The subject line of this posting reflects issues that we at the Mirror of Justice have been discussing and will most likely continue to address for some time. Volumes could be written on these topics individually and collectively as each has some bearing on the others. I do not intend to offer these volumes today. Rather, I would like to comment briefly on a new contribution to these issues that emerges from a recent address given by Bishop Kevin Dowling, the ordinary of the diocese of Rustenburg, South Africa, who is known in part for his disagreements with and dissent from Church teachings on important issues. His talk, delivered on June 1 of this year to what has been described as a group of leading laity, has been discussed in weblogs and periodicals (such as HERE which includes the bishop’s address).
In his conclusion, Bishop Dowling relies on the authority of Fr. Joseph Ratzinger’s contribution to the discussion of conscience in Gaudium et Spes, N. 16, which appears in the Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II edited by Herbert Vorgrimler. Last November in a discussion with Rob, I attempted to correct a misattribution to Fr. Ratziner in this posting. [HERE] In view of Bishop Dowling’s recent address that misuses the Ratzinger commentary of 1968, a renewal and an amplification of the correction is in order. First of all, here is what Bishop Dowling said last month:
What we should have, in my view, is a Church where the leadership recognises and empowers decision-making at the appropriate levels in the local Church; where local leadership listens to and discerns with the people of God of that area what “the Spirit is saying to the Church” and then articulates that as a consensus of the believing, praying, serving community. It needs faith in God and trust in the people of God to take what may seem to some or many as a risk. The Church could be enriched as a result through a diversity which truly integrates socio-cultural values and insights into a living and developing faith, together with a discernment of how such diversity can promote unity in the Church – and not, therefore, require uniformity to be truly authentic. Diversity in living and praxis, as an expression of the principle of subsidiarity, has been taken away from the local Churches everywhere by the centralisation of decision-making at the level of the Vatican. In addition, orthodoxy is more and more identified with conservative opinions and outlook, with the corresponding judgement that what is perceived to be “liberal” is both suspect and not orthodox, and therefore to be rejected as a danger to the faith of the people. Is there a way forward? I have grappled with this question especially in the light of the apparent division of aspiration and vision in the Church. How do you reconcile such very different visions of Church, or models of Church? I do not have the answer, except that somewhere we must find an attitude of respect and reverence for difference and diversity as we search for a living unity in the Church; that people be allowed, indeed enabled, to find or create the type of community which is expressive of their faith and aspirations concerning their Christian and Catholic lives and engagement in Church and world….and which strives to hold in legitimate and constructive tension the uncertainties and ambiguities that all this will bring, trusting in the presence of the Holy Spirit. At the heart of this is the question of conscience. As Catholics, we need to be trusted enough to make informed decisions about our life, our witness, our expressions of faith, spirituality, prayer, and involvement in the world……on the basis of a developed conscience. And, as an invitation to an appreciation of conscience and conscientious decisions about life and participation in what is a very human Church, I close with the formulation or understanding given by none other than the theologian, Father Josef Ratzinger, now Pope, when he was a peritus, or expert, at Vatican II: “Over the Pope as expression of the binding claim of ecclesiastical authority, there stands one’s own conscience which must be obeyed before all else, even if necessary against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority. This emphasis on the individual, whose conscience confronts him with a supreme and ultimate tribunal, and one which in the last resort is beyond the claim of external social groups, even the official Church, also establishes a principle in opposition to increasing totalitarianism”. (Joseph Ratzinger in: Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, Vol. V., pg. 134 (Ed) H. Vorgrimler, New York, Herder and Herder, 1967). Bishop Kevin Dowling C.Ss.R. Cape Town, 1 June, 2010
Bishop Dowling correctly reproduces a portion of Father Ratzinger’s commentary to N. 16 of Gaudium et Spes; however, several things are omitted that are crucial to understanding what Fr. Ratzinger was saying and what he was not.
This first thing omitted in this quotation is that Ratzinger was presenting not personal thoughts but, rather, the views of Cardinal Newman. Interestingly, Bishop Dowling omits the next important sentence of Fr. Ratzinger, which states: “Genuine ecclesiastical obedience is distinguished from any totalitarian claim which cannot accept any ultimate obligation of this kind beyond the reach of its dominating will.” If Bishop Dowling intentionally or inadvertently was suggesting that the Church is totalitarian by teaching the universality of moral norms, Fr. Ratzinger’s own commentary dismisses the conclusion.
But, Fr. Ratzinger did not stop there. He pointed out various lacunae in the passage from Gaudium et Spes, N. 16, noting that the Council fathers did not address the matter of conscience in detail. As Ratzinger noted, “How conscience can err if God’s call is directly to be heard in it, is unexplained.” In essence, Ratzinger acknowledges that conscience can be ill formed, it can be mistaken in its judgment, and it can be in error. Conscience may merit protection (but as Fr. Ratzinger pointed out, the Council was evasive about the constitutive elements of this protection), but this does not ensure that it is true, that it is right, or that it is correct.
He went on to explain that the Council, unlike Bishop Dowling who expresses interest in “difference and diversity”, recognized that conscience is transcendent, and that the conscience of which it addressed possesses a “non-arbitrary character and objectivity.” That is why the Council was careful in stating that a person’s conscience is where the voice of God—not contemporary culture, not human intelligence, not human experience—“echoes in his depths.” Moreover, fidelity to this kind of conscience inevitably must lead to the “search for truth” which is God (“the objective norms of morality”) rather than contemporary culture, human intelligence, or human experience.
In this context, Fr. Ratzinger stated: “The [Council] fathers were obviously anxious (as, of course was repeatedly shown in the debate on religious freedom also) not to allow an ethics of conscience to be transformed into the domination of subjectivism, and not to canonize a limitless situation ethics under the guise of conscience.” Bishop Dowling is inclined to the subjective when he demonstrates his attraction to “particular socio-economic, cultural, liturgical, spiritual and other pastoral realities and needs” and his eschewing the universality of moral norms. By contrast, Fr. Ratzinger stated, “the conciliar text implies that obedience to conscience means an end to subjectivism, a turning aside from blind arbitrariness, and produces conformity with the objective norms of moral action. Conscience is made the principle of objectivity, in the conviction that careful attention to its claim discloses the fundamental common values of human existence.” These are points with which or from which Bishop Dowling differs or departs.
While Fr. Ratzinger addressed other important points as well as shortcomings of Gaudium et Spes’s discussion of conscience, Fr. Ratzinger offered this summation: “The doctrine of the binding force of an erroneous conscience in the form in which it is propounded nowadays, belongs entirely to the thought of modern times.” In short, Fr. Ratzinger’s commentary offers a way to correct the erroneous conscience and why the dignity it deserves is not without limit. I am grateful that Bishop Dowling took time to acknowledge Fr. Ratzinger’s commentary about conscience; however, I am saddened by the fact that the brief passage he quoted does not accurately portray Fr. Ratzinger’s view of the conciliar document and the essence of conscience that is vital to Christian belief.
RJA sj
Jody Bottum's essay, "The Signpost at the Crossroads", is in the new print issue of First Things (count me as someone who, so far, likes the re-design), and is also available here. The core proposal of the piece is straightforward: "Even now, abortion remains what it has been for more than thirty years: the signpost at the intersection of religion and American public life."
To be clear, Bottum's point is not (obviously) that there are not many other important and morally significant "issues" that make an appearance at this "intersection." (His essay, actually, is a critique of Gov. Mitch Daniels' suggestion that a "truce" might be warranted on "social issues", at least until things fiscal are straightened out.) Of course there are. Immigration policy is a moral issue, and it appears at this intersection. So do our excessively long prison sentences for drug-related offenses, our unconscionable failure to stand up to the teacher-unions and provide children with decent educational opportunities, our decisions about going to war and then waging the wars to which we go, the extent to which we either support or undermine the family through public policy and regulation . . . and on and on.
Still, I have long been inclined to think that we cannot really hope to get "it" right unless we get this right. Tax policies and the like might move a bit in (what we regard as) the more moral direction, we might find ways to better (more efficiently, more effectively, etc.) support those in need, but if -- at the end of the day -- our regime is one that constitutionalizes an effectively unlimited (and increasingly public subsidized) license to end the lives of other, vulnerable human beings, then it seems (to me, anyway) that we are getting it all wrong.
In saying this, I do not mean to suggest that it is wrong -- until we get abortion-policy right -- to work for change in the right direction on education, immigration, or poverty-response. Of course it isn't. (I'm sure I've spend more of my time and energy on school choice than I have on overturning Roe.) I do not even mean to wade back into the whole "can you ever vote for a pro-abortion-rights candidate?" debate. I just think -- this is, I know, a sad thought -- that any "win" on these other issues will always be (and should always be) bittersweet, so long as the Mystery Passage constrains our ability to protect all persons through law.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Rick wrote a post yesterday titled The Dalai Lama is Wrong, quoting the argument made by Stephen Prothero in his new book. I haven't yet read Prothero's book and don't know from where he draws his conclusions about the Dalai Lama, but I don't think they accurately reflect what the Dalai Lama says or believes. I've both taken oral teaching from the Dalai Lama (during the time I was Buddhist) and have read much of what he has written and he never tries to claim that all religions are the same. He does suggest there are convergences, which I think is impossible to dispute. He also believes there are some shared fundamental values in the major world religions, which I think is equally clear. He does seek to promote inter-religious harmony, which seems to me to be a laudible goal.
However, as the Dalai Lama writes in the preface to his most recent book , Toward a True Kinship of Faiths, "[t]he establishment of genuine inter-religious harmony, based on understanding, is not dependent upon accepting that all religions are fundamentally the same or that they lead to the same place." The book is an effort to explore convergences between religions "while setting up a model where differences between the religions can be genuinely apprecaited without serving as a source of conflict.
NCR Today introduces the piece with this:
_________________________________________________________________________________________
"A fundamental rule of his Catholicism, says
Charles P. Pierce, Boston Globe magazine writer (and the guy many may
know as the wise-cracking half of a weekly conversation on the NPR show
"It's Only A Game") is "nobody gets to tell me I'm not Catholic."
Don't get the impression, though, that this piece,
written for this Sunday's Globe, is all wisecracks and fun. It is a
deeply moving and insightful essay by a cradle Catholic. It will
undoubtedly resonate among many who have had similar experiences and
realizations as our lives were shaped through Catholic institutions and
practice.
"The sexual-abuse scandal, then," he writes "erupted within a church
that already was struggling with serious demographic pressures. The
scandal placed the doubts of much of the laity into sharp relief. Many
Catholics are out of patience with intramural church solutions that seem
to do little more than push the cases down the road and keep in place
the sclerotic institutional structure and the paranoid mania for secrecy
that allowed the corruption to flourish in the first place.
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Here are Pierce's reflections.
Do yourself a favor: take the time to read this. (HT: dotCommonweal.)
The story out of Illinois is,
as John Breen observes, "troubling." One hopes that the wrong described in the story will be righted. And, one hopes that the many news outlets -- especially the secular ones -- that reported earnestly on -- and often exhibited outrage over -- the decision by Marquette University's President to withdraw its dean-of-arts-and-letters offer to Seattle U.'s Prof. O'Brien (more
here) will take notice, as well. It seems clear to me that what Illinois is reported to have done conflicts far more glaringly with that University's purported mission and commitments than Marquette's does with its. Does anyone disagree?
Some issues are sufficiently complicated that a blog is a woefully suboptimal venue for doing them justice. And yet MOJ readers are
certainly entitled to wonder what I think about the questions raised by my earlier post and Robby's understandable response to it. So, ...
The subtitle of my book The Idea of Human Rights (Oxford, 1998) is "Four Inquiries". Four inquiries, four chapters. The title of the fourth chapter: "Are Human Rights Absolute? The Incommensurability Thesis and Related Matters". In that chapter, I comment at length on, and explain why I am skeptical about, John Finnis' position regarding moral "absolutes": determinate moral norms that are exceptionless (unconditional). I hope MOJ readers who are interested in pursuing the issue will take a look at what I have to say in chapter 4 (pp. 87-106)--and, if they are at all inclined, let me know where, in their judgment, my argument misfires.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Michael P. writes:
Misunderstanding is predictable here, so I hesitate to say, but will say nonetheless, that in my view, there is only one invariable, only one "absolute":
"I give you a new commandment: love one another; you must love one another just as I have loved you." John 13:34. See also John 15:12, 17.
Well, I don't want to misunderstand Michael, so let me ask: What about the absolute norm that forbids having sexual intercourse with a woman against her will or without her consent? It seems to me that there are only a couple of ways Michael could go here. One is to affirm the exceptionless norm against rape and say that it is merely a specification of the love commandment of John 13:34. If so, fine with me. I would then want to argue that there are many such specifications, including the exceptionless norm against the direct killing of innocent human beings at any stage or in any condition, and those against adultery, fornication, sodomy, and other intrinsically non-marital sexual acts. Michael might disagree with me about some or all of these, but our debate would not be about whether there is only one exceptionless moral norm. In each case, it would be a debate about whether a particular norm is exceptionless, or a valid norm at all. The other possibility would be to say that rape is usually wrong, but not always or intrinsically wrong. There are at least imaginable circumstances in which it could be justified, e.g. as promising to produce the net best proportion of benefit to harm overall and in the long run. (The standard science fiction example--philosophers specialize in these--is of a kind and decent man who will be given the key to a vault filled with medicine capable of curing thousands of victims of a raging deadly plague only if he rapes a post-menopausal woman in a minimally conscious state who will feel no pain or discomfort and never know she has been raped.) Of course, this is not fine with me. I think that position is dead wrong. But it would be a position that genuinely presents the question: Is there really only one absolute?
