Thank you Mark and Kevin for your challenging posts. Just a few thoughts in response.
First, this is not the first time that I have pointed out the limitations of the blog medium, and probably will not be the last - but I think that this is one instance where one reason we might be talking past each other is because we're not able to ask for clarifications mid-stream. I think some of these questions might need to be worked out over lunch or a beer. In the course of this kind of clarifying conversation, I think it would emerge clearly that all of us - and especially Mark Sargent - care deeply about promoting right practices AND right belief, and right practices grounded in right belief; and that no one in this group has dogmatically rejected theological inquiry into political and legal theory. Some of us on this blog struggle with how we express the theological connection because few of us have advanced degrees in theology - but I think we could safely say that all of us care deeply about this dimension, or we wouldn't be in this conversation. And speaking for myself, I'm very grateful for any help in articulating those connections.
That said - a few thoughts for both of you.
First, Kevin - I think in many ways you have hit on the $64,000 question. I agree that the relationship between theology and identity should be at the core of our discussions not only about Catholic education, but also about the relationship between the Church and the culture as a whole. Let me work with your line: "Too often we say that the practicalities of our current situations must be taken into account, that faith doesn't really speak to our unique situations, that the realities of our current situations limit what we can think or do."
I would say that much of my work is precisely at the intersection of recognizing and appreciating the practicalities of a given situation, and bringing a faith persepctive to bear - and that for me these really come together in a theology of the cross. In many of the struggles that Mark listed - eg, fear, confusion, uncertainty, misunderstandings about the tradition that we encounter in others, but also in our own failures as a Catholic community to effectively communicate the tradition or to be a shining example of its vitality - for me, these have a name: they are all an expression of Jesus on the cross. In recognizing that it is precisely and especially here where I am called to love him, and be a presence of love in response, I believe it is also precisely and espeically here - in and through this love for the cross - that we will have the light of the Holy Spirit - that flows from the cross - to know exactly what it means to love and be faithful to the tradition in the context of any given practical situation. And it will also be the Holy Spirit which flows from this love that also helps us to trace the work of God (or in Jesuit parlance, find "God in all things") - even in unexpected ways and places.
It might also be interesting to explore how the Trinitarian theology could be especially helpful as we engage the practicalites of our current situation. The Trinity as a model of unity in diversity, as a model of self-emptying life-giving love, might speak deeply to ways to build real communities in which we can be formed by the tradition.
Mark, a few thoughts. First, my point about history is that since we are at the very beginning of this project, no school - and certainly no group of schools - should be written off yet. Second, and related, I am saguine not because of numbers or statistics, but because I have seen how even a tiny group (which is made up not only of Catholics) focused on listen to each other, and appreciating the presence of "God in all things," can create a community in which an open conversation about the role of religion, and particularly about the Catholic intellectual tradition, in legal education. Finally I would push the point that efforts grounded in ecumenism and inter-faith dialogue are not adjacent too, but actually the heart of Catholicism, at least as the life of the Church is described in Gaudium et Spes and in the Second Vatican Council more generally.
Sorry to go on. But I do look forward to continuing the conversation - I don't think the two of you are that far apart. You may both disagree with me! But in any case, I'd look forward to a lunch conversation in the near future!
Several days ago, Rick Garnett posted observations and questions about abortion from Professor Steve Shiffrin (here), inviting thoughts from Mirror of Justice members about what policies ought to be adopted in the United States should Roe v. Wade be overturned. In a future posting, I’ll respond more directly to the question and offer some tentative thoughts about what we might find in a post-Roe v. Wade legal regime that protected unborn human life. In this posting, instead, I want to emphasize what tremendous good would be accomplished by the removal of Roe v. Wade as a constitutional precedent, that is, what good would be realized directly from the overturning of that pernicious decision, whatever else might follow in terms of concrete legislative responses.
First, the removal of Roe v. Wade would remove the misguided but nonetheless persistent and widely-accepted argument that nearly-unrestricted access to abortion must be a good thing because it is, after all, a constitutional right. By transforming abortion from a controversial and complex moral and political question into a constitutional entitlement, Roe v. Wade bestowed upon abortion the status (in the minds of many) of a positive good. It withdrew from the supporters of liberal abortion laws the obligation to frame an ethical justification, beyond absolute claims of personal control and an extremely isolated view of individual autonomy. As a constitutional right, and a fundamental right at that, abortion was inherently justified. Once Roe were removed as a precedent, those who advocate an abortion license could no longer simply cite the Supreme Court’s ruling and regard that reference as obviating any need to discuss the morality of abortion or to consider the societal impact of hundreds of thousands of abortions performed annually.
Second, and related to the first, after an initial period of confusion and probably heightened public distress (more on this below), the presumptions in the argument about abortion would shift toward those who unselfishly advocate protection of unborn human life. If advocates for the abortion license were obliged to frame their arguments in terms of what is good and right, rather than being able to pull out the trump card of a constitutional right, the argument moves in our direction. When the legalistic language of constitutional construction and emanations from penumbras is withdrawn, the debate will focus even more tightly upon the merits, allowing the witness for life to be heard more effectively and more powerfully.
Moreover, attention may be more effectively drawn to the moral side-effects of the regime of abortion-on-demand—irresponsibility in sexual conduct, evasion of obligations by putative fathers, devaluation of children, and intolerance for the dependent, “inconvenient” members of our society. By framing abortion as a nearly unqualified constitutional right, without fully considering the claims of human life, we have not taken a stride to a more virtuous, healthy, or free society. At present, Roe stands like a towering but tree over the landscape, leaving the underlying societal and moral questions shrouded in shadow. If that sinister tree is toppled, the light of day may then filter down into the darkness and reveal the culture of death in all its ugliness, no longer hidden by the monstrous growth of Roe.
Third, as long as Roe continues to loom over the constitutional landscape, any legislative measure that implicates, even indirectly, abortion also fall under its shadow. Limitations on abortion at any stage, prohibitions on partial-birth abortion, laws mandating medical efforts to save the lives of victims of abortion who survive the procedure, legal preservation of parental rights through notification requirements, laws protecting spousal rights, laws ensuring informed consent by provision of information concerning fetal development, prohibitions on use of taxpayer monies to fund performance of abortions or abortion counseling, etc. are subject to constitutional attack so long as the Roe regime persists. Even when a particular category of legislation survives a particular litigation attack, there always remains the prospect that abortion jurisprudence will shift in the other direction, that similar legislation will be distinguished in effect and thus in validity, or that new theories will be formulated by teams of “pro-choice” legal advocates to mount yet another court challenge against such legislation. Thus, even aside from new legislative restraints on abortion, the current legislative movements toward protection of human life, even indirectly and imperfectly, would stand on firmer ground without Roe.
Third, as a jurisprudential black hole that draws in and deforms everything that comes near its wandering path through spacetime, Roe’s gravitational pull has tended to collapse every nearby area of law into a pro-abortion singularity. In particular, the law of freedom of expression has been severely distorted, as the expressive rights of those who protest abortion have been suppressed. While the Supreme Court generally upholds broad protections for speech, those protections seem to disappear when the subject of abortion is in the background, resulting in greatly diminished speech protections for those who protest abortion. On the suppression of the speech rights of pro-life protestors, see generally Lynn D. Wardle, The Quandry of Pro-Life Free Speech: A Lesson from the Abolitionists, 62 ALB. L. REV. 853, 881-915 (1999). In sum, constitutional jurisprudence in general will move onto a more healthy path once Roe v. Wade is overruled.
Fourth, overturning Roe v. Wade would enhance democratic governance, the most fundamental freedom of all. As Father Richard John Neuhaus reminded us, during a speech here at the University of St. Thomas School of Law less than two weeks ago, if the most important questions that face us as a people, such as the basic question of life itself, are taken away from the people and reserved to a judicial oligarchy, then democracy in any meaningful sense has been lost.
The ability of the public to engage in political deliberation about such issues is undermined by removing them into the judicial arena. The dialogue of constitutional litigation is twice removed from the ordinary discourse of the people. As Frederick Schauer once suggested, “just as legal language is different in kind from ordinary language, constitutional language may be different in kind from other legal language.” Frederick Schauer, An Essay on Constitutional Language, 29 UCLA L. REV. 797, 800 (1982). Granting the Supreme Court supremacy over fundamental questions of social and moral governance through the mechanism of judicial review disempowers the people from full participation in their government. Constitutional litigation simply is not a friendly forum for a balanced discussion of the wide range of values and concerns relevant to disposition of a public issue. Litigation and adjudication force communication along a narrow path. The focus of legal advocacy is upon rights and wrongs. The adversarial process encourages a winner-take-all attitude. The possibility of compromise is suppressed. The values of responsibility, respect for others, and moral character are largely missing from the rights-talk of the courtroom. (Mary Ann Glendon in her classic book, “Rights Talk,” has written perceptively about the excessively “strident language of rights” that has developed in America and its deleterious effect upon public discourse. Roe v. Wade is exhibit one in that regard.)
In terms of renewing public engagement in these matters after a reversal of Roe v. Wade, I should close by offering a warning to those of us in the pro-life community. I anticipate that any overturning of Roe v. Wade would be followed explosively by inflammatory rhetoric from “pro-choice” advocates, portraying the result as the death of civil liberties in the United States and the dawn of a moralistic and paternalistic tyranny. Given that support for abortion rights is nearly universal among the cultural elite, especially those who control most of the national news and entertainment media, we should expect a full-throated and extreme reaction that would achieve, for a time, the desired apprehensive response from the general public, with a resultant effect on opinion polling about abortion. During that initial aftermath, a public that understandably is anxious about any significant change in the status quo (that is, a public that is naturally conservative in attitude) would likely be sincerely (if mistakenly) distressed by the judicial removal of a supposed constitutional right. I frequently find that law students, even after completing a course in constitutional law, still fail to appreciate that the overruling of Roe v. Wade would not prevent a single abortion from taking place, but would merely allow the people in the exercise of their democratic rights to consider what is the most appropriate answer in social and moral terms.
If and when Roe v. Wade is overruled, and if the public were to react initially with anxiety as provoked by extreme rhetoric from the cultural elite, those of us who stand for the dignity of all human life should respond firmly but calmly. And we should not be discouraged by temporary trends. Slowly the public will discover that any parade of horribles marched out by the media simply is not being realized, that dictatorship has not emerged, that women are not being rounded up and forcibly removed from public life, that decades of progress in equality between the genders has not been reversed, and that freedom has survived and in fact was never endangered. Because the general public will appreciate that the Supreme Court by overturning Roe v. Wade was taking nothing away but rather was returning a subject of great moral concern to democratic deliberation, allowing the people to chart their own course and create a culture of life.
Sightings 11/10/05 [from the Martin Marty Center at the
University of Chicago Divinity School] The Most
Acceptable Prejudice -- Jon Pahl
One sad trend in the current
controversy over pedophilia in the church is that it has occasioned yet another
rank of people of privilege in America to represent themselves as victims.
These mostly white, mostly male, mostly well-off Roman Catholic leaders have
taken to claiming anti-Catholic "prejudice" -- and are doing so as a way of
defending against inexcusable crimes. Let's cut through this smokescreen,
without escalating the moral panic about pedophilia: It is prejudice
against children, and not Catholics, that is operative in this
controversy.
Within the past five years, two Catholic scholars -- Philip
Jenkins and Mark S. Massa -- have written large books contending that
anti-Catholicism is "the last acceptable prejudice" in the United States.
I grant them their point. Historically, Catholics have been targets of
suspicion and violence in America, and some stereotypes still endure.
Unfortunately, the pedophilia uproar has brought these stereotypes to the
surface in new forms, despite the desire on the part of most Catholics to
confront the pedophilia problem.
And surely it is important to keep in
mind that Catholic schools -- for all the stereotypes sometimes associated with
them -- have been crucial agencies of intergenerational education and spiritual
formation in America. Through them, young people have discovered their
voices and vocations in service to the common good. Catholic congregations
-- like other communities of faith -- remain places in American culture where
generations can meet informally for conversation, mentoring, and mutual
learning. And Catholic social services -- like other faith-based charities
and advocacy groups -- have potential to provide much in the way of front-line
service to the poor and powerless.
But on September 21, 2005, the same
day that a Philadelphia Grand Jury released a 671-page report documenting
decades of abuse of children by priests, and a systemic cover-up, across the
Philadelphia Archdiocese, the Archdiocese released (under the authorship of its
legal counsel) a 76-page reply to the report, fraught with defensive
evasions. While it points out, rightly, that Catholics generally want to
solve the problems of child abuse, inside the church and without, it also claims
that the Grand Jury proceedings betrayed an "anti-Catholic" bias.
The
potential of Catholic agencies to promote the common good is undercut when
certain Catholics claim to be targets of prejudice, powerless victims. And
denying the possession of power by asserting a pseudo-victim status amounts to
obscuring, even disclaiming, the relations of domination at work in abuses
against children.
As is well known, acts of pedophilia are not only "sex
crimes." They are, even more, exercises of power on the body of a young
person. These acts are often compared, rightly, to rape. But there
are other analogies.
One example is found in corporal punishment.
In America, a parent may legally assault his or her child. An act that
would be a crime when perpetrated against an adult is, when committed against a
child (and often on or near their sexual organs), called "discipline." In
some circles, these acts of assault are positively praised, and their
relationship to sexual abuse and power over the young denied.
Such
intimate violence is only one form that prejudice against the young can
take. Osama bin Laden and George W. Bush have both claimed to be on the
side of "innocent children." Yet Iraqi children have been the victims of
both suicide bombings and U.S. strategic military assaults.
And here at
home, children will surely suffer from skewed federal priorities. Common
sense suggests that "No Child Left Behind" is nothing more than empty rhetoric,
when we still have to pay for the war on terror, for hurricane relief,
and continue to plan tax cuts for the wealthiest citizens in America.
Such logic defies rationality and reveals prejudice.
In the context of Christianity, what makes such
expressions of prejudice against the young especially scandalous is that they
contradict the model of power-with-others manifest in the life of Jesus.
Opposing the age bias of his own day, Jesus welcomed children into his
presence. He called for "child-like faith" among his disciples. He
practiced only the power of love.
Pedophilia is but one example of adults
exercising power over children. And when adults evade accusations
of pedophilia by claiming victim status, they deny the responsibility to
exercise power with (or on behalf of) children in ways that might
actually address the systemic issues impeding young peoples'
fulfillment.
How truly sad, then, that a few Catholic priests perpetrated
abusive acts, a few officials covered up those acts, and a few Roman Catholic
leaders have tried to excuse them by appealing to victim status. What they
were all doing instead was deepening the hold of the most acceptable prejudice
in American culture: systematic and systemic abuse of the youngest and
weakest members of our society.
References: The Grand Jury
Report can be found at:
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/pa_philadelphia/Philly_GJ_report.htm.
The Archdiocese of Philadelphia's responses can be read at:http://www.archdiocese-phl.org/grandjury.htm.
Jon Pahl is Professor of the History of Christianity in
North America at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, and author
of Youth Ministry in Modern America: 1930-the
Present.
Monday's mail brought The Heritage Guide to the Constitution, to which two of our own members (Rick Garnett and Tom Berg) contributed, as did a number of other prominent Catholic legal scholars. The Guide combines line-by-line annotations of the text of the U.S. Constitution with short explanatory essays of each provision and bibliographies of suggested readings for further research. It looks to be a great research tool.
Obviously, as a Heritage Foundation project, the analysis has a conservative slant, but the contributors include many serious and objective scholars, including a number of friends such as Gerard Bradley, Eric Chiappinelli, Don Dripps, John Eastman, Richard Epstein, Andy Leipold, Ron Rotunda, Brad Smith, and Bill Stuntz. (Wow, what a great Supreme Court lineup they'd make!) Fans of the blawgosphere will recognize names such as David Bernstein and Eugene Volokh (of the Volokh Conspiracy). Finally, there are a few names that might surprise you, such as Jack Goldsmith (former NAACP lawyer who worked on Brown v. Board of Education). In sum, highly recommended.
Rob asks -- if I understand correctly -- whether a Catholic who believes that the Republican platform is, all things considered, better -- with "better" being judged in terms of accord with Catholic Social Teaching -- than the Democratic Platform, may favor the nomination of a justice who will limit Roe over a justice who would overturn Roe, because nominating the latter would (on the Jack Balkin theory) result in the election of more Democrats.
My initial take is -- assuming for now that, all things considered, the Republican program is better (in CST terms) than the Democratic program -- to say "yes," assuming also that the Democratic program includes support for Roe-maximizing judges, as well as public funding for abortion. To support -- as an interim strategy -- the nomination of a Roe-limiting, rather than Roe-overruling, justice is not (it seems to me) to cooperate culpably with the evil of abortion.
Now, I anticipate this reaction to my (admittedly tentative) "take": "Aha! Then why can't a Catholic support a Democratic candidate who will pursue non-regulatory, non-judicial policies that result in fewer abortions, but who will not push to ban abortions, and who will not nominate Roe- limiting judges, if that Catholic believes that, on balance, the Democratic platform is better than the Republican platform?" To which I would probably respond, "I think she can!" (It's like the story about the guy who was asked if he believed in infant baptism . . . "Of course! I've seen it done!").
That said, I would probably contend -- with respect and charity, I hope -- that her belief (about the platforms' merits) was mistaken, and I might also suggest that a candidate whose campaign strategy (and campaign-funding strategy) was built on a full-throated support of an absolutist version of the abortion-rights position, and on a commitment to nominate Roe-maximizing judges (who would, of course, vote in ways that would make it impossible even to reasonably regulate abortion), was not likely, really, to do much to reduce abortions.
After reading my recent post about Philip Bess's presentation on the New Urbanism and natural law, my friend and colleague Frank Snyder sent me this:
[In Disraeli's "Sybil, or the Two Nations," there is a scene that] has the hero Egremont meeting two strangers at the ruins of an ancient abbey. One of the men talks about how splendid England was in the days of the monasteries, and how much better the peasants lived. It goes on:
"You lament the old faith," said Egremont, in a tone of respect.
"I am not viewing the question as one of faith," said the stranger. "It is not as a matter of religion, but as a matter of right, that I am considering it: as a matter, I should say, of private right and public happiness. You might have changed if you thought fit the religion of the abbots as you changed the religion of the bishops: but you had no right to deprive men of their property, and property moreover which under their administration so mainly contributed to the welfare of the community."
"As for community," said a voice which proceeded neither from Egremont nor the stranger [but from the stranger's younger companion], "with the monasteries expired the only type that we ever had in England of such an intercourse. There is no community in England; there is aggregation, but aggregation under circumstances which make it rather a dissociating, than an uniting, principle." . . .
"You also lament the dissolution of these bodies," said Egremont.
"There is so much to lament in the world in which we live," said the younger of the strangers, "that I can spare no pang for the past."
"Yet you approve of the principle of their society; you prefer it, you say, to our existing life."
"Yes; I prefer association to gregariousness."
"That is a distinction," said Egremont, musingly.
"It is a community of purpose that constitutes society," continued the younger stranger; "without that, men may be drawn into contiguity, but they still continue virtually isolated."
"And is that their condition in cities?"
"It is their condition everywhere; but in cities that condition is aggravated. A density of population implies a severer struggle for existence, and a consequent repulsion of elements brought into too close contact. In great cities men are brought together by the desire of gain. They are not in a state of co-operation, but of isolation, as to the making of fortunes; and for all the rest they are careless of neighbours. Christianity teaches us to love our neighbour as ourself; modern society acknowledges no neighbour."
This article reports on some interesting remarks made recently by President Carter during a speech promoting his latest book, "Our Enduring Values":
Former President Jimmy Carter yesterday condemned all abortions and chastised his party for its intolerance of candidates and nominees who oppose abortion.
"I never have felt that any abortion should be committed -- I think each abortion is the result of a series of errors," he told reporters over breakfast at the Ritz-CarltonHotel, while across town Senate Democrats deliberated whether to filibuster the nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. because he may share President Bush and Mr. Carter's abhorrence of abortion.
"These things impact other issues on which [Mr. Bush] and I basically agree," the Georgia Democrat said. "I've never been convinced, if you let me inject my Christianity into it, that Jesus Christ would approve abortion."
Mr. Carter said his party's congressional leadership only hurts Democrats by making a rigid pro-abortion rights stand the criterion for assessing judicial nominees. "I have always thought it was not in the mainstream of the American public to be extremely liberal on many issues," Mr. Carter said. "I think our party's leaders -- some of them -- are overemphasizing the abortion issue."
As my co-blogistas know, I have written extensively on the question of what it means for a law school to be Catholic, and presented papers on the topic at conferences and at both secular and Catholic law schools. And as many know, I have been engaged with my faculty colleagues at Villanova in an effort to discover a new Catholic identity for a "Catholic" law schol that had become, like so many others, almost entirely secular. I have been reluctant, however, to jump into the very interesting discussion on this topic that popped up recently. First of all,I imagine that most folks have heard just about enough from me on this topic. Second, as a sitting dean who is not just theorizing about this issue, but trying to actualize it, I have to be very careful about what I say. Despite these reservations, I cannot help commenting on some points that have been made.
1. Amy is correct that the narrative about Catholic legal education is not a "decline from the golden age" narrative. There never was a golden age of Catholic legal education. Before the 60's most Catholic law schools were sociologically Catholic, and served the goal of providing social mobility to the children of the immigrant church (and many Jews who suffered from similar economic and social exclusion), but there was never any attempt (with rare exceptions) to integrate the Catholic intellectual and moral tradition with the study of law. What is happening today in the two new Catholic law schools and a very small number of old ones is an attempt to find a new type of Catholic identity that never existed before.
2. I agree entirely with Amy that there is some range of possibilities or ways for law schools to be Catholic. We tend to thrust totalizing definitions of what is "Catholic" at each other in a way that is not, well, very Catholic. While I certainly respect what Richard Myers and Kevin Lee have articulated as a Catholic vision of a faith community, I do not believe that is the only way for an institution that calls itself Catholic to serve the Lord. I have written elsewhere about my concept of an "inclusive" Catholic law school, so will not belabor this point here.
3. That being said, I think I am far less sanguine than Amy about the Catholicity of the great majority of Catholic law schools, including virtually all the Jesuit ones. There are lot of ways to explain this. Anecdotally, I would like to refer to a collection of quotes from the deans of such law schools, to wit: "We are not a Catholic law school; we are a law school in a Catholic university" (showing at least a kind of Catholic capacity for abstraction);"the law school does not support the Catholic mission of the university;" "The priests leave us alone;" and "Well, the Mass schedule is posted, and there are some crucifixes around: that's pretty Catholic!" To continue anecdotally, I have had the occassion to speak to the faculties of three other Catholic law schools in the last year or so about mission. While my message was, I thought, pretty moderate, the atmosphere of hostility, fear (and rudeness) in the room was palpable. These are not places comfortable with the notion that they are or should be any more Catholic than Princeton is Presbyterian, Columia Episcopalian or Harvard Congregationalist. To move beyond anecdote, I can only point at the obvious paucity of Catholic faculty in most "Catholic" law schools and the scarcity of scholarship and teaching emanating from those schools that engages with the tradition .
4. Amy makes an eloquent argument about the need for diversity and ecumenicism in Catholic law schools, and the need for dialogue between colleagues and others, as profoundly expressive of Catholic values. I agree 100%. The problem is that in most schools there is plenty of ecumenicism, diversity and dialogue, but no or very little Catholicism! Not only does Catholicism not have any privileged or foundational position, it is entirely (or mostly)absent from the dialogue. Indeed, as I suggested above, it is usually shunned, out of fear that it will "take over." I am very fortunate that my colleagues at Villanova have been thoughtful, open-minded and courageous enough to engage positively with the Catholic intellectual and moral tradition, but that is a rare thing. In other words, I don't think a law school that is "diverse" but not committed to any kind of serious engagement with Catholicism can call itself "Catholic" simply because it is diverse!
5. Of course, the usual response is that "we are Catholic because we do clinics and pro bono, teach jurisprudence and emphasize ethics," or that " we honor the Jesuit tradition by instilling in our students a passion for justice." My usual response is that my former employer, the Univ of Maryland, says exactly the same things (and does them very well!). Does that make it Catholic? More important, is there anything in the way those schools do those things that have anything to do with Catholic jurispruidential or ethical concepts, let alone the Catholic (or Jesuit) understanding of what "justice" means? I don't think so. John Breen has written very thoughtfully about this, as have others.
Amy's generosity of spirit and tolerant heart always makes me feel a bit like Sadaam Hussein (or at least Scrooge). And I do agree that the range of models for what constitutes a Catholic law school is broader than some might believe, but I think there is a limit. A school that does not include a vibrant and sustainable collection of Catholic voices, a willingness to express and engage with the Catholic moral and intellectual traditions, and a consciousness of itself as Catholic,may be a perfectly good law school, but not one that is "Catholic" in any meaningful sense.
I wasn't sure whether you all had seen this story, but the IRS is investigating an Episcopal parish whose pastor gave a sermon opposing the war in Iraq. Apparently, the IRS is considering whether to revoke the Church's tax exempt status. It's an interesting (and, I think, important) story. The Church's web page is here. You can read the sermon that led to the investigation. Here's the story from beliefnet.
In a way, I think this goes to some of the important questions Rick raised below about whether Catholics should feel more comfortable with the Republican or Democratic platform. I think he is aboslutely correct that the Dems have served CST very poorly of late in the areas of social justice, capital punishment, etc., though it was not always thus. I'm just not sure the Republicans do much better on their issues, as this story seems to show, and as the Alito answers on Roe v. Wade may also suggest. For all the tough Republican talk on abortion, 7 of the 9 justices of the Supreme Court were appointed by them, and Roe is still the law. In the end, I think neither party scores all that high on the CST-meter, though in the end I give the nod to the Democrats for at least not bashing the poor and being somewhat more skeptical than Republicans of capital punishment and militarism. This is admitedly a low standard, and since the Clinton presidency (whose treatment of Ricky Rector during the 1992 campaign still turns my stomach), I have not considered myself an enthusiastic Democrat.
As I've blogged about before, I have an article in the new issue of The Christian Century, on the Uniao Do Vegetal case in the Supreme Court concerning the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), the scope of religious freedom in America, and the consumption of a sacramental tea containing a small amount of a hallucinogenic substance. Front page for the issue is here and the direct article link is here. Brief thesis:
Applying [RFRA's] principles vigorously is important for the religious freedom of all faiths. In the Christian tradition, the argument for accommodating religion in the face of a general law stems from the priority of conscience over government. As James Madison, trained by Calvinists at Princeton, wrote in his famous Memorial and Remonstrance, duties to God are "precedent both in order of time and degree of obligation to the claims of civil society." Government, of course, has authority to make general laws to preserve peace, welfare and others' rights, and one can even argue that there is no general constitutional right to exemptions from such laws. But a government that makes such accommodations, through means such as RFRA, should be commended for respecting its limits and treading on conscience only where necessary.
