wars] into a corner" mean? I assume that it would mean, for example, that Massachusetts would preserve Catholic Charities' contributions in placing foster children instead of giving it the boot, even though it won't place children in gay families. Perhaps more generally, "taking the issue[s] into a corner" would mean gay-rights laws with religious exemptions? The Religious Right would accept such laws on the ground that they don't imply "normalization" of gay behavior or that any such limited implication is overcome by the more important public value of ensuring access to jobs, public accommodations, etc. But taking the issue into a corner means not expanding disagreement with a non-profit organization's traditional position on sex issues into punishing it or disqualifying it from providing other benefits to civil society (like Catholic Charities in special-needs adoptions, or a Catholic hospital refusing to provide abortions).
The big problem with the idea is that some contested practices concern not just sex but (in opponents' view) basic questions of human rights and civic well-being (Henninger overlooks this, as Protestants for the Common Good did concerning abortion in its statement on the Christian Right that we blogged about). The abortion issue will resist being sent off "into a corner," whatever constitutional or pragmatic limits there are on public policies addressing it. And even if we could agree that basic issues like abortion and same-sex marriage shouldn't expand imperialistically into others (like general health-care or adoption-placement), those basic issues will still be on the table. Finally, of course, there are problems of reciprocity and the "prisoner's dilemma": how does one side know that, if it reduces its efforts, the other side will abide by the bargain?
Thanks to Rick and Michael for noticing the review of Barre's Jacques and Raissa Maritain: Beggars for Heaven. This rich book deserves and rewards careful attention. As does the beautiful book by Rick's colleague Ralph McInerny, The Very Rich Hours of Jacques Maritain: A Spiritual Life (Notre Dame, 2003). One wonders how the various notions of "dissent" ventilated here in recent months would be judged by the charitable Maritain who cherished Merton and Alinsky.
