Welcome back to Rick!His trip sounds (and looks) like it was a wonderful experience.From a visual standpoint, it looks especially enticing to those of us here in the flatlands of the Middle West which, when it comes to vistas like the one he posted on MOJ is, shall we say, “topographically challenged.”
While the picture of the Tetons is, as Rick says, sublime, he goes on to opine that “it’s closer [to Catholic legal theory] than the White Sox.”
Well, I suppose, from a certain neo-pagan point of view that’s true (a modern or rather post-modern heresy to which, I know, Rick does not subscribe), but Catholic legal theory, of course, looks to the human person – the pinnacle of God’s creation – “who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself” who “fully find[s] himself . . . through a sincere gift of himself” (Gaudium et Spes, par. 24).That is, as has often been said on MOJ, Christian anthropology is at the very heart of Catholic legal theory.At the same time, this focus on humanity does not deny or lead us away from God since “[t]he truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light” (Gaudium et Spes, par. 22).
What is more, this marveling in the beauty of God’s handiwork in each human being and all the human family is something we share with our Jewish brothers and sisters.In seeing Rick’s stunning photograph and contemplating its meaning for Catholic legal theory, I could not help but think of the Eighth Psalm:
“When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you set in place – What are humans that you are mindful of them, mere mortals that you care for them?Yet you have made them little less than a god, crowned them with glory and honor.You have given them rule over the work of your hands, put all things at their feet”
British conductor Sir Edward Downes died last week, alongside his wife, at an assisted-suicide facility in Switzerland. Lady Downes was in the final stages of terminal cancer; Sir Edward was ailing ("almost blind and increasingly deaf," according to his son), but his condition wasn't fatal. He just wanted to die with his wife.
Of course, "just" probably isn't a fair word to use in this context; it minimizes the enormity of the decision—not to mention the profound commitment that these two people, married for over five decades, had to one another. But then again, in some ways it feels like precisely the right word: What could be more natural, more simple, than this decision?
And there's something of that bracing quality to the Times' newspaperly account of the Downes' final moments:
On Friday, the [Downes'] children said, they watched, weeping, as their parents drank “a small quantity of clear liquid” before lying down on adjacent beds, holding hands. “Within a couple of minutes they were asleep, and died within 10 minutes,” Caractacus Downes, the couple’s 41-year-old son, said in the interview after his return to Britain. “They wanted to be next to each other when they died.”
The son goes on to say, “It is a very civilized way to end your life, and I don’t understand why the legal position in this country [Britain] doesn’t allow it.”
Uber-law-blogger Paul Caron has posted the latest law-blog rankings here. MOJ is doing very well, but . . . it is a bit tough to be lagging behind the Wills, Trusts, & Estates Profs blog. So, tell all your friends about MOJ, and let's make it a goal: Catch WTEP in 2009!
As I mentioned here, I spent this week climbing in the Tetons. It was a sublime, if exhausting, experience. Thanks to all for the prayers and e-mails. Here is Teewinot, which I climbed on Wednesday:
Does this have anything to do with Catholic Legal Theory? Well, um, it IS sublime. And, who are we kidding, it's closer than the White Sox.
At Public Discourse, Micah Watson has posted an essay on Robert George's Making Men Moral, which was published 15 years ago. A bit:
The work of Princeton professor Robert P. George has now spanned three decades and addressed several subjects, including, among others, analytic philosophy, constitutional law, philosophy of law, bioethics, and natural law theory. His discussions of these topics have been marked by two common principles—the perfectionist principle and the reason principle—both enjoying an august philosophical heritage, even as they have more recently fallen into disfavor. These principles, first expounded upon in book form in his 1994 work Making Men Moral: Civil Liberties and Public Morality, were the subject of a recent conference at Union University commemorating the 15th anniversary of that book.
We might articulate the perfectionist principle in this way: “religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools, and the means of education, shall forever be encouraged.”
Such was the position of the United States Congress as expressed three years before the Constitutional Convention in the Northwest Ordinance of 1784. The exact nature of the encouragement is not as important as the principle underlying it: republics depend on a virtuous citizenry and thus it is in the interest of the government to promote virtue. It is necessary, then, for government and law to partner with the institutions of religion, morality, and knowledge toward the perfectionist end of “making men moral.”
While the carrying out of this task is difficult and calls for principled and prudent leadership, the principle itself is much more controversial than it used to be. . . .
Many liberals . . . purport to reject a perfectionist role for government in the name of individual autonomy. In reality most do not object to government promoting an idea of the good as such. Rather, they worry about the content of what passes for good when traditionalists argue for a government role—they seem to have no problem when the government advances a liberal conception of the good life. Nevertheless, many liberals speak as though the role of government is to enable individuals to pursue their own understandings of the good life and this approach is in tension with the principle espoused by the 1784 Congress.
The second principle is a bit more complex. If the perfectionist principle holds that the government should play a role in encouraging citizens to be good, the reason principle holds that we can identify that good through careful deliberation and the exercise of universally available human reason. . . .
Thank you Michael P. for posting John Allen's latest. I wanted to highlight two bits of Allen's essay:
[T]he real "losers" from Caritas in Veritate are Catholics who operate as chaplains to political parties, cheerleaders for political candidates, and spin doctors for either the Bush or Obama administrations, cherry-picking among church teachings to support those positions. Needless to say, the American Catholic landscape is dotted with prominent examples of all the above.
and
Can American Catholics evangelize the country's politics, or are we content to be evangelized by it?
That, in any event, seems to be the gut-check posed by Caritas in Veritate.
At the end of his discussion of Peter Singers call for rationed health care, Fr. Araujo says: "If the treatment is available and will do good for that person, it should be made available." Is this always true? Two further questions: at what cost and who bears the cost? Two more: who decides what is good and by what criteria?
Even if we get medical and pharmaceutical costs under control, is it the case that a parent ought to be able to take a child to the doctor every time she gets the sniffles (easy to do back in the HMO days with a $5 co-pay)? Should an otherwise healthy 85 year old be eligible for a heart transplant?
My intuition is that we have (and will continue to have) health care rationing at multiple levels - government, insurance company, and individual. Am I wrong about this? I'm more concerned about the criteria for rationing. Singers criteria, based upon his anthropology, would lead to a furher entrenchment of the culture of death. A Catholic anthropology, taking into account all that Fr. Araujo discusses, would lead to the building of a culture of life. Thoughts?
A broken wrist notwithstanding, Pope Benedict XVI is relaxing in Valle
d’Aosta in northern Italy from July 13 to July 29, winding down after the
exertions not only of the past year, but just the week before his vacation
began. In fact, when the definitive history of Benedict XVI’s papacy is written,
the first week of July 2009 might well deserve a chapter all by itself.
Twice in that short span, Benedict propelled himself into the thick of global
debate by offering his slant on two of the hottest topics on the planet today:
the economic crisis and Barack Obama.
Both the pontiff's long-awaited social encyclical Caritas in
Veritate, and his July 10 tête-à-tête with the American president,
generated an avalanche of comment and analysis. (My own coverage can be found in
both the on-line and print editions of NCR). Rather than rehash the
details here, I'm going to try to answer just one question: Did we see or hear
anything that poses a direct challenge to the American Catholic church?
I think the answer is "yes," and the fact that it hasn't quite registered yet
tells us something important about where things stand.
First Things is taking a survey (online) about the state of religion on America's campuses both private and public. If you are intersted please click here and fill out the survey.
Thank you Fr. Araujo for linking us to Peter Singer's article on health care.I hope to have more to say on that later.Denise Hunnell, who has a certification in health care ethics with the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, has posted some interesting thoughts on the health care question at her blog where you can read her full post. Here is the beginning:
President Obama is ready to drop over one trillion dollars on a health care reform initiative. Let me be clear. Every human being is entitled to basic health care. Our current health care system is not doing an adequate job of providing basic health care to every American. However, I am not an impulse shopper. I want to know what I am getting for my money. We do not know what we are getting with this health care initiative, because the health care is yet to be determined by a Benefits Advisory Council. Let me clarify what we do know and more importantly what we do not know. ...
