MOJ-reader Denise Hunnell sent me this reaction to the final paragraph of Chato Hazelbaker's comments on yesterday's University of St. Thomas Law Journal symposium on human trafficking:
When my oldest was a high school junior, my mother gave him a subscription to Sports Illustrated. That was great until the February swimsuit issue rolled around. I had teased him saying that I would take a Sharpie marker to it when it arrived. However, when it did show up in the mail, I realized a Sharpie wasn't going to take care of those pictures. I had no idea that Sports Illustrated was now at the level of what I remembered Playboy to be 20 years ago. No telling what Playboy is like now. In any case, my husband and I sat down with him and looked at a couple of the milder pictures. Then I told him to remember that the women in these pictures were mothers, daughters, and sisters just like his own mother and sister. He handed the magazine to us and said, "I don't need this." By humanizing the women in the pictures, the images became distasteful rather than erotic. I think the key to fighting against human exploitation is to always fight for human dignity.
Yesterday, the University of St. Thomas Law Journal sponsored a terrific symposium on Human Trafficking. At some point soon, I'll write a post with some of my own thoughts on the day, but in the meantime, let me share the powerful and thought-provoking comments Chato Hazelbaker, our Director of Communications, posted on his blog:
The symposium gave attendees a lot to think about, particularly from the remarks of Norma Ramos one of the cofounders of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women. In discussing her rejection of the term “sex-worker” she asked the simple question when did sex become work, and do we have to live with the commoditization of everything? Is human sexuality something to be traded on and with? In her talk and as part of a panel later in the day Ramos draws clear lines between a “porn” culture, prostitution, human trafficking and abuses that I cannot even bring myself to write about.
This issue of ending the sex-trade in all of it forms really does rise above political points of view and gets at something we may have already lost, the dignity of each human being as a person. Norma Ramos is a card carrying liberal of great pride and accomplishment, but what I heard her talking about are the very things that the right should be caring about and talking more about. This is not an issue of first amendment, this is an issue where we look at the degradation of the individuals involved in the sex trade, and the devastation to the communities in which we live and we have to ask ourselves simply, “Is this something that any reasonable society should live with?” Again, Ramos makes a powerful point here. She took the examples of theft and murder, and pointed out that no society has ever said that theft and murder and going to happen so we should just figure out how to regulate these things.
It is a Christian point of view that looks at a society and cares for the most vulnerable, and here is a place where we are clearly failing miserably. Beyond just the Christian, for a long time people have been told that to speak up against pornography in any form is to be a prude, to reject a reasoned approach to life, and to infringe on the rights of others. Yesterday, Norma Ramos gave me permission to get over that.
I have two daughters, and when she gave the example of a parent holding a young child and the dreams that go through a parents head of what that child will become: doctor, lawyer, missionary, on that list no parent ever thinks “prostituted person”. So today I’m coming before my God and asking myself, why I would ever support or watch something that I would make me angry, sad, or disappointed in what I had accomplished as a parent if I see my child in it?
There is room for broad agreement on this issue. We have sold enough of our dignity. The solution for me personally is not in legislative action outlawing obscene material, it is the simple act of looking at movies, television shows, advertisements and the flood of media in my eyes and saying, that is someone’s child and a child of God.
Today the United States celebrates Labor Day, albeit with mixed feelings for many, since the news for large numbers of working Americans, in the words of one editorial I read this morning, remains cloudy. Many working families face increased job insecurity and decreased wages.
There is, nonetheless, value in a day dedicated to workers and to human work. In particular, as I wrote on my blog this morning, it is a good day to focus on the meaning of work from a Catholic perspective. In constrast to the narrow secular vision of work, the Church sees work as "the condition not only for economic development but also for the cultural and moral development of persons, the family, society and the entire human race.” It is through work that we participate with God in His creative activity.
You can read my full reflection on Labor Day and human work here.
The new issue of the Journal of Catholic Legal Studies contains a Symposium that will be of great interest to MOJ readers. The Symposium, titled Catholic Teaching, Catholic Values and Catholic Voters: Reflections on Forming Conscience for Faithful Citizens, contain six essays offering a range of perspectives on the USCCB's document on policital responsibility and faithful citizenship, and generally on the question of conscience and voting. Among the six are essays by MOJ'ers Robert Araujo, Amy Uelmen and me. All six essays (along with an introducion by Prof. Michael Simons of St. John's University School of Law, who is the faculty adviser to the journal) are available on the journal's website here. The Symposium makes a valuable contribution to the public debate on faithful citizenship.
One MOJ reader has this to say about the question I posed with respect to Merton's quote about the level of the Christian commitment to the peace movement:
"In your MOJ post today, you pose the question - Is it right that even Christians have come to accept the idea of war? No, but that 'battle' appears to have been lost at the Synod of Arles in 314. The gradual deadening of conscience noted by Merton was more an early effect of the 'just war' than the 'cold war.' Ambrose, Augustine and Aquinas have always trumped Martin of Tours, the patron of soldiers."
I thought it worth reprinting something from a letter Thomas Merten once wrote:
"It is sometimes discouraging to see how small the Christian peace movement is, and especially here in America where it is most necessary. But we have to remember that this is the usual pattern, and the Bible has led us to expect it. Spiritual work is done with disproportionately small and feeble instruments. And now above all when everything is so utterly complex, and when people collapse under the burden of confusions and cease to think at all, it is natural that few may want to take on the burden of trying to effect something in the moral and spiritual way, in political action. Yet this is precisely what has to be done.
"... [T]he great danger is that under the pressure of anxiety and fear, the alternation of crisis and relaxation and new crisis, the people of the world will come to accept gradually the idea of war, the idea of submission to total power, and the abdication of reason, spirit and individual conscience. The great peril of the cold war is the progressive deadening of conscience."
Is it right that even Christians have come to accept the idea of war?
[source: Thomas Merton, letter to Jean and Hildegard Goss-Mayer; The Hidden Ground of Love William H. Shannon. editor; New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1985]
As I wandered through the Northern Great Lakes Visitors Center in Ashland, Wisconsin, yesterday, I read this on one of the information plaques: "Long before Europeans arrived, these forests were home to [the Ojibwe Indians]. They believed that they were inseparable from other living beings with whom they shared the woods and waters and that the region's plants and animals were gifts shared with them to meet their needs. From this kinship came wisdom, respect and deep knowledge of the natural world."
How nice it would have been if the arriving Europeans learned something about the principle of stewardship from the Indians. Ironically, however, another plaque not very far from the first I quoted read: "The U.S. Government placed Native American children in boarding schools. Children were severely punished if they spoke their natural language, practiced their religion or wore traditional clothing. These schools aimed to eliminate traditional natural culture by separating children from their families and forcing them to adapt to European customs and Christian beliefs." Not an attitidue that allows much learning from others.
Today the Catholic Church celebrates the feast of the Assumption. Although the Assumption of Mary is not one of the events that draws me most closely, I am moved by the Gospel reading for today's feast, which includes the passage we know as the Magnificant (also called the Song of Mary of the Canticle of Mary). Dietrich Bonhoeffer called the Magnificat "the most passionate, the wildest, one might even say the most revolutionary Advent hymn ever sung. This is not the gentle, tender, dreamy Mary whom we sometimes see in paintings; this is the passionate, surrendered, proud, enthusiastic Mary who speaks out here. This song has none of the sweet, nostalgic, or even playful tones of some of our Christmas carols. It is instead a hard, strong, inexorable song about collapsing thrones and humbled lords of this world, about the power of God and the powerlessness of humankind.”
The Magnificant is a message of hope, one desperately needed in the world in which we live today. But it is not a passive hope. As I wrote on my blog this morning: "Mary’s song reminds us that we can never ignore the suffering of others if we are to be true disciples of Jesus. In the increasingly individualistic world in which we live, where there sometimes seems to be less and less willingness to reach out to others, Mary’s proclamation stands as a testimony to solidarity with the marginalized and the powerless. It calls us not to passive hope, but to action."
You can find my full reflection on the Magnificat and its meaning for our world today here.
Tom's post suggests that a boycott of a hotel owned by someone who donated funds to oppose same-sex marriage by groups who are part of the AALS is legitimate, but wonders at some point a market power counterargument kicks in. I'm still sorting out what I think about this but what I wonder is whether this isn't more of a speech issue than a market one. That is, it is one thing to organize a boycott against the hotel if there is something about the business itself that is objectionable (e.g., there is evidence of discrimination against homosexuals in the actual operations of the hotel). I assume no one would find such a boycott objectionable. But isn't it another thing for a legal academic group (which presumably thinks freedom of speech and expression is a good thing) to organize a boycott based on the owner's speech (in this case evidenced by a donation), even if we disagree with that speech? I'd be interested in hearing the thoughts of others on this.
Greg's post does little to ally the concerns some of us have that (as expressed by Eduardo) there has been lacking “a serious governmental commitment to human development among the poorest Americans.” "Social spending," even as Greg narrows it to include only "welfare, health care and education," does not give us an indication of funds spent to help those living in poverty. For example, the Hodges chart figures for social programs includes, e.g., pensions for government employees. Or how much of the funds included for health care reach the poorest among us? It is hard to even tell from the first link Greg gives us what some of the categories of expenditures mean. These concerns are apart from the fact that even the total figures are hard to pin down. The Census bureau stats suggest that National Defense is about 20% of government outlays rather than 13%. So more is necessary to persuade that there is the serious commitment to the human flourishing of the poorest among us.
