The Washington Post today reports on a needle exchange program sponsored by the Albany Diocese with interesting debates on the issue by Catholic theologians. The Diocese believes it is time for reconsideration of a twenty-year-old statement of the U.S. Conference of Bishops. The article is here. Any comments?
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Needle Exchange Program Sponsored by Albany Diocese
Buddhism, Marxism and Thomas Merton
Over at religiousleftlaw.com, Patrick S. O’Donnell has an interesting post on the relationship between Buddhism and Marxism. Thomas Merton shows up in an interesting way in the comments section. You can find the post here.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Neither Liberal Nor Conservative But True
The recent exchange between Patrick Brennan and Steve Shiffrin brought to my mind the time when Francis E. George, O.M.I., returned to his native Chicago after being named by Pope John Paul II as the city's new archbishop, succeeding the late and much beloved Joseph Cardinal Bernadin. Upon his arrival in Chicago, George went to Holy Name Cathedral and spent some time in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. After that visit, he then went to meet the press.
At the press conference, one journalist asked what he undoubtedly thought was the "money" question -- the question that was on everyone's mind, the question that eveyone wanted to see asked and answered. Not suprisingly, the question also made plain how many in the media understand the Church. The answer, however, was even more revealing as to the nature of Chicago's new Archbishop.
The reporter noted that the late Cardinal Bernadin was thought of as a "liberal" and he asked whether George would be a "liberal" as well.
George responded in a way that journalists in general and religion reporters in particular are seldom accustomed. He noted the people who make up the local church in Chicago were a large and diverse group, and that Cardinal Bernadin had a special talent for making everyone feel welcomed. He also said that he hoped that God would give him this same grace in his interactions with all of the members of the Archdiocese.
George then noted that it is the vocation of every bishop is to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and that "the faith is neither liberal nor conservative. The faith is true."
"the not numerous center" does not equal centrism
I have been accused of trading on a "conceit." I didn't mean to trade on any conceit, and I don't believe I did. After all, the full quote I posted indicts people who self-describe as on the "right" for this: wanting to live in a world that no longer exists (not an appealing place of residence), just as it indicts those on the left for this: being captivated by one thing after another (not a serious way to live). In other words, the quote specifies what's supposedly wrong with the right and and what's supposedly wrong with the left. To the extent those are not in fact characteristics of the right or of the left, then there's no relevant problem with being on the right or on the left.
Nor did I trade on the rhetorical appeal of Aristotle's doctrine of virtue's being a mean. This is because I did not say, as Steve says I did, that the truth is in the center. I didn't say it! I simply didn't say it!!
Longergan's "center," as those familiar with his work know, is not some splitting of the difference and merging in the middle. But one doesn't have to be familiar with his work to know this. As the quote itself makes quite clear, the "perhaps not numerous center" is those people who are "painstaking enough to work out one at a time the transitions to be made." Such people, as those familiar with Longergan's work know, are performing the epistemic operations of which he gives an account in his book Insight (1958). Longergan doesn't say that the truth is in the center!
In the end, Longergan himself is a perfect instantiation of what he himself was talking about. On some issues he came out on what we happen to describe as the "right," other times on the "left." But it was always the questions that led, not the label of the anticipated answers. Nor did Lonergan suspect that by following the questions to their answers we would know everything, let alone with (as the cliche has it) "absolute certainty." His notion of the "limited absolute," which is achieved when all relevant questions (not just the questions that happen to occur) are answered, meets the anticipated objection that those who belief true judgments are sometimes achieved are guilty of hubris.
As I said, I never said that the truth was in the center. As Steve I think knows, the conclustions I reach in my own work aren't easily reducible to "right," "left," or "center." This is in part because I've never imagined that one side had it all or even close to right. I try to follow the questions where they lead, and, for my part, I don't suppose labeling the answers is a particularly constructive enterprise, though I could of course be wrong about the last point, as about so many others. But I am right that I did not say that the truth is in the center. I did say that I hope MOJ will be a center of the sort Longergan had mind, that is, a group that is "painstaking" in working out the answers to the hard questions we raise and should raise.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Is God a Political Centrist?
In a recent post, Patrick Brennan wrote: “I like to think of MOJ as a community where we are working to be that ‘perhaps not numerous center’ that will count -- big enough and painstaking enough not to rest in the past nor to be scattered and captivated by anything less than the truth, which is neither left nor right.” The claim that truth is somewhere in the center has an Aristotelian rhetorical appeal. And it trades on the conceit that people on the left and right are ideologues. But people of the religious right believe that they are following God’s will; so too with people on the religious left. The claim that God’s truth is in the center might be correct, but it is by no means obvious.
Should Judge Walker's sexual orientation matter?
There has been a bit of controversy over the last couple of days regarding the revelation that Vaughn Walker, the federal judge presiding over the challenge to Proposition 8 (the California ban on SSM), is gay. Even those who believe that Proposition 8 should be struck down on constitutional grounds confess that "If I were on the side supporting the ban and found it struck down by a supposedly gay judge, I'd have some questions about whether the judicial deck had been stacked from the start." In the event that the ban is struck down, I really hope that the ban's supporters will not pin the outcome on the sexual orientation of Judge Walker. I haven't followed the proceedings closely, but I know that there have been some very controversial rulings that seem to favor the plaintiffs. Of course those rulings are fair game to raise on appeal. But challenging the rulings is one thing; piercing the judicial veil is quite another. One premise of the rule of law is that we maintain public confidence in the ability of judges to do their jobs impartially; even if pure impartiality is a fiction, it's a very important fiction.
Sexual morality and global Christianity
Philip Jenkins, one of the leading experts on global Christianity, has written a short essay on polygamy among Christians in Africa. An excerpt:
For the sake of argument, let us assume that polygamy is widespread among African believers, even within global churches like the Anglican Communion. Given that fact, a liberal American might well ask: By what right can they lecture Episcopalians or Lutherans on sexual morality or insist that homosexuality should bar a person from holding church office? That question makes sense for many Americans in a way that it does not for Africans, because it treats all sexual sins as morally equivalent.
Yes, an African Christian might reply, the domestic practices of some of our members violate church law, and we must struggle to end this regrettable situation. But polygamy in itself does not violate God's law—or else we could not celebrate David, Solomon and all the ancient kings, prophets and patriarchs. The fact that this practice is now forbidden to Christian believers reflects the higher standards of holiness prevailing under the new dispensation. In terms of legal language, polygamy is a mala prohibita offense, something forbidden by law in some societies but not others, rather than something evil in itself, mala in se, which all reasonable people know to be wrong. And while traditional African societies have historically had quite diverse attitudes toward homosexuality, the Bible shows no such tolerance.
For many African Christians, then, polygamy can properly be accepted in some social situations, whereas homosexuality is regarded as sinful always and everywhere. Americans might puzzle over what seems like a contradiction; Africans would likely ask why Westerners can't understand the plain difference. And the arguments will go on.
Powerful stories . . . of choice?
William Saletan's follow-up on the Tebow ad and accompanying Focus on the Family stories is worth reading. (And if you haven't watched the full video of the Tebow story, you should.)
Democratic Party Delegate
In scanning our family's 1984 photo album, I came across a gem that I thought I'd pass along. Here is my credential as a Democratic Party Delegate to the 1984 Travis County Democratic Party Convention. In either that year or 1988, my wife and I also were delegates to the State Convention. 
Response to Patrick on Social Contract and Animals
[I would like to have put this in the comments section, but the software will not let me put a comment on my own posts either here or at RLL. Anyone else with this problem?]
Patrick, I appreciate your very thoughtful comments. I agree with much of what you say. But I would continue to note regarding social contract theory (1) a central theme of social contract theory is that the result must be to the mutual advantage of the parties. As Nussbaum shows and as Rawls recognizes, this is part of the reason that people with disabilities are not parties to the Rawlsian contract; (2) One must possess sufficient rationality to form a contract and because the theory equates the parties to the contract with those owed justice, those with certain mental disabilities are not owed justice under social contract theory (any moral duties must come from outside justice theory). The same is true under Habermasian analysis. Such persons can not participate in an undominated conversation. I think bargaining or mutual advantage assumptions infect social contract theory and the infection goes far beyond Gauthier as Nussbaum’s detailed discussion of Rawls shows.
My understanding of Regan is that he has a deontological theory and is Kantian in that respect, but his rights based conception as applied to animals is distinctly not Kantian. I would be interested in learning about the kind of indirect moral duties toward animals you refer to in Kant. My recollection is that Kant opposed cruelty to animals – not because of any duty to animals but because it would brutalize human beings. And Nussbaum maintains that “Kant denies that we have any moral duties to animals . . . .” Frontiers, p. 131.
cross posted at religiousleftlaw.typepad.com soon to be religiousleftlaw.com
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