Mirror of Justice

A blog dedicated to the development of Catholic legal theory.
Affiliated with the Program on Church, State & Society at Notre Dame Law School.

Friday, December 10, 2004

Bonhoeffer as Fad

By Rob Vischer

Let me offer another take on the "vogue for Dietrich Bonhoeffer."  It may refer not to the passing relevance of the man, but to our somewhat superficial (and perhaps passing) embrace of his teachings.  Many Christians eagerly read and seek to apply his work in the context of their individual relationship with God; far fewer, I'm afraid, take seriously his vision of faith's societal implications.  I just watched the fabulous documentary on his life last week, and the film emphasized Bonhoeffer's radical opposition to the institutional church's willing alignment with state power and priorities.  It became far too easy for Lutheran leaders (and Catholics, to a lesser degree) to define the church's interest as the state's interest.  Speaking truth to power was left to Bonhoeffer, Niemoller, and a few other notables. 

To what extent is the American church speaking truth to power?  I remember watching clips of President Bush's February 2003 speech to the National Religious Broadcasters convention, an evangelical-dominated organization.  He spoke about the coming conflict that was being forced upon the nation due to Saddam Hussein's refusal to get rid of his WMD.  He ended with the Phillips Brooks quote, "Do not pray for tasks equal to your strength, pray for strength equal to your tasks."  He was repeatedly met with wild applause indistinguishable from a GOP rally.  (Here's the video: the relevant passage is at the end.)  I am by no means comparing the Iraq war with Nazi Germany's conquests, but I am led to wonder how Bonhoeffer would respond to thousands of Christians seeming to exuberantly celebrate the prospect of war.  Is Bonhoeffer currently in fashion among American Christians, especially in their devotional lives?  Yes.  Have most American Christians taken seriously the lessons of Bonhoeffer's life and work for our relationship with state power?  I have my doubts.

Rob

"... the vogue for Dietrich Bonhoeffer ..."?

By Michael Perry

I agree with Rick, in his posting below, that "Books & Culture" is an excellent magazine.  But I must say that the part of the review Rick quotes raises a serious question in my mind about the judgment of the reviewer.  Notice the reference to "the vogue for Dietrich Bonhoeffer".  So, was Dietrich Bonhoeffer "fashionable," for a time, among the "boomers"?  Give me a break.  We should be skeptical about the judgment--the good sense--of any informed Chistian who would (unwittingly?) suggest that Dietrich Bonhoeffer is not what he is widely regarded--and rightly so--to be:  one of the saints of the twentieth century.  Would we talk about "the vogue for Mother Teresa"?   

Michael P.

"Restore All Things in Thomas"

By Rick Garnett

"Books & Culture:  A Christian Review" is an excellent magazine.  There is now also available a regular Books & Culture "e-newsletter," and the one I received today included this review, by Eugene McCarraher, of "The Church Confronts Modernity:  Catholic Intellectuals and the Progressive Era," by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.  Here is the opening:

One of the signature conceits of Catholics who "came of age" during the 1960s is that the Church first directly confronted modernity at the Second Vatican Council. ("Coming of age," like "secular city," was a trendy phrase among Christians, tying Boomers' new adulthood to the vogue for Dietrich Bonhoeffer.) Until the aggiornomento, so the tale goes, the American Church was shrouded in neo-scholastic darkness, with its finest minds malnourished by an intellectual diet of all Thomas, all the time. And then came the springtime of Catholics, when "the spirit of Vatican II"—another phrase that's become a hackneyed generational marker—shone through the vaults of this musty medievalism, bathing the sanctuary in the saving light of modern secular culture.

This mythological account of '60s Catholicism is remarkably resilient—testimony, like much of the lore of that decade, to the power and self-regard of the Boomer cohort—and it bears so much truth about Catholic insularity that it still deserves attention, regardless of the smugness it can sanction. Still, it withers in the face of a growing trove of scholarship in history and theology.

Rick

Thursday, December 9, 2004

A Question for Teresa Collett

By Michael Perry

A question for Teresa Collett:  Would you recommend that the Vatican do what it is (was?) considering doing:  i.e., exclude homosexual men from the priesthood.  If so, why?

In my judgment, for the Vatican to exclude homosexual men from the priesthood would be for it to sin againt the Gospel.  Not that the Vatican hasn't sinned before.  Not that it won't again.  But one can hope.  And pray.  And speak out.

In any event, to consider doing something is not to do it.  Sometimes better minds--and hearts--prevail.

Michael P.

Religious Freedom and Dishonest Headlines

By Rick Garnett

This might be a new low:  "Bush has signed bill penalizing states that protect choice," proclaims the headline.  In fact, the bill in question protects the religious-freedom and conscience rights of hospitals and health-care providers from being forced by States to engage in what these hospitals and providers regard as an intrinsically evil act.  Apparently, California's Attorney General, Bill Lockyer, is planning a lawsuit, contending that the bill "is so coercive -- withdrawing indispensable funds for programs unrelated to abortion -- that it exceeds congressional power and violates state sovereignty."

Now, I am confident that -- under current doctrine -- Congress has the power to withhold federal funds from states who discriminate against or penalize hospitals, doctors, and nurses who do not want to participate in abortions.  (Just as, to reference an earlier discussion, it has the power to withhold funds from law schools who discriminate against military recruiters.)  Putting aside the legal merits of Mr. Lockyer's arguments, though, I continue to be surprised at the extent to which (what strike me as) shocking assaults on the religious freedoms of Catholic hospitals, etc., are wrapped up in euphemisms about reproductive choice.

Rick 

Homosexuals and the Priesthood

By Rob Vischer

St. Thomas law prof Teresa Collett responds to Michael Perry's earlier post by pointing out that his "statement regarding homosexuality and the priesthood is only partially correct. In fact, the Vatican is considering prohibiting admission of homosexuals to the priesthood, and some American bishops currently do not admit men with homosexual orientation."  She also cites pages 80 to 83 of the Review Board's report.

Rob

Tuesday, December 7, 2004

Boston College: Laboratory of Subsidiarity?

By Rob Vischer

I tend to agree with Michael's response to Steve's Question of the Day, but I want to raise one other aspect of Boston College's decision-making regarding the military's on-campus recruiting. From the perspective of subsidiarity, it is crucial that the school recognize its discretion to make nuanced moral judgments on this issue. It becomes much more difficult for an institution to exercise its own moral agency if its options are limited (either in fact or in perception) to an embrace of the unfettered moral marketplace (i.e., allowing all employers on campus, regardless of their views and practices) or the imposition of a one-size-fits-all moral orthodoxy (i.e., banning any employers who discriminate against any class for any reason in any context). Especially when one discriminating employer is a public institution and the other is a religious institution, it seems that there is some obvious middle ground to explore. Of course, if Boston College is raising the prospect of banning the military simply as a knee-jerk reaction aimed at conforming with the top-down norms of the AALS, that's a different story. But as long as the school is seeking a path by which to express its own identity against the background of these hotly contested moral norms, I believe it is seeking the path of moral agency, which is the bedrock of subsidiarity.

Rob

I must be missing something ...

By Michael Perry

(I can hear my thirteen-year-old's response:  "Yes you are, Dad:  Your brain!")

If, unlike me, you're not Irish (Catholic), you may never have heard the definition of an Irishman:  Someone who doesn't know what side of an argument he wants to defend until he knows who he's arguing against.  (Or, if he's an educated Irishman:  whom he's arguing against.)  I mention this because I wonder whether some of you may be getting the idea that I enjoy disagreeing with Steve Bainbridge for the sake of disagreeing with Steve Bainbridge.  But, really, I don't.

Nonetheless, I am puzzled by Steve's post yesterday, about Boston College and gays in the military.  Take another look at the post and then ask yourself:  Does the Catholic Church exclude men from candidacy for the priesthood on the basis of their sexual orientation--i.e., because they are homosexual?  (Some of the best priests I know are homosexual, and not all of them are in the closet.)  Well, the American military does exclude men (and women) from the military because they are homosexual, if they are candid about their being homosexual.  Seems to me that recent episcopal and magisterial statements counsel against discriminating against persons simply because of their sexual orientation (as distinct from discriminating against them because of their sexual activity).  Indeed, a Catholic may fairly conclude that it is unjust in the Gospel sense--a failure of love--to exclude persons from the military because of their sexual orientation. 

Michael P. 

Steve's Question of the Day

By Steve Bainbridge

Now that the Solomon Amendment has been struck down, Boston College reportedly is "reviewing the 100-page decision by the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in Philadelphia, and considering [its] next steps." If BC decides to kick the military off campus over its policy on sexual orientation, shouldn't BC also prohibit the Church from recruiting priests on campus? And if they do that, what's the point of them calling themselves Catholic anymore? (x-posted at ProfessorBainbridge.com)

Monday, December 6, 2004

A Helpful Message from a Nurse

By Michael Perry

[I received this e-mail message today.]

I am a nurse.  [Until about a year ago,] I worked on a general medical floor, and inevitably there will be some people dying there of conditions which cause pain, especially but not exclusively cancer. So I have been close to this situation myself. I wrote the following as part of a post on this subject on Amy Welborn's blog:

"There may come a point when the amount of medication needed to alleviate
obvious pain can be anticipated as possibly hastening the baby's death. This
is the same situation as we have with people with terminal cancers and other
painful terminal conditions. We never attempt to hasten death, but we do
relieve pain. I have myself in these situations given a morphine shot that I
thought might lead to a patient's death, because the patient either appeared
to me to be in pain, or the family sitting by the patient's bed observed an
increase in restlessness which they felt meant the patient was in pain. (All
of the times I have been in this position the patient has lived through a few
more shifts.) All of the nurses I worked with understood this distinction and
would not deliberately try to hasten a patient's death, even when doctors
ordered enough medication on an "as needed" basis to do so. (In one case a
doctor made comments indicating that he thought we should, but no nurse would do it.)

So there may well be babies so severely deformed that their condition is
incompatible with life, and they may possibly be in pain, but with just a
little more patience, one could make them comfortable during the dying
process without deliberately killing them.

I don't know if this is what these people are doing, but they don't understand
the distinction, or if they really just intend to kill, or if they are
actually also killing babies who would not have died but might have been
severely disabled. "

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