Check out the Witherspoon Institute's website for news of several upcoming interesting conferences and book-publications. In particular, note that the Institute will sponsor several summer seminars this summer at Princeton University: (1) a First Principles Seminar (for undergrad, law, and graduate students): Natural Law Theory and Political Liberalism: John Finnis and John Rawls. Faculty include: Tom D'Andrea, Chris Tollefsen, Hadley Arkes, J. Budziszewski, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Robert P. George, Jeanne Heffernan, and Daniel Robinson; (2) Metaphysics, Ethics, and Politics in the Thomistic and Analytic Traditions a seminar for philosophy graduate students. Faculty include: Nicholas Rescher, Alexander Pruss, Gabriele De Anna, Mark C. Murphy, and Michael Gorman; and (3) High school seminars: Forum for Ethical Issues in Contemporary Politics.
Friday, February 17, 2006
Good things happening at the Witherspoon Institute
Response to Rick on Bioethics
In response to Rick's question, I consulted a friend who has a Ph.D. in philosophy as well as a J.D., and an expertise in medical issues. The friend had this to say:
I am not a fan of "professional bioethics" or "beeper bioethicists." These
are usually individuals who complete a specialty degree in bioethics (what
ever that means) without being grounded in a classic discipline like
philosophy or biology. Sometimes these individuals are hired by hospitals
and the like for ethics consults, where they mostly provide personal
opinions or (if they also have training as lawyers) explain legal
constraints to action or inaction. While they are meant to be impartial
parties, they often reflect the interests of their employers (which may be
influenced by the biotech industry). I assume these are the types of
bioethicists to which your co-blogger refers. I find these folks completely
divorced from the academic pursuit of grappling with the application of
ethical theories to medicine. I take issue with calling them "academic
bioethicists."
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"Liberal archbishop installed in San Francisco"
Thus reads the caption of a news item in the February 18 issue of The Tablet [London]. Read on:
American Catholicism’s most progressive archdiocese this week warmly welcomed its new head and his message of inclusion. At Wednesday’s installation Mass in San Francisco, Archbishop George Niederauer was handed the crosier by his predecessor, Archbishop William Levada, who the Pope named last May to succeed him as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Quoting T.S. Eliot in his first homily to the city’s 425,000 Catholics, Archbishop Niederauer, 69, made his own the poet’s assessment of the Church: “She is tender where you would be hard, and hard where you would like to be soft.” The new Pope’s first major appointee in the United States indicated that Benedict’s recent encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, would “guide” his stewardship of a diocese known for its significant contingent of gay Catholics and its efforts in caring for the sufferers of HIV/Aids.
In an interview with The Tablet on Monday, Archbishop Niederauer spoke of his distaste for the labelling which he said had brought the American Church further from God and nearer to the dust.
Before being named bishop of Salt Lake City – home to 150,000 Catholics and the headquarters of the Mormon Church – in 1994, George Niederauer spent most of his priesthood in seminary work in his native Los Angeles. His nuanced interpretation of the Vatican’s November document banning gays from priestly formation has attracted the fury of church conservatives, one of whom recently castigated the archbishop’s appointment to San Francisco as “troubling” and called his position on the document as being analogous to the views of “dissenters”.
Speaking to the San Francisco Chronicle, Archbishop Niederauer said that, in his oversight of the archdiocesan seminary there, the document would come up “in the context of an entire programme of priestly training and formation, not as a headline item”. He reaffirmed his opinion on its contents, emphasising the importance of a seminary candidate being “able to maintain the appropriate boundaries … able to retain his commitment to that celibate relationship with Christ in priesthood”. He added that this “would be true, also, for the heterosexual candidate”. He also dismissed the hypothesis, prevalent in some US church circles, that the sexual orientation of priests was the prime cause for the abuse scandals. He said this was a “mistaken” construct that “doesn’t make sense”.
The first American bishop to acknowledge publicly that he had seen the controversial film Brokeback Mountain,
which centres on the romance between two cowboys, the archbishop said
he found it “very powerful”, seeing as one of its lessons “the
destructiveness of not being honest with yourself, and not being honest
with other people – and not being faithful, trying to live a double
life, and what that does to each of the lives you try to live.”
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Thursday, February 16, 2006
Mass. bishops to seek exemption from gay-adoption requirements
The Boston Globe reports:
The four Roman Catholic bishops of Massachusetts plan to seek permission from the state to exclude gay couples as adoptive parents, according to two board members of the church's largest social service agency who were briefed on the plan.
The decision follows a three-month study of the theological and practical impact of having Catholic Charities of Boston, the Boston Archdiocese's social service arm, place children with gay couples, given the Vatican's teaching that describes such adoptions are ''gravely immoral."
This decision to seek an exemption from state anti-discrimination rules pits the bishops against the 42-member board of Catholic Charities of Boston, which is made up of some of Boston's most prominent lay Catholics. The board voted unanimously in December in support of continuing to allow gay couples to adopt children. . . .
If the bishops obtain an exemption, they could continue to handle adoptions while excluding gay or lesbian applicants from consideration. However, if they do not win an exemption, they either have to allow gay adoptions to continue or risk having their adoption license pulled and being barred from adoption work in the state altogether. . .
A move to stop gay adoptions by Catholic Charities may also prove troubling for the philanthropic agencies that donate only to organizations meeting certain antidiscrimination rules. Catholic Charities in Boston collected nearly $7 million, roughly 20 percent of its total income in the last fiscal year, from corporations, foundations, and individual donors, said Reynolds.
Let's assume that Catholic Charities is unable to secure an exemption, and assume also that no such exemption is constitutionally required. I'm sure the bishops have consulted people more learned than I am in these matters, but it is not clear to me that it follows from the Church's teaching about the morality of homosexual conduct that Catholic Charities could never participate in or facilitate the placement of a child -- particularly a hard-to-place child -- with a gay foster parent or gay foster parents, or even that CC could not facilitate the adoption of such a child by a gay foster parent or gay foster parents. What's the argument?
Thanks to Michael . . .
. . . for pulling me back from cynical despair about bioethics! That said, it continues to be my impression that academic and professional bioethics is, for the most part, heavily invested in, and unswervingly dedicated to, providing an imprimatur for whatever practice, treatment, research, or experiment is thought promising by the research community and the biotech industry. Michael, Christian Bioethics notwithstanding, is your impression different?
Freedom, Catholic Education, and the Vagina Monologues
Freedom is freedom for truth. Error has no rights. This was the perspective of the Church for many centuries. It was used to support censorship and persecution in many countries. The same perspective was employed by Protestant countries for the same purposes and by non-religious dictatorships. The freedom was the same; the truth was different.
Boston University's Schiavo conference
Reading this announcement, I was reminded of the claim that, in order to be a "great" university -- or, perhaps, a university at all -- an institution of higher education ought to avoid constructing an identity built on stances toward the great issues of the day.
BOSTON UNIVERSITY CONFERENCE TO EXPLORE LANDMARK SCHIAVO CASE
One year later, experts discuss lessons learned, where to go from here
March 31, 2006
A year ago in March, the Terri Schiavo case riveted the
nation. Who would decide the fate of the 41-year-old brain-
Academic Freedom and Catholic Character: a Response
I join Rick in recommending Paolo Carroza’s Op-Ed essay that appeared in the February 14th issue of the Notre Dame “Observer.” Paolo has identified some important issues that are worth exploring and discussing with students, colleagues, administrators, alumni, and friends of Catholic colleges and universities. A substantial element of his essay examines academic freedom, and he uses Mary, the Mother of God, as an illustration and appropriate model of authentic academic freedom. Of course, Notre Dame is most fortunate to bear her name. I would like to call this example of freedom that Paolo develops as freedom for. Mary was free for truth beyond herself and the confines of her mind and experience. Initially she was perplexed by the announcement Gabriel made to her, but he insisted, “do not be afraid.” That is a phrase John Paul II used throughout his over twenty-six year papacy. She responded with “here I am” (the same words used by young Samuel) to embrace the unknown from God. For the rest of her life, she was devoted to this freedom for God’s truth that was beyond her, but she pondered about these matters as she did some twelve years later when she and Joseph found the young Jesus in the temple teaching the teachers of the law. Mary continually grew in wisdom because of her freedom for it.
Paolo speaks of another kind of freedom, which I shall call the freedom from. As he says, it is the “subjection of our reason to the whims of intellectual fashion.” And how might this fashion be characterized: it is the liberty of insulation and exaggerated autonomy and loneliness described by Justice Kennedy in Casey: “the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning of the universe, and the mystery of human life.” To borrow from Louis XIV, this deprivation of searching is based on a false claim: “le monde c’est moi.” In essence, there is adherence to a shield of which Paolo speaks whose effect is separation from rather than exposure to a truth beyond one’s self. And for the believer, this truth is God. This is the truth that Mary came to know and cherish.
A short word about the Enslerian Monologues to which Paolo and Father Jenkins have referred. Several years ago, I joined a faculty e-mail debate about the propriety of their being staged on campus. The university president stated that they would not be performed on campus. This generated an outcry amongst some vocal faculty members. I decided to wade into the debate to offer support to the president and his decision. When I identified certain problems with one particular monologue, i.e., the seduction and statutory rape by a lesbian of a thirteen year old girl in the first edition that was termed “a good rape,” I was told that I had fabricated this slanderous commentary. My defense: please read pages 72 to 75 of the Villard Books (Random House), New York 1998, ISBN 0-375-75052-5, first edition. That did not the stop harsh and uncharitable (and, dare I say, untrue) words against me for my “misogynist, fascist and callous” views that I had the temerity to announce. Apparently, I was not a member of a particular “intellectual fashion” that was characteristic of the academic freedom to which many subscribed.
I have said enough for the time being. I’ll conclude with this endorsement of academic freedom for truth, justice, and the beauty about which Paolo speaks. With this approach, we, too, can follow Mary, the seat of wisdom, and encounter God who is the ultimate truth. And then, when we reach this truth one day, surely we will be happy. This is the freedom that is the raison d’être of the Catholic college and university. Thank you, Paolo, and thank you, Rick. RJA sj
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Requiring a Catholic school to "convert"
Amy Welborn has this post about a (to me, anyway) strange debate going on in the suburbs of Glasgow, Scotland. The question, apparently, is whether the government should require a (state-supported) Catholic school to become a (state-supported) Muslim school, because most of the school's students are Muslims. Here's a blurb from the news story in The Guardian:
As the debate rages, the school's headteacher, Winifred Diver, refuses to talk to Education Guardian. But the local priest, who is also the school chaplain, Fr John Gannon, represents the school's position. "There is probably no organisation in Scotland more supportive of the notion that there should be Muslim faith schools than the Catholic church," he says. "But it may be that to poach schools is not the best way to go about it."
When Gannon was saying mass at the school recently, a number of parents interrupted the service at staggered intervals, removing 12 children. The interruption was "deliberately designed to disrupt the mass", Gannon says, and showed "gross discourtesy and contempt". He does not believe these parents were representative of most parents in the school.
Strong relationship
Gannon adds that the staff at St Albert's has built up a strong relationship with Pollokshields's Muslim community. "When parents say they want the school to become Muslim, they seem to think that the teachers would stay on, but of course that wouldn't happen," he says. "There is some serious confusion about what such a change would mean." . . .
While the proposal has caused resentment among Catholics and Sikhs, it has fed a growing sense of injustice among some Muslims. Many people, though, think faith schools are simply divisive.
Alec Macadie, an ebullient lollipop man, sees children in Pollokshields across the road on their way home from school every day. He chats to everyone - parents, children, shopkeepers - and he approves of the way the area has changed over the years. "People don't mix, though," he says. "They tolerate each other." It is for this reason that he believes children of all cultures should be educated together and that religious differences should not be allowed to divide them.
What's next? The suppression of the monasteries?
Carozza on academic freedom and Catholic character
A great read. Check it out:
. . . [M]erely the tolerance of diverse views on campus without any authentic engagement of our humanity in its capacity for criticism and judgment is virtually irrelevant to the mission and identity of a great university. If that is what is meant by academic freedom, it is almost trivial and much too uninteresting to the serious questions of our lives to warrant a deep commitment. In fact, an uncritical free-for-all can be worse than insignificant, because it encourages the opposite of freedom: the subjection of our reason to the whims of intellectual fashion; sentimentalism and moralism (whether of the right or of the left); or mere inculcation upon our students of the opinions of others (and the power, money and self-interest behind them). That is why Jenkins was right to affirm that, "Our greatest contribution as intellectuals and scholars . . . consists rather in the cultivation in ourselves and in our students of this scholarly temperament in a world that is often uncomfortable with uncertainties, questions and new perspectives."
But then what is the place of Notre Dame's Catholic identity in this insistence on the freedom of our reason to reach always onward? The intellectual and moral tradition in which we are situated provides a sustained, complex and deep grappling with the mystery of human life and the universe around us, but one that is mostly ignored, and sometimes systematically excluded, from the intellectual life of most elite universities today. Notre Dame can't be a great and Catholic university without a pervasive and serious attempt to propose this tradition as an explanatory hypothesis for understanding the things that we study and teach and for ordering the way we ought to live as a community. To be very clear: in the context of study, teaching and research the Christian tradition is a proposal, not a shield from inquiry or an obstacle to knowledge, but an invitation to verify something, to test it through sincere criticism (in the original, literal sense of "separating" or "evaluating") and thus to arrive at a more mature appropriation of its value. It is an understanding of Catholic character reflective of a dynamic life, not of formal and sterile doctrine. The scholarly temperament in its encounter with tradition is an opening up of reason, not a closure of discussion. . . .
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