by Frank Brennan, S.J.
Fr. Brennan, a professor of law at Australian Catholic University, quotes, along the way, both Notre Dame law and theology prof Cathy Kaveny and MOJ's own Rob Vischer, here.
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
"How the Catholic Church can better promote a culture of life"
Do "Republicans Have a Pope Francis Problem"?
Consider what Catholic moral theologian Charles Carmosy, of Fordham University, has to say, here.
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
St. Francis, Radical for Love
by Charled Reid, University of St. Thomas School of Law[
[Crossposted at ReligiousLeftLaw.]
In today's world, there is perhaps no more familiar or more comforting saint than the medieval mendicant St. Francis of Assisi. Catholics and non-Catholics alike hold him in reverence and awe. What is it about the actual, historical St. Francis that drives such an enthusiastic response eight centuries after his death? For surely there is not another saint in Christendom who commands such devotion.
In truth, few more radical individuals have ever walked the earth. St. Francis, like no one before or since, captured the essence of what it meant to follow the example of Jesus Christ. Jesus, of course, commanded the impossible. He ordered his followers to love one another without limit or precondition. Whatever stands in the way of our love must be removed. If there is a boundary or barrier to be overcome, we must overcome it. Sacrifice, always and everywhere, for the good of others. Sacrifice, offered in full rejoicing at the opportunity to expend ourselves totally for our neighbor's well-being. Jesus commanded and St. Francis, more than any other human being, attempted to fulfill this simple yet unachievable demand.
When St. Francis broke with his father, who had hoped he would enter the world of business and commerce, he stripped naked in the town square of Assisi, handing back his clothes to the befuddled older man. When Brother Ruffino, of noble descent and one of Francis's first followers, hesitated to preach, Francis commanded him to preach naked. Side-by-side before the assembled congregants, these two naked men denounced pride and pretense in the name of utter humility. When you stand naked before God and man, after all, you kill the old self, the self-important vainglorious self, and become totally transparent to the world.
Friday, March 8, 2013
"Can Any Good Come of It?"
University of St. Thomas law prof Charles Reid addresses that question in his inaugural post at ReligiousLeftLaw, here.
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Are you a "Communion Catholic"? Or a "Kingdom Catholic"?
Or none of the above? Read and decide: E.J. Dionne, Polarization, Church and Country.
What am I? Well, this time of year, I must confess, I am--unlike Rick G., unlike my dear son Daniel, unlike some of my Emory colleagues and students--I am an ABD: Anybody But Duke! Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa ...
Saturday, March 2, 2013
An Amicus Brief in the "Gay Marriage" Cases
MOJ's own Tom Berg, along with Douglas Laycock (University of Virginia School of Law) and Marc Stern (American Jewish Committee), on behalf of the American Jewish Committee, have submitted an amicus brief to SCOTUS in Hollingsworth v. Perry (the Prop 9 case) and USA v. Windsor (the DOMA case). The brief makes a strong plea for protecting religious liberty in the context of the legalization of same-sex marriage. The brief also argues:
"In Perry, wholly excluding same-sex couples from civil marriage deprives them of a fundamental right. And as implausible as it is to explain civil marriage in terms of protecting children, it is even more implausible to use children to explain the difference between civil marriage and a civil union that would — if it were sufficiently well understood to be enforceable as a practical matter — confer all the same rights as civil marriage. If the Court prefers to proceed cautiously, deciding one case at a time, it should affirm the judgment in Perry on the narrow ground stated by the Court of Appeals. The Court should not reverse on the merits. To do so would be wrong, for the reasons we have stated; it would also be unstable. In the area of same-sex relationships, where public understanding of the underlying facts is rapidly changing, the Court cannot reach a stable constitutional resolution by broadly rejecting constitutional claims. The last time it attempted to do so, in Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186 (1986), it overruled the decision just seventeen years later, and parts of the Bowers opinions are now a permanent embarrassment in the United States Reports. The Court should not repeat its Bowers mistake in these cases."
The brief is available here: Download Marriage Cases AJC Brief Final.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
"Could the Next Pope Learn from Benedict?"
[That's the subtitle. The title: "Shock Therapy". Written by Peter Steinfels, former editor of Commonweal and former religion editor of the New York Times.]
By resigning, Pope Benedict served the church well. He has spared it another prolonged period of mounting disarray. He has "humanized" the papacy, as Joseph Komonchak and others have pointed out. He has jolted the church into allowing that something generally considered unthinkable for centuries is really not beyond doing after all. And he has set the stage for his successor to do likewise.
That is important. The Catholic Church needs shock therapy. True, among the world's 1.2 billion Catholics, millions of saints are leading lives of prayer and charity so ardent, brave, sacrificial, creative, and enduring that they bring tears to normal eyes. They are the best of us—and then there are the rest of us. Except in parts of Africa, the much-heralded growth of Catholicism is simply in line with the growth in population—or not even that. Latin American Catholics are increasingly turning to Pentecostalism or drifting away from religious practice and affiliation altogether, although not yet to the extent occurring in Europe and North America. It would be comforting to think that what might be lost in numbers is being gained in depth, but as Catholic identity, floundering in a sea of alternative visions, weakens from generation to generation, that seems unlikely.
The church needs shock treatment, and until the mini-shock of his resignation, Benedict, to the relief of many, did not seem like the man to administer it. Ratzinger, yes; Benedict, no. What shocks have come during his papacy were usually by blunder rather than intention. Evaluations of his tenure have balanced the pros and cons of his deeds according to the lights of the balancer. What is still untallied, except for his failure to unmistakably demand accountability in regard to clerical sexual abuse, is what has remained undone. Underlying conditions like the limitations, in numbers, quality, and age, of the clergy or the massively eroding credibility of church teachings on sexuality are no better than when he took office in 2005. Much of the hierarchy deludes itself with slogans in search of substance like “The New Evangelization,” or rationalizes inaction with the familiar alibi, “The church works in centuries.” In fact, history teaches that the church often suffers for centuries from its failure to act during critical passages.
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
File under "Interesting Developments"
It is reported in the NYT this morning (here) that "Republicans Sign Brief in Support of Gay Marriage". One of those Republicans is former Utah governor--and also former, and possibly future, presidential candidate--Jon Huntsman. In an article published just last week in The American Conservative (here), Governor Huntsman wrote:
"While serving as governor of Utah, I pushed for civil unions and expanded reciprocal benefits for gay citizens. I did so not because of political pressure—indeed, at the time 70 percent of Utahns were opposed—but because as governor my role was to work for everybody, even those who didn’t have access to a powerful lobby. Civil unions, I believed, were a practical step that would bring all citizens more fully into the fabric of a state they already were—and always had been—a part of.
That was four years ago. Today we have an opportunity to do more: conservatives should start to lead again and push their states to join the nine others that allow all their citizens to marry. I’ve been married for 29 years. My marriage has been the greatest joy of my life. There is nothing conservative about denying other Americans the ability to forge that same relationship with the person they love.
All Americans should be treated equally by the law, whether they marry in a church, another religious institution, or a town hall. This does not mean that any religious group would be forced by the state to recognize relationships that run counter to their conscience. Civil equality is compatible with, and indeed promotes, freedom of conscience.
Marriage is not an issue that people rationalize through the abstract lens of the law; rather it is something understood emotionally through one’s own experience with family, neighbors, and friends. The party of Lincoln should stand with our best tradition of equality and support full civil marriage for all Americans."
Sunday, February 17, 2013
"A Reply to My Critics" -- Chuck Reid
[University of St. Thomas law prof Chuck Reid has asked me to post this statement, and I am happy to do so.]
In my abortion columns written over the last five months, I have made it clear that I do not disagree in principle with the propositions that life begins at conception and that it is deserving of legal protection. My quarrels have been, rather, with the political strategies of the pro-life movement, as it has evolved over the last four decades.
Many readers have noticed this. A commenter on one my Huffington Post columns observed (I paraphrase): Reid's proposal to cooperate on a shared agenda with the left to reduce the rate of abortion is probably the only way forward for the pro-life movement. But this observer, who acknowledged that he/she was pro-choice, continued by noting that the pro-life movement would never follow. And then there were the editors at the Italian newspaper, La Stampa, who profiled my work in an article entitled "Changing Strategy on the Culture of Life." The editors certainly understood my work to speak to strategy, not principle. So, let's be clear upfront, my concern is centered in the world of prudential judgment, it is a matter of how to succeed given today's political realities. It is not an argument over first principles. As I have made very clear, the pro-life movement should be about saving lives in the here and now.
I have known women who have experienced the tragedy of abortion. There was the Jewish woman who received the grim news early in her pregnancy that her child was anacephalic -- developing without a head. The child could be expected to survive no more than a few hours post partum, if that. She was devastated and looked to the teachings of her faith which made it clear to her lights that abortion was recommended in such extreme cases to limit needless suffering. And then there were the Catholic women, several of them, I became acquainted with during my service as a matrimonial judge. None of them wanted to have an abortion. But they were lonely, desperate, their spirits crushed by boyfriends and families who abandoned them. Alone, lacking financial and emotional resources, they chose a solution for which they were truly sorry but which seemed inevitable at the time.
These vivid life experiences have taught me that the common denominator to the choice to have an abortion is desperation. I have yet to meet a woman who chose abortion to satisfy some desire for greater material resources. I am sure there are some who decide that they will never get that Mercedes Benz if they have a hungry mouth to feed, but those women are few in number. Desperation, hopelessness, a fear of being left alone in the world without means of assuming the responsibilities of childcare -- these are the great causes of abortion. Individual pro-lifers, and organizations such as pro-life pregnancy centers to which individuals devote their time, have recognized this, to their great credit. But the political strategy of the pro-life movement has failed to recognize it, and indeed increasingly stands in the way of it.
Thursday, February 7, 2013
The Contraception Mandate and Religious Liberty
INTERVIEW
February 1, 2013
On Feb. 1, 2013, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) proposed new rules that would exempt certain religious organizations, including houses of worship, schools and hospitals, from a new mandate to offer free contraception services to women employees. The new regulations would instead require the nonprofits’ health-insurance providers to offer and pay for contraceptive services. The new proposal is the latest step in a controversy that first arose in 2010, with the enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The contraception mandate has been the subject of much debate and the object of many lawsuits (read more about public opinion on the birth control insurance mandate). To help explain what today’s announcement might mean for the debate, the Pew Forum asked Professors Ira C. Lupu and Robert Tuttle of The George Washington University Law School to discuss the new rules and the possible outcome of the legal challenges to them.
[Here is the interview.]
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