Monday, October 15, 2012
"Dang wabbit!"
Confusion about separation
This blog post, "Of Babies and Beans," at The New Yorker, has already been noted at both First Things and Commonweal. In the post, Adam Gopnik says some strikingly wrongheaded things (in addition to a variety of offensive and snarky things about various politicians he doesn't like) about abortion ("It is conscious, thinking life that counts"), but also characterizes as "disturbing and scary" Rep. Ryan's (I would have thought) unremarkable observation that “I don’t see how a person can separate their public life from their private life or from their faith. Our faith informs us in everything we do.” Here's Gopnik:
That’s a shocking answer—a mullah’s answer, what those scary Iranian “Ayatollahs” he kept referring to when talking about Iran would say as well. Ryan was rejecting secularism itself, casually insisting, as the Roman Catholic Andrew Sullivan put it, that “the usual necessary distinction between politics and religion, between state and church, cannot and should not exist.” . . .
. . . Our faith should not inform us in everything we do, or there would be no end to the religious warfare that our tolerant founders feared.
Of course, Ryan did not say that the "distinction between politics and religion" or the distinction (which is different) between "church and state" "should not exist"; and there is nothing mullah-ish about the statement that faith "informs" people's public lives. He didn't say that the positive law should enforce religious teachings or require religious practices, and there's nothing contrary to "secularism" (properly understood) in his statement.
Kalanges on Radical Orthodoxy
Friday, October 12, 2012
The Church’s Nature as Explained by the Second Vatican Council
This week we celebrate the opening of the Second Vatican Council. Since that time, the Church’s faithful and others have encountered diverse, sometimes conflicting explanations about the Council’s work. In some instances the diversity is well-founded because it is based on reasonable interpretations of the texts produced by the Council’s labors. However, other descriptions of the Council’s work are problematic because they reinvent or revise the history of the Council and the fruits of its labor; moreover, the accompanying interpretations produced by this second category of descriptions of the Conciliar documents are flawed because the interpretation fails to take stock of all the documents that concern related issues. As one trained in the law, I have come to understand the importance of texts and their meaning which are essential to an objective comprehension of what they signify and what they do not. The significance of texts is important to both theology, philosophy, literature, history and the law.
One of the major disagreements over the work of the Council concerns the nature of the Church and how her members are to interact with and to relate to one another. What is essential to minimizing or eliminating this conflict is to read together the several documents issued by the Council that address this subject.
The Council heralded the dignity of the human person and the societies to which the individual person belongs in several of its documents—texts which reveal the intent, objectives, and contexts of the Council’s work. In the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes (GS), the Council Fathers offered an important expression relevant to this posting, i.e., it is the dignity of the human person that establishes the foundation for relationship—relationship with others, with the world, and with the Church. The crucial theme of relationship, and therefore the nature of the Church, is reflected in Jesus’s exhortation found in John 15:5, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:5
Regarding the Church’s nature, the Council Fathers agreed that the Church is a family constituted by Christ to be a society that is established on relationships and is directed to the purposes just mentioned in the temporal and eternal spheres. Again, the image of the vine and its branches suitably explains this. As a leaven for the “soul for human society,” the Church relies on the “talents and industry” of her individual members. How she does this is explained in the several documents explaining the relationships amongst the clergy (including the bishops), men and women religious and consecrated, and the laity.
Many questions about what the Conciliar documents mean must be addressed by objectively reading the texts individually and, then, together. This seems to be an obvious and promising approach, but all too often texts, and the common or related themes that they address, are read and, therefore, understood in a fragmented fashion. Consequently, their authentic meanings can be lost as a result of this fragmentation. In the final analysis, all relevant documents of the Council are critical to the task is seeking the best possible understanding of what the Council said and what it did not say. When this approach consisting of a careful reading and consideration of the relevant documents has been neglected, understandings of the Council’s work product are flawed. This becomes acutely patent when the nature of the Church is the question under investigation.
It has been almost a half century since the Council concluded its work on December 8, 1965. Since then, Catholics have encountered explanations of the meaning of the Council by fellow Catholics and others which are based less on the texts of the Council and more on the ambiguous spirit of Vatican II. The documents which the Council fathers produced are, in fact, the authentic source of the spirit of the Council because they are the product of the Council that was presented to Pope Paul VI for his approval. Still, there are occasions when some opinions argue that the spirit of the counsel is elsewhere. It might be in the notes of certain bishops or the journals of periti and other documentation that are extrinsic to the Constitutions, Declarations, and Decrees issued by the Council and approved by the pope. These arguments are problematic when the “spirit” they project constitute a revision of the fruits of the Council as recorded in the official texts and a reading-together of all the texts that address the same subject matter.
When the Church’s nature is the topic of discussion or investigation, the documents which must be examined together are: the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, (Lumen Gentium); the document on the bishops (Christus Dominus); the texts on priests (Presbyterorum Ordinis) and priestly formation (Optatam Totius); the document on religious and consecrated life (Perfectae Caritatis); and, the text on the laity (Apostolicam Actuositatem).
While these texts when viewed individually demonstrate something about the diversity of the Church’s members, reading them together demonstrates that the Church is a unity of holiness. This means that each class (clerical, religious, or lay) has and exercises different responsibilities. Nonetheless, the call to holiness requires that all disciples—clerical, religious, or lay—must seek the virtue of love and perfect it. Living a well-grounded life based on the sacraments is an important step in responding to the call to holiness, in being faithful to one’s discipleship, and in nurturing and defending the nature of the Church.
The Church and her members also need a requisite measure of freedom to accept and exercise these rights and duties. Here we must turn to the Declaration on Religious Liberty, Dignitatis Humane Personae (DH), to understand as best we can the role of freedom in the nature of the Church which is the means by which her members exercise their prudent judgment to seek the truth and justice by which the Church exists in the temporal world. Significantly, it is this text which asserts that “the one true religion subsists in the Catholic and Apostolic Church” by which God spreads this religion among all people. But the freedom of which the Council Fathers spoke is not simply individual, it must also be a freedom of the Community—the Church, the People of God, the Body of Christ. The freedom, then, that properly belongs to the Church is not private, rather, it is one that must be exercised in public for the individual believer and for the community of believers, i.e., the Church. It would be contrary to the nature of the Church if one or some of her members take and defend a position, internally or externally to the community of believers, that brings harm to the rest of the community or any of its members. This would not be an exercise of freedom or conscience, but it would be a threat that undermines the Body of Christ and antithetical to the nature of the Church.
RJA sj
The HHS Mandate and the Vice Presidential Debate
The USCCB has issued a statement clarifying that Vice President Biden's characterization of the effect of the HHS mandate as "a fact" (twice) is not, in fact, a fact:
October 12, 2012
WASHINGTON—The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) issued the following statement, October 12. Full text follows:
Last night, the following statement was made during the Vice Presidential debate regarding the decision of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to force virtually all employers to include sterilization and contraception, including drugs that may cause abortion, in the health insurance coverage they provide their employees:
"With regard to the assault on the Catholic Church, let me make it absolutely clear. No religious institution—Catholic or otherwise, including Catholic social services, Georgetown hospital, Mercy hospital, any hospital—none has to either refer contraception, none has to pay for contraception, none has to be a vehicle to get contraception in any insurance policy they provide. That is a fact. That is a fact."
This is not a fact. The HHS mandate contains a narrow, four-part exemption for certain "religious employers." That exemption was made final in February and does not extend to "Catholic social services, Georgetown hospital, Mercy hospital, any hospital," or any other religious charity that offers its services to all, regardless of the faith of those served.
HHS has proposed an additional "accommodation" for religious organizations like these, which HHS itself describes as "non-exempt." That proposal does not even potentially relieve these organizations from the obligation "to pay for contraception" and "to be a vehicle to get contraception." They will have to serve as a vehicle, because they will still be forced to provide their employees with health coverage, and that coverage will still have to include sterilization, contraception, and abortifacients. They will have to pay for these things, because the premiums that the organizations (and their employees) are required to pay will still be applied, along with other funds, to cover the cost of these drugs and surgeries.
USCCB continues to urge HHS, in the strongest possible terms, actually to eliminate the various infringements on religious freedom imposed by the mandate.
For more details, please see USCCB's regulatory comments filed on May 15 regarding the proposed "accommodation": www.usccb.org/about/general-counsel/rulemaking/upload/comments-on-advance-notice-of-proposed-rulemaking-on-preventive-services-12-05-15.pdf
That tendentious ("he's a Randian extremist!!!") anti-Paul Ryan statement
Following up (and quoting from) Rick's post about the anti-Paul Ryan statement put out this week by left-wing Catholics seeking to brand Ryan as an extreme individualist and slavish disciple of Ayn Rand, I have a post up at First Things:
http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2012/10/the-catholic-leftrsquos-unfair-attack-on-paul-ryan
One of the architects of the statement, Charlie Camosy, makes an effort in the comments section to defend it as truly non-partisan and fair to Ryan, but res ipsa loquitur.
Reading his comment, I could not help but imagine how different the statement would have looked had it exemplified even a modicum of the interpretative charity that Professor Camosy practices in his efforts to depict Peter Singer's thought as sharing vast tracts of common ground with Christian moral teaching.
But then, such a statement wouldn't have been of much use to the Obama campaign.
Vatican II 50 Years Later
Rocco Palmo has comprehensive coverage of the events in Rome commemorating the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council. Here's an excerpt from Benedict XVI's remarks last night:
Fifty years ago tonight, I, too, was in this square, with my eyes turned toward this window, as the Good Pope, Pope John, spoke to us those unforgettable words – full of poetry, of goodness, words from his heart. We were all happy that night and full of enthusiasm – the great ecumenical council had begun, and we were sure of a new springtime for the church, a new Pentecost with a new presence of the liberating grace of the Gospel.
We're happy today, too – we should carry joy in our hearts. I would say, however, that our joy is a more sober one, something more humble. Over these fifty years, we have learned and experienced that original sin exists, and that it translates itself into personal sins which can become structures of sin. We have seen that even in the Lord's field there is discord, that even in the net of Peter we find bad fish, that human weakness is present even in the church, that the ship of the church journeys in the face of an opposing wind, amid storms that threaten the ship. And sometimes we have thought that 'the Lord is asleep and has forgotten us.' But this is only one part of the experience of these fifty years. We've also been made to experience the presence of the Lord, the gifts of his goodness and strength.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Hitler’s Pope: Did Pius XII did too little to save the Jews from the Holocaust?
Mirror of Justice friend, law professor, and expert on Pius XII will participate in a debate in London on November 14 at 7:15pm. If you are in London, try to make it, I'm sure it will be the best show in town that evening. Here is the description:
"Pope Pius XII (1939-58) has been described as “the most dangerous cleric in modern history”. He was silent – his critics argue – and did nothing during the Holocaust to help the Jews. Others disagree, claiming that he helped save a larger percentage of Jews in Rome than were rescued in any other city under German occupation, and that altogether he prevented thousands of Jewish deaths throughout Italy and across Europe. Was Pius part of a broad Roman Catholic anti-Semitic tradition, subordinating compassion for the Jews to his goal of increasing the power of the papacy? Or a good man doing his best in difficult circumstances?Both sides are passionate about their positions on this controversial historical figure, but who is right? Come to the Royal Institution on November 14th, hear the experts and decide for yourself."
Rowan Williams on Evangelization
Rowan Williams has had a difficult tenure as Archbishop of Canterbury, to put it mildly. But this talk he delivered yesterday at the Synod of Bishops on the New Evangelization at the personal invitation of the Pope (story from Rocco Palmo here) is a wonderful theological reflection and gives hope that we will hear more from him in his new role as Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge. Here is an excerpt with, I think, some lessons for all of us engaged in Catholic education:
To be converted to the faith does not mean simply acquiring a new set of beliefs, but becoming a new person, a person in communion with God and others through Jesus Christ.
Contemplation is an intrinsic element in this transforming process. To learn to look to God without regard to my own instant satisfaction, to learn to scrutinise and to relativise the cravings and fantasies that arise in me – this is to allow God to be God, and thus to allow the prayer of Christ, God’s own relation to God, to come alive in me. Invoking the Holy Spirit is a matter of asking the third person of the Trinity to enter my spirit and bring the clarity I need to see where I am in slavery to cravings and fantasies and to give me patience and stillness as God’s light and love penetrate my inner life. Only as this begins to happen will I be delivered from treating the gifts of God as yet another set of things I may acquire to make me happy, or to dominate other people. And as this process unfolds, I become more free—to borrow a phrase of St Augustine (Confessions IV.7)—to ‘love human beings in a human way’, to love them not for what they may promise me, to love them not as if they were there to provide me with lasting safety and comfort, but as fragile fellow-creatures held in the love of God. I discover (as we noted earlier) how to see other persons and things for what they are in relation to God, not to me. And it is here that true justice as well as true love has its roots.
The human face that Christians want to show to the world is a face marked by such justice and love, and thus a face formed by contemplation, by the disciplines of silence and the detaching of the self from the objects that enslave it and the unexamined instincts that can deceive it. If evangelisation is a matter of showing the world the ‘unveiled’ human face that reflects the face of the Son turned towards the Father, it must carry with it a serious commitment to promoting and nurturing such prayer and practice. It should not need saying that this is not at all to argue that ‘internal’ transformation is more important than action for justice; rather, it is to insist that the clarity and energy we need for doing justice requires us to make space for the truth, for God’s reality to come through. Otherwise our search for justice or for peace becomes another exercise of human will, undermined by human self-deception. The two callings are inseparable, the calling to ‘prayer and righteous action’, as the Protestant martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it, writing from his prison cell in 1944. True prayer purifies the motive, true justice is the necessary work of sharing and liberating in others the humanity we have discovered in our contemplative encounter.
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
The Law and Politics
The law and politics are frequent companions even though they are not the same entity. Throughout the history of human made law, politics have often influenced what this law contains, says, and does. While human law is not immune from politics, the natural moral law is. Still, the natural moral law also influences or can influence the human law, and this principle is a part of Catholic social thought, something very much in the news these days. Of course, Catholic social thought also intersects the history of religious freedom. Both elevate human consciousness about the moral implications of issues which are at the center of today’s legal and political discourses, disagreements, and debates.
It is sensible and commendable that the First Amendment of the United States Constitution acknowledges the natural right of religious freedom and the additional natural rights of peaceful assembly and speech. I acknowledge that those with whom I disagree still have the same rights of religion, speech, and assembly which I claim. In a particular case, I also disagree with some of the content of the “On Our Shoulders” statement to which Rick referred earlier today. But still, I acknowledge their right to express their views even though I disagree with them on several bases that are founded on the Church’s teachings. But “On Our Shoulders” is not the only group that is active these days in proclaiming their take on religious freedom through acts of speech.
Another organization, Catholics United has once again become active in this election year. After reviewing many of their latest postings at www.catholics-united.org , I conclude that they are not committed to the same First Amendment principles that I am.
I have on previous occasions discussed the ability of Catholics, including ecclesiastical officials, to exercise their rights and responsibilities in educating the faithful about the moral teachings of the Church. HERE is one illustration from July of this year; here is ANOTHER from October of 2008. As I understand Constitutional law and Catholic social thought, it is crucial to the vitality of the natural rights that the First Amendment acknowledges that these folks with whom I disagree can offer their views on the important issues of the day. However, it is essential that other views that are grounded on objective reason and the teachings of the Church also be welcome in the public square. But some, like Catholics United, do not agree with my position as I have just explained it.
But today’s posting does not end here. Catholic United have initiated as one of their current campaigns the project to “Keep Politics Out of Our Pulpits”, and they have circulated an accompanying pledge seeking support for this project. The pledge is a simple but misdirected appeal to “protect the sacredness of our sanctuaries” “from partisan activity.” While the campaign acknowledges the “moral obligation” of Christians to engage in important public debates, it asserts that this public witness “must not involve using Church assets to expressly support or oppose candidates for elective office.” Well, that is what the law states, but I do not think that is what Catholics United are really concerned about anyone violated the Internal Revenue Code and accompanying regulations. As one looks beyond the pledge campaign of Catholics United and investigates their press releases, it becomes clear that this organization does not care for the teachings of the Church on neuralgic issues or for ecclesiastical officials posting reminders of Church teachings on an archdiocesan website. One of these neuralgic issues concerns the efforts to redefine marriage. Catholics United characterized one ecclesiastical official’s statements on the marriage issue as “far right politics” that “are driving an increasing number of Catholics away from the faith.” There is no mention in this strong critique of the bishop that he has a distinct responsibility to teach the faithful about these teachings and why the Church teaches what she teaches. The disdain which Catholics United has for those who disagree with them is patent. But I return to the pledge to keep politics out of the pulpit.
What would they say about the abolitionist preachers of the ante-bellum United States? What would they say about the Catholic clergy in Germany and the German-occupied states of Europe who preached against the rounding up of Jews prior to and during the Second World War? What would they say about Martin Luther King, Jr.’s sermons on issues dealing with civil rights? These were all matters dealing with political and legal issues of the day that were addressed in a Christian context by clergy. Perhaps Catholics United would respond to this history by stating that these statements were necessary and that is why Catholics United agree with the positions presented from the pulpit. Well, so is it necessary for Church officials to remind the faithful about today’s neuralgic issues, too. I wonder if Catholics United object to Church officials addressing issues from positions with which they, Catholics United, disagree? Perhaps that is why such speakers should be banned from the pulpit? If this is the case, the natural rights of freedom of religion, speech, and assembly must mean little or nothing to Catholics United. Is it conceivable that Catholics United might be contemplating yet another campaign? If so, might it be called: Rights for Me, but Not for Thee? But as you can see, this campaign was initiated during the last election, four years ago.
RJA sj
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