Over the past several days,
influential journals of opinion and web newsites [here, here, here, here, here, here, and here] have
taken to task the Catholic Church, particularly members of the hierarchy, for
doing what she, the Church, must do: teach the truth of God and the Church.
Some of these journals of opinion and boggers have argued that the Church’s
presentations have been inflammatory, not because of the rhetoric but because
of the positions taken and advanced. However, when one actually reads the
Church texts that are cited or watches the video of their presentation, the
modifier “inflammatory” does not come to mind, but reasoned discourse does. If
one is interested in seeing “inflammatory” language, a better source to satisfy
the appetite may be to see how these journals themselves present their
perspective on the news. If one searches further, you will find that many
journals of opinion and bloggers today refer unforgivingly to those with whom
they disagree. It is difficult to comprehend why do some of these journals and
bloggers castigate officials of the Church and those who agree with Church
teachings when they express respectful disagreement with words and deeds that
are contrary to Church teachings and the natural moral law? It may be in part
because the critics find these words, as Gospel (John 6:60) reminds us, hard to
accept.
Of course, it is clear that some
members of our society disagree with the content or at least elements of the
Church’s teachings. That is their prerogative; however, this prerogative does
not make them or their opinions correct. By the same token, the Church has the
same right to speak and teach her Teachings that are protected by the same
rights guaranteed by the First Amendment.
Over the last several years, some
opponents of the Church’s teachings (including some folks who identify
themselves as Catholics) have argued that the Church has overstepped boundaries
in what is permissible for the Church (and voices that agree with her) to do in
the public square and what is not.
A common theme of many the critical
opinions is that the Church’s teachings can be divisive; therefore, they ought
not to be conveyed so as to minimize division. I doubt that the intention of
the Church is to spread division. But I am confident that the intention is to
propose God’s truth to the faithful and other people of good will. This is
something which rubs against some elements of American and other western
societies today. It is clear that the journals of opinion and bloggers that I
have cited above (a modest sampling) treasure their right to speak. And they
must be protected in their right. But at the same time, so must the Church’s
voice be protected. Moreover, anyone who disagrees can express his or her or
its opinion, but theirs is not the right to silence the voice with which they
disagree.
As the only resident cleric of the Mirror of Justice community, I will be
celebrating the Eucharist this coming weekend at a Chicago area parish where I
regularly assist. If you check the readings for this Sunday, the 27th
Sunday of Ordinary Time (cycle B), you will see that the Old Testament and
Gospel texts are about marriage. I intend to preach about marriage and the
vital role it exercises in the Church and in civil society. I will principally
address the nature of the human person and the complementarity of the sexes
acknowledged by the scripture. I suppose there may be some who will accuse me
of mixing politics with religion. Really? But I have a reply to any criticism
arguing that I am doing something from the pulpit that is “divisive.”
There is a part of my response
which focuses on the First Amendment protections to point out something that an
objective understanding of human nature concurs with the complementarity of the
sexes argument mentioned in the Old and New Testament readings. Another part of
my response is in the form of a question about why should there be inequity of
treatment of what can be presented in a public forum between the views of the
Church and those voices which disagree with the Church’s teachings? A recent
illustration comes to mind.
Two weeks ago I had the occasion to
be in the Twin Cities to deliver a paper at the St. Thomas University
conference on Vatican II. As I stayed at the Midwest Jesuit novitiate nearby, I
walked to the conference venue as it was a pleasant early fall day. On my
journey, I passed a number of houses of worship which displayed a version of
the poster “Vote No: Don’t Limit the Freedom to Marry” which has been displayed
by folks and institutions that do not want to limit legal marriage in Minnesota
to a union of one man and one woman. As you may recall, Minnesota has a state
referendum concerning the definition of marriage. During my walk, I noticed that
several houses of worship had the sign “Vote No” but added to the standard
poster “People of Faith Vote No: Don’t Limit the Freedom to Marry.” Some other
houses of worship did not display this sign. I wondered if they might have a
congregation which largely holds the view that one should vote “yes” on the marriage
amendment, but for some reason they did not think that they should express
their view on this important public and moral issue. If they did have a reason
for refraining from having a “Vote Yes” sign placed on their house of worship,
I further wondered if it might emerge from a fear about offering a contrasting
view on a matter of public policy where there is great and deep division on the
question of the definition and meaning of marriage.
On Sunday, I shall preach on the
scripture readings from Genesis and Saint Mark’s Gospel and relate them to the
Church’s teachings. I shall also touch upon the role of the faithful as
disciples of Christ who are also citizens of the City of Man and who have a
voice in public policy debates. Will I receive complaints about what I may say
from the pulpit? Will I be accused of doing something “divisive” by preaching
in concert with the Church’s teachings as revealed in sacred scripture?
Totalitarian regimes have tried to
snuff out the truth from the pulpit, but surely it would be unbecoming of and
antithetical for a democracy to do the same.
RJA sj
Friday, October 5, 2012
Here's the abstact of a new paper, 'Religious Freedom,' the Individual Mandate, and Gifts: On Why the Church is Not a Bomb Shelter, that I recently posted:
"The Health and Human Services' regulatory requirement that all but a narrow set of "religious" employers provide contraceptives to employees is an example of what Robert Post and Nancy Rosenblum refer to as a growing "congruence" between civil society's values and the state's legally enacted policy. Catholics and many others have resisted the HHS requirement on the ground that it violates "religious freedom." They ask (in the words of Cardinal Dolan) to be "left alone" by the state. But the argument to be "left alone" overlooks or suppresses the fact that the Catholic Church understands that it is its role to correct and transform society, not merely to be left alone in a gilded cage. This paper uses the HHS mandate as a vehicle by which to clarify the Catholic understanding of the ideal -- but currently mostly unachievable -- relationship between Church and state: the state should receive its principles from the Church, not the Church from the state. Social justice and subsidiarity disallow a state that reduces the Church to the status of a bomb shelter. Leviathan is happy to have the Church out of sight and out of mind."
The paper can be reached here. Its argument proceeds by unpacking the place of the respective munera of associations, above all the Church in her many manifestations such as schools and hospitals, and of individuals. The concept of munus (of which munera is the plural) conjoins the Aristotelian notion of function and the theological notion of vocation. The bottom line is that munera are gifts to be given, not possessions to kept in a bunker. The world thinks of the state's sovereignty in terms of power; Catholic social doctrine understands the state to be in service to all.
Check out this post (which has a nice shout-out to this article, by my colleague Lloyd Mayer) by Paul Horwitz on the church-autonomy principle and "pulpit freedom Sunday."
As I wrote in the comments to Paul's post, I agree with him (I think) that the notion of there being *some* limit on the political activities of tax-exempt organizations, including churches, is not itself inconsistent with "church autonomy" / "the freedom of the church." At the same time, I also think there are fuzzy, "yay for pluralism and diversity among civil-society institutions that serve as checks on government power" reasons for thinking that we should give even tax-exempt religious institutions a lot of lee-way in this area.
For more, see my "A Quiet Faith? Taxes, Politics, and the Privatization of Religion" (here).
I find the following two recent statements by the estimable Cardinal Dolan impossible to reconcile.
Statement 1, the more recent statement, is this:
"I am worried that we may be reducing religious freedom to a kind of privacy right to recreational activities, reducing the practice of religion to a Sabbath hobby, instead of a force that should guide our public actions, as Michelle Obama recently noted, Monday through Friday." The context is here.
Statement 2, the somewhat earlier statement, is as follows:
"That’s all it’s really about: religious freedom.
It’s not about access to contraception, as much as our local newspaper—surprise!—insists it is. The Church is hardly trying to impose its views on society, but rather resisting the government’s attempt to force its view on us.
Vast and unfettered access to chemical contraceptives and abortifacients—all easier to get, they tell me, than beer and cigarettes—will continue. If you think it’s still not enough, then subsidize them if you insist. Just don’t make us provide them and pay for them!" (emphasis added) The context is here.
Statement 2 sure sounds like a plea to privatize the Catholic religion. The alternative would be for the Church to teach, as a "force . . . that guide[s] our public actions," that no one should engage in conduct that violates the moral law. When, instead, the claim is that what it's "all . . . about" is "religious freedom" and nothing more, the Church ceases to be a force that guides our public actions. It's not just about "religious freedom," however. It's also and fundamentally about the Church's divine mission to correct and transform society.
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Edward Goerner, a longtime member of the Government Department at Notre Dame, has passed away. His book Peter and Caesar: Political Authority and the Catholic Church (Herder & Herder, 1965) is an unduly neglected classic of Catholic political theory, and (though I disagree with them) his essays on Aquinas are learned and provocative. See "On Thomistic Natural Law: The Bad Man's View of Thomistic Natural Right," Political Theory 7 (1979): 101-22 and "Thomistic Natural Right: The Good Man's View of Thomistic Natural Law," Political Theory 11 (1983): 393-418. Here is an excerpt from the closing to Peter and Caesar:
[M]uch of the modern Western world is no longer characterized by religiously homogeneous political communities. The modern West has committed itself to technological objectives that break up such communities. That commitment is partly a product of a revulsion against religious fanaticism and the wars and massacres to which it led. That revulsion led to a powerful tendency to secularize political society radically by directing it to the maximization of exclusively private and/or pre-political goals. And the technological objectives that have come to dominate so much of our lives seem integrally to involve the regular shifting and mixture of individuals as interchangeable units in the perpetual and kaleidoscopic transformations of the economy. For the semi-nomadic populations produced in Europe and America by these forces, the religious pluralism inherent in this time before the harvest takes the form of religiously diverse individuals living in close proximity. Here the task of the magisterium is not only to teach the faithful that the gospel does not authorize them to oppress others in any way, but also to teach them that the gospel must in some way inform the structure of their public lives.
....
Different civilizational moments pose the pluralistic problem in different ways and require a different dialogue between integrist and prophetic critic. So perhaps someone will say: "There! At the very end you, too, have come to [John Courtney] Murray's historicism." But that is to miss the point. It is, no doubt, true as he argues that no historical realization is the Ideal Republic of Truth and Justice. That is a valid expression of the voice of prophetic criticism. But it may also be true that no Christian action in public affairs is possible without the pole star of the apocalyptic vision of the City of God. And no serious reflection on the significance of that vision for action in this world can avoid exploring the human possibilities for realizing crude images of that vision, as well as the dangers inherent in such attempts by men who are both bathed in grace and flawed by sin. And it would be absurd to pretend either that they are not arranged in a hierarchy--as are the states of individual life--or that any particular realization is possible or prudent as an objective for a given society.
It may not be an easy task to begin again, and there may be danger in it, but every Christian who is in the world must, at the level of his competence, ask the question how the structure of the common action in which he moves can be conformed to the archetypal Christian action. In it, the integrist's truth and the prophetic critic's truth are both present, and the tension symoblizes our time: to stretch out the arms to embrace one's brothers--and to receive the nails.
