Mirror of Justice

A blog dedicated to the development of Catholic legal theory.
Affiliated with the Program on Church, State & Society at Notre Dame Law School.

Monday, October 13, 2008

There Are Many Gods That Fail

By Michael Perry

Sightings 10/13/08

 

Another 'God that Failed'

-- Martin E. Marty


"The Fall: Original Sin & Free-Market Capitalism," "After the Meltdown," and "Government Is Not the Problem: Thirty Years of Bad Economic Policy," by William Pfaff, Charles R. Morris and Jeff Madrick, in turn, highlight a single issue of the Jesuit magazine America (October 10). Their articles are typical of the first round of religious responses to the epic or epochal shifts occurring in global economic life this autumn.  There is no Schadenfreude, no joy in the misfortunes of others, in their and most of their colleagues' writings elsewhere in the religious press, because there are no simple "others" when "we" are all in the mix of disasters together.  There is, however, some sense of theological relief and release in such articles because such thinkers are suddenly enabled to get some hearing when they "speak truth to power" on the economic front.

 

"Power" was symbolized in the devotion to, praise, even worship of free-market ideologies in economic, foundation-al, academic, national, and often even ecclesiastical circles by two generations of gifted, articulate proponents of non- and anti-governmental policies which were devoted to unregulated, often unmonitored, market practices and philosophies.  During those decades one would hear muffled witness from some who were devoted to modern Catholic social thought, from often-derided mainstream Protestant inquiry, and from a mix of "free church" and evangelical go-against-the-grain sorts.  One of the rare theological voices which got a hearing was that of Harvey Cox, whose widely-circulated March 1999 Atlantic Monthly article "The Market as God" shook some readers.  The religious right mocked church leadership, claiming it was captive of the left, but such leadership was better known from the attacks on it than on what it set out to say.

 

The God of "The Market as God" turns out to have had clay feet.  One recalls the book by Arthur Koestler, Ignatio Silone, and others, "The God That Failed" (1949), referring to the Communism to which these had previously devoted themselves. "The Nation as God" could signify occasional criticisms of overblown "civil religion" in the same decades.  In favor, however, were the unquestioned defenders, often on theological terms, of the free market as God's intended or preferred way of arranging economic life.

 

To report as I am doing is to risk being seen as naïve or as moving from sulking to gloating.  My writings would reveal little sulking about the main trend of economic life; tenured professors—let's not kid ourselves—live off many of its mixed benefits. I don't think anyone would find a trace of "socialism" in my work. I used to kid that socialism meant standing and waiting in long lines and being wrapped in red tape, and they are not for me and my kind. As for civil religion, nationhood, and patriotism, I hope I've always dealt with paradox, aware of the ironies of American power but celebrating its potential for good and many beneficial actions. What I hope will be seen is that here again we get those once-in-decades, if not  -centuries, clarifying moments in which the "-isms" are shown to have been idolatries.  And in clarifying moments people of good will and skill have a chance to contribute to critical reconstruction in society and personal life.

 

In one of Jesus' parables that comes to my mind daily, we read of an accumulator who built granaries and barns to store his treasures and made himself into a kind of god.  Then he died, having built up those treasures, but not having been "rich toward God." What such richness might look like could be central in America's new spiritual search.

 

References:

Read Harvey Cox's Atlantic Monthly article, "The Market as God", at http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/99mar/marketgod.htm.

Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

Conscience and Voting: The Big Question

By Amy Uelmen

   My recent essay “It’s Hard Work: Reflections on Conscience and Citizenship in the Catholic Tradition,” is in part a strong critique of the Voter’s Guide for Serious Catholics and similar lines of analyses, which outline voting as a two step process: 1) identify “intrinsically evil” (or "non-negotiable") principles, and 2) vote for a candidate who best matches opposition to these evils.  I argue that this methodology is in sharp contrast with the 2007 analysis approved by 98% of the bishops, Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship.   

   Like the analysis in Serious Catholics, the bishops do not hedge on the position that Catholics must hold toward intrinsic evils: “They must always be rejected and opposed and must never be supported or condoned.”  And the bishops also point out that some issues are much more important than others: a well-formed conscience “recognizes that all issues do not carry the same moral weight and that the moral obligation to oppose intrinsically evil acts has a special claim on our consciences and our actions.”

   But Forming Consciences does not stop there.  It also includes a mid-layer analysis. The task is not simply a matter of identifying principles, because a larger role is given to prudence, the virtue which “shapes and informs our ability to deliberate over available alternatives, to determine what is most fitting to a specific context, and to act decisively.”  For the bishops, decisions about voting entail a complex reflection, using “the framework of Catholic teaching to examine candidates’ positions on issues affecting human life and dignity as well as issues of justice and peace.  It also examines the candidates; “integrity, philosophy and performance”; as well as their capacity to influence a given issue.

   A second way in which the bishops’ position differs from Serious Catholics is in its discussion of the moral principle of “cooperation with evil.”  Serious Catholics lifted out of context a 2002 Vatican statement that one is not permitted “to vote for a political program or an individual law that contradicts the fundamental contents of faith and morals.”  The Vatican statement was discussing the duties of elected officials, but Serious Catholics applied the analysis directly to citizen voters, reasoning:  “Some things are always wrong, and no one may deliberately vote in favor of them.  Legislators, who have a direct vote, may not support these evils in legislation or programs.  Citizens support these evils indirectly if they vote in favor of candidates who propose to advance them.”

   The bishops, on the other hand, clearly rejected this leap.  They clarified that the question of the voter’s moral responsibility hinges on the voter’s intent:  “A Catholic cannot vote for a candidate who takes a position in favor of an intrinsic evil, such as abortion or racism, if the voter’s intent is to support that position.  In such cases a Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in grave evil.”

   Because intent is the hinge, the bishops warned that the intrinsic evil analysis should not become an excuse for a “single-issue” approach to voting:  “[a] voter should not use a candidate’s opposition to an intrinsic evil to justify indifference or inattentiveness to other important moral issues involving human life and dignity.”  Further emphasizing the role of intent, they stated:  “There may be times when a Catholic who rejects a candidate’s unacceptable position may decide to vote for that candidate for other morally grave reasons.  Voting in this way would be permissible only for truly grave moral reasons, not to advance narrow interests or partisan preferences or to ignore a fundamental moral evil.”

   This brings me to what I consider to be the big remaining question: What counts as a “morally grave reason?”  Some of the analyses currently circulating suggest that a particular candidate’s failure to oppose an intrinsic evil (such as abortion), could only be overridden by the other candidate’s failure to oppose an equally serious intrinsic evil (such as genocide or preemptive nuclear strike)—in other words, it requires a head to head on principles. 

   But I can’t find support in Forming Consciences for the argument that a “morally grave reason” requires a head to head on principles, or in some way excludes a range of mid-level prudential questions. I believe the bishops’ analyses leaves ample space for consideration of questions such as:

  • What institutional role does the position at stake play in shaping the policy against this particular evil—as the bishops put it, what will be the candidate’s “capacity to influence” the issue? 
  • Regardless of the candidates’ statement of principles, how will their specific mesh of social, economic, and legislative policies play out on the ground to remedy the particular evil both nationally and globally?

   I’d like to express sincere “docility” on this point—I’m happy to be educated about perspectives on whether the process for determining what is a “grave moral reason” should focus only principles, or should also account of the mesh of principles and practical judgment.  Thoughts?

Response to Lisa: Identity Politics and Empathy

By Amy Uelmen

Lisa, thank you for your Identity Politics post.  I think you hit the nail right on the head in naming one of the roots of the underlying tensions we have been experiencing over the past month.  But what touched me most deeply about your post was your capacity to imagine the ways in which the emotions of close identification were at work in people on the “other” side.  Perhaps one way to shore up strength for the kind of conversation and cooperation that can both withstand the heat of the next few weeks and extend beyond November 4th is right here, in the practice of empathy—the capacity, as Lisa has set out, to imagine not only the thought process of the other side, but also the emotional dimension, how that thought process makes them feel.  Some may fear that the exercise of empathy may lead to loss of identity, or to a watering down of the important principles at stake in our current debates.  But I think it is exactly here that the Catholic tradition has something important to bring to how we talk with each other about politics—a confidence that this expression of love is itself a presence of God, which brings not only the capacity to recognize the dignity of our conversation partners, but also the light to see the complexity of the issues even more clearly. 

Identity Politics

By Elizabeth Schiltz

One of the difficult issues explored in Amy and Michael S.'s extraordinary exchange on faithful citizenship at UST last week was how to address the emotional volatility of this election, so we can continue to work together after Election Day to address the serious challenges we are facing.  Whoever wins in November, the anger being generated by and displayed in some of today's debates (including even here on the pages of MOJ) is going to make continued cooperation difficult.     

For the first time in my life, during this campaign, I feel as though I really understand what some of this anger is about.  I think I finally "get" both the pull and the danger of identity politics.   Governor Palin's nomination has evoked in me the strongest emotional reaction I have ever felt in connection with a presidential campaign.  Of course, I identify strongly with her as the mother of a child with Down Syndrome.  But even more powerful is my identification with her as a working mother of small children.  When I see her up on that huge stage interacting with her husband and her children, I think about things like the time I went to a meeting in New Orleans with a bunch of my banking clients, shortly after the birth of one of my children, and my husband came along to take care of the infant and bring him to me during breaks so I could nurse him.  I think about the hidden secret of big families -- that older siblings are wonderful sources of help and support -- and how I could not have gotten tenure without the help of my older children.  When I saw her clutching Trig, patting him furiously on the back right after the debate with Biden, I understood exactly what she was feeling -- the desperate need to be holding your baby, even when you know the adrenaline-fueled rush of your "job"-related performance is preventing you from really focusing on him.  I know one thought that MUST have flashed through her brain right before she grabbed him: I don't care if he spits up on my suit now -- I'm DONE with the debate!!!! 

I have never felt this before with respect to any politician.  I understand now how many other women must feel about Hilary Clinton.  I understand now how many African Americans must feel about Barak Obama.  It is intoxicating to allow yourself to imagine how much better the world might be if someone who was “just like you” in some very fundamental way, like motherhood, gender, or race, were really in charge.   It’s especially intoxicating if you don’t think that those currently in charge are doing a particularly good job at the things most important to you.

One of the things that has surprised me is that this close identification with a person under such intense media scrutiny can also be very alienating.  The very images that cause me to identify so closely with Governor Palin on a very fundamental level are having exactly the opposite effect on many people, including friends and family.  To many people, those images represent choices in life that have been rejected or are simply incomprehensible.  To many people, those images make Palin something to be despised – or even feared.

And this close identification does make you sensitive to aspects of the debate that might escape others who do not share that identification.  In the days after Governor Palin’s nomination, I heard an analysis on Minnesota Public Radio of the types of internet searches being conducted about her.  The overwhelming majority were searches like “Sarah Palin hot pictures.”  On mainstream internet news sites like CNN and Foxnews, I’ve seen articles supposedly about the media coverage of Palin, in which the “analysis” in the text was patently an excuse to run a photo-shopped picture of “Governor Palin” in a bikini toting a gun, or a photograph of Governor Palin making a speech at a campaign rally, in which the camera was focusing on a young male in the audience looking at her, framed by the bottoms of her legs in high heels.  When I see and hear these things, I feel exposed and violated myself.  When I hear people criticizing her for lack of intellectual substance, I can’t help wonder if their criticism is colored by the filter of images like that, instead of a sincere analysis of her intellect.  I know that women who identified closely with Hillary Clinton felt the same about her; I know there’s an analogue for the filter of race that people who identify closely with Barak Obama must feel in criticisms of him.

I do not know yet what I will do with this emotion when it comes time to vote.  But I do understand now how this emotion underlies so much of what people will decide and so many of the arguments people are making in the current campaign and that it will dictate much of the reaction to the results of the vote, whatever they are.

I find myself wondering if maybe this highly-charged emotionality is a phase that our nation has to go to on the road to a government that more truly represents the diversity of its citizens.  Maybe it is something like the hormonal surges of adolescence.  When we’re parenting teens, there’s nothing we can do to suppress overly emotional hormonal reactions, we can only wait for maturity to diminish their pull.   Similarly, when we feel ourselves and our fellow citizens reacting emotionally to the power of the image of – finally - seeing “someone like them” in charge, maybe there isn’t anything we can do to suppress that emotion.  We can only wait (and hope) for a time when our government does more truly represent the diversity of its citizens, when women and people of color are not novelties on the stages of presidential nominating platforms. 

Catholic Social Thought and Citizenship at Villanova Law

By Rick Garnett

Well, we had a rewarding day at the Sixth Annual Symposium on CST and the Law here at Villanova Law on Saturday. It is hard to believe this was our 6th conference! When we started,only occasional conferences at Notre Dame and Amy's new programs at Fordham were regularly giving expression to the Catholic voice in legal education. (I'm sure I am forgetting and offending someone, but there truly was not a lot going on!) Today, St. Thomas and St. John's are regularly weighing in with annual conferences, and new programs are popping up at other Catholic law schools. These symposia and conferences are vital to sustaining a network of scholars working in Catholic legal theory, and we at Villanova are happy to be doing our part.

The timely theme for this year's symposium was Catholic social thought and citizenship. The papers presented ranged over history, politics, theology, philosophy, and law. Several speakers, including our own John Breen from Loyola-Chicago and Amy Uelmen from Fordham, wrestled with the question of politicians, voters, and abortion. One panel (Greg Kalscheur from BC, Aidan O'Neill from Scotland, and Amy) addressed conscience and citizenship, to which our own Patrick Brennan responded. John Keown, the Kennedy Chair of Ethics at Georgetown--and an Englishman!--questioned whether the Revolutionary War was an unjust war and what that might say about American Catholicism. Our keynoter was John Coleman, S.J., a giant among scholars of Catholic social thought in the US, who discussed the relationship between discipleship and citizenship. Others who spoke were Michael Baxter from Notre Dame, Michael White from Arizona State, Ed Gaffney from Valparaiso, Tisha Rajendra of UST, Kevin Lee from Campbell, Bruce Frohnen from Ohio Northern, and Gene McCarraher, Jeanne Schindler, and Christine Palus from Villanova. Most importantly, we had speakers with a remarkably wide range of views who disagree strongly with one another on tough issues on the eve of an election but came together for a day of civil dialogue.

Many thanks to my Villanova colleague Mike Moreland, who did the lion's share of the work in organizing this conference, and fulfilled a faculty member's main obligation -- making his dean look good!

MAS

Who's more nasty?

By Eduardo Penalver

I don't want to belabor the point.  I saw that Malkin post as well (the one to which Rick links in his reply to me below).  The problem with the comparison in this context is not one of adjudication but rather subject matter.  I will stipulate that one can find all sorts of horrible things said by lefties all over the internets.  The difference in this case is that we are talking about a McCain campaign that, until just recently, seemed intent on stoking the saying of those horrible things.  So the comparable examples would need to be (1) someone saying things like this on the left, at a campaign rally, audible to Obama, without Obama taking issue with it; or (2) Obama or Biden inciting similarly hateful rhetoric.  I'm not aware of any such examples. 

I'm glad to see that McCain finally started to respond to people at his rallies calling Obama a terrorist, etc., but the fact that he is now doing so only seems to me to underscore the problem with his earlier omission to do so.  Of course, it's precisely because I'm not a McCain supporter that comments like this have absolutely no weight and are easily dismissed as the product of my point of view.  This is why I think it would be nice to see more people on the right taking issue with their own side's campaign tactics. 

UPDATE:  Here's another example of the sort of thing I'm talking about.  Note that this is not some blogger or private citizen.  We're talking about the Chair of the Virginia Republican party.  Also note McCain's tepid response:

QUESTION: The chair of the Republican Party in Virginia has said, quote, in Time magazine, "both Barack Obama and Osama Bin Laden have friends that have bombed the Pentagon. That is scary." Is that appropriate for a state party chair to be saying?

MCCAIN: "I have to look at the context of his remarks. I have always repudiated any comments that have been made that were inappropriate about Senator Obama. The fact is that William Ayers was a terrorist and bomber and unrepentant. I don't care about that. But Senator Obama ought be the candid and truthful about his relationship with Mr. Ayers in whose living room Senator Obama launched his campaign and Senator Obama said he was just a guy in the neighborhood."

UPDATE II:  I promise this will be the last example I give, but here's another example.  And, again, this one is not from some random blogger or campaign rally attendee, but rather from the Pennsylvania GOP:

I've been writing about political campaigns for more than a quarter-century now, and it really takes a lot to surprise me, but I am absolutely stunned at the depths that the Republican Party is willing to sink to try in win this election, even as polls are beginning to suggest it may be a lost cause for John McCain and Sarah Palin. At 9:29 p.m., I received in an email the sleaziest political press release I've ever seen. It came from the Republican Party of Pennsylvania and it's headlined: "PAGOP: OBAMA - A TERRORIST'S BEST FRIEND."

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Another review of Arbp. Chaput

By Rick Garnett

Michael linked to Prof. Kmiec's review of Arbp. Chaput's "Render Unto Caesar". (He is not the reviewer I would have expected, given that "Render" is a pretty forceful critique of Kmiec's current thinking about politics and abortion.)  In any event, for another review of "Render" -- by a Commonweal blogger, as it happens -- see Fr. Robert Imbelli's, here.

Kmiec's review also discusses Chris Korzen's and Alexia Kelley's "A Nation for All".  He writes that "Korzen and Kelley demonstrate how emphasizing anti-Roe strategies alone sits uneasily with the church’s promise of religious freedom to all in Vatican II’s Dignitatis humanae (1965)."  It surprises me that Kmeic wrotes this, since I would not have thought he believes that Dignitatis poses any barrier to making it possible (by reversing Roe) for citizens to choose to do what Kmiec (and Pope Benedict, whom Kmiec quotes) think they should do, i.e., protect unborn children in law from private lethal violence.  One can agree (as I do) with our MOJ-friend Fr. Greg Kalscheur that Dignitatis does provide support for arguments against morals legislation that does not relate to the public good; still, the claim that Dignitatis provides support for those who think that Roe ought not to be overturned, or that abortion regulations involve the imposition of specifically religious notions, is, it seems to me, a long way from plausible.

Kmiec also writes, "[t]o reduce abortion they suggest providing health care and economic assistance to women and families, robust alternatives such as support for adoption and appropriate and effective sex education for young people, and a host of other policy measures that have proved capable of reducing the abortion rate in the United States and around the world. Thanks to the efforts of Sen. Obama, much of that language is now in the Democratic Party platform."  I suspect -- I have not read the book -- that Korzen and Kelley do not contend that the other likely fruits of the "efforts of Sen. Obama" -- e.g., the repeal of pro-life limits on federal funding of abortions, at home and abroad -- are likely to reduce the abortion rate.  After all, it seems hard to reduce the incidence of something that one (a) celebrates as a fundamental right; (b) subsidizes financially; and (c) insists should be free from existing limitations.

Kmiec also says, "is a Catholic voter supposed to overlook how the Republican Party has failed to deliver Roe’s reversal in thirty-five years?"  Of course, as Kmiec knows, the failure to "deliver Roe's reversal" is at least as much the result of Democratic-led confirmation battles that have made it extremely difficult -- yet, somehow, Republican Presidents have succeeded four times since Reagan was elected -- to get Justices who understand Roe's error confirmed.  We could just as well ask why a Catholic voter should overlook "how the Democratic Party has blocked -- indeed, demonized -- efforts to deliver Roe's reversal for thirty-five years."

Additional election issues for consideration in the context of CLT

By Robert John Araujo, SJ

Since my last posting of a few days ago, I have identified two more important issues for CLT consideration during this election season. They are: (1) judicial selection, and (2) religious freedom.

Whoever is elected to the presidency will have a major impact on the nomination of all federal judges, including but not limited to Supreme Court candidates, for the next four and possibly the next eight years. So, what is at stake is not simply who will decide the cases finally, not because they are supreme but because they sit on the Supreme Court, but also who will hear cases in Federal district courts and the Circuit Courts of Appeal as they work their way to the nation’s highest court. The impact of judicial decisions will last for years. A fundamental question for all voters, especially those concerned about the relation between faith and the public square, is this: what should the Federal judiciary look like in four years; in eight years; in ten years; in twenty years and beyond…? The same question can be asked in those States where governors nominate judicial candidates who undergo a confirmation process that resembles that in the Federal judicial system.

A colleague and follower of the Mirror of Justice, Professor Scott Fitzgibbon, has this to say about those who have the power to influence the selection of judges:

I limit my comments to the Supreme Court ... [But we cannot] … neglect to discuss the next President’s affect on nominations to the United States Courts of Appeals and United States District Courts.  A very small percentage of cases reach the Supreme Court and much that occurs in a trial court by way of findings of fact and rulings on motions is for practical purposes unreviewable… 

[Here Professor Fitzgibbons addresses three pressing issues with which Federal judges are addressing or will likely address]

First, the right to life of the unborn.  Senator McCain’s Supreme Court nominees would likely vote to uphold reasonable restrictions on abortion, such as those requiring parental consents, prohibiting late-term abortions, and protecting infants born alive despite attempts to abort them.  Senator Obama’s nominees would likely vote to strike down such provisions.  Senator Obama has identified the passage of a Freedom of Choice Act as a “top priority.”  Depending on how it is worded, such an act by express language or plausible interpretation would aim to strike down state laws which require parental consent and other such protections.  Senator Obama’s appointees would likely support such interpretations and would likely uphold the statute against constitutional objections based on federalism. [In this context we must remember the following:] Senator Obama – in his famous statement that one of his daughters, were she to become pregnant, should not be “punished with a baby” – could only have meant that in such as case she SHOULD have an abortion. He thus is (conditionally) in favor of aborting his own grandchild.

Second, the definition of marriage.  Senator Obama supports Civil Unions for same-sex couples and voted against the proposed constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union between one man and one woman.   I think it likely that he would regard same-sex couples as among the vulnerable people who ought to be protected by the judiciary.  It is therefore I think likely that his judicial nominees would in various ways support the recognition of same-sex marriage.  They might go so far as to hold that states must recognize it owing to the Equal Protection Clause or the Due Process Clause.  They might hold the Defense of Marriage Act to be unconstitutional, thus requiring at least the federal government to recognize same-sex marriage.  They might hold that the Full Faith and Credit Clause requires every state to recognize same-sex marriages entered into under the laws of

Massachusetts

and

California

.

Third, respect for the liberty of private individuals and associations to diverge from liberal mandates on the above subjects.  Numerous challenges are now being mounted in the lower federal courts and in state courts which contest the legality of a private organization’s refusing to place children for adoption  by homosexual couples, refusing to perform abortions, and the like.  In

Canada

, it has now become unlawful even to speak in opposition to same-sex relationships.  It is grounds for dismissal from the

Boston

 public schools to speak along those lines.  We can expect many such initiatives to succeed under an Obama administration.  We can anticipate that President Obama’s judges would support such initiatives and themselves to craft some. 

The second issue that merits consideration today is religious freedom—the very thing that Pope Paul VI asked of civil leaders at the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council in December of 1965. Over the years several MOJ contributors have, in a variety of ways, talked about the urgency of this issue—religious freedom. It surely has an important bearing on the future of the law in the US, which will be affected by the upcoming election. I have been one of those contributors, and, in this context, have relied on the image of the pending “train wreck” from time to time when I have seen evidence that law making would lead to an attack on this important and fundamental liberty. In this context, I point to today’s Boston Globe which posted a series of letters-to-the-editor from readers outraged by the Archbishop of Boston’s admiration of Governor Palin’s younger son who has Down’s Syndrome. These letters offer some evidence that this great freedom once again is in peril. One such letter from Ann Connolly of Brookline states:

ALLEGED NAIVETE is no more endearing in a Boston cardinal than it is in an Alaska governor. By singling out Sarah Palin's youngest child (“Church pressing abortion fight,” Page A1, Oct. 6), Sean P. O'Malley made it clear that he thinks the Republicans have the monopoly on good parenting. His speech endorsed a partisan platform and the candidates who espouse it. The cardinal never mentioned the charming Obama children or the deserving Biden grandchildren, nor did he cite the policies of the Democratic Party that will ensure the continued education and health benefits for all children, especially those with special needs, and their families. If the cardinal chooses to continue with the policy of one issue, that opposition to abortion is the litmus test for the Catholic vote, a policy no longer promulgated even by Pope Benedict XVI, he must register as a lobbyist and eschew the tax exemption of the cloth. Otherwise, he must not play favorites. Favoritism is not Christian, and, from him, not legal. Martha Coakley, are you paying attention? [full letter HERE]

Apparently, Ms. Connolly is not troubled by those who identify themselves as Catholics but who have expressed different views or actually made endorsements of particular, i.e., Democratic, candidates in the upcoming election as the article to which she refers in her letter points out. [HERE] But she has made a public challenge to the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Martha Coakley [about whom I have previously written] to investigate these “improprieties” of Cardinal O’Malley. Apparently the statement of admiration by Cardinal O’Malley of a young child and his family is playing unlawful political favoritism in Ms. Connolly’s estimation; however, the actual political endorsements of two prominent Catholics of a Democratic presidential candidate are not. I have read and re-read the Globe article to which Ms. Connolly refers, and I cannot find the political favoritism that she has been able to identify. Ms. Connolly’s approach to electioneering and the law-making to which it will turn is not the stuff of which democracy is made. It finds its home in the totalitarian regime where religious freedom has been practiced in the face of peril posed by the state, the party, or the political thug who is not interested in robust debate and religious freedom essential to the survival of democracy. It is tragic that Ms. Connolly does not see the merit in hearing a variety of perspectives on important matters. Justice Harry Blackmun once wrote about the “chill wind” that he detected blowing against a “woman’s right to choose” in his dissent in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989). Today a far more dangerous wind blows as a new darkness emerges on the horizon—a wind that foreshadows not a vigorous democracy but the return of the political brown shirt.

RJA sj

Education: One of the Most Important, and Most Neglected, Isues in This Presidential Campaign

By Greg Sisk

In recent weeks and months, we have returned regularly to prudential questions about government programs and government spending, as well as private and religious initiatives and alternatives, and their value and efficacy in creating the conditions for human thriving. On the Mirror of Justice, our debates about such policies are further influenced by Catholic social teaching about the preferential option for the poor.

Within the vast and ever-increasing range of government projects and spending programs at all levels of government, the single most important government public service has to be access to a quality education. For most American families, government provides no benefit that is more direct (in terms of prominent role in their lives) or more substantial (in terms of financial value) than a free education for their children. For the disadvantaged, no conceivable government program offers greater promise for moving upward on the economic ladder than assuring educational opportunities.

While a college degree may be the tool to reach the highest rungs of the economic ladder, a high school diploma is the ticket out of poverty. In its 2007 “Profile of the Working Poor” (here), the Bureau of Labor Statistics using 2005 data found that the adults who did not graduate from high school were much more likely to fall among the working poor (more than 14 percent), as contrasted with those who obtained a high school diploma (6.6 percent). Among African-Americans, the working poverty is higher at each level of educational achievement, but even here the poverty rate for those with a high school degree and no college education is half that of those who did not complete high school.

Catholics have long had a particular interest in education. The original universities were created by the Catholic Church. Catholic elementary, secondary, and higher education have been central to the Catholic experience in America for centuries. And Catholics always have sought to integrate the highest of academic standards with faith, so that families do not have to choose between ensuring a quality education and moral formation for their children. Thus, broader opportunities and educational choice are central to the Catholic vision of education. So education ought to be central to our policy discussions on the Mirror of Justice.

And yet, during this presidential campaign season, educational policy has been a largely neglected subject (see here):

Continue reading

Doug Kmiec Review Archbishop Chaput

By Michael Perry

From this week's Commonweal.

Catholic Answers

Two books for voters who take their faith seriously

Reviewed by Douglas W. Kmiec

Render unto Caesar
Serving the Nation by Living Our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life
Charles J. Chaput
Doubleday, $21.95, 272 pp.

A Nation for All
How the Catholic Vision of the Common Good Can Save America from the Politics of Division
Chris Korzen and Alexia Kelley
Jossey-Bass, $24.95, 176 pp.

It is not clear whether Barack Obama passed on Gov. Kathleen Sebelius as a running mate because her archbishop reprimanded her for refusing to sign laws she deemed threatening to Roe v. Wade. But it didn’t help her chances. Of course, Obama’s vice-presidential pick-Sen. Joe Biden, a Catholic-recently took his own lumps from bishops. Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver publicly instructed Biden not to present himself for Communion while in town for the Democratic National Convention. Several bishops corrected Biden again after a Meet the Press appearance in which he affirmed his belief that life begins at conception but declared it a private matter.

Is it prudent for bishops to involve themselves so publicly in a national election? Two recent books give contrasting and constructive perspectives. Both are well written and cogently argued. The more optimistic volume is Chris Korzen and Alexia Kelley’s A Nation for All, written to help put an “end to both the politics of division and the culture of going it alone.” Korzen and Kelley are two of the most astute young leaders in the effort to bring Catholic social teaching to bear on American culture. They argue that the United States “is hungry for a new vision of leadership and community.” Satisfying that hunger means strengthening the country’s commitment to peace, to a more just exercise of governmental power, to environmental protection, and to providing essential services to those in need. While those values have declined over the past four decades, corporate power has risen-and church leaders have become preoccupied with abortion.

According to Korzen and Kelley, that preoccupation has played into the hands of Republicans, who have won several national elections promising to address abortion without delivering on that pledge. Catholic voters are therefore free to tackle the problem outside the Republican Party. But in order to do so they must overcome the misinformation from Republicans who would have them believe any antiabortion strategy that goes around Roe is ineffective and, worse, sinful.

In a thoughtful chapter on issues of church and state, Korzen and Kelley demonstrate how emphasizing anti-Roe strategies alone sits uneasily with the church’s promise of religious freedom to all in Vatican II’s Dignitatis humanae (1965). Catholic social doctrine, they write, quoting Benedict XVI’s Deus caritas est, “has no intention of giving the church power over the state. Even less is it an attempt to impose on those who do not share the faith ways of thinking and modes of conduct proper to faith.” And quoting John Paul II’s Evangelium vitae, Korzen and Kelley note that “when it is impossible to overturn or repeal a law allowing abortion which is already in force...an elected official...[may] support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by such a law.” To reduce abortion they suggest providing health care and economic assistance to women and families, robust alternatives such as support for adoption and appropriate and effective sex education for young people, and a host of other policy measures that have proved capable of reducing the abortion rate in the United States and around the world. Thanks to the efforts of Sen. Obama, much of that language is now in the Democratic Party platform.

In Render unto Caesar, Archbishop Chaput argues that such efforts are insufficient. While admitting to knowing “sincere Catholics who reason differently” (as I do), the archbishop sees a lack of “proportionate reason” in the Korzen-Kelley path. Chaput says that in order to justify a vote for a prochoice candidate, Catholic voters must have a reason of such magnitude that we could, “with an honest heart, expect unborn victims of abortion to accept when we meet them and need to explain our actions-as we someday will.”

That is indeed a high threshold; unfortunately Chaput applies it only to the cultural methods of promoting life usually favored by Democrats. Of course, voting for a “prolife” candidate does not guarantee that he will appoint Supreme Court justices who accept the church’s natural-law arguments against abortion. Nor does it mean that anti-Roe appointees will be approved by what is sure to be a Democratic Congress. Is a Catholic voter supposed to overlook how the Republican Party has failed to deliver Roe’s reversal in thirty-five years? Given that political reality, how could “voting prolife” in that narrow and unsuccessful sense be a sufficient explanation to the victims of abortion?

That criticism aside, Render unto Caesar does offer well-constructed, thoughtful, and accessible arguments. The archbishop displays an impressive command of church documents and literature. Chaput writes because he is “increasingly tired of the church and her people being told to be quiet on public issues.” And it is clear that he has no intention of being quiet, nor, given his insight and erudition, should he be. Still, it is puzzling that, apart from the issue of abortion and related sexual matters, most of the social gospel that dominates Korzen and Kelley’s book is absent from Chaput’s. Korzen and Kelley argue that the GOP’s claim that voting for anti-Roe candidates is the way to vote Catholic has hampered a fuller presentation of the church’s social teaching. Does Chaput make their point for them?

The archbishop is correct to insist that “Christian faith is always personal but never private.” Yet he fails to highlight the tension between that proposition and the (post-JFK) Catholic acceptance of the religious freedom of others who may contest church teaching. Chaput clearly desires the Catholic position on life issues to be the law of the land, but how does that happen when the majority resists? His answer is familiar: truth cannot be denied. But to the unconvinced non-Catholic, that answer begs the question, or at least elides the major difficulty. And if the wrong-headed, truth-denying majority resists for three decades and more, why not look for another way to reduce the number of abortions? Indeed, is not one duty-bound to look?

More than Korzen and Kelley, Chaput blames deficient moral formation and resistance to sexual self-control for the wider culture’s unwillingness to protect the unborn. He stresses the importance of struggling against personal sin. Here the book returns to its underlying emphasis: the truth of the church’s views on contraception and “other inconvenient teachings,” as Chaput puts it. The contraceptive mentality, he argues, reshapes sexual morality, leads to higher divorce and illegitimacy, creates pressures for legalized abortion, and coarsens male-female relations. He speculates that the Catholic Church gets bad reviews in the national media for telling that truth.

Toward the end of the book, Chaput takes up the tendency of politicians to dissemble, which resonates strongly with readers confronted by presidential campaigns fighting over the “change” mantle. But these are passing observations, and the archbishop again returns to the injustice and sinfulness of abortion. “The law must be changed,” he declares. Yes, of course, but why understate how Catholic faith also requires believers to change conditions that apparently give rise to the horrible practice? As Benedict XVI writes in his encyclical Deus caritas est:

"[I]f in my life I fail completely to heed others, solely out of a desire to be ’devout’ and perform ’my religious duties,’ then my relationship with God will also grow arid. It becomes merely ’proper,’ but loveless. Only my readiness to encounter my neighbor and to show him love makes me sensitive to God as well. Only if I serve my neighbor can my eyes be opened to what God does for me and how much he loves me.... Love of God and love of neighbor are thus inseparable, they form a single commandment."

This is common ground worthy of the scholarly work of Archbishop Chaput and the hope-filled effort of Chris Korzen and Alexia Kelley. Both books commend themselves to Catholics who take their faith seriously.

ABOUT THE WRITER

Douglas W. Kmiec

Douglas W. Kmiec, Caruso Family Chair in Constitutional Law at Pepperdine University, is the author of Can a Catholic Support Him? Asking the Big Question about Barack Obama (Overlook Press).

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