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Monday, May 4, 2009
John Allen on the Vatican on Obama
What should a "mission course" look like at a Catholic law school?
Marc DeGirolami raises some important questions.
Religious faith and corporate law in the blawgosphere
Recently my colleague Lyman Johnson hosted a roundtable discussion on religious faith and corporate law here at St. Thomas. The discussion was lively and insightful, featuring contributions from our own Susan Stabile, along with David Skeel (Penn), Gordon Smith (BYU), Ron Colombo (Hofstra), Sarah Duggin (Catholic), Robert Ashford (Syracuse), and Mike Naughton (St. Thomas - Catholic Studies). The conversation is going to continue this week at The Conglomerate, so be sure to check in there early and often.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
More from the CUA conference on "religious mission" and law schools
As Patrick and Amy have already mentioned, we had the pleasure of participating in a panel discussion at Catholic University last week on the subject of "Realizing Religious Mission in Legal Education." Their remarks were, no surprise, both inspiring and insightful. I was speaking from notes, but tried to get across the following: First, the "religious mission" of a law school and a dedication to that mission's realization should never be seen as an excuse for failing to display (in Judge Noonan's words) the "qualities common to all excellent schools," including rigorous standards for scholarship.
Second, I emphasized three ideas: novelty, opportunity, and community. The point of "novelty" is to underscore the fact that the "Catholic law school project" is not an exercise in reaction, nostalgia, or retrieval. The kind of enterprise we are talking about is new. "Opportunity" suggests that an emphasis on, and aspiration to, Catholic character presents a way to capture the benefits of "institutional pluralism". A distinctive law school is more likely to be interesting and, therefore, attractive. Finally, "community.' A Catholic law school is a community of scholars, and that community will include people who are not doing "Catholic stuff" in their scholarship. A danger, it seems to me, in the mission-project is that the "mission" becomes the property of "professional Catholics" or church-state specialists.
Continuing with "Capitalism and Christianity" ...
In asking Chris Scaperlanda for permission to post his message (here), I added:
"'Government is not the answer.' Government is not
the answer to what? There are surely many things that 'government'--collective
public action--is not the answer to. But just as surely there are many things
that collective public action *is* the answer to. Any 'third way' will try to
discern which is which, yes? And there will be many reasonable disagreements,
yes?"
To which Chris kindly replied:
"As for the role of government in achieving economic justice, please note
that I was not commenting on my own view, but rather was making clear the views
of those doing the heavy lifting. And I think that each of them would argue that
government should enact certain policies and not others and should generally not
favor the unregulated market above all else. And of course, there is (and must
be) plenty of room for debate on which government policies should be enacted and
which rejected, and frankly, I'm sure that if you got Bill Cavanaugh, Rod
Dreher, and Alasdair MacIntyre into one room to discuss government policy, they
themselves would debate the issue pretty heavily.
"One common thread that runs through the thought each person I mentioned in my previous email - as well as Oxford Economist E.F. Schumacher in Small is Beautiful and Harvard economist Stephen A. Marglin in The Dismal Science - is the importance of community in creating and sustaining what Schumacher termed "economics as if people mattered." And actually Marglin, in the introduction to his book, discusses how, ironically, free-market economic thinking is what got us to the point where the only community we take seriously is the 'imagined community of the nation.'
"They have varying degrees of tolerance for state action. Cavanaugh, in particular, seriously mistrusts the nation-state. He has an article called Killing for the Telephone Company that is a pretty strong attack on the conservative rhetoric leading into the Iraq war. His major critique is of the conservative claim that Catholics may support the war because government is given, by the catechism, discretion about when to launch a war. The Catechism actually says that 'those bodies charged with the common good' have that discretion, and, after analyzing the history and philosophy undergirding the nation-state, he is convinced that it is unreasonable to trust the nation-state with the common good."
Chris concluded with this question: "If you don't mind, what role do you think the state should play? And what about community?" I wish I were competent to give a good answer to that question, but, alas, I'm not.
Thanks so much for your messages, Chris.
"One common thread that runs through the thought each person I mentioned in my previous email - as well as Oxford Economist E.F. Schumacher in Small is Beautiful and Harvard economist Stephen A. Marglin in The Dismal Science - is the importance of community in creating and sustaining what Schumacher termed "economics as if people mattered." And actually Marglin, in the introduction to his book, discusses how, ironically, free-market economic thinking is what got us to the point where the only community we take seriously is the 'imagined community of the nation.'
"They have varying degrees of tolerance for state action. Cavanaugh, in particular, seriously mistrusts the nation-state. He has an article called Killing for the Telephone Company that is a pretty strong attack on the conservative rhetoric leading into the Iraq war. His major critique is of the conservative claim that Catholics may support the war because government is given, by the catechism, discretion about when to launch a war. The Catechism actually says that 'those bodies charged with the common good' have that discretion, and, after analyzing the history and philosophy undergirding the nation-state, he is convinced that it is unreasonable to trust the nation-state with the common good."
Chris concluded with this question: "If you don't mind, what role do you think the state should play? And what about community?" I wish I were competent to give a good answer to that question, but, alas, I'm not.
Thanks so much for your messages, Chris.
Capitalism v. Christianity, Con't
In response to this brief post yesterday--which, appropriately enough, was May Day--I received a message from a MOJ-reader (who happens to be the son of an MOJ-blogger), Christopher Scaperlanda. With Chris's permission, I am posting his message:
"[Y]our most recent post, on MacIntyre and capitalism, picqued my interest in a particular way, both because I am a former student of MacIntyre's and because I've been reading pretty vociferously trying to better understand what a truly Christian economics would look like and what I can do, in the absence of starting a revolution, to bring justice to my life as an economic participant.
"I also thought that you would be interested to know that among conservatives there is a growing trend away from worship of the free market. Rod Dreher has a fantastic book called Crunchy Cons in which he details that many liberal ideas about organic food, about transit, about the environment and about many other issues are actually far more conservative than the free market, growth and efficiency, regardless of the costs to community, environment, or humanity mantra embraced by the Republican party. (One of his foundational principles: big business is as bad as big government). He also has his own blog, and writes for Front Porch Republic, which is a kind of meeting of the minds among people who would consider themselves conservative in those same ways (I find that I agree with that lot as a whole less than with Dreher, but I thought you might be interested).
"William Cavanaugh also has an outstanding book out called Being Consumed, which is an extremely short book detailing what a truly Christian economics would look like. Among his many insights are the fact that instead of asking whether we should support a free market, we should really ask the question "When is a market truly free." He really does a great job shifting the debate, talking about practical things that we can do in the context of daily life, and describing why an orthodox Catholic should not also bow at the altar of the free market, as currently understood.
"I guess, more than anything, I wanted to let you know that the literature is out there (and that it is well worth reading). There are some great people who are doing their best to explain how unbridled capitalism is inconsistent with genuine conservatism (in Dreher's case) or with orthodox Catholicism (in Cavanaugh's case). But its also important to note that neither of these guys is a "government is the answer" liberal, either (nor, of course, is MacIntyre). All three of them are trying to think outside the current paradigm to find a way to bring about a genuinely just economics that makes space for human freedom. If you are interested, they are all well worth the time it takes to read them."
Attend church = support torture?
It seems that Christian churches -- including the Catholic Church -- need to do a lot more talking, and teaching, about torture. This survey reports that the more frequently a person attends church, the more likely they are to believe that the torture of a suspected terrorist is morally permissible.
Arguments for Religious Liberty Under Same-Sex Marriage: Latest Version
Four of us legal academics (Garnett, Wilson, Esbeck, and Berg) who have been pressing legislators for religious liberty protections in same-sex marriage laws have a slightly revised version of our arguments in this letter. We sent it to the governor and legislative leaders in Maine, where one house has approved SSM implementation and the other is set to vote next week. Meanwhile, bills recognizing SSM in New Hampshire, with a very narrow religious exemption, have passed both houses and are in a conference committee; and the issue is coming to a head in other places as well, including Iowa and the District of Columbia.
In the latest letter we clarify our proposal for exempting organizations and individuals who object to facilitating a same-sex marriage, to provide that the exemption may be overridden in cases where the marrying couple cannot obtain similar services from another source and the inability to obtain the services causes "substantial hardship." In some sparsely populated rural areas, one can imagine all of the service providers (caterers, photgraphers etc.) in a large geographic area refusing to provide services to a same-sex couple marrying. We think this will happen infrequently, and we emphasize that the hardship the couple faces must be substantial, "not mere inconvenience or symbolic harm." We also say that clerks or other government officials cannot refuse to issue a marriage license, and thus block the marriage, "if another government official is not available and willing to do so." Speaking for myself, I think that these clarifications balance the conflicting interests properly and also increase the chances that an exemption extending beyond churches to religious non-profits and commercial service providers will pass.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Catholicism v. Capitalism
Which are you: a capitalist? or a Catholic? Alasdair MacIntyre wants to know!
Check this out, at dotCommonweal.
:-)
Conference on Catholic Legal Thought
The 4th Annual Conference on Catholic Legal Thought will be hosted at Catholic University’s Law School (Washington D.C.) from June 9 – 11, 2009.
As you may know, in June, 2006, at Fordham Law School, twenty-three Catholic law professors from all over the country met for three days to explore ways to foster the development of the emerging body of Catholic legal thought. At this initial meeting, it was decided that the group would meet annually to support the development of Catholic legal theory, and provide an enriching opportunity for law faculty to gather and discuss this theory and their work in the field. The annual meeting, it was decided, would be hosted by a different law school each year. This year, the Conference will be in Washington D.C., hosted at The Catholic University of America.
As with the prior conferences, this meeting is for those law professors who are just beginning to integrate Catholic social thought into their scholarship and teaching, as well as those law professors who are more experienced. As has become traditional, the first afternoon will be an introduction to basic principles of Catholic social teachings. The second and third days will consist of more in-depth, interactive presentations and discussions. Our time together will also encompass daily Mass and spiritual exercises, as well as the opportunity for participants to share meals and much informal fellowship.
For this 2009 Conference, we selected as our theme “The Legal Implications of the Work of Pope Benedict XVI” with the idea that our conversation would be organized around three central themes in his writings: Love, Hope, and Law (with the additional hope that these would correspond neatly with the first encyclicals of his papacy – the two already written and the highly anticipated one yet to come.) Unlike many typical conferences, we hope that this will not be a collection of presentations an audience, but rather that it will truly be a discussion led by our presenters with all conference participants. To that end, a list of reading materials will be circulated to all registrants in advance of the conference.
If you would like further information about the Conference and registration materials, please contact Prof. Lucia Silecchia (silecchia [at] law.edu).
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