Recently I was reading "Living City," a magazine published by the Focolare Movement. (Thanks Amy!) The special issue was dedicated to the life of that movement's founder, Chiara Lubich. One thing that struck me was Chiara's method of study. "Spring, 1944, Chiara was tutoring her friend Doriana in preparation for a philosophy exam. Doriana had described it: 'Chiara's method was to love each individual author by attempting to understand and follow their line of thought.'"
Friday, June 27, 2008
A Method of Study
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Chastity and the Enchantment of Life
Ron Rolheiser writes (click for the full essay):
… Today, in Western culture, chastity is generally seen as naiveté, timidity, frigidity, lack of nerve, being uptight, as an innocence to be pitied. … At best, it is seen as an impractical ideal, at worst, as something to be pitied or ridiculed. This is not progress. Why?
Because, in the end, chastity is partially the key to everything: joy, family, love, community, and even the full enjoyment of sex. When a society is chaste, family can happen; when a family is chaste, it will find joy in its everyday life; when lovers are chaste, they will experience the full ecstasy of sex; when a church is chaste, it will experience the Holy Spirit. The reverse is also true. Chaos, joylessness, division, erotic numbness, and hardness of heart are generally a fault in chastity. To say this, though, implies a certain understanding of chastity. What is chastity?
Generally we identify chastity with a certain sexual reticence or simply with celibacy. This is too narrow. To be chaste does not mean that one does not have sex, nor does it imply that one is a prude. My parents were two of the most chaste persons I ever met, yet they obviously enjoyed sex, of which a large family and a warm vivacious bond between them gave ample evidence.
Chastity, at its root, is not primarily even a sexual concept, though given the power and urgency of sex, faults in chastity often are within the area of sexuality. Chastity has to do with all experiencing. It is about the appropriateness and maturity of any experience, sex included. Chastity is reverence and all sin, in the end, is irreverence.
To be chaste is to experience people, things, places, entertainment, the phases of one’s life, life’s opportunities, and sex, in a way that does not violate them or ourselves. Chastity means to experience things reverently, so that the experience of them leaves both them and ourselves more, not less, integrated. Thus, I am chaste when I relate to others in a way that does not violate their moral, psychological, emotional, sexual, or aesthetic contours. I am chaste when I do not let irreverence or impatience ruin what is gift, when I let life, others, and sex, be fully what they are. Conversely, I lack chastity when I transgress boundaries prematurely or irreverently, or when I violate anything so as to somehow reduce its full gift.
Chastity is respect and reverence. The fruits of that are integration, gratitude, and joy. Lack of chastity is irreverence. The fruits of that are disintegration, bitterness, and cynicism (all infallible signs of the lack of chastity).
Allan Bloom, the famed educator, speaking purely as a secular observer, without any religious angle whatsoever, already twenty years ago affirmed that lack of chastity in our culture, particularly among the young, is perhaps the deepest cause of unhappiness and flatness in our lives. He submits that lack of chastity has, paradoxically, robbed us of deep passion and rendered us erotically lame. We have, he asserts, experienced too much, too soon. We have sophisticated ourselves into boredom and unhappiness. We have been to too many places and done too many things before we were ready for them. The result is that we have stripped life, romance, love, and sex of their mysteries and their capacity to enchant us. We have, through lack of chastity, de-sacralized our experience and robbed it of its capacity to enchant the soul. …
Wise words, it seems to me. HT: Maria Ruiz Scaperlanda
A Response to Eduardo
Thank you Eduardo for your response to my post. If I understand your question correctly, my answer is "no." If no one in our mythical society had ever contemplated abortion, there would be no need for the law to condemn the practice. Similarly, if the culture contemplated but rejected abortion such that no one or nearly no one in the culture engaged in the intentional killing of unborn children, there would, in my opinion, be no need for a legal condemnation. Does this answer the question, or have I missed something?
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
"The Priority of Reducing Abortions"
In this post, Amy says: "As a group I think we have the capacity to bring a significant contribution to the positive articulation of how CST might inform an approach to political life." I wholeheartedly agree.
Amy then mentions "the priority of reducing abortions." My question, to no one in particular, is this: Is the sole goal of the pro-life movement to reduce the numbers of abortion? I think not. In a response to this post at Vox Nova, A Little Shy says:
I want to make a narrow, limited point, and not a partisan or even particularly political one; everyone else can have a happy time discussing how to vote and how a given politician’s record ought to be evaluated.
But it needs to be clearly stated that the abortion issue, for Catholics, is not only about the number of abortions.
Obviously, that number is of critical importance and needs to be weighted very heavily. But the fact of the matter is that even if there were zero abortions, a law allowing abortion would remain an unjust law, a threat to the rule of law itself, a teacher of evil and distorter of conscience, a cause of scandal that can lead to spiritual death and a profound assault on the common good.
Regardless of whose political dogma it may be, it is also the clear teaching of the Holy Catholic Church, articulated both in the Catechism and at length in the encyclical Evangelium Vitae, which goes so far as to call conscientious objection to such laws a grave obligation.
It is about the numbers. But it is also about the law.
MOJ friend and alum, Prof. John Breen, puts it this way in "John Paul II, The Structures of Sin, and the Limits of the Law," 52 St. Louis U. L. J. 317, 345 n.182: "[A] society composed of perfectly just individuals would still suffer from injustice if any one of its laws repudiated the principles of justice. Indeed, this would be true even if the unjust law in question did not affect the conduct of those whom it governed. ... a state hat enacted a statute that permitted whites to enslave non-whites would be unjust even if no one attempted to practice slavery. That is, even if the law was in effect a dead- letter -- the role rhetorical remnant of a racist past long forgotten 0 it would still impair the full realization of justice in the society by continuing to teach the superiority of some individuals over others. Indeed, for the state to continue to exercise its teaching capacity in this manner -- the official state endorsement of injustice -- would harm the common good, even if the message was ignored by everyone."
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
A Sad End to Dialogue?
It is with great sadness that I announce that Michael P. and I will not be leading a MOJ dialogue on sexual ethics. Sexual ethics – especially same-sex relationships – seem to be an important point of disagreement among some of the authors of MOJ (as well as the broader Church and culture), and I thought such a discussion could be fruitful at many levels, including modeling constructive dialogue on delicate issues, subjecting leading authorities and our own ideas to critical examination, and learning from one another.
Michael P. has repeatedly cited Margaret Farley’s “Just Love” as authority for his position on same-sex relations, and he has told us that he finds Farley’s arguments on human sexuality compelling. I find Wojtyla’s arguments compelling. Therefore, I thought that these two books by recognized experts – one dissenting from the magisterial teachings of the Church and the other destined to become Pope, could provide a common set of readings to frame our discussion. In this discussion, we would subject these books and our own arguments to critical examination and cross-examination. Through civil argument, we would test who had the better arguments as we refined our own. I am sure that opinions would differ on this, but we would all be better off having engaged in this important discussion.
Michael P. and I exchanged perhaps a dozen emails today attempting to iron out the details for this unique internet symposium. In our discussion, it became clear that Michael P. was willing to have me proof text “Love and Responsibility” for places where it might frown upon same-sex relationships and then he would respond. He was willing to engage in a dialogue over sexual ethics as long as we did not refer to those (Farley and Wojtyla) to whom we owe intellectual debts. But, he was unwilling to engage in a defense of “Just Love” or more importantly a defense of his position that Farley’s work is compelling. In short, after citing her as authoritative on more than one occasion, he is unwilling to put her work into play or allow it to be subject to critical examination in a dialogue format.
After failing to get an answer as to why he is unwilling to engage in this examination, I opined that as a matter of intellectual rigor and analysis “Just Love” does not hold a candle to “Love and Responsibility.” Hearing no other explanation, I wondered “out loud” whether Michael P. doesn’t want to place “Just Love” and his defense of it under the MOJ microscope because he knows it won’t hold up under scrutiny.
I know that I am on shaky ground in suggesting that Farley’s book lacks the intellectual rigor I was hoping for from a major dissenting voice. After all, respected theologians such as David Hollanbach have given it their imprimatur. In coming to my conclusion about “Just Love,” let me be clear, I am not insulting Farley, her work, or Michael P. Instead, I am giving my honest assessment. And, I am prepared to defend that opinion in the type of civil dialogue I envisioned. Michael P., if my analysis is weak, expose it as soft-headed as we dialogue. Instead of being insulted, I will thank you for correcting me and showing me the errors in my thinking. If “Just Love” is, as Hollanbach suggests, “the best book on sexual ethics in decades,” it ought to be very easy for you, Michael P., to show us as we dialogue why you find her dissenting views so compelling and why I am so wrong in my criticism.
In short Michael P., I still hope you will come out and play. If December and January don’t work for you, October or November would be best for me. But, I would be willing to engage in a serious reflection of “Just Love” and “Love and Responsibility” in August or September or anytime after January. Just name it. In Christ's Peace, Michael S.
Dialogue on Sexual Ethics
Michael P., thank you for your willingness to engage in this important exchange. Before we begin, I want to reread both books and provide time for others who might be interested in joining the discussion to read both books. Therefore, I would like to provide at least a one month notice. Michael P. and I will work out the date via email and post it on MOJ.
"Just Love" or "Love and Responsibility"
Michael P., thank you for your responses to my questions. And Fr. Araujo, thank you for your intervention. A year and a half ago, at Michael's suggestion, I read "Just Love." I found the book disappointing for many reasons, including those expressed here. At the time Michael P. and I contemplated an MOJ dialogue on the merits of "Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics" and Karol Wojtyla's "Love and Responsibility," which I think is the most profound book on sexual ethics.
How about a week long dialogue on the merits of these two books? (Michael P., if there is a book on sexual ethics that you find more profound than "Just Love," we can substitute it). I propose that this dialogue take place the second week of December when we will want to be distracted from grading. Michael P. and I can start it off with opening observations and then open up the dialogue to MOJ contributors and readers who have read both books. Michael P., what do you say?
Monday, June 16, 2008
CLT: Wildly Indeterminate
In a recent post, Rob writes: "At MoJ, we tend not to have much to say, for the understandable reason that Catholic legal theory, whatever value it has in some contexts, is wildly indeterminate when it comes to analyzing judicial decisions that do not directly implicate natural law principles (e.g., abortion, marriage, parental rights)."
It may be that CLT is wildly indeterminate when it comes to judging the outcome of a case, order, or piece of legislation, especially in those cases where prudential judgment must be exercised and reasonable people can disagree on how best to proceed. The value of Catholic Legal Theory is not in judging outcomes (although this may be called for in some cases) but in providing a framework for the legal aspects of our common life together; a framework that is built on a sturdier - more real - foundation than the currently prevelant alternative. In other words, our anthropology - our account of the human person - provides a method for judging the method by which judges and others come to their decisions.
Questions for Michael P.
First, do you agree with the way Rob Miller frames the SSM debate in this post? If not, how would you frame it?
Second, do you reject the notion that the biological reality (1+1=1 for heterosexual couples) signifies a deeper reality about the complementarity of the sexes, which makes hetersexual coupling different in kind from same-sex coupling? If so, on what basis?
Third, and this goes back to Tom's question, which you don't really answer here. If SSM is analogous to interracial marriage on what grounds does the state extend its tolerance to religious groups who disagree with the new order of SSM while discriminating against religious groups who disagree with racial integration?
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