In a San Francisco courtroom two weeks ago, a prominent lawyer opposed to same-sex marriage made a concession that could mark a turning point in the legal wars over the purpose and meaning of marriage.
The lawyer, Charles J. Cooper, has studied the matter deeply, and
his erudite briefs are steeped in history. He cannot have been
blindsided by the question Judge Vaughn R. Walker asked him: What would be the harm of permitting gay men and lesbians to marry?
“Your honor, my answer is: I don’t know,” Mr. Cooper said. “I don’t know.”
A couple of hours later, Judge Walker denied Mr. Cooper’s motion to
dismiss a lawsuit seeking to establish a constitutional right to
same-sex marriage. The concession and the ruling that followed it have
transformed a federal lawsuit that had been viewed with suspicion by
many gay rights advocates into something with the scent of promise.
The suit, filed in May by Theodore B. Olson and David Boies,
made the bold claim that California’s voters violated the federal
Constitution last year when they overrode a decision of the state’s
Supreme Court allowing same-sex marriages.
The suit was, gay rights advocates said then, the wrong claim in the
wrong court in the wrong state at the wrong time. There was wariness
about Mr. Olson, a former solicitor general in the Bush administration,
and there was frustration about what some viewed as his meddling in a
carefully plotted and methodical strategy focused on state-by-state
litigation and lobbying.
Those objections are waning. The ship has sailed, said Kenji Yoshino, a law professor at New York University,
and gay rights advocates “need to focus on getting it to the right
destination.” He added that Judge Walker’s refusal to dismiss the case
“was a major victory for Olson and Boies.”
In the courtroom, Mr. Cooper’s arguments seemed to fall of their own
weight. The government should be allowed to favor opposite-sex
marriages, Mr. Cooper said, in order “to channel naturally procreative
sexual activity between men and women into stable, enduring unions.”
Judge Walker appeared puzzled. “The last marriage that I performed,”
the judge said, “involved a groom who was 95 and the bride was 83. I
did not demand that they prove that they intended to engage in
procreative activity. Now, was I missing something?”
Mr. Cooper said no.
“And I might say it was a very happy relationship,” Judge Walker said.
“I rejoice to hear that,” Mr. Cooper responded, returning to his theme that only procreation matters.
Later in the argument, Mr. Olson added his own observation. “My
mother was married three years ago,” he said. “And she, at the time,
was 87 and married someone who was the same age.”
The top ecumenical –
some are saying un- or anti-ecumenical – news of the year occurred October 20th
with a Vatican announcement. Bypassing forty years of
Anglican-Roman Catholic conversations-cum-negotiations and blindsiding
Archbishop Rowan Williams, the head of the seventy-million-member Anglican
Communion, Vatican officials announced that they were taking steps to receive
Anglican (in the United States, Episcopal) clergy through conversion into the
Roman Catholic priesthood. Headlines had it that Rome wanted to
“lure,” “attract,” “bid for” or “woo” priests and congregations to make
the drastic move, while the Vatican front man, as he fished for Anglicans, said
he was not fishing for Anglicans.
What was behind the
move? It was hard to read as a positive ecumenical gesture – Pope
Benedict XVI has made some – since it did not revoke or revise what the Pope in
1896 declared and what is always reinforced: Anglican “orders,”
for sacramental credentialing, were “absolutely null and utterly void.”
As recently as last year, Rome’s ecumenical officer and
Anglicanism’s ecumenical partner, “good guy” Cardinal Walter Kasper, spoke
softly but carried a huge stick when he charged that some parts of Anglicanism
had made things worse: Is it that the orders are now
absolutely-absolutely and utterly-utterly null and void? The pope
visits the U.K. next year. Wait and see.
What was at issue?
There were subtleties on the side, irritations which had not yet
prompted a radical twist, but observers agreed that a) ordaining women as
priests and b) ordaining a gay bishop and more gay priests were the grand
offenses. In the good old days Christian bodies fought over the
Trinity, the Incarnation, Salvation, and Sacraments. In our epoch
they and the media who cover them converge obsessively on issues of
sex-and-gender, where contraception and abortion, “women” and “gays,” are the
flame issues. Some Anglican moves have long alienated significant
minorities; four dioceses and some parishes beyond them have pulled out of the
Episcopal Church in the USA. They already sought and found what is
legitimate and strategic in their sight, the cover provided by especially
African Anglicans who also abhor gay and women priests.
Some Episcopal
priests seemed ripe for plucking, and Rome set out to harvest, even if the
Church will thus be accepting some married priests, while leaving their own
home-grown priests-who-marry in exile.Those with even slight
suspicion suspect that the Vatican initiative is also a desperation move to help
solve the shortage of priests in the Roman communion. Some of the
only half-gruntled Anglicans have uttered some “not-so-fast!” or “count-me-out!”
cautions. As one leader among them reminded, “there was a
Reformation, you remember,” as he spoke for those who knew that being received
by Rome, even with gestures that would allow Anglican converts some liturgical
and traditional free range, still demands a great doctrinal gulp.
Converts would have to accept papal infallibility and, with it,
the infallible doctrine (1950) of the bodily Assumption of the Blessed Virgin
and other teachings which long offended non-Roman Catholics.
Archbishop Rowan
Williams, though embarrassed by the surprise announcement of dealings behind his
back, was characteristically Williamsian and old-style Anglican, as he reacted
not in anger but with patience. The Anglican communion for
centuries aspired to promote “comprehension,” doing what it could to prevent
heresy and schism but in a spirit of openness. The papal visit
next year will occasion fresh thinking and policies.
---------- Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity
School.
I'm baffled by those comments by David Gibson that you quoted. Perhaps I'm just not understanding what Mr. Gibson is trying to say. There are indeed some mysteries waiting to be revealed about how the affairs of the new personal ordinariate for Anglicans will be conducted. As Gibson says in the article you provided a link to, "much uncertainty remains." It seems clear, however, that every Anglican who enters the ordinariate will affirm (either personally or via an individual recognized by the Catholic Church as having authority to speak for all in a parish or diocese that is being received into full communion with the Catholic Church) belief in everything that the Catholic Church holds and teaches as de fide. This would certainly include beliefs pertaining to the sacraments, authority (including the papal magisterium), and the defined Marian dogmas. So, it seems to me, anyone fishing in these waters for evidence that Benedict XVI is a "closet liberal" should probably not count on a seafood dinner.
Here's Ross Douthat and David Gibson on the Pope's recent invitation to Anglicans. Gibson wonders if the move is "liberal", in that
Benedict has signaled that the standards for what it means to be Catholic -- such as the belief in the real presence of Christ in the Mass as celebrated by a validly ordained priest -- are changing or, some might argue, falling. The Vatican is in effect saying that disagreements over gay priests and female bishops are the main issues dividing Catholics and Anglicans, rather than, say, the sacraments and the papacy and infallible dogmas on the Virgin Mary, to name just a few past points of contention.
It does not seem to me, though, that Benedict is, in fact, signalling that what we might call substantive "standards for what it means to be Catholic" are changing. I could be wrong, but my understanding is that there is nothing in this invitation that relieves crossing-over Anglicans from the need to affirm and profess as true all that the Catholic Church teaches as true.
Douthat, on the other hand, sees this as an "unusual effort at targeted proselytism, remarkable both for its concessions to potential converts — married priests, a self-contained institutional structure, an Anglican rite — and for its indifference to the wishes of the Church of England’s leadership. . . . [T]he pope is going back to basics — touting the particular witness of Catholicism even when he’s addressing universal subjects, and seeking converts more than common ground. [T]he pope has systematically lowered the barriers for conservative Christians hovering on the threshold of the church, unsure whether to slip inside. This was the purpose behind his controversial outreach to schismatic Latin Mass Catholics, and it explains the current opening to Anglicans."
That tricky Pope Benedict. He keeps 'em all guessing.
Unlike Merton (who I'm a big fan of) or Michael P., I find petitionary prayer neither the product of immature theology nor mind-boggling. However, assuming the Notre Dame players were not simply giving thanks for the opportunity to play football on a beautiful fall day in Notre Dame, contray to Rick's suggestion, I don't read the Gospel as authority for what I suspect was the prayer of the Notre Dame players.
I talked about this in a blog post recently, in connection with Jesus' "Ask and you shall receive." As i express in that post, my own view is that praying "let my team beat another team" is not a worthy object of prayer.
Update: However, praying (to use two examples Rick sent me via e-mail), "keep us safe" or "let us pray in a manner worthy of a young Christian athlete" seems to me an appropriate prayer for an athlete to make.
[F]ive law professors and Marc D. Stern, executive director of the American Jewish Congress, sent a letter to council members Friday asking that religious organizations be given more latitude to deny services for same-sex weddings.
The group wants the bill to say that "a religious organization, association or society, or an individual" can deny "services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods, or privileges" for same-sex marriages without fear of running afoul of anti-discrimination laws.
Robin Fretwell Wilson, a professor at the Washington and Lee University School of Law, said that without such protection, religious organizations and nonprofit groups could leave the city. Catholic Charities of Boston, she said, stopped adoption services in 2006 after Massachusetts tried to force it to comply with a law allowing gay residents to adopt children. . . .
Here (Download DC letter FINAL) is the law professors' letter, which Tom Berg and I, and others, signed.
UPDATE: Another of the signers, Prof. Robin Fretwell Wilson, has an op-ed in the Washington Post today. She concludes:
Some charge that religious accommodations are nothing more than government-authorized gay animus. In this view, any objection to assisting with same-sex marriages must reflect anti-gay sentiment. Yet many people have no objection generally to providing services to gays but would object to directly facilitating same-sex marriages. For them, marriage ceremonies have religious significance because marriage is a religious institution, and weddings are sacraments. Without explicit protection, these individuals and groups will face a cruel choice: their consciences or their livelihoods.
Same-sex marriage and religious liberty do not have to conflict. The council need only clarify that people and organizations can step aside from facilitating same-sex marriages if participating would violate deeply held religious beliefs, provided this creates no hardship for same-sex couples.
There is nothing radical about attaching meaningful religious liberty protections to same-sex marriage bills. Legislators in New Hampshire, Connecticut and Vermont have done so. D.C. Council members have a golden opportunity to go even further and offer the first truly robust protection for religious believers and thereby prove: We can help same-sex families without hurting people and faith communities that believe in traditional marriage.
Q. So a Christian morality faithful to scripture cannot approve of homosexual conduct?
A. Correct.
Bishop Wright is quite an unpredictable fellow, by the way. He tends to be liberal (sometimes very liberal) on some issues and conservative (sometimes quite conservative) on others. I often find what he says to be illuminating, even when disagreeing with his conclusions. Sometimes, though, his reasoning and judgments strike me as being well off the mark. (Of course, the fault on these occasions could be with me, rather than with him!) On the question of the Biblical basis of the ordination of women and the consecration of women as bishops (a question on which Michael P. awards him and his co-author, David Stancliffe, Anglican Bishop of Salisbury, a 1-0 victory over "the Vatican") he and his co-author do not themselves claim anything like the conclusive victory that Michael awards them. "These arguments, so briefly sketched, are of course too brief to be conclusive, but should indicate that those who support the ordination of women to priestly and Episcopal ministry cannot be dismissed as treating scripture in a cavalier fashion, or as indulging in a fancy, exercising fancy hermeneutical footwork to imply that the text is now unimportant." I myself think they are entitled to that limited claim. The matter is complicated, and careful analysis of the whole of scripture is required. If Bishops Wright and Stancliffe were truly to take up the challenge of justifying what they themselves refer to as "this undoubted innovation," they would have to wrestle with the relationship of holy orders and the relevant sacramental theology to the Aaronic priesthood of ancient Israel---something Fr. Benedict Ashley has explored insightfully in writings defending the male priesthood. In any event, the central point of the article by the Anglican bishops was not to settle the question of ordination for Catholicism (and Orthodoxy) as well as Anglicanism, but rather to insist that Anglicanism has its own theological method---one that is distinct from the "Roman" method (as well as from Protestant methods)---and that Catholic partners in ecumenical dialogue with Anglicans (such as Cardinal Kasper, whom they are addressing directly) need to take that method seriously and understand it properly (though, of course, they will not share it), so that they avoid viewing it "as if it were a muddled way of doing Roman-style theology." On the ordination issue, I suspect that what Wright and Stancliffe are trying to say to Cardinal Kasper is something like this: "sure, if you do theology Roman-style, you won't necessarily come to the conclusion that we as Anglicans have reached" (though Wright and Stancliffe are pefectly well aware that the opposite conclusion has been reached by many of their fellow Anglicans); "but you should not suppose that we are doing Roman-style theology and botching it. We are, rather, doing something different, namely, Anglican theology. You Catholics need to understand that if this dialogue is going to be a fruitful one."
In response to Michael's"curio[sity]", occasioned by my report from the ND v. BC game, two quick thoughts: First, it's easy for me to imagine that the Irish players were not "petitioning" God, but instead thanking him for the wonderful privilege of playing football on a Fall day in Notre Dame stadium. But, assuming they were petitioning, I figure they had pretty good authority -- Merton notwithstanding -- for doing so.
UPDATE: A reader writes:
The Gospel reading for Sunday . . . was the story of Bartimaeus. In this reading, Jesus turns to the blind man and says, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to Christ, “Master, let me see again.”
Note that Jesus asked not, “What do you want me to do?” but “What do you want me to do *for you*?” He *expects* Bartimaeus to petition Christ to heal his ailment, as to so many wounded and hurting people in the Gospels. I don’t see where this text gives us room to find that Jesus did this only as a concession to the weakness of Bartimaeus’ faith. As if a deep, reflective blind man would have asked for world peace instead.
Jesus of course mourns the great evils in the world. But he is still interested in our own personal pains, small though they might be by comparison. What a great mercy that our God . . . still wishes to hear our petitions, bind our wounds, and forgive our sin.
Was the players' prayer (or were their prayers) petitionary? Or not? If peititionary, is the players' prayer the sign of a mature theology? Or not? Thomas Merton thought petitionary prayer the sign of an immature theology. My thought? This side of the Holocaust--among other world-historic horrors, some of which precede the Holocaust--petitionary prayer is simply mind-boggling. Not, mind you, that I think that Rick should have worked all of this out with Tommy. Not at all! But I found the post a curious one.
