Thursday, April 23, 2015
Here is the text of an address I gave today at Brigham Young University's commencement:
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I wish to express my gratitude to the trustees, administration, faculty, and students of BYU for the invitation to be with you for this great celebration of the academic achievements of the men and women who are graduating today, and for the honor you are conferring on me. And I offer my heartiest congratulations to the graduates and to the families whose love and support sustained them through these years of study.
There are traditions of thought that propose a radical separation of faith and reason. “What,” they ask, “has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” Although notable Christians, from Tertullian to Kierkegaard, have associated themselves with such traditions, they have not gained ascendancy in the larger Christian community. The mainstream of Christianity, while fully cognizant of what theologians describe as “the noetic effects of sin”—that is, the way in which our fallenness not only weakens the human will but also darkens the intellect—proclaims the harmony of faith and reason, and the need for faith to seek and be informed by understanding.
In the words of Pope John Paul II, the philosophy professor who became Pope and who has now been canonized as a saint, “faith and reason are the two wings on which the human spirit ascends to contemplation of truth.”
The “two wings” are not two separate but equal ways or paths to truth. Just as both wings are necessary, and must be in working order, for the dove or eagle to fly, both faith and reason are necessary for the intellectual and spiritual quest and for the intellectual and spiritual life. And faith and reason do not work separately or independently of one another, but rather together. Faith and reason mutually entail and require each other. They cannot truly exist—faith cannot truly be faith, reason cannot truly be reason—wholly apart from one another.
This helps to explain why Christianity has built not only majestic cathedrals in which to worship but also great universities in which to study and learn. The very idea of a university is religious and indeed Christian in its inspiration, conception, and fundamental content. The greatest modern reflection on the idea of a university—what a university is, what it does, why it does it, how it should do it—is the work of an eminent Christian thinker, John Henry Cardinal Newman.
And today more than ever we need universities that are true to Newman’s vision, universities in which faith and reason work in harmony, accomplishing what could never be accomplished by faith or reason apart from each other.
It is commonly said that universities exist for three purposes: the creation of knowledge; the preservation of knowledge; and the transmission of knowledge. And this is certainly true. Across the range of disciplines in the arts, sciences, and professional fields, universities should be pursuing these important goals. But there is an additional purpose, and that is what I call the appropriation of knowledge. And it is in respect of this goal that the significance of faith in the cause of learning becomes clearest.
Our aim as scholars and students must be not merely to acquire knowledge, but also to explore, as deeply as possible, its larger, lasting, and even cosmic significance. We and our students must aspire not merely to know the truth about this or that or the other object of inquiry, but to grasp its meaning. When we speak, as we rightly do, of viewing or understanding something “in the light of faith,” it is the existential meaning and moral and spiritual significance of our knowing that we are describing or pointing to. This is what I mean by the appropriation of knowledge; and the true appropriation of knowledge is possible, only against the horizon (or, as we might say, “in the light”) of faith.
For this crucial reason, though it is not the only reason, Mormon or Catholic or Protestant, or Jewish, or Muslim colleges and universities must be more than simply secular universities with religious symbols in the classrooms, or prayers before classes and other events, or lots of religious activities on campus. Faith must play a key role in the intellectual life of the college or university. Faith must inform the curriculum and help to shape the questions we explore in our courses and scholarly research.
A pitfall to avoid is the aspiration of a religious university to be “the Mormon Harvard” or “the Catholic Princeton,” at least where that aspiration entails mimicking the professional norms, standards, practices, and goals of universities that have opted for a more or less thoroughgoing secularism. Especially in areas of the humanities and social sciences where matters of human deliberation, judgment, choice, and action are grist for the intellectual mill, the questions raised and the modes of inquiry and analysis employed should never slavishly imitate what is going on in the leading secular institutions. The consequence of such mimicry will be—you can count on it—the abandonment of that part of the mission of the university that concerns the appropriation of truth. The putatively value-free, purely external description of facts will become the leading object of scholarly pursuit—and will soon come to be regarded as the only valid object of scholarly pursuit—with the assessment of their meaning and moral and spiritual significance pushed to the margins as if these matters were outside the scope of rational inquiry and therefore beyond the bounds of legitimate scholarly labor.
When faith becomes irrelevant to the intellectual mission of religiously affiliated academic institutions—when the fundamental standards by which scholars judge themselves and their institutions are the so-called professional standards of the secular intellectual culture, detached from the spiritual mission of the church with which the university is affiliated—religion will soon come to be perceived as at best an extracurricular campus pursuit and at worst an obscurantist intrusion into the house of intellect. In the latter case, religious authorities will come to be perceived as having no legitimate role in the governance of the institution and will be resented if they so much as raise questions about curricular matters or the research agendas of faculty members.
What I am describing is no mere theoretical possibility: It has happened to many colleges and universities that were once religiously affiliated and to more than a few that continue to have at least nominal religious affiliation, whether Catholic or Protestant. The sad story is told brilliantly, and at length, in the book The Dying of the Light, written by Fr. James Burtchaell, the former Provost of the University of Notre Dame. But for those universities that have remained faithful, including this distinguished institution, secularization is by no means inevitable. Nor is it the case that a decision to resist secularization inevitably undermines the capacity of such institutions to command respect in the larger intellectual culture. A Brigham Young or a Notre Dame needn’t choose between religious fidelity and the respect of peer institutions, and it certainly need not choose between fidelity to its religious mission and academic excellence.
The deeper questions of meaning and significance cannot be permanently laid aside, even in secular institutions. Human nature itself is an impediment to that happening. We human beings long for the truth, and desire its full appropriation. We cannot permanently be satisfied with conceptions of intellectual life and inquiry that place the deepest questions out of bounds and off limits. Already one perceives, not just in the humanities but also in the social sciences and even the natural sciences, a sense of lack, even a bit of a guilty conscience, for the marginalization of questions of meaning and moral and spiritual significance. Perhaps without being fully conscious of it, some in secular colleges and universities have a sense that their institutions need to be more like Brigham Young. So this is no time for faith-based colleges and universities to be sloughing off what makes them not only different but in an important respect superior.
Excellence is the aspiration and rallying cry of all universities. But there are competing understandings of the standards of excellence—what is to count as excellence. The excellence of BYU consists in no small part in its devotion to the appropriation of truth, its dedication to exploring the larger, lasting, and even eternal meaning and significance of what we know or can discover. This dedication is itself the fruit of rootedness in a great tradition of faith; guidance from wise and devoted trustees; the intellectual and pedagogical gifts of a distinguished and devout faculty; and the extraordinary generosity of faithful LDS families who are moved by love of God and neighbor to support an institution of higher learning dedicated to the integration of faith and reason.
My prayer is that BYU will, by the grace of almighty God and with his abundant blessings, always remain faithful to its mission. For me, it is an exceptionally high honor to be joining the ranks of its honorary alumni. Thank you.
Robert P. George
Thanks to Rick for the invitation to remember Francis Cardinal George, O.M.I., Chicago’s Archbishop Emeritus, who died on Friday following a long battle with cancer. His funeral Mass takes place today at Holy Name Cathedral. Because of his illness, the Cardinal’s death was not unexpected, but it remains an enormous loss, to his family and the people who knew him, to the Catholic community, and, I would suggest (though they may not appreciate it), to those who work to shape American society and culture.
I was fortunate to know the Cardinal, and to work with him and for him through the Lumen Christi Institute, Loyola University Chicago, and the Catholic Conference of Illinois. Francis Eugene George was a genuinely humble man with a gentle manner and a keen wit. Although his public demeanor was serious and restrained (as befits his office and the issues he was often called upon to address) in private he exuded real warmth and a playful sense of humor.
George was widely regarded as having possessed a stunning intellect, a reputation that was well deserved. He was easily the intellectual equal or superior of anyone I have known in university life, whether as a student or professor. Like the best academics, he had an extraordinary ability to synthesize different strains of thought, and to offer some new insight. I can honestly say, that whenever he spoke in public I always learned something new that was of value.
There is a view (popularized by some) that draws a distinction between bishops who are “doctrinal” and those who are “pastoral.” Doctrinal bishops are rigid, uncaring overseers who value rules over people, whereas pastoral bishops care for people and their relationship with God even at the expense of doctrines and rules. This is a false dichotomy, and Cardinal George gave proof to the lie. He steadfastly held to the faith of the Church, with heart and mind, and he shared the truth of the Gospel with those in his charge, but he did so with the deft touch of a loving pastor. George’s predecessor, Joseph Cardinal Bernadin (may his memory be eternal) had the reputation for being a good pastor, but following the formal program of an event at a parish or school he was quickly out the door. What is not widely known outside Chicago is that at those same kinds of events George was often the last person to leave the room. He spent extensive time visiting with people, listening to them, making himself available as a genuine pastor.
The Church teaches that the role of a bishop is to teach, sanctify, and govern the local church (diocese or eparchy) with which he is entrusted (Catechism of the Catholic Church ¶ 873). Francis Eugene George fulfilled these responsibilities in the context of leading a large metropolitan see in an atmosphere marked by an increasingly aggressive secularism. In this he served as a model for bishops in the United States today. Here I wish to highlight three quotations from his tenure as archbishop that show these qualities.
1. Teaching was something that came naturally to Francis George, having served as a professor at Creighton University and elsewhere early in his career. When he was appointed to serve as Archbishop of Chicago, following the death of Cardinal Bernadin, he came to Chicago to meet with archdiocesan officials, and the first thing he did was to go and pray before the Blessed Sacrament (a move that in many ways set the tone for his entire tenure as archbishop). After meeting with various administrators he held his first press conference with the Chicago media. There one reporter characterized George as a “conservative” and his predecessor as a “liberal” and then asked George whether he would be able to reach out to everyone the way that Bernadin did. George very graciously responded that Cardinal Bernadin was blessed with a gift for reaching people who found themselves at different places in life, and in different places with respect to the Church. He prayed that he would have the same ability in his ministry as archbishop. But he also made clear that the role of the bishop is to call people to Christ, and we come to know Christ and to be in intimate relationship with him through the faith of the Church that Christ established “And the faith is not ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative.’ The faith is true. And so I will preach the faith as Cardinal Bernadin preached it and taught it. There will be no difference in substance, although there may be some difference in style.” (Part of the quote can be found here. A more recent statement of the same theme can be found here).
The idea that religions (all religions, not just Catholicism) make truth claims is at the foundation of modernity’s struggle with religious faith. It is so much easier to dismiss religion, to marginalize it when it is understood as mere sentimentality, or when it is relativized as a purely private belief, or when it is framed within the lens of politics. And indeed, if this accurately describes what religion is all about, it’s hard to explain why it can’t be more malleable, why it can’t accommodate itself entirely to the current realities (“facts on the ground”) and the spirit of the age. But a religious claim that is more than a feeling – a truth that is not of one’s own making, a truth that is received – calls for a change on the part of the recipient. One simply cannot live one’s life as before. Francis Cardinal George knew the truth and he insisted on using the language of truth when speaking of the faith. He did not succumb to the language of politics or psychology. That, combined with his own personal surrender to this truth, is an enduring model for how bishops should speak and act in the contemporary American context.
2. As the above story conveys, George took the sacral role of bishop very seriously. Another story makes the point even more forcefully. Early in his tenure as archbishop he paid a visit to Mundelein Seminary, the archdiocesan seminary located in a suburb north of Chicago and named for its founder, the City’s most famous archbishop, George Cardinal Mundelein. During his tour of the campus, Francis George was shown the chapel where the seminarians gathered for Mass and he noticed something was missing. “Where are the kneelers?” he asked. His host informed him that some seminarians felt uncomfortable kneeling, and that as a community they decided instead to show respect for God by standing. Such a response reflects a lamentable understanding of the history behind the practice of kneeling during the Eucharistic prayer in the Roman Rite (which goes back prior to the Council of Nicea), and its meaning in contemporary culture (viz. Standing may be a sign of respect, as when a soldier stands at attention before a superior, or when the courtroom stands when a judge enters. But it is also a commonplace posture that expresses indifference, or the routine of the work-a-day world, as in standing on the platform while waiting for the train, or in line at Starbucks. Kneeling, by contrast, is a posture of prayer that is biblical in its origin and reserved for God.). In response, George, who walked with a noticeable limp due to a debilitating case of polio, got down on his knees and said “Look, I’m a cripple. If I can kneel then you can too.”
George knew the ancient wisdom of the Church, lex orandi, lex credendi, and he wanted his priests and the people under his pastoral care to be formed in the faith that reflects the relationship of between creatures and the Creator – a relationship in which we should express love, adoration, thanksgiving, and repentance, not the tedium of the work-a-day world. He sought to do the same with all Catholics in the United States, leading the reforms begun under Liturgiam Authenticam, bringing to people’s lips “words of praise and adoration that foster reverence and gratitude in the face of God’s majesty, his power his mercy and his transcendent nature” (¶ 25). He knew that only by being formed by the apostolic faith in the liturgy of the Church could the people of God then be equipped to evangelize the culture, to bring Christ to the world. Lex orandi, lex credendi.
3. A bishop is also charged with the responsibility of governing his diocese, a role that Cardinal George took seriously. He was a genuine pastor (shepherd) who gave his flock the freedom to roam, not a CEO who dictated every move they made. Indeed, at a gathering at DePaul University, I recall him saying how it is not the role of the bishop to decide where the people of God should go, only to ensure that the path taken was consistent with the faith. Normally, the Lord’s flock choose to go where they will, and the bishop’s crosier – the shepherd’s staff – is used only to keep them from becoming mired in the mud of sin or jumping off the cliff of heterodoxy. The bishop also uses his staff to protect his people from the wolves that prowl about and seek to do them harm. Of course these wolves – people opposed to the freedom of the Church and the substance of what the Church teaches – are also our neighbors, fellow citizens, and government officials, and so the defense offered by a bishop must be offered in charity, and measured in tone while not shirking from the truth.
In this, Cardinal George excelled, leading his brother bishops in the Church’s opposition to the Obama administration’s health care reform measure that included federal subsidies for abortion, and the subsequent HHS mandate requiring employers to provide contraception/abortifacient coverage. In Chicago he also defended the freedom of any citizen to support the traditional understanding of marriage as a union between one man and one woman. When the president of Chick-fil-A spoke out in favor of traditional marriage, Rahm Emanuel, the Mayor of Chicago, said that such views did not reflect “Chicago values” (here and here) and that people who espoused them could be denied business licenses. The Cardinal quickly recognized the totalitarian impulse in this posture and appealed to the traditional understanding of freedom and limited government that has defined the American experience (here): “I was born and raised here, and my understanding of being a Chicagoan never included submitting my value system to the government for approval. Must those whose personal values do not conform to those of the government of the day move from the city? Is the City Council going to set up a ‘Council Committee on Un-Chicagoan Activities’ and call those of us who are suspect to appear before it?” May George’s successor and all his brother bishops and all the laity have the same courage to speak truth to power, to live the faith with integrity, and to bear witness to Christ as his disciples in the world.
May the Lord in his great mercy welcome his servant, Francis Eugene George, into the paschal feast of heaven.
. . . and its "up-market anti-Catholicism."
. . . Britain’s literary high culture is still in thrall to the Whig view of British history, and seems oblivious to the deep transformation that’s taken place in English Reformation studies since Eamon Duffy’s extraordinary book, “The Stripping of the Altars,” was first published in 1992. There, Duffy demonstrated beyond cavil what Simon Schama alluded to in his Financial Times article on the BBC version of “Wolf Hall:” that Henry VIII was a proto-totalitarian who, with his Protestant heirs, imposed his version of Christianity on England against the will of the great majority of plain folk, who stubbornly clung to the old faith until the overwhelming power of the state extinguished most of English Catholic life, and “anti-popery” got set in cultural concrete as modern nation-building went forward in Britain—often funded by expropriated Catholic properties.
Protestant anti-Catholicism in the U.K. has long since been superseded by secular anti-Catholicism, but the cultural afterburn remains virtually identical: to the Hillary Mantels of 21st-century Britain, Catholicism is retrograde, priggish, obsessive, fanatical, and, well, un-English[.]
Wednesday, April 22, 2015
One last reminder that those interested in the "Catholic legal theory" project will have the opportunity to hear several MOJ contributors tackle the project's aspirations, hopes, and challenges this Friday, April 24, at Villanova Law School. The program for the event is here: Scarpa Conference. The event is open to the public, and CLE credit (including one in Ethics) will be available to attorneys who register and attend.
A good and rewarding time is sure to be had by all, as I expect that the unity in diversity that animates the project will be enveloping.
Tuesday, April 21, 2015
Mark Movsesian has a good post about "Wolf Hall" and what it says about the state and future of religious freedom. He ends with this:
In its biased portrayal of More, British history’s great example of religious resistance to state orthodoxy, Wolf Hall is sending its audience a message: Don’t think this man was at all admirable. He was a dangerous head case. And, by extension, be careful of his analogues today, who continue to oppose religious fanaticism to tolerance, reason, and progress. Cromwell, and pragmatic people like him who protect us from the forces of reaction, are the real heroes.
It’s a powerful message, and one with increasing influence. Perhaps this explains why PBS is advertising Wolf Hall as “a historical drama for a modern audience.” The fact that this hatchet job on Thomas More appears in an impeccably well-done BBC production—surely the gold standard in upper-middle class entertainment—shows how fast our culture is changing, and how much work defenders of religious liberty have before them.
A good companion-read might be Paul Horwitz's The Hobby Lobby Moment.
American religious liberty is in state of flux and uncertainty. The controversy surrounding Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. is both a cause and a symptom of this condition. It suggests the unsettled nature of one of the central elements of the church-state settlement: the accommodation of religion. Beyond that, Hobby Lobby -- both the Supreme Court decision itself, and the public controversy that has surrounded the contraception mandate litigation -- raises a host of other issues: the interpretation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the status of reproductive rights, the disputed relationship between religious liberty and LGBT rights, and the changing nature of the commercial marketplace. More broadly, the Hobby Lobby controversy says much about the relationship between law and social change.
This article explores these issues. Although it analyzes the opinions in the case, its primary focus is on Hobby Lobby as a "moment": as a stage in the life-cycle of both church-state law and the social and legal meaning of equality. An analysis of the "Hobby Lobby moment" suggests that the legal and social factors that turned a "simple" statutory case into the blockbuster of the Term lay largely outside the four corners of the opinion itself. The Hobby Lobby decision speaks to these larger controversies but does not resolve them.
After examining the legal dispute and the decision in Hobby Lobby, this article discusses the legal and social sources of the controversy that surrounded it. Legally, it finds a rapid dissolution of consensus around a key aspect of church-state law: the accommodation of religion, which has become a foregrounded subject of legal and social contestation. This contestation has been driven or accompanied by significant social change of various kinds. The article focuses on two areas of social change that figure prominently in the Hobby Lobby moment. First, although the Hobby Lobby decision itself involved an important social issue -- women's reproductive rights -- I argue that the larger controversy surrounding the case had much to do with the rise of LGBT rights and same-sex marriage and their relationship to religious accommodation. Second, I argue that the controversy involved changing views concerning the nature of the commercial marketplace itself. The paper concludes with some observations about what the "Hobby Lobby moment" teaches us about the relationship between law and social change.
As a student in the public school system—I was known by my confreres who were able to attend Catholic schools as a publican—high school English classes brought the need to read and memorize passages from Shakespeare’s plays, be they history, tragedy, or comedy. One passage that I had to memorize and recite was from “The Merchant of Venice”: Portia’s “the quality of mercy” address, Act IV, Scene 1. In the play, Shylock seeks the legal remedy to which he is entitled: a pound of Antonio’s flesh, but neither a drop of his blood nor an ounce more of his flesh than a pound. If Shylock sheds even the slightest amount of Antonio’s blood or takes even the slightest excess of his flesh, all that he owns will be forfeited under the laws of Venice.
Portia reminds all that the law is the law and is to be followed, but even the highest temporal authority must remember the authority of God, which includes His mercy, which tempers the law. God’s mercy is free; as Portia says, “it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven.” As mercy is an attribute of God, Himself, the temporal authorities would do well to reflect God’s mercy in the justice they administer—for “mercy seasons justice.” Portia reminds Shylock that, if justice be his plea, “in the course of justice none of us should see salvation: we do pray for mercy, and that same prayer doth teach us all to render the deeds of mercy. I have spoken thus much to mitigate the justice of thy plea…”
In some ways, the recent film “The Judge” displays some of Shakespeare’s lessons about justice and mercy. When Judge Palmer awards mercy to a young trouble-maker, this decision returns to haunt him when he, the judge, is accused of killing the young trouble-maker by running him over with his Cadillac. Lessons of justice and mercy continue throughout the film, but I shall be no plot-spoiler.
The themes of justice and mercy also punctuate Pope Francis’s recent Bull, Misericordiae Vultus, issued on Divine Mercy Sunday—the Second Sunday of Easter. Indeed, the pope has addressed in abundant fashion God’s mercy, but—and this is a point less reported in many media outlets—he has also abundantly addressed sin and the imperative that the sinner must acknowledge one’s sins to receive God’s abundant mercy. As the Holy Father states, “All one needs to do is to accept the invitation to conversion and submit one’s self to justice during this special time of mercy offered by the Church.” If one were to think and say that Francis is divorcing God’s mercy from the need of the sinner to be penitent and confess one’s sins, this view of the papal bull would be erroneous. As the Pope reminds us, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ came not to call the righteous but sinners. Matthew 9:13. “Jesus is bent on revealing the great gift of mercy that searches out sinners and offers them pardon and salvation.”
But, to receive God’s mercy, pardon, and salvation, one must first acknowledge one’s commissions and omissions that constitute sin. As Pope Francis also asserts, “anyone who makes a mistake must pay the price. However, this is just the beginning of conversion, not its end, because one begins to feel the tenderness and mercy of God. God does not deny justice. He rather envelopes it and surpasses it with an even greater event in which we experience love as the foundation of true justice.” Before the Prodigal Son received his father’s mercy and forgiveness, the son confessed: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” Luke 15:21. Without this acknowledgement on the part of the sinner that one has sinned, how can the quality of mercy drop upon him or her as the gentle rain from heaven?
RJA sj
