Mirror of Justice

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Philpott on "The Challenge of Forgiveness"

My friend and colleague, Dan Philpott, was involved in the production of a moving documentary video, "Uganda: The Challenge of Forgiveness" (which was made before the Komy 2012 video took the world by storm), which shows how religious leaders and laypeople courageously have sought to build peace through forgiveness and reconciliation. You can watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BOeQyKcbVo

The HHS Mandate at Yale Law School

By Marc DeGirolami

I was pleased to participate in a panel at Yale Law School yesterday sponsored by the Catholic Law Students' Association and the St. Thomas More Chapel dealing with the HHS Mandate. I learned a great deal from my co-panelists, Matthew Boudway of Commonweal and Ashley McGuire of the Becket Fund. I thought I could make myself most useful by focusing on the federal legal framework within which the mandate is likely to be assessed, and my comments drew from many of the discussions we've had here (with maybe a little more emphasis on the individual assessment exception to Smith than some might think warranted). And I was pleased at the number of interested folks who attended and the thoughtfulness of the questions.

Thanks to Christian Burset for putting the event together.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

USCCB Opposes Cuts in Aid to the Poor

By Thomas Berg

The USCCB has released the text of several letters to various congressional committees criticizing proposed budget cuts in aid for the poor. To quote from one of the letters: although there is a need to cut the deficit,

Just solutions, however, must require shared sacrifice by all, including raising adequate revenues, eliminating unnecessary military and other spending, and fairly addressing the long-term costs of health insurance and retirement programs. The House-passed budget resolution fails to meet these moral criteria. We join other Christian leaders in insisting "a circle of protection" be drawn around essential programs that serve poor and vulnerable people. I respectfully urge that the committee reject any efforts to reduce funds or restructure programs in ways that harm struggling families and people living in poverty.

Michael Sean Winters:

Some on the left have been highly critical of the USCCB lately, charging them with serving as tools of the GOP because of their embrace of the cause of religious liberty. I hope that all liberal Catholics will congratulate the bishops on these magnificent letters and urge them to continue to fight for the poor and the vulnerable in our society. The poor have no K Street lobbyists to make their case in the halls of Congress. . . . But, week-in and week-out, year-in and year-out, the USCCB has been fighting for programs that assist the poor and vulnerable, serving as the voice of the voiceless.

CDF on the LCWR

By Robert John Araujo, SJ

Back in the fall of 2009 I had the occasion to offer several postings regarding concerns about the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) in the United States. As readers will recall, the issues involved with the LCWR matter were being pursued by two Vatican dicasteries. Today, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued its report. While some may argue that the document will generate further tensions, I see the report as one filled with good faith to work with the LCWR to address and remedy serious concerns. The report is here: Download CDF Report on LCWR .

RJA sj

Does nonpartisanship require silence?

By Rob Vischer

Folks can disagree about the tone or content of the bishops' statement on religious liberty. I was struck, though, by this component of the "partisan" charge (noted more broadly by Mike Moreland a few days ago) from the Commonweal editors:

Religious freedom “ought not to be a partisan issue,” the bishops declare. They are absolutely right. If defending religious freedom becomes a partisan issue or, worse, an electoral ploy, it will engender enormous cynicism in an electorate in which a significant majority of voters already think religion is too politicized. Unfortunately, the bishops’ statement and proposal for public action are likely to increase that possibility. This initiative is being launched during an election year in which one party has assumed the mantle of faith and charges the other with attacking religion. The bishops need to do much more to prevent their national campaign from becoming a not-very-covert rallying point for the Republican Party and its candidates. If that happens, it is the church and the cause of religious freedom that will suffer.

I'm pretty sure that the bishops would have preferred that 2012 not be a year that has seen the erosion of religious liberty on several distinct fronts. The fact that this is an election year is beside the point, and the fact that one party may have more aggressively claimed the mantle of faith (for good or for ill) does not change the facts on the ground regarding religious liberty. If the bishops take a partisan tone, that's fair game for criticism -- and I agree with the editors that the bishops' failure to flag the recent spate of anti-Sharia initiatives is a regrettable oversight -- but the fact that they saw fit to issue a statement in the same year as a presidential election is a strange objection to raise. Unless legislatures and government agencies are going to avoid actions that encroach on religious liberty in an election year, defenders of religious liberty can't take the year off. If there are specific assertions in the statement that can be construed as partisan, let's talk about them and not rely on vague references to timing as the source of a heightened -- perhaps insurmountable? -- standard for proving nonpartisanship.

Comparison of Obama to Hitler and Stalin

By Susan Stabile

I do not mean to minimize the challenges of religious freedom that exist in our country and there is much constructive work for all of us to be doing to try to preserve a robust notion of religious freedom.

Having said that, I think homilies like Bishop Jenky's, which can be heard here, are both counter-productive and deeply offensive. Obama's support of the HHS mandate, albeit raising real issues about lack of respect for religion, is hardly on a par with the behavior of Hitler or Stalin.

We all need to be sure we are ways that others who dont' already agree with us can hear. This kind of rhetoric does not, in my view, fall into that category.

Reflections on Wealth

By Russell Powell

The following article has interesting thoughts challenging assumptions regarding wealth. While the author's arguments are not made in the context of Catholic teaching, several of his points seem consistent with aspects Catholic social thought. In particular, the article reminded me of the the Pastoral Letter, Economic Justice for All, and last Sunday's Reading from the fourth chapter of Acts. http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/04/16

Monday, April 16, 2012

Paolo Carozza on "Human Dignity and the Method of Human Experience"

By Elizabeth Schiltz

The Murphy Institute was graced last week by a visit from Notre Dame Law School's Paolo Carozza (recently appointed Director of Notre Dame's Center for Civil and Human Rights), as part of our Human Dignity lecture series. Paolo presented a talk entitled, "Human Dignity and the Method of Human Experience" in a public lecture Thursday evening, and continued the conversation the following morning in an inter-disciplinary, multi-school seminar at UST Law School.

Paolo argued that it is time for the international community to move beyond the compromise that famously permitted the consensus leading to the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (In Jacques Maritain's famous words: "...we agree on the rights, but on the condition that no one asks us why.") Drawing on his hands-on experiences 'on the ground' in international human rights work (among other things, Paolo is just coming off four years as a member of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the last year as its President), Paolo proposed a methodology for moving forward, toward a thicker conception of human dignity, by focusing on our common experiences of human dignity. Paolo drew on the work of Luigi Giussani, the founder of the Communion and Liberation movement, describing a shared "elementary experience" of human dignity -- a 'complex of needs and evidences' that are more fundamental to our humanity than any time-bound, specific cultural artifacts, like law or social structures. Paolo provided illustrations from his own experiences in the human rights field that illustrated this sort of profound, elemental encounter with the essence of humanity, bridging cultural, religious, and political divides of the community in which he was working.

You can watch the video of his excellent talk here.

In our seminarthe next day, we explored what Paolo's proposed methodology shared with, and how it differed from, some other approaches, such as natural law theory, phenomenology, Hauerwasian insights about suffering the presence of others, and the work of Karol Wojtyla. It's clear that Paolo is developing a creative new approach to this ongoing exploration of 'human dignity' -- and that his comparative law perspective and personal experiences in human rights work contribute much to the richness of his approach.

Congratulations to Tom Shaffer!

By Rick Garnett

The Notre Dame Law Association has named Thomas L. Shaffer, Robert and Marion Short Professor Emeritus of Law, the 2012 recipient of The Rev. Michael D. McCafferty, C.S.C., Award. The McCafferty award is presented by the association to Notre Dame lawyers — or members of the Notre Dame Law School faculty or administration — who have rendered distinguished service to the University.

The award is named for Fr. Michael McCafferty, a popular and highly respected teacher at Notre Dame Law School whose life was shortened by cancer. The award is presented on occasions when the association’s board deems someone worthy of receiving it.

Shaffer, the nation’s most prolific legal author, has written nearly 300 scholarly works in his varied areas of expertise. He earned his B.A. from the University of Albuquerque in 1958 and his J.D. cum laude from Notre Dame in 1961, where he graduated first in his class and served as editor-in-chief of the law review. In 1983, St. Mary’s University (San Antonio, Texas) honored him with an LL.D.

Beckwith on the "rational status of religious beliefs"