Mirror of Justice

A blog dedicated to the development of Catholic legal theory.
Affiliated with the Program on Church, State & Society at Notre Dame Law School.

Thursday, January 27, 2005

Economic Effects of Human Rights

By Susan Stabile

John DiGregorio from Albequerque, New Mexico has this to say regarding Rick's and my postings on the question whether we should care about the economic effects of human rights:

"To the question: Should we even care about the economic effects of various forms of human rights? It depends entirely on what human right is in question. Some believe that every worker has a right to a living wage. There is no way to even determine what a living wage is without delving profoundly into economic issues. Some believe that every person should be able to worship according to their personal religious beliefs without fear of coercion or oppression. In this case, economic considerations are very probably inappropriate."

Susan

Economics and Human Rights

By Susan Stabile

Rick asks  whether we should ever care about the economic effects of various forms of human rights.  Here is my initial thought (admitting that I read only the abstract of the piece that prompted his query and not the piece itself).

Clearly it is not necessary to make a case for human rights on economic grounds; economic value is not a necessary or relevent condition for saying a human right exists.  But I think it may overstate it to say we should never care about the economic effects.  That is to say, it may be that some means of effectuating basic human rights have more postive economic effects than others.  I'm not convinced there is a problem with considering economic effects as we determine how to effectuate human rigths.

Susan

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Catholic Legal Education

By Susan Stabile

I just finished reading a book about Ignatian Spirituality that observed that "When Ignatius agreed to found colleges, he was providing (in modern terms) 'graced' institutions through which the word and kingdom of God could be spread more widely.  He also recognized that people in positions of responsibility and power influenced the structures of society, even to the extent of controlling them, and so were able to make those structures and institutions 'graced' or sinful means of promoting or hindering the kingdom of God."

Reading that caused me to reflect again on a question many of us have considered and some have written about - the question of what it means to be a Catholic law school.  Although I recognize that different institutions will have different answers to that question, I hope that it means that we seek to be 'graced' institutions in the Ignatian sense of the term.

I'd be interested in hearing from others concerning the extent to which their schools think and talk about this question at an institutional level.

Susan

Tuesday, January 18, 2005

Taking Christianity Seriously

By Susan Stabile

Let me take a stab at a partial answer to the first part of Rick's query, that is, the question whether Christianity should be taken seriously by outsiders if it appears to make no difference in the lives of those who call themselves Christians.

Our human frailty means we will never completely live up to our call as Christians to live as Christ and to reveal Christ in all that we say and do.  I don't think our failure to be perfect disciples disqualifies us from preaching the Gospel to others or suggests a failing of Christianity. 

However, it is one thing to devote one's life to God and fail to live up to a standard of perfection we can never meet.  It is another to fail to commit oneself to the effort and merely to talk about Christianity as though Christian thought were somehow divorced from how we live our own lives.  If an "outsider" can not see Christians who are at least trying to walk the walk as well as talk the talk - if it appears that this is just a lot of words that don't affect behavior, why should they take Christianity seriously? 

The fact that some Christians (or even a lot of them) kill, steal, engage in self-centered and sexually immoral behavior, etc. does not mean that Christ made no difference.  But I think it does have to be apparent to an outsider that Christianity affects how at least some number of people live their lives for them to be persuaded that it makes a difference.

Susan

 

Friday, January 14, 2005

Evangelism and Humanitarian aid

By Susan Stabile

My reaction to Rick's question is similar to Rob's response.

I assume no one is suggesting that the evangelical groups in question are using coercive tactics and denying humanitarian aid to those unwilling to proclaim acceptance with the group's religious beliefs.  Rather, the suggestion of those critical of the evangelical groups seems to be that they should attempt to completely divorce their religion from their provision of material aid (and indeed, that the government ought to force them to do so).

For Christians, ministering to people's material needs is not a secular activity but is part of the core religious mission, and the charge of all Christians is to preach the Gospel in all they say and do.  Ministering to material needs and ministering to spiritual needs (and surely there is a lot of spiritual healing that needs to be done here) are not segregable activities.

Susan 

Wednesday, January 12, 2005

"Four Urgent Challenges"

By Susan Stabile

During his traditional State of the World address to the ambassadors of the 174 countries having full diplomatic relations witht he Holy See, Pope John Paul II highlighted the four urgent challenges now facing humanity today: the challenge to life, the challenge to provide food to the hungry, the challenge to bring peace and the challenge of freedom.  A Zenit summary of his address can be accessed here, and the full text here.

Susan

Friday, December 31, 2004

A Zen Reaction to Tsunamis

By Susan Stabile

I receivied an e-mail responding to my response to Rob's initial post on the subject of Tsunamis and moral anthropology from Malcom Dean, who follows the Zen tradition.  He first shared this story involving Shunryu Suzuki, the first abbot of Zen Center in San Francisco:

A student, filled with emotion and crying,
implored, "Why is there so much suffering?"

Suzuki Roshi replied, "No reason."

Dean then observed,

"To Western ears this kind of thing can sound cryptic or even cold. To
my mind it is profoundly compassionate and healing, even liberating,
because it speaks to a profound metaphysical principle: evil has no
ontological basis. Had the student asked about a specific event perhaps
Suzuki would have given a different answer, but he or she was asking a
higher-level question and received a higher-level reply: evil,
suffering, is a phenomenon of the relative, created world, a natural
and inevitable phenomenon, but it has no ontological foundation, no
root in the absolute (God) -- in other words, evil and suffering have
no reason, no cause rooted in God. That understanding liberates because
it frees one from spiritual doubt and confusion, even anger. In a world
filled with suffering it makes suffering understandable and therefore
meaningful. Suzuki of course would smile at this kind of long-winded
explication. His teaching technique was pure Zen, the spontaneous snap
that awakens."

Susan

Thursday, December 30, 2004

More on Tsunamis and Moral Anthropology

By Susan Stabile

Rodger Kamenetz, known for his work in Jewish-Buddhist dialogue, offers some thoughts on Rob's question in his essay, Was God in This Disaster?, linked here.  Among other things, Kamenetz observes:

"I don't believe that a mass disaster, in and of itself, tells us anything about God. I don't believe in a God who punishes through disaster. The disaster is. That is exactly the way I would understand it, without adding my own interpretation, without supplying a meaning or completing the sentence. The disaster is. The tragedy is. And I need to abide with it, and feel it, instead of seeking an answer, because the answers just make me complacent and take me away from the children on the beach, and the father with the dead child in his arms.
There is no God in the disaster.
I think there is God in the response, in the human hearts of those who are feeling and responding to this, the families and neighbors of the victims, and the rest of us, the bystanders, and us, too. The whole world is feeling it."

Susan

Wednesday, December 29, 2004

Aid to Tsunamis victims

By Susan Stabile

Some may be interested in the list CNN posted yesterday of international aid organizations that are accepting donations to help victims of the earthquake and the resulting tsunamis.

Susan

Tuesday, December 28, 2004

A Response (or at least some thoughts) to Rob

By Susan Stabile

I've spent a lot of time thinking about the tsunami disaster over the last day or so, which, as Rob suggest in his reference to the Christmas season, is particularly poignant as we gaze upon the creche, and even more so today as we celebrate the feast of the Massacre of the Innocents.  (More than 10,000 of those killed....probably a lot more....have been children.)

Rob's post says if we want our project to be taken seriously we must try to offer an explanation of a world in which tsunamis rip children from their mother's arms.  I'm not sure it is possible to offer an explanation that would be accepted by the critics.

It is true, as Rob suggests, that many people view an appeal to the mystery of God as a cop-out.  Yet part of understanding and accepting that we are creations of God is understanding and accepting that we are not God and that there are things we will never understand.  Things like this disaster may fall into that category. (If there is a better answer to this than mystery of God, I've yet to find it.  Death, disease and destruction that are the product of individual and group sin are easy to understand.  I don't know how to make sense of this and I agree with Rob's criticism of the other common response about creation falling with humanity.  If others have better explanations, I'll be grateful to hear their thoughts.)  Part of God's invitation to us is: will you walk with me even if you don't understand. 

Now, I fully accept that is difficult to make the foregoing persuasive to someone without belief.  But the reality is what it is, and we can't simply make up something more acceptable.

I don't think, however, that the fact that natural disasters cause the death of many people prevents us from insisting on the theologically grounded dignity of the human person.  Our dignity comes from being created in the image of God, and our creation in God's image is not changed by the fact that God lets innocents be killed, as God allowed God's own innocent Son be killed.  And God weeps along with us at their deaths and at the suffering of those left behind.

Susan

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