As veteran MOJ-readers know, MOJ-bloggers are a theologically diverse group. We often disagree among ourselves--sometimes quite strongly--about one or another issue. When I read the following paragraph this morning (in a Commonweal editorial), I thought of MOJ's diversity and what a strength it is.
Yet “faithful Catholics” do in fact disagree about church teaching
regarding contraception, the ordination of women, and the nature of the
papacy, among other things. History, especially the history of the
Second Vatican Council, tells us that disagreement is often the work of
the Holy Spirit. “Perhaps one of the lessons we have learnt since the
cruel way in which the Modernists were treated a century ago,” writes
Fergus Kerr in Twentieth-Century Catholic Theologians (Blackwell), “is
that we have to live with some quite deep divisions and intractable
rifts within the Catholic Church, over morals and liturgy especially.”
R. Scott Appleby’s article on the hundredth anniversary of the
condemnation of the American Modernists (page 12), is a useful reminder
of why open and respectful disagreement is always better than its
suppression.
To read the rest of the editorial, click here.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
MOJ and Theological Diversity
Friday, September 21, 2007
The Dutch Dominicans, Revisited
From the new issue of The Tablet:
To serve and celebrate
Andre Lascaris
Four Dominican theologians have caused a furore in the Dutch Church
with their new booklet, arguing that the Church in future will have to
allow ‘inspired members of the community’ to celebrate the Eucharist.
Here, one of the authors explains their beliefs about who should preside.
Click here to read.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Required Reading, It Seems
Charles Taylor's new book, A Secular Age (Harvard 2007). Notice what Alasdair MacIntyre and Robert Bellah say, below.
Editorial Reviews
Starred Review. In his characteristically erudite yet engaging fashion, Taylor, winner of the 2007 Templeton Prize, takes up where he left off in his magnificent Sources of the Self (1989) as he brilliantly traces the emergence of secularity and the processes of secularization in the modern age. Challenging the idea that the secular takes hold in a world where religion is experienced as a loss or where religions are subtracted from the culture, Taylor discovers the secular emerging in the midst of the religious. The Protestant Reformation, with its emphasis on breaking down the invidious political structures of the Catholic Church, provides the starting point down the road to the secular age. Taylor sweeps grandly and magisterially through the 18th and 19th centuries as he recreates the history of secularism and its parallel challenges to religion. He concludes that a focus on the religious has never been lost in Western culture, but that it is one among many stories striving for acceptance. Taylor's examination of the rise of unbelief in the 19th century is alone worth the price of the book and offers an essential reminder that the Victorian age, more than the Enlightenment, dominates our present view of the meanings of secularity. Taylor's inspired combination of philosophy and history sparkles in this must-read virtuoso performance. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
Kirkus Reviews (starred review) : If the author had accomplished nothing more than a survey of the voluminous body of "secularization theory," he would have done something valuable. But, although Taylor clearly articulates his disdain for the view that modernity ineluctably led to the death of God, he goes far beyond a literature review...In addition to its conceptual value, this study is notable for its lucidity. Taylor has translated complex philosophical theories into language that any educated reader will be able to follow, yet he has not sacrificed an iota of sophistication or nuance. A magisterial book.
Publishers Weekly (starred review) : In his characteristically erudite yet engaging fashion, Taylor takes up where he left off in his magnificent Sources of the Self (1989) as he brilliantly traces the emergence of secularity and the processes of secularization in the modern age...Taylor sweeps grandly and magisterially through the 18th and 19th centuries as he recreates the history of secularism and its parallel challenges to religion. He concludes that a focus on the religious has never been lost in Western culture, but that it is one among many stories striving for acceptance. Taylor's examination of the rise of unbelief in the 19th century is alone worth the price of the book and offers an essential reminder that the Victorian age, more than the Enlightenment, dominates our present view of the meanings of secularity. Taylor's inspired combination of philosophy and history sparkles in this must-read virtuoso performance.
The Economist : One finds big nuggets of insight, useful to almost anybody with an interest in the progress of human society...A vast ideological anatomy of possible ways of thinking about the gradual onset of secularism as experienced in fields ranging from art to poetry to psychoanalysis...Taylor also lays bare the inconsistencies of some secular critiques of religion.
Review
Taylor's book is a major and highly original contribution to the debates on secularization that have been ongoing for the past century. There is no book remotely like it.
--Alasdair MacIntyre
This is Charles Taylor's breakthrough book, a book of really major importance, because he succeeds in recasting the whole debate about secularism. This is one of the most important books written in my lifetime. I am tempted to say the most important book, but that may just express the spell the book has cast over me at the moment.
--Robert N. Bellah
Book Description
What does it mean to say that we live in a secular age? Almost everyone would agree that we--in the West, at least--largely do. And clearly the place of religion in our societies has changed profoundly in the last few centuries. In what will be a defining book for our time, Charles Taylor takes up the question of what these changes mean--of what, precisely, happens when a society in which it is virtually impossible not to believe in God becomes one in which faith, even for the staunchest believer, is only one human possibility among others.
Taylor, long one of our most insightful thinkers on such questions, offers a historical perspective. He examines the development in "Western Christendom" of those aspects of modernity which we call secular. What he describes is in fact not a single, continuous transformation, but a series of new departures, in which earlier forms of religious life have been dissolved or destabilized and new ones have been created. As we see here, today's secular world is characterized not by an absence of religion--although in some societies religious belief and practice have markedly declined--but rather by the continuing multiplication of new options, religious, spiritual, and anti-religious, which individuals and groups seize on in order to make sense of their lives and give shape to their spiritual aspirations.
What this means for the world--including the new forms of collective religious life it encourages, with their tendency to a mass mobilization that breeds violence--is what Charles Taylor grapples with, in a book as timely as it is timeless.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Religious Exemptions?
This looks to be of interest: Martha Minow (Harvard Law), Should Religious Groups Be Exempt from Civil Rights Laws?
Here's the abstract:
Should a private religious university lose its tax
exempt status if it bans interracial dating? Should a religious school be able
fire a pregnant married teacher because her continued work would violate the
church's view that mothers of young children should not work outside the home?
Should a religious social service agency, such as Catholic Charities, be exempt
from a state regulation banning discrimination in the delivery of social
services on the basis of sexual orientation? Should religious organizations be
exempt from civil rights laws? This article argues that these questions raised
difficult normative issues that have been answered practically by reference to
the varying effects of historical social movements, producing the differential
treatment of race, gender, and sexual orientation laws. The article explores
avenues for negotiating solutions other than full exemptions or no exemptions.
Besides the instrumental goal of solving - or avoiding - complex political and
legal problems, this question of stance injects the dimensions of virtue ethics
and value-added negotiation. In so doing the article proposes ways to pursue
productive stances toward clashes over religious exemption claims is highly
relevant to sustaining and replenishing both American pluralism and
constitutional protections for minority groups.
And the link.
Revisiting Eduardo's Paper
I had occasion this week to re-read Eduardo's paper, which, IMHO, is terrific. I commend it to MOJ-readers.
Eduardo M. Penalver, Is Public Reason Counterproductive?
Here's the abstract:
The debate over the proper role of
religion in public life has raged on for decades and shows little signs
of slowing down. Proponents of restrictive accounts of public reason
have proceeded under the assumption that religious and deep moral
disagreement constitutes a threat to social stability that must be
tamed. In contrast to this "scary story" linking pluralism with the
threat of instability, there exists within political theory a
competing, "happy story" according to which pluralism affirmatively
contributes to stability by creating incentives for groups to moderate
their demands. Whether the scary story or happy story is a more
accurate reflection of our reality is a difficult empirical question,
but one that ought to matter a great deal to discussions of public
reason. Acting as if the scary story were true when the happy story is
in fact operating will lead proponents of public reason to stifle the
healthful effects of robust pluralism, degrading the quality of public
deliberation and ultimately undermining stability. In other words, if
the happy story turns out to be the right one, restrictive accounts of
public reason may turn out to be counterproductive, hastening the very
deliberative and social harms they aim to forestall.
And here's the link.
Monday, September 17, 2007
A Disturbing Story
New York Times
September 17, 2007
Argentine Church Faces ‘Dirty War’ Past
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
“The attitude of the church was scandalously close to the dictatorship” that killed more than 15,000 Argentines and tortured tens of thousands more, the priest told a panel of three judges here, “to such an extent that I would say it was of a sinful degree.” The panel is deciding the fate of the Rev. Christian von Wernich, a priest accused of conspiring with the military who has become for many a powerful symbol of the church’s role.
The church “was like a mother that did not look for her children,” Father Capitanio added. “It did not kill anybody, but it did not save anybody, either.”
Father Capitanio’s mea culpa came nearly a quarter century after the junta was toppled in 1983 and democracy was restored. But in some ways, it occurred at just the right time. Through the trial of Father von Wernich, Argentina is finally confronting the church’s dark past during the dirty war, when it sometimes gave its support to the military as it went after leftist opponents.
[Read the rest, here.]
Monday, September 10, 2007
Larry Solum Attacks Michael Perry!
Well, sort of.
I didn't realize, until I read Larry's blog a little while ago, that in my paper I was being uncharitable, uncivil, sarcastic. I was tempted, for a few minutes, to respond to Larry, but then I thought that I should just let the paper, and future work, speak for itself. Anyhow, here, for MOJ-readers, is the link to Larry's comments.
Some Comments from Brian Tamanaha
In the ongoing conversation about (what I call) the morality of human rights--in particular, about the question of the ground of the morality of human rights--Brian Tamanaha sent me these comments. I thought some MOJ-readers would be interested (and may themselves want to comment). Brian's reference to "Sarah" is to an (imaginary) person in my paper; I use Sarah as an example of someone with a particular worldview.
Several weeks ago I
read an extraordinary article in Time about a forthcoming book on Mother Theresa
taken from sixty or so years of correspondence with confessors and priests and
others in the Church (preserved by the Church despite her wishes that the
letters be destroyed).
Now, we can interpret
this in many different ways. The Church takes the view that her perseverance
with her mission in the face of this overwhelming doubt makes her all the more
saintly, and I tend to agree (I find her sacrifices all the more impressive).
But I don’t have anything to say about that.
I raise Mother Theresa
because I read this article in the course of the blog discussion over your
argument, and naturally I wondered what if Mother Theresa was
Sarah.
It’s just about Mother
Theresa (Sarah), her religious beliefs and her commitment to human rights: they
are all of a piece, and her commitment to the latter cannot be severed from her
unrelenting doubts about the former. This is not just a hypothetical
assertion. Apparently, owing to her doubt, Mother Theresa contemplated whether
she should give up her mission to serve the poor. To her credit, she chose to
continue with her life’s work despite her doubt (though we are not told why in
the article), but my point is that she perceived her commitments, religious
beliefs, and doubts in an integrated fashion (they were
connected).
Going back to your
argument—I get it. I understand everything you assert below, and if the only
question is whether belief in human dignity can be planted in a more
foundational set of beliefs, then you are correct that religion provides a
better grounding for human rights than an atheist has to
offer.
But if we think about
Mother Theresa (Sarah), her complex of beliefs and her doubts, your narrow focus
strikes me as artificially constrained in a way that screens out the very core
of what matters to her has a person who is committed to human rights. Mother
Theresa (Sarah) is fraught with doubt about her religious beliefs, and this
doubt inevitably touches (infects, penetrates) whatever they serve to ground
(including belief in inherent human dignity).
Until your argument
accounts for this, in my view it will be correct in a very narrow sense that
fails to account for the integrity and interconnectedness of human belief
systems. Or to put it more forthrightly: you are right that religion provides a
superior grounding for inherent human dignity, but not in a sense that really
matters.
Religion in Prison
New York Times
September 10, 2007
Prisons Purging Books on Faith From Libraries
Laurie Goodtsien
Behind the walls of federal prisons nationwide, chaplains have been quietly carrying out a systematic purge of religious books and materials that were once available to prisoners in chapel libraries.
The chaplains were directed by the Bureau of Prisons to clear the shelves of any books, tapes, CDs and videos that are not on a list of approved resources. In some prisons, the chaplains have recently dismantled libraries that had thousands of texts collected over decades, bought by the prisons, or donated by churches and religious groups.
Some inmates are outraged. Two of them, a Christian and an Orthodox Jew, in a federal prison camp in upstate New York, filed a class-action lawsuit last month claiming the bureau’s actions violate their rights to the free exercise of religion as guaranteed by the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Traci Billingsley, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Prisons, said the agency was acting in response to a 2004 report by the Office of the Inspector General in the Justice Department. The report recommended steps that prisons should take, in light of the Sept. 11 attacks, to avoid becoming recruiting grounds for militant Islamic and other religious groups. The bureau, an agency of the Justice Department, defended its effort, which it calls the Standardized Chapel Library Project, as a way of barring access to materials that could, in its words, “discriminate, disparage, advocate violence or radicalize.”
[Read the rest, here.]
Elizabeth Brown on the Dutch Dominicans
MOJ-friend and University of St. Thomas law prof Elizabeth Brown has this to contribute to the discussion of what the Dutch Dominicans are recommending:
Everyone is relying on the description by The Tablet of what "Kerk en Ambt" says. If one goes to the Dutch Dominicans website (here), one might realize that The Tablet's summary is a bit flawed. I don't speak Dutch. So the following comments are based on a very rough translation of the news release into English. I have not read "Kerk en Ambt" because it is not available online. One can buy it from the publisher, www.valkhofpers.nl
The news release explains that they drafted "Kerk en Ambt" to begin a discussion about allowing more communion services led by lay ministers in the Netherlands because of the severe priest shortage. The news release notes that, even with the closure of many parishes in the Netherlands, Dutch priests frequently have to say Mass at multiple parishes. As a result, the priests are frustrated because they are viewed as outsiders by the parishioners because the parishioners so rarely see them. The news release seems to indicate that, even with priests saying Masses at multiple parishes, some parishes still lack priests to say Mass on Sunday.
The news release indicates that the Dominicans are proposing that a lay minister or lay ministers (voorganger, which means anyone entitled to lead a religious service) be choosen by a congregation and then APPROVED BY THE BISHOP. The news release states that these lay ministers would not need to be limited to only those who meet the requirements for being a priest and gives the example that the lay ministers wouldn't need to be celibate. In The Tablet article, it seems to quote from "Kerk en Ambt" on the same point with a statement that indicates that the lay ministers could be men or women, homosexual or heterosexual, married or single as long as they were faithful Catholics. What the Dominicans are proposing appears to me to be the same as the current standards for a lay minister set forth in the guidelines issued by the Catholic Church for "Sunday Celebrations in the Absence of a Priest."
These lay ministers would be allowed to lead the congregation in a communion service only when NO PRIEST was available. The news release indicated that some parishes in the Netherlands already hold communion services, which are led by someone appointed by the bishop or by a volunteer, but that such services are discouraged in the Netherlands.
It is not clear to me (perhaps because the translation is so rough) to what extent, if any, the types of services that the Dominicans are proposing would differ from the types of communion services led by lay ministers already being done in the Netherlands. From what I can tell, the only "radical" part of their proposal is that communion services led by a lay minister should be used much more widely in the Netherlands then they currently are.
It seems like what the Dominicans are proposing is what was done when I lived in Saudi Arabia. The complete absence of priests to say Mass on Sunday was the normal condition for Catholics in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia in the late 1970s and early 1980s when my parents and I lived there. Saudi Arabia did not and still does not allow Christians to openly practice their religion. When we lived there, a Filipino priest, who pretended to be an ordinary laborer to get a visa, would visit once every 3-4 months. He would leave enough consecrated hosts so that the local Catholics could meet on Sunday, read the Mass prayers, and receive Communion from the hosts already consecrated by the priest. (Keeping the consecrated hosts for 3-4 months did create a dilemma about whether it was OK to put them in the refrigerator or freezer so that they would not go stale or moldy in the Saudi heat.)
This type of service strikes me as little different from what the
Dominican booklet is proposing from the description in the Dominicans press
release. In both cases, the congregation would only be taking these steps
because no priests were available to say Mass. The major difference between
the two circumstances is the reason for the lack of priests. In Saudi
Arabia, the government banned priests from the country and in the
Netherlands, the lack of vocations and, perhaps Dutch limits on foreign
immigration, have led to a severe shortage of priests that is forcing the
closing of parishes
throughout the country.
Given my experiences in Saudi Arabia, I don't think allowing lay congregations to say the Mass prayers when no priest is available is such an outrageous suggestion as long as one is also doing what one can to address the causes of the priest shortage.
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