Thursday, November 13, 2008

"If you want peace, work for justice." --Paul VI

The dedication of my third book, Love and Power: The Role of Religion and Morality in American Politics (Oxford, 1991), reads as follows:

On November 16, 1989, in San Salvador, El Salvador,

six Jesuit priests, their cook, and her daughter, were slaughtered.

This book is for them, and for countless others less known

and honored, who remind us with their lives and

with their deaths what it can mean

to bring religion to bear on politics.

Some MOJ readers may be interested in this story, which appeared today in the Los Angeles Times:

In El Salvador, a new push for justice in priests' slayings

Soldiers and officers convicted or implicated in the deaths of six priests in 1989 are free under a controversial amnesty law. Victims' relatives and rights groups turn to Spain's courts.

By Tracy Wilkinson and Alex Renderos

Reporting from Mexico City and San Salvador — The murder 19 years ago of six Jesuit priests by a U.S.-trained army unit was the turning point in El Salvador's long civil war, an atrocity so grave that it helped force an end to the fighting.

But the soldiers and officers convicted or implicated in the slayings are free under a controversial amnesty law that is receiving new attention thanks to election politics here and a potentially landmark court case in Spain.

Relatives of the priests, who were killed along with their housekeeper and her young daughter, have joined with two human rights organizations and today plan to file suit in Madrid against the generals, colonels and soldiers blamed for the killings.

The plaintiffs are invoking the doctrine of universal jurisdiction, which Spanish courts have championed, that allows a case of egregious human rights violation to be heard in a country even if the acts did not take place there and the defendants do not reside there.

Human rights activists in the Americas and Europe said they hoped the Jesuit complaint could be used to fight impunity and bring justice to the victims' families by joining a procession of Spanish court cases that have forced Latin America to confront its violent past. These include suits against Guatemalan military officers accused in the massacre of indigenous citizens and figures in Argentina's "dirty war" against leftist dissidents.

"This has an invaluable historic importance for El Salvador," said David Morales, program coordinator at a legal think tank in San Salvador that specializes in justice issues. "All Salvadoran society has been the victim here. . . . Just knowing the truth has a restorative effect."

The war between El Salvador's right-wing, U.S.-backed government and leftist guerrillas formally ended in 1992. A national truth commission, as well as several international investigations, established that top army officers had ordered and then covered up the slayings of the priests, whom the military accused of supporting the guerrillas.

Four officers and five soldiers were tried and convicted for roles in the slayings, no one higher in rank than a colonel, but all were released in 1993 under the amnesty law. No one in the top military leadership was ever prosecuted.

The suit names as defendants Gen. Rene Emilio Ponce, the retired former defense minister, and other senior officers. It also names Alfredo Cristiani, the wartime president of El Salvador, who is accused in the suit of complicity in the cover-up, said attorney Almudena Bernabeu of the San Francisco-based Center for Justice and Accountability, one of the two organizations representing the priests' relatives.

The other group is the Spanish Human Rights Assn. Once the complaint is filed, a Spanish judge will decide whether the case will proceed.

Carlos Martin-Baro, brother of slain priest Ignacio Martin-Baro, said he hoped the pursuit of justice could help El Salvador emerge from its current "tragic and violent reality," which many people believe is a legacy of the war and its unresolved divisions. The tiny country remains badly polarized and awash in slayings, kidnappings and drugs.

"Amnesty laws in a given moment might be used to normalize civilian life, but they don't allow the wounds to close," Martin-Baro, a 67-year-old English teacher, said by telephone from Madrid.

In El Salvador, repeal of the amnesty law has become a burning topic in the campaign running up to presidential elections in March.

Ponce, the retired general, led thousands of army veterans on a protest march through San Salvador two months ago to demand the law remain in force. Repealing it would smack of "vengeance," he said, and "far from contributing to reconciliation, will only deepen the political polarization we are living in our country."

The Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, or FMLN, the onetime guerrilla movement that is now a political party, has suggested in its electoral platform that the amnesty might be ended.

But the party's presidential candidate, Mauricio Funes, recently told an interviewer that he would not touch the law because to do so would "open wounds" and "create a climate of ungovernability." Funes is leading in polls, besting the candidate from Arena, the right-wing party that has ruled since the last years of the war.

An Arena official, Francisco Antonio Prudencio, sharply condemned the lawsuit Wednesday, saying it would dredge up painful memories of "very difficult moments."

"Do they want our country to return to another armed conflict?" Prudencio, who heads the party's human rights committee in the legislature, said in an interview.

Most of the cases that have invoked universal jurisdiction have not ended in conviction. Yet advocates say each case is another brick in an expanding legal foundation that holds wrongdoers accountable wherever they live.

"I don't think I'm being naive when I say that there is increasing consciousness that high-level human rights abusers should not be allowed to move around and seek haven around the world," Pamela Merchant, executive director of the Center for Justice and Accountability, said from Madrid.

Catholics, The Election, and Obama: Another Reflection

By Michael Perry

This one appears in the new issue (11/15/08) of The Tablet:

Why they didn’t listen

US election 2008

Michael Sean Winters

American bishops have been conducting a post-mortem on the presidential election after calls by some of them for Catholics not to support ‘pro-abortion' Barack Obama were roundly ignored. Were the bishops right and is their authority now diminished?

During the American presidential election, several United States bishops argued that abortion trumped all other issues and that no Catholic could, in good conscience, vote for Barack Obama.

On 20 October, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver, Colorado, called Obama "the most committed ‘pro-abortion' candidate" since the Supreme Court's 1973 decision, Roe v. Wade (which cleared the way for legalised abortion throughout the federal US), and said no Catholic could find reasonable grounds for supporting him. Chaput also questioned the motives of Catholics who seek abortion-reduction policies instead of seeking to overturn Roe: "I think it's an intelligent strategy. I also think it is wrong and often dishonest."

Meanwhile, in Scranton, Pennsylvania, a local October forum on the election at St John's Catholic Church was discussing the pastoral letter, "Faithful Citizenship", which the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) adopted at its 2007 meeting to guide Catholic voters in correctly forming their consciences on political matters. The forum was interrupted by Scranton's bishop, Joseph Martino, who thundered: "No USCCB document is relevant in this diocese. The USCCB doesn't speak for me." The bishop also took particular issue with the claim that voters could consider topics other than abortion.

That same week, retired Bishop Rene Gracida recorded a radio advertisement in which he said: "A Catholic cannot be said to have voted in this election with a good conscience if they have voted for a pro-abortion candidate. Barack Hussein Obama is a pro-abortion candidate."

Finally, the day before the election, Bishop Joseph Finn of Kansas City, Missouri, was asked in a radio interview: "There are Catholics listening right now who are thinking strongly or are convinced that they will vote for Barack Obama. What would you say to them?" The bishop replied: "I would say, give consideration to your eternal salvation." Bishop Finn, who is a member of Opus Dei, had earlier compared the 2008 election to the naval Battle of Lepanto, when a papal fleet turned back Muslim invaders in 1571.

There are many difficulties with these statements. The most obvious is that they did not persuade. Denver voted for Obama by the astounding margin of 75 per cent to 25 per cent and the state of Colorado went blue for the first time in 16 years. In Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, Obama beat John McCain 63 per cent to 37 per cent. And in Kansas City, Missouri, 78 per cent of the electorate considered their eternal salvation and voted for Barack Obama. Nationwide, Obama won 53 per cent of the Catholic vote, a swing of 13 percentage points over John Kerry's showing in 2004.

Latino Catholics represent the demographic future of both the Church and the country and they broke for Obama in even greater numbers. In Florida, Nevada and Colorado, Latino Catholics were crucial to Obama's turning those states from red to blue, so this demographic is the future not only of the Catholic Church but of Obama's governing coalition.

The second problem with the anti-Obama statements by the bishops is their specificity. "Faithful Citizenship" stated emphatically: "In fulfilling these responsibilities [to help Catholics form their conscience], the Church's leaders are to avoid endorsing or opposing candidates or telling people how to vote. As Pope Benedict XVI stated in Deus Caritas Est, ‘The Church wishes to help form consciences in political life and to stimulate greater insight into the authentic requirements of justice ... The Church cannot and must not take upon herself the political battle to bring about the most just society possible.'"

However, the greatest problem is that these "abortion-only" bishops are living in a parallel universe. In denigrating the Democratic Party and its nominee, the only conclusion is that the Republicans were the salvific choice. The pro-life movement has been carrying water for the Grand Old Party for 35 years and there has been no change in the law. Even if Roe were overturned tomorrow, abortion would not become illegal because the issue would be kicked back to the individual states. In a study made by Dr Joe Wright, an assistant professor of political science at Penn State University and a visiting fellow at the prestigious Catholic University of Notre Dame, the 16 states that might enact some restrictions on abortion are largely rural, conservative states that only account for 10 per cent of all abortions. Is that enough to make Republicans the "pro-life party"?

Moral theologians can debate whether abortion has the greatest claim on the conscience of a Catholic voter, but debating strategies about how to combat abortion is a political discussion. Barack Obama, at the urging of pro-life Catholics, changed the Democratic Party's platform to endorse reducing the abortion rate specifically through policies that help women facing crisis pregnancies, such as the adoption of universal health insurance and better pre-natal and post-natal care.

Obama made reducing the abortion rate a goal of his administration, mentioning it in both his convention acceptance speech in August and in his third debate with John McCain in October. His approach may or may not produce the desired result, but it is wrong to impugn his sincerity and that of his supporters who have come to believe that the Republicans only pay lip service to the pro-life cause at election time.

The "abortion-only" approach also disparages the moral seriousness of many Catholics. A woman married to an undocumented immigrant might view humane immigration reform as the most important issue. A family that can't afford health insurance for their children might be concerned about that issue as well as abortion.

The economic meltdown in mid-September is commonly seen as the reason for Obama's ascendancy. Pollsters concluded that the crisis pushed "moral issues" to the side, but that is not exactly right. The economy is a moral issue. For middle-class Americans, buying a house and making the mortgage payments are moral accomplishments, involving delayed gratification and self-discipline. Greed was seen as the principal culprit in the troubles on Wall Street. President-elect Obama grasped the moral dimensions of the economic anxieties felt by so many Americans. In a speech in St Louis a fortnight before the election, he asked: "It comes down to values - in America, do we simply value wealth, or do we value the work that creates it?" His ads spoke of "the dignity of work". He invoked the need for social solidarity as a counterweight to the vagaries of the market. Obama seemed to be channelling an admixture of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Pope Leo XIII.

But Obama's ace in the hole, especially with young voters and independents, was his promise to end the slash-and-burn partisanship that had made Washington politics so bitter, not only in George W. Bush's term, but during the Clinton years as well. Young people whose principal concern was abortion nonetheless recognised that the 20-year shouting match had manifestly failed to achieve progress on that issue. Young voters concerned about the environment or health care saw their aspirations shipwrecked on the rocks of partisanship. Voters aged 18-29 supported Obama by a margin of more than two to one.

Independent voters, by definition, do not respond to partisan appeals, so Obama's promise of a post-partisan approach to politics resonated with them. For these voters, it was precisely his ability to voice liberal policies in moral terms that were persuasive. Obama's focus on values with both a Christian as well as a liberal pedigree, such as solidarity and the dignity of work, served him especially well with these centrist, non-partisan voters and points the way forward as he re-negotiates the social contract in the wake of the economic meltdown.

Ironically, the issue that gave Obama a leg-up at the start of the race - his early and consistent opposition to the Iraq War - barely figured in the general election. Only 10 per cent of the electorate cited the war in Iraq as the most important issue in the election, compared with 63 per cent who said the economy was the most key issue for their vote.

Voters disapproved of the Iraq War by a margin of 63 per cent to 36 per cent as well. But, even here, the issue overlapped with the economy as Obama questioned why the US Government continued to spend billions in Iraq where the Baghdad Government is running a surplus, while failing to invest in important infrastructure projects at home.

The day after the election, US forces were still at war in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The stock market was still in the tank. The federal budget deficit was still at record levels. One shudders to think of the pressures that are breaking upon this relatively young politician from Illinois. But, like the last president from that state, Abraham Lincoln, Obama seems undaunted by the charge he has been given. His own unlikely story is the best evidence yet that America can overcome her challenges. Catholics, at least most of them, wedded their hopes for America to his.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

By Michael Perry

[I thought that the links in this post, lifted from dotCommonweal, would be of interest to many MOJ readers.]

Abortion and the Law

November 12, 2008, 11:25 am

Posted by Cathleen Kaveny

I have tried to link, in several posts or comments, to several things I’ve written over the years on abortion and the law in the U.S. The links never worked. But I finally figured out how to do it, thanks to our very talented technology folk at ND. So, if you are not sick of the topic, here they are. I think these URLs all work.

http://www.nd.edu/~ndlaw/faculty/kaveny/How%20Views%20of%20Law%20Influence%20Pro-Life%20Movement.pdf

http://www.nd.edu/~ndlaw/faculty/kaveny/kaveny-thomist-abortion.pdf

http://law.nd.edu/people/faculty-and-administration/teaching-and-research-faculty/m-cathleen-kaveny

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Election Reflections

By Michael Perry

[Peter Steinfels, a former editor of Commonweal, had some interesting, informative reflections in his column yesterday (NYT, 11/8/08), titled Catholics and Choice (in the Voting Booth).]

Anyone constructing a list of the big losers on Tuesday would probably include the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops. Will that fact be candidly addressed when the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops meets next week in Baltimore?

After a presidential campaign in which it was widely perceived that the dominant message from the bishops was that Catholics were morally obliged not to vote for a candidate supporting abortion rights, exit polls show that Catholics voted 52 percent to 45 percent for Senator Barack Obama. That was seven percentage points more than the Catholic vote in 2004 for Senator John Kerry, a fellow Catholic.

Hispanic Catholics, a group the bishops often hail as representing the future of the church in the United States, led the way. Latinos voted 67 percent for Mr. Obama, 16 percentage points more than their vote for Mr. Kerry. Latino Catholics, usually more Democratic than Protestant Latinos, almost certainly voted for the Democratic nominee at an even higher rate.

Exit poll figures for young Catholics are not yet available, but much information indicates that they also voted at high rates for Mr. Obama.

If the bishops sweat a little over these figures next week, the reason won’t be worry about their political prowess but about their pastoral and moral effectiveness. By appearing to tie their moral stance on abortion so closely to a particular political choice, have they in fact undermined their moral persuasiveness on that issue as well as their pastoral effectiveness generally?

In 2004, a distinct minority of bishops established the public posture of the church by excoriating the abortion rights advocacy of Senator Kerry and in some cases urging that he or even Catholics who voted for him should be barred from Communion.

The result was disarray among the bishops and a backlash among a considerable number of Catholics. To keep that from reoccurring in 2008, the bishops painstakingly reframed the brochure they issue every four years to guide Catholics in contemplating how to vote.

Responding to complaints that previous statements insufficiently highlighted abortion among the church’s many concerns, the new version emphasized that issues involving “intrinsically evil” actions could not be equated morally with others. Abortion was the prime example, but euthanasia, torture, genocide, unjust war and racism were similarly labeled.

Catholics, the bishops taught, could never vote for a candidate because he or she supported any of these evils but only despite such support—and only for proportionately grave reasons.

There were further nuanced reflections on the complexity of political choices and the place of prudential judgments in applying general moral principles to particular circumstances or to particular candidates. The bishops repeated longstanding disavowals of single-issue politics and of telling Catholics how to vote.

In November 2007, the bishops voted overwhelmingly for the document, titled “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship.” During the election season, most of them publicized it in their parishes and stuck with it in their own statements.

But faced with the prospect of a victory by Senator Obama and particularly disturbed by the support he was getting from Catholics whose anti-abortion credentials were undeniable, many other bishops began to insist on giving their own interpretation. Some estimates place 50 to 60 bishops within this group, almost certainly a larger minority than four years ago. And they were the ones responsible for the public’s perception of the bishops’ role in the election.

Sometimes their declarations were dramatic. Archbishop Raymond L. Burke, recently transferred to Rome from the Archdiocese of St. Louis, declared the Democrats “the party of death.” Bishop Robert J. Hermann, the church’s interim leader in St. Louis until a successor to Archbishop Burke is named, invoked “Judgment Day” a half-dozen times in a column leaving no doubt that Catholics should decide their vote on the basis of abortion alone.

Bishop Joseph F. Martino of Scranton, Pa., required all pastors to read a letter from the pulpit stating that abortion superseded all other issues for Catholic voters, and he effectively suggested that Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, should not receive Communion because of his support for abortion rights.

“To the extent it was perceived that abortion was the only issue that should determine a Catholic’s vote,” Bishop Howard J. Hubbard of Albany said this week, “I don’t think it was true to ‘Faithful Citizenship’ itself, and I don’t think it resonated with the Catholic people.”

The danger may go beyond not resonating.

Many Catholics may understandably feel that the bishops are talking out of both sides of their mouths: Catholics are not supposed to be single-issue voters, but, by the way, abortion is the only issue that counts. The bishops do not intend to tell Catholics how to vote; but, by the way, a vote for Senator Obama puts your salvation at risk. Catholics are to form their consciences and make prudential judgments about complex matters of good and evil — just so long as they come to the same conclusions as the bishops.

There is obviously a gap between the prudential leeway that “Faithful Citizenship” affirmed for Catholics and the political urgency that some bishops feel about abortion — and already some of the latter are suggesting that the document should be recast again, presumably to make conformity to one’s bishop’s judgment a litmus test for being a faithful Catholic.

In a conversation on Monday, Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn, who had overseen the delicate process of redrafting the document, warned about moving toward endorsing candidates. “It goes against our tradition to do that,” he said. “It hasn’t done any good for the candidate, or for the church or for conscience.”

Bishop DiMarzio lamented the fact that “people want black and white answers” rather than the whole legacy of moral analysis and reflection that “the Catholic Church can offer.” At the same time, it was clear that the possibility that a well-informed, sincere Catholic might use that legacy to vote for Senator Obama strained his imagination.

The election revealed how bitter divisions among some Catholics have become, but it also revealed how many others are just shrugging off the bishops’ teachings.

“I hope the bishops have a frank discussion as we assess how effective we were in communicating our message,” Bishop Hubbard said.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Catholic Voters and Obama

By Michael Perry

From the NYTimes online blog, The Caucus:

November 5, 2008, 11:41 am

Catholics Turned to the Democrat

By Michael Luo

Much was made in 2004 of the so-called “God gap” between Republicans and Democrats, becoming part of the conventional wisdom explaining President Bush’s victory over Senator John F. Kerry.

As a result, the Democratic Party, including Senator Barack Obama, focused heavily on outreach to religious voters, including white evangelicals who voted overwhelmingly for President Bush, and talked more openly than ever before about faith.

So did all the God-talk pay off?

The verdict appears to be mixed, but Mr. Obama does appear to have scored some significant victories, especially among Roman Catholics, according to nationwide surveys of voters leaving the polls on Tuesday and telephone interviews of some people who had voted early.

One striking difference this year compared with 2004 was Mr. Obama’s gain among those who attend church (or a synagogue or mosque) more than weekly. Mr. Obama won 43 percent of them, Mr. McCain 55 percent. The group accounted for 12 percent of the electorate. In 2004, the group represented 16 percent of the electorate, with Mr. Kerry claiming only 35 percent to President Bush’s 64 percent.

The difference with 2004 in the vote of those who attend a house of worship weekly was not as dramatic. They accounted for 27 percent of voters, with Mr. Obama winning 43 percent and Mr. McCain 55 percent. In 2004, they represented 26 percent of the electorate, with Mr. Kerry getting 41 percent and Mr. Bush 58 percent.

While the Democrats put enormous focus on peeling away white evangelical Protestants from the Republican base, Mr. McCain, who has had at times a tense relationship with the group, still took 73 percent of that vote, compared with Mr. Obama’s 26 percent. They accounted for nearly a quarter of the electorate, just as in 2004, when President Bush won a whopping 78 percent of their votes, with Mr. Kerry getting only 21 percent.

Notably, Mr. Obama failed to do even as well as former Vice President Al Gore in 2000, when he ran against then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush. Mr. Gore won 30 percent of that vote that year and Mr. Bush won 68 percent.

On the other end of the religious spectrum, Mr. Obama won 67 percent of those who never attend church, while 30 percent of those voters went for Mr. McCain. The group represented 16 percent of voters. In 2004, Mr. Kerry beat Mr. Bush 62 percent to 36 percent in that group, which accounted for 15 percent of the electorate.

But religious experts said the swing in the Catholic vote may be one of the more significant political developments, despite the emphasis that Democrats have put on attracting evangelical voters. Although Mr. Kerry is Catholic, he won only 47 percent of Catholic voters, while President Bush drew 52 percent. That represented a reversal from 2000 when Mr. Gore won 50 percent of Catholics and Mr. Bush won 47 percent.

On Tuesday, Catholics, who accounted for about a quarter of the electorate, supported Mr. Obama, at 54 percent, over Mr. McCain, at 45 percent.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

By Michael Perry

Pro-life, Pro-Obama?

Why this election can’t be reduced to one issue

William J. Gould

Significant portions of the Catholic Church in the United States appear committed to the proposition that the only acceptable political manifestation of being a Catholic entails embracing the Republican Party. Clearly this is the (at least de facto) position of many prominent prelates such as Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver and Bishop Joseph Martino of Scranton. It is also quite clearly the position of EWTN, which furnishes a one-hour commercial for the Republican Party every Friday night at 8 Eastern (Of course, I’m referring to The World Over, hosted by Raymond Arroyo). Nor is that support confined to high-ranking church figures and leading Catholic media outlets. On the contrary, at Mass in my parish two weeks ago, a very young, newly ordained priest encouraged his listeners to vote Republican solely on the basis of the abortion issue.

In this political and religious climate, I find Doug Kmiec’s support for Sen. Barack Obama a salutary and refreshing development. I say this as someone who does not fully share Kmiec’s enthusiastic embrace of Obama or his high expectations regarding what an Obama presidency is likely to achieve. Instead I write as someone who has long been disenchanted with American politics and who fully expects that we will continue to be ill-governed no matter who wins the election.

Why then do I regard Kmiec’s contribution in such a positive light? For two reasons.

[To read the rest, which appears in Commonweal (web only), click here.

William J. Gould is Assistant Dean of the Juniors at Fordham College.]

Monday, October 27, 2008

On second thought, let me make it easy for you ...

By Michael Perry

Here's the piece by Father Thomas Reese, SJ, referenced in Fr. McBrien's piece in the immediately, preceding post:

Abortion: Rhetoric or Results?

Abortion has been one of the most divisive and polarizing issues in American politics for the past 35 years. Despite the extensive public debate, people's views are not changing. Opinions on abortion have remained relatively stable since 1995 according to a recent report from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

Support for keeping abortion legal in all or most cases has fluctuated between 49% and 61% while support for making abortion illegal in all or most cases has fluctuated between 36% and 48%. Currently the numbers are 54% for keeping it legal; 41% for making it illegal. Neither side is convincing the other.

Opponents of abortion argue that morality is not based on public opinion. That is true, but law is often based on public opinion. Certainly laws cannot be enforced without the support of public opinion. The inability of the United States successfully to enforce laws against illegal immigration, drugs, prostitution and gambling shows how difficult it is to enforce laws that significant numbers of citizens, even a significant minority, do not support.

In many countries where abortion is illegal, the laws are simply ignored. For example, in Argentina abortion is against the law but state hospitals perform abortions and the state pays for them. They have a much more flexible attitude toward law than Americans do. We believe laws should be enforced.

For years, Republicans have been courting the pro-life public by arguing that the Supreme Court is only one vote away from overturning Roe v. Wade. Vote for a Republican president, they say, and he will appoint pro-life justices. In fact, Republican presidents have appointed a majority of the justices since 1973 and the decision is still in place. The reluctance of justices to reverse earlier decisions (stare decisis) makes the hurdle very high even for a conservative justice.

Let me be clear. I think Roe v. Wade was a bad decision. It was bad law. It was a classic case of judicial activism. At the same time, to think that reversing Roe v. Wade will solve the abortion problem is naive. It will simply return the issue to the states and most states will keep abortion legal. And in states where abortion is made illegal, those seeking abortions will simply drive to another state.

A recent study by Catholics United found that in only 16 states does over 45% of the population self-identify as pro-life. A total ban on abortions in all 16 states would only affect 10% of the abortions in the country. This number does not take into consideration the women who will go to other states for their abortions.

Nor does a constitutional amendment outlawing abortion have a chance of passing Congress let alone getting approved by the states. Any activity that is engaged in by over 1 million people a year is not going to be outlawed, especially if 54% of the country does not think it should be outlawed.

Those wanting to do something about abortion must face the political reality that abortion is not going to be made illegal in the United States. Granted that fact, then the political question has to change from "Who will make abortion illegal?" to "Who will enact programs that will reduce the number of abortions?"

Democrats can argue that their programs will in fact reduce the number of abortions. This year, for the first time, Democrats placed in their party platform language calling for programs that will reduce the number of abortions.

Congressional Democrats have supported the Reducing the Need for Abortion and Supporting Parents Act (HR 1074, known as the DeLauro-Ryan bill) and the Prevention First Act bill (HR 819).

Congressional Democrats have also worked on making other alternatives more attractive with the Adoption Promotion Act of 2003 (Public Law No: 108-145), which was championed by Senator Hillary Clinton.

Democrats for Life have made an important contribution with their Pregnant Women Support Act that aims to reduce the abortion rate in America by 95 percent in 10 years by enacting the social and economic supports that actually do something to help women avoid going through this ordeal. The U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference supports this bill.

Do these programs actually help reduce the number of abortions?

During the Reagan Administration, the number of abortions rose significantly and peaked during the George H. W. Bush Administration. In contrast, during the Clinton Administration the number of abortions fell significantly (to 1.3 million a year from 1.6 million a year during the Bush administration), and were performed at a significantly earlier stage in pregnancy. During the current Bush Administration, these declines have slowed almost to a standstill. In fact, rates of abortions among teenagers and poor people appear to have increased. For abortion statistics click here.

A landmark 2007 study by Catholics United shows that lower unemployment, higher rates of health insurance coverage, and greater availability of Head Start centers are more effective at lowering abortion rates than lower availability of abortion providers. The study, which looks at county-level data in Kansas from 2000 to 2004, suggests that abortion reduction is best achieved by addressing the root causes of abortion than restricting access to abortion services. Access the full report here.

In another study released in August 2008, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good examined the long- and short-term effects of public policy on the abortion rate over a twenty-year period. The findings reveal that social and economic supports for women and families dramatically reduce the number of abortions. The study of all U.S. states from 1982-2000 finds that benefits for pregnant women and mothers, employment, economic assistance to low-income families, quality child care for working mothers and removal of state caps on the number of children eligible for economic assistance in low-income families have reduced abortions. Access the full report here.

Another study by Rutgers University found that the number of abortions among New Jersey women on welfare went up when the Republican State Legislature told mothers on welfare that they would not get additional funds if they had another child. See James Kelly, "Sociology and Public Theology: A Case Study of Pro-Choice/ Prolife Common Ground," Sociology of Religion, Vol. 60, No. 2 (Summer, 1999), pp. 99-124

About three-quarters of women having abortions say that they cannot afford to have a child. If "It's the economy stupid," then any pro-life strategy that is worth is salt must be willing to spend money to help women choose life. A Catholic Democrat like Joseph Biden can say that he will do everything possible to reduce the number of abortions short of putting women and doctors in jail. Republicans can only say that they will do anything possible to reduce the number of abortions short of voting for programs that cost money. The U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference is one of the few groups that are willing to say it wants the government to do both.

Catholics, Abortion, the Bishops, and the Presidential Election

By Michael Perry

I hope that all MOJ readers will consider carefully what Father Richard McBrien, the Crowley-O'Brien Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame, and the author of the HarperCollins Encyclopedia of Catholicism (here), has to say in the following piece, dated October 27, 2008. Notice, too, in Fr. McBrien's article, the link to the piece by Father Thomas Reese, SJ, former editor of America.

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Catholic voters and the presidential election

Unlike another column that appears in many diocesan papers across North America, this column has never endorsed or opposed a candidate for public office. It will not break that tradition this year, nor any other year in the future.

Let two points be stated here at the outset in the clearest and most unequivocal terms: First, the official teaching of the Catholic church on the morality of abortion is not in question (see, for example, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, nn. 2270-75); and second, it is morally permissible for a Catholic to vote for Senators Barack Obama and Joseph Biden for president and vice president respectively.

Needless to say, it is also morally permissible for a Catholic to vote for Senator John McCain and Governor Sarah Palin for president and vice president, or, for that matter, for such minor-party candidates as former Congressman Bob Barr and perennial candidate Ralph Nader.

Essays in Theology by Fr. Richard McBrien

However, it is time to throw a yellow flag on the field to call attention to serious violations of the U. S. Catholic bishops’ own stated policies not only against political endorsements but also against statements of opposition to specific candidates.

There is a relatively small, but highly vocal, band of U. S. Catholic bishops who violated this policy in 2004 and some of them, with support now from others as well, are in the process of doing so again this year.

The Catholic bishops of the United States have been absolutely clear about their policy, especially since 1987 when they added the words “or opposing” to their quadrennial statement.

Prior to 1987 the bishops were content to insist that they did “not seek the formation of a religious voting bloc; nor [did they] wish to instruct persons on how they should vote by endorsing candidates.”

But there are two ways of “endorsing” candidates. One is by an outright declaration of endorse-ment. The other is by attacking your favored candidate’s opponent, as happened in the 1984 presidential campaign when certain bishops, led by at least two cardinals, publicly attacked the Democratic vice-presidential candidate, Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro, for her pro-choice views on abortion.

On the run-up to the 1988 presidential election, the Administrative Board of the bishops’ conference added the words “or opposing” after the word “endorsing.” That addition has remained in the bishops’ quadrennial statements ever since -- most recently in their statement of last November when they put the matter clearly and succinctly: “...we bishops do not intend to tell Catholics for whom or against whom to vote” (n. 7, my italics).

Moreover, as important as the abortion issue clearly is, the bishops have also insisted since 1984 that Catholic voters and the bishops themselves should “examine the positions of the candidates on the full range of issues as well as their integrity, philosophy and performance.”

Put negatively, Catholic voters and their bishops are not to pursue a one-issue course in the political realm. No single issue, including abortion, “trumps” all others, rendering all other issues morally and politically inconsequential.

As last November’s statement by the bishops expressed it: “The consistent ethic of life provides a moral framework for principled Catholic engagement in political life and, rightly understood, neither treats all issues as morally equivalent nor reduces Catholic teaching to one or two issues. … Catholic voters should use the framework of Catholic teaching to examine candidates’ positions on issues affecting human life and dignity as well as issues of justice and peace ...” (nn. 40, 41).

Those Catholics for whom abortion is in effect the only issue determining their vote in a presidential election may need a dose of realism. Even the overturning of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision by an even more conservative U. S. Supreme Court is not going to put an end to abortions in the United States. It would simply return the matter to the states, and most of the states would continue to legalize abortion.

The only way that abortions are going to be reduced, as Jesuit Fr. Thomas Reese insisted recently on his blog for The Washington Post ( Abortion: Rhetoric or Results), is by dealing directly with the causes that lead women to have abortions.

The question then is not which candidate and which party will make abortion illegal, but which candidate and which party are more likely to reduce the number of abortions.

It is a matter of fact, not opinion, that abortions increased under President Ronald Reagan and peaked during both Bush Administrations. “In contrast,” Fr. Reese points out, “during the Clinton Administration the number of abortions fell significantly,” because legislation, which Republicans have generally opposed, dealt with abortion’s underlying causes.

Constitutional "Interpretation", Proper Judicial Role, Etc.

By Michael Perry

Over the years, some of the posts here at MOJ, by Rick Garnett and others, have concerned constitutional controversies (e.g., capital punishment) and the proper role of the courts--especially the proper role of SCOTUS--is resolving such controversies. I recently posted a paper at SSRN that addresses, among other, related issues, the question what it means, or should mean, to "interpret" the constitutional text. Some MOJ readers may be interested. Here's the SSRN link, where the paper can be downloaded: Perry Paper.

And here's the abstract:

Entrenching, Interpreting, and Specifying Human Rights:
Some Comments on the U.S. Constitution and Judicial Review

Michael J. Perry
Emory University School of Law; University of San Diego - School of Law

Emory Public Law Research Paper No. 08-46
San Diego Legal Studies Paper No. 08-078

Abstract:
This essay is my contribution to a symposium on originalism, to be held at the University of Western Ontario in October 2008. In the essay, I address the question What does it mean - or, at least, what should it mean - to 'interpret' the constitutional text? I then explain that one's answer to that question - even if one's answer is originalist - does not entail any particular answer to two further, distinct questions:

(1) How large a role, or how small, should the U.S. Supreme Court play in specifying - in rendering more determinate - a constitutional norm that is implicated by, but underdeterminate in the context of, one or another constitutional controversy?

(2) In resolving constitutional controversies, should the U.S. Supreme Court always proceed, at least in part, on the basis of what it believes to be the correct interpretation of the constitutional text?

I conclude this essay with a question I have addressed elsewhere, and to which I will eventually return: In specifying entrenched but contextually underdeterminate human rights norms, should the U.S. Supreme Court take the path of Thayerian deference?

Comments and questions welcome - indeed, invited.

Mirror of Justice

"If you want peace, work for justice." --Paul VI

Catholics, The Election, and Obama: Another Reflection

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US election 2008

Abortion and the Law

Election Reflections

Catholic Voters and Obama

Catholics Turned to the Democrat

Pro-life, Pro-Obama?

Why this election can’t be reduced to one issue

William J. Gould

On second thought, let me make it easy for you ...

Catholics, Abortion, the Bishops, and the Presidential Election

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Why they didn’t listen

US election 2008

Catholics Turned to the Democrat

Pro-life, Pro-Obama?

Why this election can’t be reduced to one issue

William J. Gould

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