Monday, September 23, 2013
First of all, I should like to
thank Lisa for her kind, generous words in her recent posting “International
Perspectives on Family” regarding last week’s conference in Rome that
celebrated the 30th anniversary of the Charter of the Rights of the
Family (the Charter).
As one of the key presenters of a
formal paper (yes, Lisa, I think they will be published—but anyone wishing to
see my final draft can request a PDF copy from me), I had to think long and
hard about how a major document of the Church intersects not only domestic law
principles but international law principles as well.
In doing so I reached a conclusion
that I have arrived at probably thousands of times before that there is a
connection between human law made by states and natural law reasoning. This
became evident once again when I saw parallels between the laws of many
national legal systems, several international texts, and the Charter.
The essence of the parallels is how
human intelligence that thinks objectively (beyond its comfort zone, if you
will) in comprehending the intelligible reality of specific matters can develop
normative principles (laws) that are fitting and just not only for a particular
place but for all places and all peoples. This claim reveals the truth about
the basic structure and substantive content of the Charter.
I think this realization also
reflects a further truth about law in general. While different legal cultures
need to respond to the issues that are pressing upon that culture, there are,
nonetheless matters which are of concern for all people and that necessitate
universal norms. The Charter and its substantive content demonstrate this, as
do the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and several important
international human rights instruments of the latter half of the 20th
century. All of these texts rely to a large extent upon the objectivity of
natural law reasoning.
Here is where an important element
needs to be introduced about the Catholic take on law. Like Lisa, I saw at this
conference members of the faithful from virtually every continent who, in spite
of their particular concerns back home, largely agree on the need for universal
principles designed to promote and protect the fundamental unit of society—the natural
family. In this context I reflected on how often I have heard some American
Catholics who are, when all is said, very kind and decent people, nonetheless
claim that the American (i.e., USA) church is very different from all others because
of the uniqueness of the polity in which we live. Well, in some ways, this can
be said of all the local churches around the world including those of the
several hundred dioceses of the United States. But still, in spite of these
differences, there is a need to acknowledge through the application of
objective reason that these local and particular differences cannot and must
not interfere with the universality of fundamental Church teachings which are
of significance to all persons regardless of where they are in the world. The
truth of this claim became all the more clear as the conference of which Lisa
and I were a part reached its conclusion on midday Saturday.
Again, I extend to Lisa my profound
gratitude for her thoughtful words, and I look forward to the publication of
the several formal papers delivered at this conference.
On a seemingly different but not
unrelated matter, I hope to offer my reflections on Pope Francis’s interview of
last week. It was interesting for me, at last week’s conference, to see how
others around the world comprehend the pope’s lengthy interview, and how it has
been perceived by influential members of our American culture. Again, I hope to
tackle this chore soon and to contribute to the thread begun by Rick, given our
dedicated purpose of developing Catholic legal theory.
RJA sj
Count me among those who is disappointed by the cherry-picking, political spinning, and unattractive revelling in "the other side's" presumed discomfort that has characterized much of the coverage and commentary regarding Pope Francis's recent interview. My understanding is that I am regarded as a "conservative" and so I gather I'm supposed to be mad -- even on the edge of schism! -- about the interview and just about everything else about Francis but -- go figure!-- I am not. (If I thought he thinks or had said that, say, efforts to protect educational and religious freedom or increase respect for the dignity of all human life aren't that important after all, I would be disappointed, and think him naive. But, I don't think he does or did. I imagine we'd disagree, over Malbec, about some points of policy, but that's been true of every Pope in my lifetime.) If his style and substance -- if the very appealing humility and care that really come through in the interview -- result in people of good will in less-faith-friendly regions of the interwebs asking themselves, "hmmm, this guy seems great . . . and he is a Catholic . . . and he was elected by a bunch of old guys who I thought were just obsessed-with-'no' reactionaries . . . maybe I should take a look, and re-visit some of the impressions I've formed -- maybe because of hostile and ignorant news coverage, maybe because of encounters with uncharitable and unjoyful Christians -- about the Church, and about the faith", then . . . good!
Obviously, the Pope is saying things that are challenging for those of us who believe that the "conservative" side of American politics is, all things considered, the better vehicle for achieving better policies, but my view is that there's nothing wrong with that. I hope I respond to this challenge with the humility and open-mindedness that I expect of those on the "other" side. I don't think the Pope's admonitions and exhortations and challenges are supposed to make those on the political left of American politics feel good about themselves or abandon critical thinking about their preferred policies, either. And, who -- left or right -- can doubt the urgency of Pope Francis's challenge that Christians do some soul-searching about the dangers of presenting to the world a Christianity that is merely a set of rules, or a social ethic, or a litany of warnings, rather than one that has at its heart the Eucharist and the person and love of Jesus. And who -- left or right -- can think that the reaction Pope Francis is hoping to inspire is either a "thank you" from NARAL or gleeful cackling at the presumed unhappiness of Bishop Whomever?
Anyway . . . this blog is not supposed to be about "Catholic stuff generally" but about law, so . . . Two of the themes I've been hearing in the Pope's many interventions is an emphasis on the whole person (very Jesuit! and, very John Paul II!) and also on unity, wholeness, and integration rather than partition, selectivity, dis-integration, etc., when it comes to hearing, understanding, and living out the Gospel. As we've often discussed here at MOJ, these are themes that should also loom large in our conversations about legal education and formation, and about the practice and vocation of law. What, I wonder, would an open-minded and open-hearted effort to really hear what Pope Francis is saying, on a variety of topics, and "put it to work" in how we teach and talk to law students about what they are doing and preparing for look like?
I'm grateful to Richard Reinsch of the excellent Law and Liberty blog (a project of The Liberty Fund) for discussing The Tragedy of Religious Freedom with me. If you are not familiar with the resources available at the Liberty Fund, you should check them out. I use their extensive on-line library all the time and they have many interesting essays, book reviews, and posts.
UPDATE: And here's a review in the Law and Politics Book Review by political scientist Jesse Merriam. Here's the conclusion, which both gives a sense of Professor Merriam's (important) criticisms of the book and contains a little nice stuff too:
If DeGirolami truly is going to provide a middle-ground theory, one in which both theory and conflict can co-exist, we need to know more precisely how history and precedent can guide us. The reader will likely find that DeGirolami does not satisfy this standard. Nevertheless, DeGirolami does provide an important service in probing and pushing us closer to this understanding. And something that must be emphasized here is that he performs this service with a clarity, elegance, and intellectual depth surpassing almost every work in this field. TRAGEDY OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM is an excellent starting point for a discussion of how to arbitrate the principled conflict underlying church-state adjudication, and in starting this discussion DeGirolami does an exquisite job of defending his approach. For these reasons, it is not only an important but also an immensely enjoyable book to read.
Sunday, September 22, 2013
I'll be participating in a panel discussion at Butler University's Center for Faith and Vocation -- I'm trying to resist the temptation to wear a "Duke Blue Devils National Champs" shirt -- on Tuesday. More information is available
here. Stop by, fellow Hoosiers, and say "hello"!
Dozens of people were killed in an attack on a Christian church in Peshawar, Pakistan. This piece (by John O'Sullivan, the godfather of Candida Moss, the author of "The Myth of Christian Persecution") urges Western governments (and citizens in Western countries) to respond (as has, of course, our own Robby George). O'Sullivan writes that "one of the main reasons for this spread of persecution is that Western governments have signaled by their inaction that they are not prepared to make a
fuss about it with governments in Arab and Muslim countries."
Sectarian blasphemy laws and violent attacks on Christians and members of other minority religions in Muslim countries continue unabated either because Muslim governments sympathize with them (arguably the Egyptian case) or because they are reluctant to spend political capital on fighting Islamist zealots and their parties (arguably the case of Pakistan).
Outside pressure seems an obvious solution. Yet Western governments resist
intervening in behalf of embattled Christians lest that mark them as sectarian
“Christian powers” or cast doubt on their status as purveyors of universal
values and human rights. There is no such reluctance on the other side. . . .
UPDATE: A reader (burdened with what strikes me as a hair-trigger hermeneutic of suspicion) wrote to suggest that my mention of the O'Sullivan-Moss relationship might have been deviously intended to cast doubt on whether Prof. Moss would deplore such an attack. The suggestion is ludicrous. Of course she would (and has, as in this piece) deplore such violence. Although I believe (based on reviews of the book and some of her popular writing) she is too quick to criticize some of the efforts of those who are defending religious liberty in our current context, my understanding (again, I have only read a part of her book) is that part of her argument is that what she regards as the misuse of the term "persecution" in the context of North American politics can have as one of its bad effects the distraction of attention from the very real suffering that many Christians are enduring abroad. I mentioned the relationship because the piece to which I linked mentioned it, and I imagine that piece mentioned it because the piece itself talks about Prof. Moss's book, and about the interesting, and troubling, possibility that, in fact, more Christians are being killed for being Christian today that was the case during much of the Church's early history.
At Notre Dame Law School -- and, I think, at several other Catholic law schools -- we encourage our students to see, to prepare for, and to live, their lives in the law as a "vocation." I'd encourage all MOJ readers to read, and to share with friends -- lawyers and non-lawyers alike -- this
post, "Vocation as a verb, Rather than noun," by our own Susan Stabile (from her other blog, Creo en Dios!).
