A recent issue of America magazine includes an essay by our colleague, Greg Kalscheur, called "American Catholics and the State: John Courtney Murray on Catholics in a Pluralistic Democratic Society." (Here is a link, but the full essay requires a subscription). The essay is an adaptation of Greg's paper -- which was discussed at MOJ a few months ago -- on John Paul II, Murray, and pluralism.
Like his longer paper, Greg's America essay is thoughtful, careful, charitable, and well worth reading. Greg uses the thought and work of Fr. Murray to explore the issues treated by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in its recent "Doctrinal Note on Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life" (link). He observes that "Catholic participation in public life is to be guided by, not separated from, fundamental moral concerns" and that "this insistence that moral beliefs inform policy choices is, in the end, a matter of integrity." From this and other points it follows, "inescapabl[y]," that -- among other things -- public officials have a "grave and clear obligation to oppose any law that attacks human life."
With respect to abortion, Greg says that how a public official ought to go about "promot[ing] justice and the common good by striving to reduce [its] incidence" is "complicated" because of the "the state of American constitutional law regarding the abortion issue. The legislator must oppose laws that promote abortion, but in the United States abortion is a matter of constitutional right, not an action authorized by legislation." "Morality . . . and law . . . are not," Greg reminds us, "coextensive in their functions. Legal prohibitions can have only a limited effetc on shaping moral character." So, "society should not expect a great deal of moral improvement from legal prohibitions." He continues, "for the law truly to serve the common good, some level of consensus as to the goodness of the law is essential. And, in the face of widespread moral disagreement on an issue, the public conscience may need to be clarified through nonlegal educative efforts in an atmosphere of reasoned dialoge and factual argument before the law can effectively promote the common good."
I won't reproduce the entire essay, which moves on to develop Greg's ideas about "how to promote fundamental moral values through law and policy" under conditions of pluralism, but I did have one reservation: Greg appears to take it as given that "abortion is a matter of constitutional right." And, in light of this "given" (which would prevent even the most pro-life legislature from enacting abortion laws that were fully in accord with morality), we are all -- citizens and legislators -- left with the tasks of (a) trying to reduce the number of abortions, and to create a society that better appreciates the dignity of life, through non-regulatory means, and (b) trying to create a consensus about the common good through "reasoned dialogue and factual argument."
What happens, though, if -- through reasoned dialogue and factual argument -- a consensus is created that abortion is a grave moral evil, one that should be closely regulated, if not prohibited? That is, assume we reached conditions where Murray would agree that our laws could reflect and honor moral truths? Our Constitution, as it is presently (mis)understood by a majority of the Justices, would prohibit us from acting on that consensus. Put differently, in light of our presently mis-shapen constitutional law of abortion, it doesn't matter whether or not there is consensus that abortion is evil (and, remember, there actually is broad consensus that abortion should be more closely regulated than it is now); abortion still may not be regulated (except in relatively insignificant ways).
This suggests to me that we ought not to regard -- and, that Catholic politicians who are committed to integrity and to the common good, but who also appreciate Murray's insights about law, morality, and pluralism, ought not to regard -- the constitutional status of the abortion right as "given," but should instead regard it as a basic political priority to bring about a new -- or rather, the correct -- understanding of the Constitution. So, just as -- pluralism notwithstanding -- a Catholic politician ought to oppose laws that fund or directly facilitate abortion, perhaps such a politician ought also to insist on measures to correct the Roe and Casey Courts' errors? Even a Murray-admiring politician who determined that, under present conditions, abortion could not prudently or effectively be regulated, might also think that -- in anticipation of the day when reasoned dialogue produced consensus concerning the grave evil of abortion -- steps should be taken (e.g., the appointment of judges who are open to permitting legislatures meaningfully to regulate abortion) to make it possible for a future legislature to act on that consensus.
Any thoughts?
Rick
UPDATE: Greg's essay is available on the Boston College Law School web site.
The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life's new poll (on which the post below is also based) has some startling statistics on the public's attitudes toward the bishops' threats to deny communion to public officials:
Fully seven-in-ten Catholics (72%) say it is improper for Catholic Church leaders to deny communion to politicians who defy church teachings on abortion and related issues.
By comparison, only 47% of white evangelical Protestants believe the denial of communion would be improper. Certainly this disparity may stem in part from white evangelicals' more consistent anti-abortion convictions, or perhaps (less likely) from a failure to appreciate the centrality of communion to the Catholic faith. Still, it is striking that the Christians devoted to the supremacy of individual conscience in matters of faith find the exercise of institutional authority more palatable than do the Christians whose faith tradition is rooted in institutional authority.
A new poll shows that a majority of Americans now support embryonic stem cell research, and support is rising even among evangelical Christians and active churchgoers. It's no wonder, given the full-court publicity press by proponents of the research (see Rick's earlier post, for example). I assume the trend will continue for the foreseeable future. Especially in this political season, when we are constantly reminded of the unlimited potential of human progress, it is unlikely that a message focused on the inherent limits of the human condition will be given a comparable platform.
Rob
UPDATE: The full report on the poll results (available here) suggests that the media coverage is playing a significant role in the growing support: "By more than two-to-one (63%-28%), those who have heard a great deal about the issue believe it is more important to conduct stem cell research that may result in medical cures than to not destroy the potential life of human embryos."
... in this review of my book Under God?--and in my response thereto. Both are forthcoming in the periodical Conversations in Religion and Theology, published by Blackwell.
If you haven't yet, be sure to check out The Revealer, a blog devoted to the news media's coverage of religion. As they explain:
We begin with three basic premises: 1. Belief matters, whether or not you believe. Politics, pop culture, high art, NASCAR -- everything in this world is infused with concerns about the next. As journalists, as scholars, and as ordinary folks, we cannot afford to ignore the role of religious belief in shaping our lives. 2. The press all too frequently fails to acknowledge religion, categorizing it as either innocuous spirituality or dangerous fanaticism, when more often it's both and inbetween and just plain other. 3. We deserve and need better coverage of religion. Sharper thinking. Deeper history. Thicker description. Basic theology. Real storytelling.
This morning I taught my first legal ethics class of the new year. I start by trying to help students see the limits of role-differentiated morality (i.e., the notion that the role of a lawyer justifies conduct that would otherwise be considered immoral). To do so, I posed the following hypothetical:
"Suppose you were a scientist living in Nazi Germany. You are taken to a concentration camp and told to further your research by conducting experiments on live human subjects. Would you do so?"
Here are a sampling of the comments this provoked:
"If they are going to die anyway in the camp, their deaths might as well contribute to the greater good of medical knowledge."
"That society's morality would have been determined by military might, and could easily include the idea that the Aryan race should be advanced, so I would probably do the experiments."
"Scientists should focus on the advancement of science."
After considerable prompting, one student said "there's something to be said for dying with dignity, even if you're going to die anyway."
The conversation proceeded along similar lines last year, when I first used the Nazi example.
Martin Marty has a good column in the current Christian Century, "Thank God for the Secular." He carefully points out that he is not expressing gratitude for secularism, but for
a secular approach that lets the things of this age belong to this age (saeculum) and the mundane remain mundane. The Vulgate translates John 3:16: “sic enim dilexit Deus mundum,” God so loved the “mundane,” the world.
Think of the power of religion that makes its way by persuasion rather than by coercion, privilege or favor. Think of the decline of religious participation in the European nations where “establishment” and governmental privileges lasted too long and left the churches complacent. Think of philosophers like Montesquieu, who advised that the way “to attack a religion is by favor,” and that to promote it, “invitations are stronger than penalties.”
Thank God for the secular, as an adjective attached to words like “law,” “constitution,” “polity” and the like. Thank God for the religious freedoms it helps assure and the right to counter “godless orthodoxy” it guarantees. Let there be tens of thousands of crèches voluntarily placed on individual and church lawns, but none on the courthouse lawn. Let the Ten Commandments be engraved in hearts, mounted in homes and learned in synagogues and churches, but let them not be graven images in courtrooms and capitols. Let prayer and praise for a free nation sound out from 250 million hearts and throats. Oppose secularism but thank God for the secular.
The tricky part, of course, is discerning the line between "the secular" and "secularism" in the real world of public policy -- e.g., the debates over government funding (school vouchers, Charitable Choice) and any public policy shaped in large part by religious conceptions of the good (stem-cell research, the definition of marriage). On most issues worth discussing today, one American's rampaging godless secularism is another American's healthy and vital defense of the secular. Nevertheless, the ideal embodied in the distinction is worth pondering and pursuing.
Today's Washington Post has this essay, "Facts on Stem Cells," by Ruth Faden and John Gearhart (both of John Hopkins). The essay opens with promise, noting that "translating science into political symbols and slogans comes at a price" and conceding that "there is hype on both sides" of the stem-cell-research issue. Ultimately, though, I was disappointed by the essay.
For starters, the essay presents as one of the "facts" from which the debate should begin the claim that "no non-embryonic sources of stem cells -- not stem cells from cord blood or from any 'adult' sources -- have been shown to have anything like the potential to lead us to viable treatments for such diseases as juvenile diabetes, Parkinson's and spinal cord injury that stem cells derived from very early embryos do." But this essay by Hadley Arkes, reporting on the research of his former student (and my current student) Cason Crosby, suggests that the "facts" are, at least, more complicated.
More frustrating, though, is the authors' hollow-ringing claim to respect the "values" of President Bush and of those who have doubts about the moral justifiability of destroying human embryos for research purposes. Here is how the authors put the issue:
The science is clear. The only way to ensure that we realize the promise of stem cell research as quickly as possible is to permit federal funding to be used to create new embryonic stem cell lines and to support research with new lines. President Bush's values are also clear. He believes that the destruction of embryos can never be morally justified, no matter how much human suffering might be alleviated, even if the embryos are only still a clump of cells not visible to the human eye and even if the embryos will be destroyed in any event in fertility clinics where they are no longer needed.
I assume that President Bush (and others with reservations about embryonic stem-cell research) would say that the embryos in question are not "only . . . a clump of cells[.]" That's really the whole point, isn't it? I suspect that those with reservations might state their position more like this: "Human life may not be intentionally taken, even when that intentional taking of human life holds out the prospect of alleviating suffering. What's more, given that much suffering could be alleviated through less troubling research programs, the less troubling programs ought to be preferred. Finally, given the principled and non-trivial objections of many Amerians to embryonic stem-cell research, it is appropriate for the government not to fund such research."
For my own part, I am afraid that Hadley Arkes may be right, when he observes that:
For many, it appears, the passion for sweeping away the moral reservations about stem cells is bound up with the argument over abortion. The prospects for research are evidently far less important than the possibility of proclaiming, once again, that the human embryo, or the nascent human life, has no standing, and no rights, that the rest of us need to respect.
I should emphasize that, as I see it, this issue raises difficult scientific questions, and questions of moral philosophy, that go beyond my own training and expertise. Still, I am confident that my reservations are sufficiently informed and serious that my democratic government ought to hesitate before requiring me to fund these projects, notwithstanding the enthusiasm of Drs. Faden and Gearhart.
My earlier post on Liberty Law School has prompted Eric Kniffin to offer this defense of the school's dean and mission:
The press I've seen in the last few days about Liberty Law School makes me wince as well. Especially because I have grown to become quite excited about the school.
The founding dean of the law school is a dear friend and mentor of mine, Bruce Green. He is a gifted leader and a careful thinker, one of the most principled and thoughtful people I've had the pleasure to get to know. Bruce is not given to theatrics and although he probably wouldn't say so, I'm sure he wasn't comfortable with Falwell's proclamation.
Liberty Law School's mission is less to train an army of warriors who will, upon graduation, immediately try to mount a battle against (fill in a social issue, newly minted fundamental right of your choice here). Rather, it is to train law students in the fullness of the Anglo-American common law tradition. In our climate, that means giving students confidence that there is such a thing as objective truth, and that these truths are publicly accessible, not private religious commitments.
Bruce is a deacon in the continuing Anglican Church. He is very much an Anglo-Catholic and is not a Baptist. Bruce has and will, I believe, continue to leave his mark on the law school. I'd encourage you to try to look past Falwell and look at the law school itself, as things unfold in Lynchburg in the weeks, months, and years to come.
In the meanwhile, if you want to get a flavor for where Bruce is trying to take the law school, take a gander at his "Dean's Blog" on the school's web site.
Indeed, Dean Green's vision seems significantly more nuanced than the one offered by his boss, Rev. Falwell, who has promised that the school "will be as far to the right as Harvard is to the left." It will be interesting to see whether the school develops in keeping with the rich Augustinian tradition invoked by the dean or with the one-dimensional right-wing political agenda trumpeted by its founder.
Amy Welborn has linked to an interesting review, by Peter Steinfels, in today's New York Times, of the new anthology, "One Electorate Under God?" The book is a collection, edited by E.J. Dionne and Jean Bethke Elshtain, of essays on the role of religion in American politics. Of particular interest to Welborn, and also, I imagine, to MOJ readers, are the thoughts of Indiana congressman Mark Souder, responding to Gov. Mario Cuomo, on what Souder and Cuomo take to be "natural law":
Advocating, in effect, a very loose version of "natural law," a tradition historically associated with his Roman Catholicism, Mr. Cuomo spelled out two moral principles that he asserted "would occur to us if we were only 500,000 people on an island without books, without education, without rabbis or priests or history, and we had to figure out who and what we were." These two principles - respect for one another and collaborative improvement of the world - nicely captured Americans' perpetually competing concerns for individual freedom and for community, he said, and "are shared by most if not all our nation's religions."
To which Mr. Souder replied that "the notion of a natural law common to all religions" was a particular worldview itself, and one at odds with his Christian faith.
"I cannot relate to the idea of a generic, natural law God,'' he said. "My God is a particularly Christian God." Moreover, Mr. Souder questioned whether all religions really had "a common denominator that is workable in the American political system."
With respect to the anthology as a whole, Steinfels concludes:
What makes this collection easy to sample but impossible to summarize is what, according to the book's editors, explodes a number of prejudices: "Religious voices are not confined to the Right - or to the Left or the Center. Worries about improper entanglement between religion and government are not confined to liberals. Moral passion rooted in faith is not limited to the ranks of religious conservatives."
