Sr. Joan's NCR essay seemed more like an emotional anti-American (or at least anti-government) diatribe than a reasoned argument against the war. Just as the pro fetal stem cell research crowd used Christopher Reeve and Mary Tyler More as a ploy to appeal to the emotions of Americans, Sr. Joan uses the horrible tragedy of one 12 year old Iraqi girl and her family to suggest that the United States views the children of Iraq as our enemy and defines bravery in this war and this century as the courage to kill children and their civilian parents: "We are killing children. The children are our enemy. And we are defeating them." "My government has the courage to kill children and their parents. And I'm supposed to be impressed."
Couldn't this same picture be painted in any war? I am sure that similar tragedies occurred in the revolutionary war, the Civil War, and our war against Hitler and Nazi Germany in World War II. In short, Sr. Joan's essay might be an expose on the horrors of war or may be a partial argument in favor of pacifism, but it is not an argument against this war or even how this war is being waged.
Sister Joan does cite United Nation's statistics suggesting that the number of civilian causalities in war have risen from 15% in WWI to 65% in WWII to 75% in the mid-90's. Several questions and one observation arise from her use of these statistics. First, the observation - these statistics don't tell us anything about United States' inflicted civilian causalities in the Iraqi conflict since that conflict post-dates the statistics. Second, are these figures accurate? Third, are these worldwide statistics and do they include conflicts in which there is no U.S. presence? Fourth, do they include causalities inflicted only by Americans or by all combatants and non-combatant aggressors? Fifth, has the nature of fighting (at least by technologically advanced countrys) changed to reduce civilian causalities (i.e., guided precision bombs v. carpet bombing)? Sixth, has the nature of fighting changed to increase the potential for civilian causalities (i.e., the use of woman, children, and un-uniformed personnel as aggressors)? Seventh, does the United States do better or worse than other nations in limiting civilian causalities?
In the end, Sr. Joan's essay denigrates the acts of bravery and courage of soldiers who are being asked to put their lives on the line in the hope that Iraqis will be able to obtain political liberty.
We can argue about whether it was prudent or just to enter into this war and we can argue about the structure and speed of an exit strategy, but these issues and the consequences of the choices made are too serious for blatant play for emotion and visceral reaction.
Here's an excerpt from a recent speech by Rocco Buttiglione, given a few months ago at the "Congress on Catholics and Public Life" (and here is a news story about the event, from The Tablet).
Catholics have the right to hold positions in the European Union. Are we able to conceive of a form of prohibition of exercising public office by Catholics because of their Catholicism? Because of the fact that they take the position which the Church has? Some say that the Catholic position on sexuality is aberrant and I do not want this to become grounds for discrimination at the EU or in regard to holding public office. But a catholic who says that perhaps it is possible that homosexuality would be a sin can be discriminated against. I found myself in a position in which I clearly had to decide with respect to whether I would keep my position, between my faith (or if not my faith at least the doctrine of my faith) or to accept being discirmated against. For my faith I was able to sacrifice a seat in the EU, which is not such an important thing. Ultimately, this is what happened.
I don’t know if God would give me the courage to offer my head for my faith, like St. Thomas More, I hope I am never in a position to find out, but to the point of a seat at the commission, I can. But there is a problem, it is a problem concerning the nature of democratic institutions, because behind this we have the underlying problem of liberalism and what it means to be liberal/free, and what it means to have a liberal constitution or a liberal democracy in Europe today. We have two visions, one which I consider to be effectively liberal and the other, which I consider to be an antiliberal perversion of liberalism. In the first vision, the State does not have an efficacious vision as such, the State does not think about producing the values which are necessary for civil life. The State knows that values need to be produced by others: churches and the culture; values are produced in the sphere of culture; and thus, the State has a positive attitude before the sphere of culture, it recognizes the role of churches in society and accepts the role they exercize. The other vision is a more continental European vision, it is the vision of Jean Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau thinks that the State should produce its values, that we need a civil religion and the revealed religions, revealed in quotations marks, must be subject to this state religion. This was the beginning of classical totalitarianism, because Marxism, Fascism and National Socialism were the civil religions of the Europe of yesterday. And today, what is happening? What is happening is that there is a section on the left in Europe with the tendency to affirm a new civil religion, a new religion that affirms that it is not permitted to have strong ethical convictions, and that democracy must base itself on relativism, and that relativism means that there is no distinction between good and bad. I think that this is wrong, I think that our democracy needs a different foundation and that foundation is the Christian notion of freedom, Christian and also liberal with respect to freedom, which means that I have the right to think that you are wrong and at the same time I am ready to give my life so that you may have the right to be wrong, because if you have what is good not through your own freedom, but imposed from without, this would not have moral value, it would have moral disvalue.
Respect for the human person and his rights is the basis of an authentic democracy. Cultural relativism is not an adequate foundation for democracy. I would like to quote two very important authors who hold this point of view. The first is a great expert on totalitarianism, Benito Musolini. Benito Musilini wrote that fascism is the polital expression of the most modern currents of contemporary philosophy, that is to say, of relativism. Because if there is not an objective truth that we must respect, then each individual will have the right to utilize whatever power he has: physical power, intellectual power, the power to manipulate through media communications, in order to impose on others his vision of the world. And this is not exactly what we consider to be democracy, this is the beginning of totalitarianism. . . .
We've been remarkably silent on the question of the war in Iraq. Joan Chittister's National Catholic Reporter column this week, titled "What the rest of the world watched on Inauguration Day," contrasts the percentage of wartime casualties in World War I (15%) with that today (75%) and tells the horrific story of one family destroyed last week. She ends with the questions: "Who or what will free us from the 2st century's new definition of bravery? Who will free us from the notoin that killing children or their civilian parrents takes courage." The entire column can be read here.
John DiGregorio from Albequerque, New Mexico has this to say regarding Rick's and my postings on the question whether we should care about the economic effects of human rights:
"To the question: Should we even care about the economic effects of various forms of human rights? It depends entirely on what human right is in question. Some believe that every worker has a right to a living wage. There is no way to even determine what a living wage is without delving profoundly into economic issues. Some believe that every person should be able to worship according to their personal religious beliefs without fear of coercion or oppression. In this case, economic considerations are very probably inappropriate."
Rick asks whether we should ever care about the economic effects of various forms of human rights. Here is my initial thought (admitting that I read only the abstract of the piece that prompted his query and not the piece itself).
Clearly it is not necessary to make a case for human rights on economic grounds; economic value is not a necessary or relevent condition for saying a human right exists. But I think it may overstate it to say we should never care about the economic effects. That is to say, it may be that some means of effectuating basic human rights have more postive economic effects than others. I'm not convinced there is a problem with considering economic effects as we determine how to effectuate human rigths.
Susan asks us to consider "what it means to be a Catholic law school." At Notre Dame, where I teach, we are certainly invited to think about (indeed, we can hardly avoid thinking about) this question. I cannot pretend to have a great answer, but I am inclined to think that a satisfactory answer has to incorporate, in some way, the fact -- and the implications of this fact -- that Christianity is true.
I do not mean to be glib; obviously, there is a lot more to say. Still, I cannot help thinking that -- for all our wrestling with mission statements, fostering engagement, facilitating conversations, and "asking the questions" -- a Catholic law school has to reflect, in all that it does, a commitment to the fundamental truth that Jesus is Lord, and to (what seems to me to be) the obvious corollary that this truth matters and makes a difference. The precise implications are of this truth are, of course, the subject of disagreement among faithful and reasonable people of good will. But I wouldn't think that a law school could meaningfully claim to be Catholic that was unwilling to start from, and build upon, this truth claim.
Here is the abstract of an interesting-sounding paper (thanks to Larry Solum), "The Economic Effects of Human Rights":
Economists are often skeptical concerning the economic effects of various forms of human rights: it has been argued that basic human rights can make the legal system less efficient but also that extensive social rights are incompatible with market economies. It is argued here that basic human rights are a precondition for other kinds of rights such as property and civil rights and that they are thus efficiency-enhancing. Four different groups of rights are identified. It is asked what effects they have on welfare and growth. The transmission channels through which the different rights affect welfare and growth are identified by estimating their effects on investment in both physical and human capital and overall productivity. Basic human rights have indeed a positive effect on investment, but do not seem to contribute to productivity. Social or emancipatory rights, in turn, are not conducive to investment in physical capital but do contribute to productivity improvements. None of the four groups of rights ever has a significant negative effect on any of the economic variables here included.
So, here is a deliberately provocative, non-rhetorical question: Should we even care about the "economic effects of various forms of human rights"? Why or why not?
I just finished reading a book about Ignatian Spirituality that observed that "When Ignatius agreed to found colleges, he was providing (in modern terms) 'graced' institutions through which the word and kingdom of God could be spread more widely. He also recognized that people in positions of responsibility and power influenced the structures of society, even to the extent of controlling them, and so were able to make those structures and institutions 'graced' or sinful means of promoting or hindering the kingdom of God."
Reading that caused me to reflect again on a question many of us have considered and some have written about - the question of what it means to be a Catholic law school. Although I recognize that different institutions will have different answers to that question, I hope that it means that we seek to be 'graced' institutions in the Ignatian sense of the term.
I'd be interested in hearing from others concerning the extent to which their schools think and talk about this question at an institutional level.
Three years ago, Creighton theology prof R.R. Reno wrote In the Ruins of the Church: Sustaining Faith in an Age of Diminished Christianity, in which he argued "that Episcopalians should stay put and endure the diminishments of Christianity in our time." It seems he now has some explaining to do, since he was just received into the Catholic Church this fall. The explanation he offers ("Out of the Ruins" in the current First Things) is of particular relevance to the ongoing discussions we have on Mirror of Justice regarding the nature and possibility of Catholic legal theory. Reno explains:
Modern Christianity is modern precisely in its great desire to compensate for what it imagines to be the superannuation, impotence, and failure of apostolic Christianity with a new and improved idea, theory, or theology. The disaster is not the improving impulse. I certainly wish that all Christians would expect more from their teachers and leaders. The problem is the source of the desired improvement. For Newman, "theory" is a swear word because it connotes the ephemera of mental life, ephemera easily manipulated according to fantasy and convenience. Yet in my increasing disgruntlement [with the Episcopal Church], there I was, more loyal to my theory of staying put than to the actual place that demanded my loyalty. It was an artifact of my mind that compelled me to stay put. Unable to love the ruins of the Episcopal Church, I was forced to love my idea of loving the ruins. With this idea I tried to improve myself, after the fashion of a modern theologian.
At the Mass of reception, a non-Catholic friend asked Reno what it felt like to become a Catholic. Reno responded that it "felt like being submerged into the ocean." The ocean, of course,
needs no justification. It needs no theory to support the movement of its tides. In the end, as an Episcopalian I needed a theory to stay put, and I came to realize that a theory is a thin thread easily broken. The Catholic Church needs no theories. She is the mother of theologies; she does not need to be propped up by theologies. As Newman put it in one of his Anglican essays, "the Church of Rome preoccupies the ground." She is a given, a primary substance within the economy of denominationalism. One could rightly say that I became Catholic by default. . . . Mater ecclesia, she needed neither reasons, nor theories, nor ideas from me.
Obviously, theories constructed out of a perceived need to justify the Church are far different than theories constructed to explain the Church's relationship with secular institutions (e.g., the legal system). But I can't help but wonder if Reno's caution regarding the "easily manipulated ephemera" of theory finds support in the ease with which the Church's teaching is invoked in service of pre-existing political and legal agendas on both the "right" and the "left." As we seek to develop Catholic legal "theory," we must remember to start with the Church, allowing theory to emanate from the Church's reality, rather than starting with theory, molding the Church to fit within our preconceptions. Easier said than done, I realize.
Amy Uelman has organized what promises to be a wonderful conference hosted by The Fordham University School of Law Institute on Religion, Law and Lawyer's Work:
Strangers No Longer: Immigration Law & Policy in the Light of Religious Values. This interdisciplinary interfaith conference should be of interest to lawyers, social workers, community activists, clergy and scholars. It will be held at Fordham University School of Law, New York, James B.M. McNally Amphitheatre Friday February 25, 2005, 8:45 am - 5:00 pm.
Visit Fordham's website for more details, and I hope to see some of you there.
