Well, Michael, I hope the conspiracy theorists don't visit the MoJ website while that photograph you posted is up there! I get enough hate mail the way it is! I'll confess, though, that I'm very excited about Charles Chaput becoming Archbishop of Philadelphia. I've had the pleasure of working with him closely on a number of projects and he is a deeply impressive person in every way. As everyone knows, the Philadelphia archdiocese has very, very serious problems. So Archbishop Chaput faces a daunting job. But I haven't the slightest doubt that he is up to the challenge.
I'm also excited that Archbishop Chaput's voice will be amplified in the Church and the culture as a result of his appointment as Archbishop of Philadelphia. As he works for reform and renewal in the archdiocese, he will, I have no doubt, be speaking out on national and international issues of the sort that are of central concern to MoJ scholars and readers. He is deeply thoughtful and completely fearless. Because of his profound and unwavering commitment to the sanctity of human life in all stages and conditions, and the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife, many liberals in the secular and religious media will classify him as a "conservative," indeed, an "archconservative." But objective observers will soon see that his overall views do not fit neatly into the categories of "conservative" and "liberal." Of course, that shouldn't surprise anyone who knows anything about the Catholic tradition of thought about justice, human rights, and the common good.
With Timothy Dolan's appointment as Archbishop of New York, David O'Connell's appointment as Bishop of Trenton, and now Charles Chaput's appointment as Archbishop of Philadelphia, this has been an exciting couple of years for those of us living in the New York-Philadelphia corridor. These are three extraordinarily dedicated and dynamic leaders. All three are deeply committed to the Church's social mission and moral teaching. And all three recognize the need to deepen the understanding of faithful Catholics so that they can become more firmly committed disciples of Jesus, and more effective laborers for justice and human dignity.
As Rick already noted, Philadelphia welcomed its new archbishop this past week. Here's a great photo of our own Robby George with Cardinal Rigali and Archbishop Chaput at the press conference announcing the appointment.
A couple of days ago I criticized William Jeynes for making an unsubstantiated leap from evidence that single parenthood and broken homes create economic hardship to the assertion that families other than those headed by two biological parents create economic hardship. Today he has a follow-up essay, and thankfully he focuses primarily on single parenthood. He still, however, throws in some other arguments in an effort to bring all nontraditional family structures into the picture (e.g., citing research that parents are less likely than stepparents or other sexual partners to abuse children in the household), but none of those arguments advance his initial thesis that two-biological-parent families are essential for economic flourishing. And then there's his conclusion:
Americans would do well to substantially reduce the extent to which they rely on government for economic solutions to the nation’s struggling GDP and instead rethink their definition of a healthy family based on eternal principles that have stood the test of time.
These arguments really make me squirm. I'm all in favor of reducing the size of government, and I'm encouraged by the tentative signs that folks in DC are finally talking seriously about taking on the entitlement programs. I'm also all in favor of supporting the culture of marriage, recognizing both the economic and non-economic costs of single parenthood and broken homes. But these are two separate arguments, and they need to be carefully laid out because either one can easily escape the boundaries of reality-based recommendations and enter the realm of ideological trump cards. When we essentially say, "Let's stop relying so much on the government to help people and return to families headed by two biological parents," that tends to come across as cold-hearted to those who could be helped by government intervention, and it can provide an easy excuse for folks to blame the poor for their own predicament. As Archbishop Nienstedt (no shrinking violet on marriage) recently argued in the context of Minnesota's budget battle, "Government and other institutions have a shared responsibility to promote the common good of all members of our society, especially families who struggle to live with dignity during difficult economic times."
Thanks to Rick's Bastille Day post, I read and enjoyed Conor Cruise O'Brien's essay on Burke. In that piece, O'Brien quotes an extended passage from Reflections on the Revolution in France:
Circumstances (which with some gentlemen pass for nothing) give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing colour, and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind. Abstractedly speaking, government, as well as liberty, is good; yet could I, in common sense, ten years ago, have felicitated France on her enjoyment of a government (for she then had a government) without enquiry what the nature of that government was, or how it was administered? Can I now congratulate the same nation upon its freedom? Is it because liberty, in the abstract may be classed amongst the blessings of mankind, that I am seriously to felicitate a madman, who has escaped from the protecting restraint and wholesome darkness of his cell, on his restoration to the enjoyment of light and liberty? Am I to congratulate an highwayman and murderer, who has broke prison, upon the recovery of his natural rights? This would be to act over again the scene of the criminals condemned to the gallies, and their heroic deliverer, the metaphysic Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance.
This passage occurs quite early in the Reflections, and "the metaphysic Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance" is the sobriquet that Don Quixote assumes (I think Sancho Panza chooses it for him). In the scene referenced and used to great effect by Burke, Don Quixote sees a chain of convicted criminals in manacles walking along the road and guarded closely by several armed officers. When he learns from Sancho that the convicts are being moved "by force," Don Quixote takes action to "liberate them" -- "to put down force and to succor and help the wretched." Cervantes is depicting one of the ways in which madness is manifested: in an unflinching and absolute commitment to an abstract value -- here liberty -- no matter the circumstances or cost.
I had a look at the New York Times article to which you provided a link. As you say, it is short and not very informative. My sense is that it is meant to warn the Enlightened that the hicks and rubes they look down on as their intellectual and moral inferiors in Texas and similarly backward places are at it again---trying to either ban the teaching of evolution in public schools or mandate the teaching of young earth creationism or both. But let me venture a guess as to what is actually going on. I suspect that the "Republican-dominated" state education board is considering requiring that the teaching of Darwinian and neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory be supplemented by including some account or explanation of what critics of Darwinism and neo-Darwinism (such as David Berlinski and David Stove) have to say. In other words the proposal would be to reveal to students that the main view being presented is not without sophisticated critics, and students should carefully consider what is being said on the competing sides of the debate. Just a guess. But, of course, one never knows what those rascally "Republican-dominated" boards in primitive places are really up to. Thank God we have the New York Times (et al.) keeping an eye on them!
This story from today's NY Times raises an issue that I've never been able to understand. Maybe it's my own background as the child of people in the sciences (though I count myself woefully ignorant about science); and to be fair, the story is short and does not provide much detail about what the "supplemental materials" include. Let's set aside the questionable constitutionality of any policy which would take up significant space in the science curriculum "disput[ing]" evolutionary theory. Assuming that the debate is about whether to teach evolutionary theory in the science program of public schools, I do not understand how anyone could sensibly oppose that.
UPDATE: My link seems to go to a different story than the one I found yesterday morning, and I cannot find the earlier one. The new story also indicates that the board itself (including the Republicans on it) was focused on an important but uncontroversial issue, a vote to approve supplemental materials which, it seems, are in any event non-binding recommendations to the individual school districts. Some of the people attending the meeting did wish to discuss the more controversial matters, but that did not occur.
Does a Catholic innkeeper have the right to decline to host a same-sex wedding reception? At least in Vermont, the answer will undoubtedly be "no." My own view is that the innkeepers may properly be subject to boycotts, protests, etc., for staking out such morally contested positions, but I do not believe that they should be subject to the coercive power of the state for such positions absent a showing that they have blocked meaningful access to a good or service deemed essential by the political community. Note that the couple had no difficulty booking another venue.
SuperLawBlogger Paul Caron has posted the latest law-blog-traffic stats, here. MOJ continues to expand its vast sphere of influence. (Ed.: Huh? Rick: Shut up.)
Longtime MOJ readers know that I'm a big fan of my colleague Phil Bess's work on urbanism and architecture. (I reviewed his Till We Have Built Jerusalemhere. Also, Greg Sisk engaged Bess here.) It's worth the time to read his two-part essay (here and here), published at Public Discourse, called "The Realist Philosophical Case for Urbanism and Against Sprawl."
Now, as I've told Phil (and probably imposed on MOJ readers), I do worry that the "case against sprawl" often involves cultural and aesthetic snobbery (and even worse, hostility to families-with-children) as much as sound philosophical claims about the nature and destiny of the human person. We need to be careful about romanticizing dense cities and about demonizing less-dense (and, in my view, unattractive and frustrating) suburbs. There is a lot about the "urban" that deserves criticism, and a lot about the suburban that is worth praising, or at least accepting.
What I really like about Bess's work, though, is that he is critical of the "New Urbanist" movement precisely for its failure to get beyond an emotional, taste-based case for the urban. As Bess says, the better question to ask is (in my words), "what are persons and what are they for? And, in light of the answers to these questions, how should human communities look and be built?"
John Allen has a (characteristically) helpful and revealing interview with Philadelphia's new archbishop, Arbp. Charles Chaput. And, the folks at First Things have done a great job collecting a dozen-or-so essays he's done for that journal. Readers might also want to take a look at Arbp. Chaput's book, "Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living Our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life," which was thoughtfully reviewed by Fr. Robert Imbelli, here.
The Church in Philadelphia is facing real challenges, to put it mildly, and so I would hope that all Catholics would pray for that great city's new Archbishop.
