Sunday, April 11, 2010
Yesterday, in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, on the campus of the University of Notre Dame, I witnessed the ordination of two friends, Gerry Olinger (my former student) and Kevin Grove. It was an amazing, beautiful day. More than 100 priests -- many of whom are very close to my family -- concelebrated, and Peoria's (wonderful) bishop, Dan Jenky, presided. My 8-year-old son, who has probably played football with a dozen of these priests, and who has said that, "after he retires from the NFL," he wants to be one, too, was mesmerized. (He had the best seat in the house.) As they were processing out, probably twenty gave him "high fives."
These men have so blessed my life. I am grateful to God for calling now-Frs. Grove and Olinger to the priesthood, and to them for answering. What courage it shows, saying "yes" in these days, knowing that the joys of one's vocation will almost certainly be accompanied by unwarranted suspicion, snide jokes, and malicious attacks! It was tempting for me, during the mass, to dwell resentfully on the fact that, despite the best efforts of some, I would certainly trust any one of them with the lives and well being of my children far more than I would a drawn-at-random plaintiff's lawyer, religion-beat journalist, or public-school administrator. But, the occasion was just too happy, too joyful to stew for long about that. Instead, I just thanked God for raising up these "men with hope to bring."
Here is a paper that Eduardo wrote, a few years ago, on the religious-freedom-related work and thinking of Justice Stevens:
Justice Stevens has sometimes been caricatured as the Supreme Court Justice who hates religion, but an exploration of the cases in which Justice Stevens has voted in favor of religious claimants reveals that, rather than being moved by a reflexive hostility toward religion, Justice Stevens appears to respect religion as a powerful motivator of human action, though one that is largely able to look out for its own interests in the political process. Notwithstanding my rejection of the common view of Justice Stevens as hostile to religion, I argue in this paper that there are substantial problems with his actual approach. First, Justice Stevens has a tendency to treat religion as no more valuable than other valuable categories of expressive activity, a tendency that brings him into agreement with a great deal of recent scholarly commentary on the Religion Clauses. The protection he would afford religious practice is therefore largely coextensive with the protection afforded to expressive conduct more generally under the First Amendment, thereby rendering the Free Exercise Clause superfluous. Second, I argue that Justice Stevens places too much faith in the ability of legislatures to look out for the interests of minority religious groups, ignoring the important role that courts play in highlighting for legislatures the situations in which minority religions appear to be suffering disproportionately under generally applicable regulations. Accordingly, I propose a different approach, one that builds on Justice Stevens's views but that adequately acknowledges the unique value of religion in the lives of believers.
I tend to think that Justice Stevens -- who always struck me as unfailingly amiable and decent -- has been wrong in most of his religious-liberty and Establishment Clause votes and opinions. As Eduardo notes, he sees "religion as a powerful motivator of human action[.]" It seems to me, though, that it is a motivator about which he tends to be concerned, or suspicious. (I'm thinking here of his Dale dissent, or his suggestions that regulations of abortion present Establishment Clause problems because they are motivated by or reflect religious commitment.) Eduardo, do you think this impression of mine is unwarranted? Other thoughts? Comments are open.
Eduardo and five others on their former boss, here.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Here's a story about a recent address by the Pope, recalling the "Christian humanism" exemplified in the lives of the saints. The story caught my eye, because we have so often -- here at MOJ -- emphasized the centrality of "anthropological" questions to the legal enterprise.
Recalling some saints whose memory is celebrated in the weeks to come, Benedict XVI affirmed that they are witness to a "Christian humanism" that differs deeply from an "atheistic humanism".
The Saints - the pope cited in particular the martyrs Maximilian Kolbe and Edith Stein - are indeed witnesses of “an antithesis which spans history, but at the end of the second millennium, with the contemporary nihilism, we have come to a crucial point, as major writers and thinkers have perceived, and as events have amply demonstrated." . . .
Here's a link to a book chapter I've done, for a forthcoming volume (edited by John Witte and Frank Alexander) on "Christianity and Human Rights."
What is the “right to freedom of religion,” a right which our leading human-rights instruments commit us to protecting, and what are the legal and other mechanisms that will sustain and vindicate our commitment? Some mechanisms might be better (or less well) designed for the purpose and so might work better (or less well) than others; some actors and authorities might be more (or less) reliable and effective protectors than others. In other words, the project of protecting human rights – including the right to religious freedom – involves not only reflecting on human goods and goals, but also wrestling with questions about institutional design and competence.
This chapter considers both the content of religious freedom and the ways it is protected and promoted. It proposes, first, that the “right to freedom of religion” belongs not only to individuals, but also to institutions, associations, communities, and congregations. Just as every person has the right to seek religious truth and to cling to it when it is found, religious communities have the right to hold and teach their own doctrines; just as every person ought to be free from official coercion when it comes to religious practices or professions, religious institutions are entitled to govern themselves, and to exercise appropriate authority, free from official interference; just as every person has the right to select the religious teachings he will embrace, churches have the right to select the ministers they will ordain.
Next, it is suggested that the right to church autonomy is a structural mechanism for protecting both the freedom of religion and human rights more generally. The relationship between the enterprise of protecting human rights and religious communities’ right to self-determination is a dynamic, mutually reinforcing one. Human rights law, in other words, protects church autonomy – it protects the freedom of religious communities to govern and organize themselves, to decide religious matters without government interference, to establish their own criteria for membership, leadership, and orthodoxy, etc. – and, in turn, church autonomy promotes the enjoyment and exercise of human rights. This mechanism is, John Courtney Murray thought, “Christianity’s basic contribution to freedom in the political order.” If we understand and appreciate this contribution, we will better understand and appreciate that often misunderstood idea, “the separation of church and state.”
Friday, April 9, 2010
NYT, 4/9/10
Kim Johnson/Associated Press
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN and MICHAEL LUO
The future Pope Benedict XVI, then a top Vatican official, signed a 1985
letter saying that a case needed more time and that “the good of the
church” had to be considered.
Rick has called our attention to Notre Dame's statement that, "[c]onsistent with the teaching of the Catholic Church . . . , the University of Notre Dame recognizes and upholds the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death." I'm of two minds about this statement. On the one hand, thank God that the University of Notre Dame is willing to say that it "recognizes and upholds" as much; thank God for another voice in favor of life. On the other hand, what does it mean for *the University of Notre Dame* to talk in terms of acting in a way that is "consistent with the teaching of the Catholic Church"? Isn't the University of Notre Dame *part* of the Catholic Church, not something that can or cannot be consistent -- or inconsistent -- with the Catholic Church?
I'm not unaware of the structures that were restructured in a way "consistent" with ideas in the Land-O-Lakes Statement. I am not unaware of the ways in which Catholic (and other Christian) universities and colleges are no longer linked as they used to be their "sponsoring" denominations, the story told incomparably by Notre Dame's own (wonderful) James Tunstead Burtchaell CSC.
Still, I find it odd to consider it a victory -- though it is a victory -- when a university, such as Notre Dame, that describes itself as Catholic issues a press release (so to speak) to say that it acts in way "consistent with" the Church. I'm very grateful for the statement -- don't get me wrong. But a *lot* had to go wrong before it became desirable for the University of Notre Dame to make the fairly modest claim that it is "consistent" with fundamental Catholic teaching. A different statement would have spoken in terms of fidelity, not consistency. A different reality wouldn't have called for a statement at all; performance would have been sufficient.
I am reminded of this line from Muriel Spark's novel The Bachelors: "Don't ask me . . . how I feel about things as a Catholic. To me, being a Catholic is part of my human existence. I don't feel one way as a human being and another as a Catholic." The same should obtain in Catholic institutions, or so I would like to suggest.
[From Insider Higher Ed:]
Obama Names Academics to Bioethics
Panel
President Obama this week named the members of his
administration's Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues,
including a number of academics. Obama had earlier named Amy Gutmann,
president of the University of Pennsylvania, to be chair and James W.
Wagner, president of Emory University, to be the vice chair. The
additional academics named to the commission are:
- Anita L. Allen, the Henry R. Silverman Professor of Law and
professor of philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
- Barbara Atkinson, executive vice chancellor of the University of
Kansas Medical Center.
- Nita A. Farahany, associate professor of law and philosophy at
Vanderbilt University.
- Stephen L. Hauser, the Robert A. Fishman Distinguished Professor and
chair of neurology at the University of California at San Francisco.
- Raju Kucherlapati, the Paul C. Cabot Professor in the Harvard
Medical School Department of Genetics.
- Daniel Sulmasy, a Franciscan friar who holds the Kilbride-Clinton
Chair in Medicine and Ethics in the Department of Medicine and the
Divinity School and is associate director of the MacLean Center for
Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago.
