Wednesday, April 20, 2005
This conference, "Philosophical Anthropology: Reviewed and Renewed," hosted by the University of Notre Dame from May 6-9, looks very interesting. Professor Charles Taylor will be delivering one of the keynote addresses. Here is a full list of speakers.
Rick
My friend and former colleague, Lisa Schiltz, a law professor at St. Thomas, has contributed to our ongoing symposium on Pope John Paul II's jurisprudential legacy her essay, "Why Larry Summers Should Have Had the Pope Review His Draft: The Implications of John Paul II's Teachings for Gender Balance at Catholic Universities." Here is a taste:
One of the most puzzling things to me about the controversial remarks that the President of Harvard University, Lawrence H. Summers, made this past January at the conference on Diversifying the Science and Engineering Workforce was how someone so smart could have said such thoughtful things in such a clumsy and stupid way. As a Yale graduate, of course, my first impulse was to seize the obvious explanation – maybe the President of Harvard just isn’t really that smart. But that’s not really an explanation that would probably convince anyone outside of
, so I quickly discarded that one. My second thought was to muse a bit about the timing of the whole controversy. The furor over President Summers’ comments erupted just around the same time that Pope John Paul II first was admitted to the hospital for the beginning of the respiratory difficulties that ultimately led to his death. Of course, it turns out that Summers’ remarks had been made a month earlier and only started getting widespread attention about the time of John Paul’s hospitalization, but the coincidence of timing got me to thinking – would Pope John Paul II have agreed with President Summer’s remarks? Or could Summers have avoided getting caught up in this controversy if he had passed a draft to the Pope, and gotten some comments, before he gave that infamous speech? New Haven
,
Connecticut
I am going to explain why I think that, if Summers had informed his talk with some ideas from the writings of John Paul about the role of women in the public sphere, he might, indeed, have avoided some of the firestorm in which he subsequently found himself, or at least blunted some of the reaction. My interest in this topic, however, goes beyond either defending or attacking Summers and his comments. Obviously, what Pope John Paul II said about the role of women in the public sphere is irrelevant to either Summers or to his institution. However, these Church teachings should be of great relevance to Catholic universities, and, indeed, to all Catholic institutions that hire men and women. I believe that John Paul’s teachings on the importance of the family and the role of women, both within the family and in the public sphere, if taken seriously by Catholic employers, should spur significant workplace restructuring to accommodate the needs of working parents – fathers and mothers – far beyond what is mandated by federal and state laws. . . .
A Catholic university that took seriously these teachings would look a little different most Catholic universities – indeed, most universities – generally look today. Remember the two basic arguments. First, the preservation of the family is crucial to solving many of contemporary society’s most critical problems, and the work of preserving the family – primarily the work of mothers – needs to be properly valued by society. Second, women have unique contributions to make in solving many of contemporary society’s most critical problems, and women must have access to the public sphere in order to make these contributions. Put these two together, and the Catholic universities should have no choice but to institute structures to accommodate working mothers. . . .
Rick
I picked this up from today's Arts & Letters Daily, published by the Chronicle of Higher Education. Just click on any of the nineteen items below to read:
From “Thank God!” to “Oh my God!” reactions to Pope Benedict XVI are rolling in from all over... Hans Küng
... Andrew Sullivan
... Michael Novak
... E.J. Dionne
... Jack Miles
... Charles Moore
... Daniel Johnson
... Andrew Brown
... Julian Baggini
... Charlotte Hays
... Paul Vallely
... Anne Applebaum
... Derrick Jackson
... Catherine Pepinster
... Ruth Gledhill
... Kenneth Woodward
... Roger Kimball
... German roundup
... Ratzinger in WWII
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
For the full version of Michael Novak's article "Culture in Crisis," which appeared this morning (pre-election of Ratzinger) in National Review online, click here.
"What Ratzinger defends is not dogmatism against relativism. What he defends is not absolutism against relativism. These are false alternatives.
What Ratzinger attacks as relativism is the regulative principle that all thought is and must remain subjective. What he defends against such relativism is the contrary regulative principle, namely, that each human subject must continue to inquire incessantly, and to bow to the evidence of fact and reason.
The fact that we each see things differently does not imply that there is no truth. It implies, rather, that each of us may have a portion of the truth, and that in this or that matter some of us may hold more (or less) truth than others. Therefore, since each of us has only part of all the truth we seek, we must work hard together to discern in all things wherein lies the truth, and wherein the error.
Ratzinger wishes to defend the imperative of seeking the truth in all things, the imperative to follow the evidence. This imperative applies to daily life, to science, and to faith. The great Jewish and Christian name for God is connected to this imperative — one of the Creator’s names is Truth. Other related names are Light, and Way. Humans are made seekers after truth. …
But the fact of human “relativity” — that is, the fact that we each see things differently, or that the life-voyage of each of us is unique and inimitable — should not be transformed into an absolute moral principle. The fact of relativity does not logically lead to the principle of moral relativism.
No great, inspiring culture of the future can be built upon the moral principle of relativism. For at its bottom such a culture holds that nothing is better than anything else, and that all things are in themselves equally meaningless. Except for the fragments of faith (in progress, in compassion, in conscience, in hope) to which it still clings, illegitimately, such a culture teaches every one of its children that life is a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing.
The culture of relativism invites its own destruction, both by its own internal incoherence and by its defenselessness against cultures of faith.
This is the bleak fate that Cardinal Ratzinger already sees looming before Europe
For Cardinal Ratzinger, moreover, it is not reason that offers a foundation for faith, but the opposite. Historically, it is Jewish and Christian faith in an intelligent and benevolent Creator that gave birth in the West to trust in reason, humanism, science, and progress, and carried the West far beyond the fatalistic limits of ancient Greece Rome
To the meaninglessness of relativism, Ratzinger counter poses respect for the distinctive, incommensurable image of God in every single human being, from the most helpless to the seemingly most powerful, together with a sense of our solidarity with one another in the bosom of our Creator. This fundamental vision of the immortal value both of the individual person and the whole human community in solidarity has been the motor-power, the spiritual dynamic overdrive, of an increasingly global (catholic) civilization.
That, at least, is the way he sees it. He is willing to argue out his case with all comers."
From the April 22d Commonweal:
What kind of pope do we have now? Selections from the Commonweal archive on the subject of Joseph Ratzinger.
Who is Benedict XVI?
Joseph Komonchak reviews a recent biography of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.
Ratzinger for Pope?
Late last year, the editors speculated on the possibility of a Ratzinger papacy.
What are Ratzinger’s views on conscience?
By Sidney Callahan
What are Ratzinger’s views on women?
By Sidney Callahan
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger was the principal celebrant and homilist at a mass celebrated March 18 for the participants of a conference sponsored by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace entitled "A Call to Justice" on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Gaudium et Spes. In the homily, he said:
"As Christians we must constantly be reminded that the call of justice is not something which can be reduced to the categories of this world. And this is the beauty of the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et spes, evident in the very structure of the Council's text; only when we Christians grasp our vocation, as having been created in the image of God and believing that "the form of this world is passing away...[and] that God is preparing a new dwelling and a new earth, in which justice dwells (GS n. 39)" can we address the urgent social problems of our time from a truly Christian perspective. "Far from diminishing our concern to develop this earth, the expectation of a new earth should spur us on, for it is here that the body of a new human family grows, prefiguring in some way the world that is to come" (GS n. 39).
And so, to be workers of this true justice, we must be workers who are being made just, by contact with Him who is justice itself: Jesus of Nazareth. The place of this encounter is the Church, nowhere more powerfully present than in her sacraments and liturgy. The celebration of the Holy Triduum, which we will enter into next week, is the triumph of God's justice over human judgments. In the mystery of Good Friday, God is judged by man and condemned by human justice. In the Easter Vigil, the light of God's justice banishes the darkness of sin and death; the stone at the tomb (made of the same material as the stones in the hands of those who, in today's Gospel, seek to kill Christ) is pushed away forever, and human life is given a future, which, in going beyond the categories of this world, reveals the true meaning and the true value of earthly realities.
And we who have been baptized, as children of a world which is still to come, in the liturgy of the Easter Vigil, catch a glimpse of that world, and breathe the atmosphere of that world, where God's justice will dwell forever. And then, renewed and transformed by the Mysteries we celebrate, we can walk in this world justly, living - as the Preface for Lent says so beautifully - "in this passing world with our heart set on the world that will never end" (Preface for Lent II)."
If you would like the full text, email me.
I appreciate Tom's tough questions about my thoughts on the freedom of conscience movement as it pertains to pharmacists. Our exchange boils down to the question, Is the moral agency of pharmacists best pursued as an individual right or as an associational interest? Tom lays out a perfectly reasonable case for the former understanding, so let me make a few points in favor of the latter.
First, waging the "culture wars" in the language of individual rights is, in my view, dangerous (but sometimes unavoidable, I admit), and should be undertaken only as needed. To the extent that we frame significant contests over values in terms that presume that the only relevant bulwarks against oppression are rights-bearing, atomistic individuals, we relegate intermediate bodies to the sidelines.
Second, Tom's concern about the potential for meaningful identity-shaping behavior in a rapidly concentrating market is a valid one, but an individualist approach to conscience only exacerbates the problem. If pharmacies are faced with a legal system in which they are 1) forced to allow pharmacists to exercise moral agency; or 2) forced to forbid pharmacists from exercising moral agency, there is no capacity to stake out any unique institutional identity on the issue, much less a countercultural one. If, by contrast, the power is given to pharmacies themselves, wouldn't there at least be the potential for the cultivation of a mediating role? If one pharmacy required its pharmacists to dispense the morning-after pill and one did not, consumers (and pharmacists themselves) might start utilizing those distinctions in forming their preferences.
Third, Pharmacists for Life is, as Tom suggests, a group that mediates between an individual and the surrounding society. But its mediating function is of the thinnest sort. Rights-based advocacy produces an array of member-funded organizations, but generally the only involvement required is financial. If civil society consisted only of groups modeled after AARP, for example, rather than the local senior citizens center, we'd all be worse off. Instead of concentrating on one-shot lobbying pushes in state legislatures (as I assume they do, though I'm not very familiar with the group), Pharmacists for Life's mediating function would be much more robust if they operated as a support group to equip members to thrive as conscientious professionals in a vibrant, but occasionally unwelcoming, marketplace. A conversation premised on individual rights is geared toward legislative or judicial action; a healthy civil society (subsidiarity in particular) demands that our conversations also be geared toward winning the hearts and minds of our neighbors.
Fourth, in response to Tom's point about Medicare/Medicaid "conscience" provisions, when government funding is involved, I believe that the government has a role in shaping marketplace norms. So if the government wants to condition funding on institutions' acceptance of health care professionals' moral agency, I'm not as worried about that as I am about a blanket enshrinement of moral agency as individual right. The key is for the government to participate as a market actor, communicating its own norms and ideals, not as a trump on the market through the top-down imposition of a fixed set of norms and ideals. In the health care context, I realize that this is a very difficult distinction to maintain given that government funding is an inescapable and market-defining reality. I'm still wrestling with that one.
To be clear, if my only two choices are a world in which all pharmacists are legally required to provide all legal pharmaceutical products and one in which individual pharmacists are shielded from state and employer interference with their morality-driven decisions on which pharmaceutical products to provide, I'll choose the latter without hesitation. But those two choices are not the only viable alternatives. (And if they are, then civil society is in more trouble than we thought.)
Rob
Reuters' "gracious" announcement reads:
German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the strict defender of Catholic orthodoxy for the past 23 years, was elected Pope on Tuesday despite a widespread assumption he was too old and divisive to win election.
Widespread among whom? The left-liberal elites that Reuters reporters hang out with?
He took the name Benedict XVI, a cardinal announced to crowds in St. Peter's Square after white smoke from the Vatican's Sistine Chapel chimney and the pealing of bells from St. Peter's Basilica announced that a new pope had been chosen.
I had guessed that Ratzinger would take the name Boniface if chosen, since as the first German pope in almost a millennium he might want to honor the Apostle to the Germans. In any case, the media are already speculating as to the signal the new Holy Father intended to send by his choice of names; e.g., ABC:
... it could be interpreted as a bid to soften his image as the Vatican's doctrinal hard-liner. Benedict XV, who reigned from 1914 to 1922, was a moderate following Pius X, who had implemented a sharp crackdown against doctrinal "modernism."
I must rush off to class. More thoughts later over on my personal blog.
MOJ readers will be interested in Howard Friedman's new blog, "Religion Clause." Professor Friedman has indicated that his blog will cover current legal, scholarly and political developments relating to free exercise of religion and separation of church and state. It will also link to resources, academic centers, government offices, advocacy organizations, journals and listservs that deal with church-state matters. The blog can be accessed here.
Monday, April 18, 2005
This is from the May 6th Commonweal: Robert P. Imbelli, Shepherding the Church. Imbelli is a priest of the Archdiocese of New York and associate professor of theology at Boston College. (By the way, the next reflection in Commonweal will be that of MOJ's own Amy Uelman!) To read Imbelli's entire reflection, click here. Excerpts follow:
In 1996, John Paul II issued the apostolic letter Universi dominici gregis, which laid down detailed procedures to govern the election of a new pope. Among the responsibilities of the cardinals, prior to the recent conclave, was to appoint two preachers “known for their sound doctrine, wisdom, and moral authority” who were to offer “meditations on the problems facing the church at the present time and on the need for careful discernment in choosing the new pope.” This requirement of prayerful discernment of spirits carries beyond the conclave and the election of the next pope and constitutes a continuing responsibility of the church gathered in the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
Had I been asked to offer recommendations on texts to
guide the preachers’ presentations (and now, more importantly, the
Catholic community’s ongoing reflections), I would have suggested two:
the twenty-first chapter of the Gospel according to St. John, and the
wonderful pastoral vision sketched by John Paul II in his Novo millennio ineunte.
. . .
Another theme developed in Novo millennio ineunte may prove particularly important in focusing the vision and energies of the church, his call “to make the church the home and the school of communion.” Achieving this will require the development of “a spirituality of communion” that can undergird and sustain a commitment to consultation, dialogue, and collaboration. Vatican II’s recovery of the constitutive role of collegiality in Catholic ecclesiology was a catalyst for the postconciliar development of such participatory structures as the Synod of Bishops and diocesan presbyeteral and pastoral councils. The challenge confronting the next pope and the whole church is to reanimate these, to employ them more effectively, and, when necessary, to create new vehicles for expressing and furthering the active and mature collaboration of all the baptized.
In this regard, one must mention two crucial claims on the prayerful discernment of the church. The first is how the manifold gifts that women bring to the whole church may find fuller institutional recognition. The second is whether, in view of the aging and diminishing numbers of clergy, especially in the West, the tradition of celibacy can continue to be the normal practice for the Latin church.
In the years since Novo millennio ineunte, other challenges of “these rapidly changing times” have emerged, perhaps none more difficult, and urgent than the dialogue with Islam. Clearly our new pope cannot be the sole responsible dialogue partner; but his leadership will set the tone and help orient its course.
The daunting challenges presented to the next pope and to the whole church can seem overwhelming. Like Peter and the disciples in the storm-driven boat we are tempted to lose heart. But the two-fold passion, for Christ and for communion, is the beacon that guides disciples, not away from suffering and the cross, but toward meeting them with faith, in the hope of resurrection. Together with St. John of the Cross the church of the new millennium chants the song of “The Dark Night”: “Sin otra luz y guia/ Sino la que en el corazon ardia”--“With no other light and guide/Save that which burned in my heart.”
StatCounter
PageViews
Since February 19, 2008
