Here's a grim view--by someone who should know. (Fr. Cozzens' view resonates powerfully with me.) And here are some interesting comments at dotCommonweal.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
The Future of the Catholic Church in America?
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Obama in Cairo
My esteemed colleague at Emory Law, and at Emory's Center for the Study of Law and Religion, Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im, had this to say in The Guardian (U.K.) yesterday:
Muslims Have to Change for Themselves
Whatever one might have been hoping for from the speech of President Obama to the Muslim World, it's clear that any change will have to come from within the region and on its own terms. For now, the words, and more importantly the actions, of an American president are critically important for that internal initiative to emerge and succeed.
To me, as a Muslim from Sudan, this dependency on external actors is part of the problem, signifying a neocolonial state of mind among Muslims, thereby perpetuating ourselves as the subjects of empire, rather than self-determining persons and communities. I wish this was not the case, but since it is, we have to start somewhere, and Obama's speech can be a good start.
What Obama said in Cairo was the best I could have hoped for, in view of his political limitations at home and abroad. He was positive and empathetic about Islam and Muslims, and wise to avoid giving any reasonable cause for suspicions of "cultural imperialism". Unreasonable voices, like that of Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, have already tried to undermine the prospects of a positive outcome of Obama's message. But I expect that most Muslims will probably welcome that message, though many of them would want to wait for deeds. The limited but important question I am raising here is: what difference can the words and actions of an American president make for whatever objective or outcome?
Obama's primary concern, understandably, is improving the relationship of the United States with the Muslim world. But that goal cannot be achieved in isolation of how Muslims behave among and for themselves. As the Qur'an affirms, nothing changes for a people until they are changed in themselves. This renders Obama's limited objective contingent on much more substantial and sustained change within Muslims and among their communities.
Obama started by thanking his two hosts in Cairo, al-Azhar University and Cairo University, noting the significance of this as representing partnership of tradition and modernity. As I see it, the core of the problem is what it takes to reconcile these two dimensions in the lives of Muslims, for themselves and not in response to the needs of western interests.
There are many aspects to this process, but Islam is probably integral to a lot of them. The reconciliation of tradition and modernity requires a paradigm shift in the nature and relevance of Sharia (Islamic law). The challenge is personal and psychological for every Muslim, as well as political and social for societies at large. An American president can help to the extent he can change the imperial posture of the United States, and challenge its client regimes in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere to ensure freedom of internal debate and change. Improvement in Muslim-American relations or any other objective is untenable while American imperialism continues, but imperialism ends in the minds and hearts of its subjects, not the vision and charisma of western leaders, though that can help.
A New Kind of Catholic Democrat?
The Tablet
June 6, 2009
A Catholic word in your ear, Mr President
Michael Sean WintersA
new kind of Catholic Democrat is emerging in America’s corridors of
power – young, politically committed and often with the same community
organising background as the President himself. So who are these new
church advocates with a direct line to Obama? 
Friday, June 5, 2009
Jesus Interrupted
I'm not a biblical scholar, but I'm fascinated by debates between biblical scholars. Bart Ehrman, Wheaton College grad turned agnostic, has been attracting a lot of attention (and readers) with his book, Jesus Interrupted. New Testament scholar Ben Witherington responds to the book's claims here.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
The Foundations of (Women's) Religious Life
If you're interested in the topic of women religious that was the subject of a recent flurry of posts, here's an interesting-looking book. It's called The Foundations of Religious Life: Revisiting the Vision, and consist of a collection of articles by representatives of the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious. It includes contributions from members of the Sisters of Life in New York City, the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist, the Nashville Dominican Community of St. Cecilia, the Religious Sisters of Mercy, and the Sisters of St. Francis of the Martyr St. George. Here are some excerpts from the book blurb:
While many religious orders are currently facing marked decline in novitiates and the aging of their members, the communities of the CMSWR are experiencing growth on a worldwide scale.
In this collection of foundational articles, the CMSWR articulates how its perspective is in keeping with the vision set forth by Vatican II, suggesting that its commitment to a more visibly countercultural life and ministry is what sustains its orders and attracts young women to the CMSWR communities.
Here's a review of this book from the Denver Catholic Register. One of the contributors is Sr. Prudence Allen, who has written the remarkable two-volume set on The Concept of Woman that has profoundly influenced my thoughts on Catholic feminism.
Lawyers and Vacations
Check out this brief ABA Journal piece, “Vacation or Not, Lawyers Should Be Available via E-mail, Cleary Partner Says.” “An ‘out of office’ auto-reply saying that an attorney is unavailable is acceptable only in rare circumstances, such as when a lawyer is on an international flight in a different time zone and a colleague, for some reason, is unable to cover...” This is followed by a survey with three possible responses to the question of whether lawyers should be reachable by email while on vacation: 1) I can always be reached; 2) I’ll check a couple times a day; 3) no, cutting myself off from work is the whole point.
My first summer in practice at a large firm I stupidly giving up the chance to be present at a three-day retreat which had always been important to me because I assumed that as the most junior on the totem pole I should make myself available to “cover” the case while a large chunk team was out in August. Later I realized that I was responding not to realistic client needs (the litigation was fairly slow paced), but my own fears about firm expectations, which in that case were ungrounded. I probably should have been reading a little more Laborem Exercens or Dies Domini for a better sense of perspective.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
The United States of New England (plus Iowa)
New Hampshire Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage
New Hampshire Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage
BOSTON — The New Hampshire Legislature approved revisions to a same-sex marriage bill on Wednesday and Gov. John Lynch promptly signed the legislation, making the state the sixth in the nation to let gay couples wed.
The bill had been through several permutations in an effort to satisfy Mr. Lynch and certain legislators that it would not force religious groups that oppose gay marriage to participate in ceremonies celebrating it.
Mr. Lynch, who previously supported civil unions but not marriage for gay couples, said in a statement that he had heard “compelling arguments that a separate system is not an equal system.”
“Today,” he said, “we are standing up for the liberties of same-sex couples by making clear that they will receive the same rights, responsibilities — and respect — under New Hampshire law.”
The law will take effect on Jan. 1.
UPDATE: As of today, five states recognize same-sex marriage: Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont; two states recognize same-sex unions (i.e., civil unions for same-sex couples): California and New Jersey; and five more jurisdictions have enacted domestic partnerships laws that grant many or all of the benefits of marriage to registered domestic partners: Hawaii, Maine, Oregon, Washington State, and the District of Columbia.
During the ten-year period from 1998 to 2008, voters in twenty-nine states approved state constitutional bans on same-sex "marriage". However, some of these bans are limited: They do not forbid states to extend the benefit of law to same-sex unions; they forbid only calling such unions "marriage". See "States With Voter-Approved Constitutional Bans on Same-Sex Marriage, 1998-2008," http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=370.
As of now, seven countries--the Netherlands (since 2000), Belgium (2003), Spain (2005), Canada (2005), South Africa (2006), Norway (2009), and Sweden (2009)--recognize same-sex marriage.
According to a 2007 Pew Research Center survey, a bare majority Americans (55%) opposes, and a significant minority (36%) supports, recognizing same-sex marriage. However, a bare majority of Americans (54%) supports, and a large minority (42%) opposes, civil unions for same-sex couples, according to a 2006 Pew survey.
Elizabeth Lev on Obama’s Speech at Notre Dame
For a final post-script on the President’s speech at Notre Dame, I would encourage everyone to read Elizabeth Lev’s article, Obama Is No Uncle Tom, available here. She contrasts the simple but profound moral convictions of the main character from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s famous novel with the President’s very different moral and political commitments. She also comments on the de facto racial-genocidal effect of Planned Parenthood choosing to “serve” predominantly African-American neighborhoods, and on Obama’s misuse of Cardinal Bernadin’s “consistent ethic of life.”
For those of you unfamiliar with the author, Lev is a writer and art historian who lives and teaches in Rome. She is also the daughter of Notre Dame’s original choice for the Laetare Medal this year. Here is a sample from her powerful essay:
Obama, more than most, benefitted from the uncompromising and unbending principles of civil rights activists (considered by many to be "fanatics") determined to change the status quo and to end an age where blacks were considered second-class citizens. Yet he now turns a blind eye to the new class of the voiceless oppressed, the unborn. In all the gruesome tales Stowe recounts of masters' cruelty to slaves, nothing exceeds the horror of piercing an innocent child's head with scissors as it exits the womb. And yet this real-life horror story is not only tolerated, but promoted by Obama and his principal collaborators, in particular Kathleen Sebelius, his bizarre choice to head the Department of Health and Human Services.
Where is the Martin Luther King of the unborn? Where is the Rosa Parks? The Frederick Douglas? Unborn children have even less of a voice than the downtrodden, barely literate slaves of Stowe's novel. It has fallen to the heirs of the abolitionists and of the civil rights activists to speak for the voiceless unborn. Yet in his unctuous Notre Dame address, Obama chose to uphold the iniquitous status quo, rather than join those prophetic voices.
Recall his words, "I do not suggest the debate surrounding abortion can or should go away...the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable." Substitute the word "abortion" with "slavery" and think what would have happened had Abraham Lincoln taken this line.
As an African-American woman -- from Chicago no less -- I wanted to be delighted by the election of Barack Obama. But his disregard for both unborn human lives as well as of those who would try to protect them renders him more similar to enablers of slavery than to the noble men and women in Stowe's story. This paradoxical behavior darkens what should have been one of the greatest moments in history.
* * *
As a single parent who had her first child in economic hardship, ignoring constant unsolicited advice from everyone but my family to abort my child, I found resources in myself I never knew were there. I find no comfort in Obama's words about support for single mothers, since his practical actions have only been to unabashedly aid and abet abortion and its promoters, both on U.S. soil and now abroad.
I strongly encourage everyone to read the whole thing.
Habermas (or Michael Perry?)
You make the call. Either way, it's a good point:
Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy . . .. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter.
Don't eat the seedcorn!
Sound advice, from Kenneth Anderson (American Univ.):
As a believer in liberty and consent, I should greatly like to share Philip Bobbitt's hopes for the market-state. It does not take a conservative to wonder, however, whether this is enough to sustain liberal democracy in the face of spiritual threats. A long tradition of what Lawrence Solum has called the "left Burkeans" -- Christopher Lasch, for example, or Zygmunt Bauman -- has argued that the market is as much socially corrosive of the values of liberal democracy as it is materially supportive. The market and democracy are both sustained by wells of social capital that stable material prosperity helps to deepen, but which are not the moral logic of the market itself.
The market of the market-state is not self-sustaining. On the contrary, it requires a form of social life that goes outside it in order to function in the long term. Honour, loyalty, sacrifice, gratitude to those who came before -- these are not the evident virtues of capitalism, but they are necessary virtues in a liberal-democratic-capitalist form of life. Without them, society eats its seedcorn, the social capital bequeathed by the past to bless the future. Even after the marvellous argumentation of this marvellous book, therefore, room remains to question whether the market-state pays sufficient attention to the spiritual habits of the heart that make the market-state -- and the willing defence of states of consent against states of terror -- over the long struggle of years in this twenty-first century even possible.
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