Alas, in his post below, on the essay about Jacques Maritain, Rick failed to quote the most important paragraph of the essay--the final paragraph. Here it is:
Maritain returned for a last visit to the
United States in 1966 to say farewell to old friends and to visit the
grave of his sister-in-law Vera buried in Princeton. At the same time
he went to see others, one of whom was the poet and monk Thomas Merton.
The latter regaled him with recordings of Bob Dylan, "whom he [Merton]
considers a great poet, a modern Villon. What a strange scene it is,"
writes the friend accompanying Maritain, "listening in the monastery of
Gethsemani to the hard and expressive voice of a young rebel poet.
Jacques likes 'The Gates of Heaven' especially." (This is probably a
mistaken reference to "Gates of Eden.") It is with such an appealing
image, which seems to unite so many of the seemingly clashing facets of
Maritain's remarkable personality, that we can best grasp the secret of
his astonishing career.
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Friday, March 17, 2006
Rick Garnett's Oversight
Catholic legal scholar (and colleague at St. Thomas to Tom Berg and Rob Vischer) Teresa Collett has been involved in a very interesting discussion this week over at Legal Affairs. Check it out by clicking here. Here's the set up:
DEBATE CLUB 3/13/06
Parent-Free Abortion?
Kimberly Mutcherson and Teresa S. Collett debate.
Laws
requiring that young women notify or get the consent of their parents
before ending pregnancies are fiercely debated on the perimeter of the
controversy about the constitutional right to abortion. Supported in
the landmark case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey
in 1992, these limits either reduce abortion rates or not, depending on
the study, but whatever their statistical effect the laws implicate
personal rights.
Should parents have the right to prevent their daughters from having abortions?
Kimberly Mutcherson is an Associate Professor of Law at Rutgers School of Law in Camden. Teresa S. Collett is Professor of Law at the University of St. Thomas School of Law.
Tuesday, March 7, 2006
God Speaks
The Guardian
March 8, 2006
God: "I've lost faith in Blair"
All the signs are that the Almighty is unhappy about efforts to implicate Him in the attack on Iraq
Terry Jones [of Monty Python]
A
high-level leak has revealed that God is "furious" at Tony Blair's
attempts to implicate him in the bombing of Iraq. Sources close to the
archangel Gabriel report him as describing the Almighty as "hopping mad
... with sanctimonious yet unscrupulous politicians claiming He would
condone their bestial activities when He has no way of going public
Himself, owing to the MMW agreement" (a reference to the
long-established Moving in Mysterious Ways concordat).
Mr Blair
went public about God on Michael Parkinson's TV show. "If you have
faith about these things," he said, "then you realise that judgment is
made by other people. If you believe in God, it's made by God as well."
As is customary with Mr Blair's statements, it's rather hard to tease
out what he is actually saying; but the gist is clearly that if God
didn't actually tell him to bomb Iraq, then the Almighty would
certainly agree it was the right thing to do.
"If Tony Blair
thinks his friendship with George W Bush is worth rubbing out a couple
of hundred thousand Iraqi men, women and children, then that's
something he can talk over with me later," said God. "But when he
starts publicly claiming that's the way I do the arithmetic too, it's
time I put my foot down!" It is well known that God has a very big foot.
A
source says Gabriel has spent days trying to dissuade the Almighty from
loosing a plague of toads upon the Blair family. Gabriel reminded God
that Cherie and the children had nothing to do with Tony's decisions.
God's response, it is reliably reported, was: "Blair says the Iraqis
are lucky to have got bombed, so how can he complain if his family gets
a few toads in the bath?"
The archangel is said to be ticked off with God's ability to provide glib answers without even thinking.
What
has particularly incensed the Almighty is that Mr Blair made the claim
on the Parkinson show. "If he'd done it on Richard and Judy I could
have forgiven a lot," He is reported to have said.
The archangel
reported that the Almighty has become increasingly irritated with the
vogue for politicians to claim that He is behind their policies -
especially if these involve killing large numbers of humans. According
to Gabriel, God spake these words: "That George W Bush once had the
nerve to say: 'God told me to go end the tyranny in Iraq, and I did.'
Well, let me tell you I did no such thing! If I'd wanted to get rid of
Saddam Hussein, I could have given him pneumonia. I didn't need the
president of the United States to send in hundreds of heavy bombers and
thousands of missiles to destroy Iraq - even though I appreciate that
Halliburton needed to fill its order books."
"How do Bush and
Blair think it makes me look to all those parents who have lost sons
and daughters in this grubby business? Don't they know that the Muslims
they're taking out worship the same Me that they do? It's a public
relations disaster that ought to set Christianity back hundreds of
years. Though knowing the fundamentalists, it'll probably have the
reverse effect."
The archangel further revealed that he had been
advised by no less a person than Alastair Campbell to warn God to keep
out of politics. "But it's hard to get God to do anything He doesn't
want to," sighed the archangel. "It's all to do with what He calls
'free will', though a lot of us have a problem working that one out,
since He's omnipotent and omniscient."
God, the archangel says,
is also disturbed by Mr Blair's remark that while religious beliefs
might colour his politics, "it's best not to take it too far".
"How would he like it if I went round claiming that he gave me his full backing when I sent the tsunami last year?"
Terry Jones is a film director, actor and Python
www.terry-jones.net
Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited
Still more on Daniel Dennett on God
John Haldane, the highly respected philosopher at the University of St. Andrew's in Scotland, reviews Daniel Dennett's book on religion in this week's COMMONWEAL (3/10/06). (Haldane, as it happens, is Roman Catholic.) Well worth your time. Click here.
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Terri Schiavo and End-of-Life Decisions
An excellent piece appears in this week's COMMONWEAL (3/10/06): Paul Lauritzen, Caring at the End: How the Schiavo Case Undermined Catholic Teaching. To read the whole piece, click here. The concluding paragraphs follow:
Thus, to say that removing a feeding tube from a PVS patient is necessarily to aim at death is to conflate human action and natural events. It is to fail to recognize that dying is commonly associated biologically with a natural inability to eat or drink. If we do not conflate human and natural causality, it is perfectly sensible to say that a person suffering from a severe brain injury who cannot eat or drink is in fact dying, even if we can intervene and postpone that dying for years. Not starting or stopping artificial nutrition and hydration in such a case is not necessarily to aim at death, though one could intend death in such circumstances.
To conclude otherwise, it seems to me, is to succumb to a sort of hubris that repudiates any natural limits on human action. Callahan has captured the irony of this situation perfectly. “In the name of the sanctity of life, many who would consider themselves conservative and supporters of traditional religious values are forced into a slavery to medical possibilities, held in thrall by the false gods of technology.” The irony is particularly striking in relation to the Catholic commentators (Meilaender is not Catholic) who appear to adopt the Promethean attitude toward human embodiment and finitude that the tradition has long rejected.
There was a time when it would have been possible for Catholic writers, with the full weight of magisterial teaching behind them, to say that a life lived in a state of permanent unconsciousness with no apparent hope for a spiritual or social life was a terrible prospect, one that no person was obligated to embrace. In traditional Catholic teaching about the end of life, letting nature take its course in such a case made sense, not because such a life was regarded as worthless, but because in such a circumstance we confront the limits of human powers in the face of human vulnerability.
Both the view that providing nutrition and hydration
for PVS patients is morally obligatory, and the position that providing
a feeding tube is a form of care and not treatment, represent a shift
in Catholic teaching. Understandably, commentators who have noted this
shift have sought to downplay its significance, perhaps hoping that the
change will be confined to cases involving persistent vegetative
states. My own view, though, is that the changes are much more profound
than anyone has acknowledged. They threaten to dismantle not simply
Catholic teaching on end-of-life issues but much of Catholic moral
theology generally. When natural constraints on human actions are
treated so cavalierly, when what we can technically do appears to
determine what we ought to do, the wisdom of the tradition that
recognizes the goodness of our embodied existence and the fact that
mere existence is not an ultimate good, seems to have been lost. If the
ordeal of the Terri Schiavo case helps us to recognize the possibility
of such a loss, it will not have been in vain.
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mp
Monday, March 6, 2006
Conservative Judaism and Same-Sex Unions
Conservative Jews to Consider Ending a Ban on Same-Sex Unions and Gay Rabbis
In a closed-door meeting this week in an undisclosed site near Baltimore, a committee of Jewish legal experts who set policy for Conservative Judaism will consider whether to lift their movement's ban on gay rabbis and same-sex unions.
In 1992, this same group, the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, declared that Jewish law clearly prohibited commitment ceremonies for same-sex couples and the admission of openly gay people to rabbinical or cantorial schools. The vote was 19 to 3, with one abstention.
Since then, Conservative Jewish leaders say, they have watched as relatives, congregation members and even fellow rabbis publicly revealed their homosexuality. Students at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City, the movement's flagship, began wearing buttons saying "Ordination Regardless of Orientation." Rabbis performed same-sex commitment ceremonies despite the ban.
The direction taken by Conservative Jews, who occupy the centrist position in Judaism between the more liberal Reform and the more strict Orthodox, will be closely watched at a time when many Christian denominations are torn over the same issue. Conservative Judaism claims to distinguish itself by adhering to Jewish law and tradition, or halacha, while bending to accommodate modern conditions.
"This is a very difficult moment for the movement," said Rabbi Joel H. Meyers, a nonvoting member of the law committee and executive vice president of the Rabbinical Assembly, which represents the movement's 1,600 rabbis worldwide.
[To read the whole article, which is quite interesting, click here.]
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mp
Of Interest to Some MOJ-Readers ...
"Ghost Prisoners and Black Sites: Extraordinary Rendition Under
International Law"
Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law, 2006
BY: LEILA N. SADAT
Washington University School of Law
Document: Available from the SSRN Electronic Paper Collection:
http://papers.ssrn.com/paper.taf?abstract_id=886377
Paper ID: Washington U. School of Law Working Paper No. 06-02-01
Contact: LEILA N. SADAT
Email: Mailto:[email protected]
Postal: Washington University School of Law
Campus Box 1120
St. Louis, MO 63130 UNITED STATES
Phone: 314-935-6411
Fax: 314-935-5356
ABSTRACT:
This Essay examines the contentions of U.S. government lawyers
that the U.S. should abandon the provisions of the Geneva
Conventions in favor of a de novo legal regime that would govern
the capture, detention, treatment and trial of enemy prisoners
taken in the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), whether captured in
the U.S. or abroad. In particular, it examines the question of
extraordinary rendition - transferring detainees abroad for
detention and interrogation either from the United States, on
behalf of the United States, or from occupied Iraq. Although the
numbers of prisoners rendered abroad has been relatively few,
the covert nature of the operations, and the allegations of
prisoner mistreatment raise very troubling questions about the
wisdom and the legality of the U.S. rendition program. It
concludes that extraordinary rendition is not permissible under
existing, applicable and well-established norms of international
law. Additionally, because renditions are carried out in secret,
employ extralegal means, and often result in prisoner abuse,
including cruel treatment, torture, and sometimes death - they
appear to be emblematic of the larger human rights concerns that
trouble many of the detention and interrogation practices
employed by the U.S. government since September 11, 2001. Of
particular concern is that rather than explicitly amending the
law or articulating clear, narrowly tailored justifications for
derogating from the law, derogations that would presumably be
temporary and specific, such as the derogations permitted under
international human rights treaties, government officials have
sought to redefine legal norms in an exceptional burst of
�executive activism� in ways that are neither particularly
plausible or persuasive. This use of legal subterfuge is deeply
troubling in and of itself, as well as in regards to it
potentially harmful consequences. Finally, the Essay questions
the efficacy, as well as the wisdom, of these extralegal
policies.
Sunday, March 5, 2006
Didn't John Paul II Oppose the American War in Iraq?
Why did he oppose it? For a partial, visual answer, click here.
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mp
Saturday, March 4, 2006
Wieseltier on Dennett con't ...
New York Times
March 5, 2006
In the Blogs
Responses to the Review of 'Breaking the Spell'
In this week's Book Review, philosopher Daniel Dennett writes to protest Leon Wieseltier's strongly critical review of his book "Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon," in which Dennett uses evolutionary theory to explain how religious belief took root in the human mind, how it evolved, whether it's really good for us, and if it isn't how we can get rid of it. But Wieseltier's review also prompted heated conversation in the blogosphere, with one blogger calling it "a kind of political/theological Rorschach test" in a time of passionate debate over the proper relationship between science and religion.
At Leiter Reports, University of Texas philosophy professor Brian Leiter challenges Wieseltier's "sneering" dismissal of the idea that science can shed some light on all aspects of human life. "'The view that science can explain all human conditions and expressions, mental as well as physical' is not a 'superstition' but a reasonable methodological posture to adopt based on the actual evidence, that is, based on the actual expanding success of the sciences . . . during the last hundred years," writes Leiter.
Silly Humans, Three Quarks Daily and The Secular Outpost offer more criticism in the same vein, with Silly Humans taking aim in particular at Wieseltier's accusations that Dennett is guilty of "scientism." "Scientism," writes Silly Humans' Michael Bains, is "the ultimate meme. It is insanely inane since it ignores the fact that Science is only a method for revealing the material workings of reality. Since it misdefines what science is, it says absolutely nothing about it." While generally sympathetic to Dennett, Chris Mooney at the Intersection takes issue with some of Dennett's own language, in particular his "unfortunate idea" of labeling religious nonbelievers "brights," which he floated in an op-ed in the Times in 2003.
Wieseltier finds some strong defenders at National Review Online's The Corner, though opinion is hardly unanimous. Meanwhile over at Right Reason ("the Weblog for Philosophical Conservatism"), Steve Burton "reluctantly" offers "one cheer" for Dennett. "While it's true that an evolutionary account of the origin of a belief cannot, strictly speaking, refute that belief," he writes, "it can still prove deeply disillusioning. And I think that's all Dennett is going for here." So why only one cheer? Once the Judeo-Christian foundations of values like democracy, justice and love wither away, Burton writes, the evolutionary foundation that Dennett and others propose may just wither away as well. "I fear that in Darwinist hands these ideals will come off looking like the merest tissue of fraud and delusion."
Unsurprisingly, the review drew the interest of partisans in the ongoing battle over Intelligent Design. At Intelligent Design the Future,
a blog by Michael Behe, William Dembski and other supporters of
Intelligent Design, Jonathan Witt cites Wieseltier's review with
apparent approval, though he criticizes the Times more generally for
being "under a Darwin spell." Meanwhile, various bloggers are buzzing
about a testy email exchange last month between Dennett and Michael Ruse,
a fellow Darwinian who has been strongly critical of Dennett and others
he sees as being needlessly antagonistic toward religion. In the
exchange (which Ruse forwarded to William Dembski), Dennett wonders
whether the Book Review is "under the spell of the Darwin dreaders,"
adding "I'm afraid you are being enlisted on the side of the forces of
darkness." Ruse counters that Dennett and zoologist Richard Dawkins,
another forceful critic of religion, are "absolute disasters in the
fight against intelligent design," a battle he says the Darwinians are
"losing." Stay tuned for the next round of debate in September, when
Dawkins publishes his own book on religion, "The God Delusion."
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mp
Thursday, March 2, 2006
Robby George's Invitation
Robby writes, in his post below:
"Let's together give a ringing
affirmation of the Church's teachings on torture, capital punishment,
abortion, and marriage and sexual morality."
The Church's official teaching on "sexual morality" holds, inter alia, that it is immoral for anyone *either* to engage in any species of sex act that of its nature ("inherently") cannot be procreative (e.g., oral sex) *or* to engage in any deliberately contracepted sex act with the intention of preventing the act from being procreative.
This teaching lacks credibility for most Catholics in the United States--and, I think, with good reason: I concur in the judgment of many Catholic theologians that this teaching is seriously mistaken. (The theological literature on this is enormous.)
Now, I know Robby disagrees with me about this, but that Robby disagrees doesn't begin to explain why he would issue an invitation that includes the Church's teaching on "sexual morality". After all, Robby *knows* that very many of us cannot in conscience affirm that teaching. So I am struggling to discern what Robby is trying to accomplish in issuing the invitation he did. Robby?
Michael Perry
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