Notre Dame senior Michael Bradley has a really nice essay-and-interview up at Ethika Politica called "How (Not) to Think About Notre Dame's Catholic Character." It it, Bradley reflects on the interesting and important idea of "institutional vocation" and provides a helpful counter-voice to the strident and usually under-informed criticisms of Notre Dame that the University's various missteps and imperfections trigger in the more "conservative" sectors of the Catholic blogosphere. Here is a bit:
I would like to see a more integrated institutional witness, one that unites administrators, faculty, and other staff in a vision of the Catholic Church’s mission as being truly normative for the life of the university. As things stand, it often seems as if facets of that mission are viewed as fungible, when the cost of discipleship begins to run high. Again, there are faculty and alums more ably suited to speak to this dynamic. But even a student can see that the Catholic “diamond in the rough” vibrancy at Notre Dame should be not so in-the-rough.
Notre Dame’s institutional vocation is very different from what smaller Catholic universities or colleges are called to be in and for the Church. Not better or worse, but very different. The mistake that many critics of Notre Dame make is to compare it directly to other institutions of Catholic higher education and compare and contrast, often indiscriminately in my opinion, the merits and demerits of life at Notre Dame. But such analyses bespeak a worrisome blindness to institutional vocation.
Yes, there are normative magisterial expressions that ought to govern and guide the life of the university, among which expressions Ex Corde Ecclesiae is foremost. And undeniably, Notre Dame is falling short by ECC standards; that much is obvious in a vacuum.
But, fidelity to the Church qua the Catholic university that Notre Dame is—not as a quasi-institutional “parish,” or “youth group,” or catechesis program, or retreat, or even a smaller Catholic college or less prominent Catholic university—is what should inform analyses of Notre Dame’s Catholicism. Not comparisons with other institutions, the missions of which we really can’t pretend are all equal in either scope or even intent. . . .
Well said.
The Democrats for Life of America and former Rep. Bart Stupak have filed an amicus brief (PDF file, link, press release) in the Supreme Court in the Hobby Lobby and Conestoga cases (as we did in the courts of appeals). Our brief focuses on the fact that the individuals and businesses here object to drugs and devices (emergency contraceptives and IUDs) that they colorably fear may act to cause abortions by terminating new embryos before implantation in the uterus. From their distinctive perspective as supporters of the overall health-care law, the amici make several points (here from the summary of argument):
I. . . . Conscientious objections to abortion carry especially strong weight in American law because they fall within our tradition of protecting objectors from participating in actions that the objectors believe unjustly take human life—actions that include assisted suicide, abortion, capital punishment, and war. For this reason, although health-care conscience laws cover religious and moral objections to several procedures, protections for conscientious objection to abortion are particularly strong.
More specifically, laws protecting conscience rights for those objecting to abortion are not limited to individuals or to non-profit or religious organizations. Instead, the right not to facilitate or support abortions typically protects a wide range of objectors, regularly extending to individuals engaged in for-profit commerce and to for-profit businesses.
Finally, our tradition protects objectors to abortion far beyond the case of direct involvement in the performance of the abortion. . . .
II. Although the government has made statements that terminating a fertilized embryo before it implants in the uterus is not an abortion, the relevant matter for the claim of conscience under RFRA [the Religious Freedom Restoration Act] and the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause is plaintiffs’ belief that a distinct human life begins at fertilization. It is no salve to plaintiffs’ conscience to be told that the government defines abortion differently. Furthermore, plaintiffs have a colorable cause for concern that the drugs and devices to which they object may act to terminate embryos.. . .
III. . . . Protections for objections to facilitating abortion have extended to multiple categories of for-profit entities and individuals engaged in commerce, and to many kinds of indirect facilitation, including mandatory coverage of abortion in insurance plans. When impositions are repeatedly prohibited under various conscience provisions, they cannot be dismissed as “insubstantial” burdens under RFRA. Therefore, this Court should find that the mandate substantially burdens plaintiffs by requiring them to cover methods they fear may act to terminate an embryo after fertilization.
Some of you may also be interested in this blog post of mine on Democrats for Life's interventions in pro-life litigation, interventions aimed distinctively at "ensuring that the law protects whole-life principles and the conscience of pro-life Americans."
Today is the filing deadline for amicus curiae briefs in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Sebelius. Yesterday, my co-counsel and brother filed an amici curiae brief that we co-authored with excellent lawyers at McGuireWoods on behalf of eleven Senators and four representatives who voted to enact RFRA in 1993 and remain in Congress today. The group of signatories is led by Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), a current member and former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee who shepherded RFRA through the Senate as the lead Republican sponsor together with Senator Ted Kennedy as the lead Democrat sponsor. The signatories also include the current and immediate past chairmen of the House Judiciary Committee (Rep. Bob Goodlatte and Rep. Lamar Smith).
As with any amicus brief in a case (actually two cases) that will attract many such briefs on both sides, it is important to have a distinctive offering that does not simply repeat the contentions of the party or parties being supported. In addition to emphasizing RFRA's blanket provision of a single (statutorily defeasible) standard for protecting the exercise of religion, our brief highlights RFRA's operation as a statutory standard that the government was required to implement together with the ACA when it was regulating. RFRA is sometimes thought to be nothing more than a liability rule to be enforced judicially. But RFRA is more than that. Absent a later statutory exclusion, RFRA governs the implementation of all federal law. This means that the Departments of Health & Human Services, Treasury, and Labor were obligated to follow RFRA when they crafted their exemption and accommodation arrangements for the contraceptives coverage mandate. As the brief details, however, the regulatory process failed to take adequate account of RFRA, which came into the regulatory picture only as a result of the "vicissitudes of political controversy" that RFRA was designed to avoid. The government's sidelining of RFRA can be seen in the rules' reliance, first, on state-law models, and later on Title VII's narrower religious employer provision, when designing their exemption and accommodation arrangements. The reliance on state-law models was particularly inapt given that RFRA does not apply to state law.
