A letter from Fr. John Jenkins to the "Notre Dame family" has been circulated and discussed widely; the full text is available many places, including here, at the America blog. Here is a taste:
As our nation continues to struggle with the morality and legality of abortion, embryonic stem cell research, and related issues, we must seek steps to witness to the sanctity of life. I write to you today about some initiatives that we are undertaking.
Each year on January 22, the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, the March for Life is held in Washington D.C. to call on the nation to defend the right to life. I plan to participate in that march. I invite other members of the Notre Dame Family to join me and I hope we can gather for a Mass for Life at that event. We will announce details as that date approaches.
On campus, I have recently formed the Task Force on Supporting the Choice for Life. It will be co-chaired by Professor Margaret Brinig, the Fritz Duda Family Chair in Law and Associate Dean for the Law School, and by Professor John Cavadini, the Chair of the Department of Theology and the McGrath-Cavadini Director of the Institute for Church Life. My charge to the Task Force is to consider and recommend to me ways in which the University, informed by Catholic teaching, can support the sanctity of life. Possibilities the Task Force has begun to discuss include fostering serious and specific discussion about a reasonable conscience clause; the most effective ways to support pregnant women, especially the most vulnerable; and the best policies for facilitating adoptions. Such initiatives are in addition to the dedication, hard work and leadership shown by so many in the Notre Dame Family, both on the campus and beyond, and the Task Force may also be able to recommend ways we can support some of this work.
As I have stated before, I do not believe that, on balance and all things considered, it was appropriate for Notre Dame to honor President Obama with a ceremonial degree or with the role of commencement speaker. (It is, obviously, appropriate for Notre Dame to engage in "dialogue" and "debate" with the President, and with anyone else.) And, I do not agree with Michael Sean Winters that it was "throw[ing a] canard" to worry that Notre Dame's decision to honor the President in this way "undercut the school’s commitment to the pro-life cause." No one who knows Fr. Jenkins doubts his own commitment to that cause, and to human dignity, but it is not unreasonable to think that Notre Dame's public, institutional activity and commitment on this front have sometimes been uneven, and lagged behind where they should be.
In any event, I believe that those of us who opposed the invitation last year, and who very much want Notre Dame to be what she should be, and what the world needs her to be, should welcome Fr. Jenkins' announcement. Are the initiatives he described "enough"? No, but I assume that Fr. Jenkins does not regard them as "enough." Should their announcement end the discussion about whether Notre Dame's leaders are correct in (what seems to be) their understanding of academic freedom, the nature of a university, or the appropriate relationship between a Catholic University and the "institutional" Church? I don't think so.
Yes, Notre Dame needs to do more. The Administration and University leaders need to embrace and celebrate -- publicly and enthusiastically -- the work and witness of pro-life students and faculty, of programs like the Center for Ethics & Culture, of pro-life policies and proposals. It should never be possible for a reasonable observer to think that Notre Dame cares passionately about energy conservation but reservedly or half-heartedly about the need -- the moral imperative -- to use the law (and other policy tools) to protect unborn children.
All that said . . . this is a good thing. I'd like to see Notre Dame's pro-life critics -- that is, those of her critics who recognize her importance and who want her to be what she is called to be -- give Fr. Jenkins and this task force (full disclosure: Prof. Brinig, one of the co-chairs, is my friend) the benefit of assuming good faith, welcome and engage their work, and -- as needed -- charitably call on them to do more.
There is a picture, often celebrated at Notre Dame, hanging in the student center, of Fr. Hesburgh standing at Dr. King's side, hand-in-hand, calling for civil rights. I am indulging the hope that, before too long, there will be a similarly prominent picture displayed of Fr. Jenkins alongside Notre Dame's inspiring pro-life student group at the March for Life. Just a symbol? Merely a picture? Perhaps. But I think it would be one of those pictures that's worth a lot.
When I think back to the condition of the dormitory bathroom that I shared in college, I still shudder a bit. I haven't checked, but I'm pretty sure it was designated as a Superfund site shortly after graduation. We may not have cleaned it regularly ever, but we shared it, for better and for worse. I don't know if Catholic legal theory has something specific to say about the new trend in dormitory luxury hotel living on college campuses, but I'm pretty sure Charles Taylor would be concerned. Privacy and luxury are the two essentials. Millennials -- facilitated by their boomer parents, I might add -- apparently place a premium on both. (I probably would have too, but nobody gave me the option.) As one 19 year-old student explained, "I've never had to worry about anyone else . . . I've always been alone."
All lawyers, judges, law students and others associated with the legal profession are invited to the 30th annual Red Mass at St. Thomas More in Norman (corner of Jenkins and Stinson). The Mass is at 5pm this Sunday, Sept. 20 with a wine and cheese reception to follow. MOJ friend Professor Kevin Lee is our honored guest this year.
That is, "right" as in "correct"! Immediately below.
And thanks, Rick, for putting up with this compulsive tweaker!
Because my friend Michael likes to have fun tweaking me, by pretending that my thinking and action when it comes to policy and politics is shaped by a loyalty to "Republicans," or an aversion to "Democrats" (he knows this isn't the case, of course; he's just playing around), he asks, here, whether I'm "ready to join the Democrats on this one [i.e., the "Catholic take on the health-care debate], at least?"
I am, of course, happy to "join the Democrats" on any one that they get right. (For example, given my work and activism in opposition to the death penalty, I would be delighted if the Democrats -- who have commanding majorities in both houses -- showed a little backbone and abolished the federal death penalty. Given my commitment to educational opportunity for the poor, I would be delighted if the Democrats abandoned their hostility to school choice.) But, Michael's question is the wrong one. The right question is, "are the Democrats ready to join the Church on this one", i.e., on the basic propositions that the law ought to protect vulnerable human beings from private violence and, at the very least, that health-care "reform" should not involve public funding of the destruction of such persons or burdens on those who refuse to participate in such destruction. So far, it seems, they are not. Too bad.
I think all of us on this blog agree that everyone should have access to affordable quality health care regardless of economic status, age, or condition of health. The devil, as usual, is in the details. What I fear is that Congress will expend a large amount of time, energy, money, and political capital putting a bandaid on a skinned knee while ignoring the chest wound threatening our nation's health care.
If they have the courage, the nation's Catholic bishops are in a unique position to play a constructive non-partisan role in the debate. Here is what I propose. 1) The bishops invite all Catholic members of Congress (and other members who wish to particpate) to a health care dialogue. 2) The bishops use the opening of the conference to teach on the principle expressed in the first sentence of this blog. 3) They get the assent of all present to the propostion that "everyone should have access to affordable quality health care regardless of economic status, age, or condition of health." 4) They facilitate an in depth discussion across party lines of the preceived problems with health care today. 5) They facilitate an in depth discussion across party lines of the potential solutions to those problems. 6) They offer mass each day of the conference. 7) They have communal meals during the conference.
At the end of the process, I expect that vast disagreements will still exist because "how" to fix the health care system is a matter of prudential judgment. But, hopefully, some barriers will have been broken, a better understanding of the other side's positions will have been achieved, maybe each side will be less suspicious of the other, hopefully some new and creative ideas will have emerged, and these Catholic Democrats and Republicans will have modeled a badly needed format for engaging in vigorous debate in a civil and loving manner.
I can think of no other person or group in the United States other than the United States bishops who can play this role.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Moore's new documentary, Capitalism: A Love Story, will soon be out. (I'm sure Rick is salivating!) In today's NYT, it is said:
As much as Mr. Moore sometimes plays a comic-book version of class
warrior — Left-Thing vs. the Republic of Fear! — his politics are not
grounded in class as much as in Roman Catholicism. Growing up in
Michigan, he attended parochial school and intended to go into the
seminary, inspired by the priests and nuns who ... inherited a long tradition of social justice and activism in the American church.
“The nuns always made a point to take us to the Jewish temple for Passover seders,” he said. “They wanted to make it clear that the Jews had nothing to do with putting Jesus up on the cross.”
Along with a moral imperative, Catholicism also gave a method. Mr.
Moore idolized the Berrigan brothers, the radical priests who
introduced street theater into their activism, for example, mixing
their own napalm to burn government draft records. Their actions were a
form of political spectacle that, conceptually, is Marxist — workers
seizing means of production and all that — and it influenced some of
Mr. Moore’s best-remembered stunts.
Read the rest, here.
... to whom I dedicated my second book, way back in 1988, and who, I sometimes think, singlehandedly keeps me identifying myself, in spite of everything, as a Roman Catholic, what would you think about this?
