Monday, February 11, 2013
“Pope John Paul II remained in office so that he might show us how to suffer and how to die. Pope Benedict XVI is leaving the Papal Office so that he might show us how to live in humble honesty.”
http://www.piercedhands.com/im-glad-pope-benedict-is-resigning/
I find myself in awe of the amount of confidence and certainty of having correctly heard the call of God that Pope Benedict XVI must possess in order to take the step he took, this shattering of 600 years of precedence. My only personal encounter with Pope Benedict came when he presided over Mass at a conference I attended at the Vatican, a few weeks before he was elected Pope. The sermon was a reminder that those of us attending the conference could do all the reasoning & philosophizing & theologizing we wanted, but at the end of the day, the most important thing we could do was this -- attend Mass and encounter the truth of Christ in our prayer and the Eucharist. Perhaps a prescient piece of advice for himself?
I also find myself thinking about this description of Pope Benedict's personal confidence, from a John Allen column back in 2006:
My thesis is this: After 18 months of Benedict's papacy, one defining characteristic is what we might call his "Chestertonian assurance," a tranquility in the face of diverse currents of thought, as well as the respect that one deeply cultured soul naturally feels for another.By the way, I am not comparing Benedict and Chesterton on a personal level. Chesterton was irascible and curmudgeonly; Benedict, on the other hand, is unfailingly gracious, polite, and kind. As a personality type, he's closer to Emily Post. Yet Benedict breathes the same air of Christian enlightenment as Chesterton. His approach to modernity is neither the craven assimilation that Jacques Maritain described as "kneeling before the world," nor the defensiveness of a "Taliban Catholicism" that knows only how to excoriate and condemn.
Facing disagreement and differing cultural visions, Benedict is not afraid -- and because he's not afraid, he's not defensive, and he's not in a hurry.
Such a spirit is largely alien to our fractured and hair-trigger era, and so Benedict has been something of a paradox- this avatar of Catholic traditionalism espousing a positive message, willing to engage in reasoned reflection with people who don't think like him. For 18 months, people have been speculating about when the "real pope" will emerge from beneath this serene, gracious façade. Ladies and gentleman, I suggest to you tonight that the façade is the real pope.
Like many others, I'm sure, I find I am still "processing" the news about the Pope's resignation. I don't have any insta-punditry to offer, other than to say "thank you!" to the Holy Father, and to the Holy Spirit, for the gift of his leadership, thought, and service. I know that, here at MOJ, we've often discussed the Catholic-Legal-Theory implications of his encyclicals and writings, and I hope that the entire MOJ crew will consider posting additional reflections. Certainly, for me, the Pope's exploration of the idea of "healthy secularity" has been hugely influential.
I recall, a few years back, early in Pope Benedict's papacy, a very interesting conference at Villanova, at which participants were invited to reflect on his work, its themes, and its direction. I contributed a short essay called "Church, State, and the Practice of Love," which is available here. Here's the abstract:
In his first
Well, in case there was any doubt, we now have an ex cathedra announcement from the hierarchy of the New York Times:
"At some point, the church will accept contraception and female and non-celibate priests. Could it be in the next papacy?" -- Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times
Although I ought to be used to it by now, I still find the parochialism of liberal secular elites stunning. Their small-minded preoccupation with sex and gender is, in its way, amusing. A pope abdicates for the first time in centuries, and what immediately pops into the mind of Nicholas Kristof and his ilk? Contraception, women's ordination, and celibacy. Oy vey.
Also amusing is his uncritical--indeed unthinking--embrace of Hegelian-Marxian certainty about the trajectory of history. "At some point, the church will [embrace the ideology of the New York Times editorial board]. It just will, you see. History is open to no other possibilities. It's a done deal. Already determined. Kristof was no doubt prevented only by the character limit on Twitter from saying "the correlation of forces . . . . "
As reported this morning, Pope Benedict has indicated his intent to retire from the papacy at the end of this month.
The full statement from Pope Benedict XVI:
Dear Brothers,
I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church.After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry.
I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering.
However, in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfil the ministry entrusted to me.
For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.
Dear Brothers, I thank you most sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects.
And now, let us entrust the Holy Church to the care of Our Supreme Pastor, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and implore his holy Mother Mary, so that she may assist the Cardinal Fathers with her maternal solicitude, in electing a new Supreme Pontiff. With regard to myself, I wish to also devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer.
From the Vatican, 10 February 2013
BENEDICTUS PP XVI
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Saturday, February 9, 2013
June 18, 2012
President Obama's Predator Drones
I am most grateful to Mike Moreland, John Breen, and Greg Sisk for raising and addressing challenging issues that pertain to the content of legal scholarship these days that consciously addresses the neuralgic issues from a perspective that is Catholic or aligned with views consistent with Catholic social thought. If publications in the law reviews and journals, which are considered the most prestigious, offer a one-sided view of the neuralgic issues, can we infer anything from the content of legal education that law students are receiving in this age of great and grave challenges to legal education?
Many years ago, another professor took strong issue with what I had to say in one of my earliest articles that addressed abortion. In that essay, I attempted to portray a sincere and serious dialogue between conversing partners about Roe v. Wade. In short, by use of this device, I thought I could present in an objective manner this critical issue, i.e., abortion.
Within a short time, I noticed that another professor, who was aggressively pro-abortion, took to task what I had to say in one of her footnotes in a published essay in a journal many would consider prestigious to this day. In today’s nomenclature, her essay would fall within the category of: reproductive rights and freedom. I did not mind her taking me on, but I did mind her using ad hominem methods in her critique which did not address in the least the substance of my arguments that undergirded my position which she was critiquing. In essence, the substance of her critique was that I did not agree with her position. The scholarly and practical reasons of for her critique that might have been proffered and explained were conspicuous by their absence. When I suggested to the editors of the law journal which published her essay and which is considered one of the more prestigious in the American legal academy as I have mentioned, they rejected my request to offer a reply. In short, it seemed that there was nothing more to say on the matter even though there was.
I know that there are law journals and reviews which will publish manuscripts that offer a pro-life or pro-traditional marriage perspective, just to mention two of the principal neuralgic issues of the day, but these periodicals, which I hasten to add provide a great service, are not considered “prestigious” because the law schools that sponsor them do not fall within the upper echelons of the U.S. News and World Report law school evaluations or similar surveys. But I wonder aloud whether these surveys do an effective job of evaluating with objectivity the nature of legal education today and what it is supposed to be about. The fact that a journal and its law school were once prestigious does not mean that this status will last forever. Moreover, as most law school faculties are pondering the future of legal education in this bleak period where the future of many law schools is a subject of question, shouldn’t the focus of their discussions concern the nature of legal education? It may be that the emphasis of these discussions is not on substance of legal education itself but on how to market a particular brand of legal education.
For those interested in Catholic legal theory and the education that is its natural companion, I suggest that this is a time of opportunity for those schools which are sincerely interested in their Catholic identity to consider the possibility that to be great institutions of legal education does not necessitate mimicry of institutions that were the prestigious institutions of the past.
The recent postings of Greg, John, and Mike demonstrate that if something is missing from legal scholarship and legal advocacy on the neuralgic issues of the day, there is likely something also missing from the education which these authors and practitioners have received. If nature abhors a vacuum, the time may well be now for those interested in Catholic legal theory and who teach at institutions which in some fashion rely on the moniker Catholic to ask the pressing question: what is missing from what we have to offer current and future students (without worrying about whether the “prestigious” institutions are doing the same). If some of us are willing to ask and respond to this question, we may not only be benefiting the institutions for which we labor but we could also be aiding our students—both existing and future, the profession, and the institution of the rule of law.
RJA sj
Kevin Walsh (Richmond) has a superb post about the question whether for-profit corporations are "persons" who "exercise religion" pursuant to RFRA. He makes his claims in the context of criticizing a recent panel decision of the Third Circuit. You should read the whole thing, but here is a selection:
RFRA provides that “[g]overnment shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion” unless the government satisfies strict scrutiny. 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb-1(a) (emphasis added). In the U.S. Code, “person” ordinarily encompasses “corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals.” 1 U.S.C. § 1. Nothing in RFRA excludes corporations generally. To the contrary, it is plain that corporations can assert claims under RFRA. The only Supreme Court case applying RFRA against the federal government involved a claim asserted by a corporation, O Centro Espírita Beneficente União do Vegetal . . . .
When one analyzes the claim, it turns out that the argument is not really about the meaning of the word “person” (even though the conclusion of the argument purports to be a claim about the meaning of this word). Rather, the argument pivots on “exercise of religion.” In the words of the district court opinion adopted by the Third Circuit, “a for-profit, secular corporation cannot exercise religion.”
Again, the claim is not that corporations cannot engage in exercise of religion. After all, corporations can, and do, exercise religion. Consider, for example,Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. or Corporation of the Presiding Bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The claim, rather, is limited to “secular, for-profit corporations.” But the claim rests on a mistake about “exercise of religion” under federal law and a mistake about corporate action.
For Kevin's arguments about the meaning of "exercise of religion" under RFRA and about the purposes of corporate action, read the post. I will add that on the former point, it is unquestionably the case as a historical matter that refusals to behave in a certain way can count as "exercises of religion": two of the earliest religious exemption questions -- the Quakers' resistance to military conscription and the opposition in some religious communities to swearing oaths -- take just this form.
StatCounter
PageViews
Since February 19, 2008
