Over at Evangelical Outpost, Joe Carter makes an interesting scripture-driven argument for the government to adopt a broad definition of civil unions.
Rob
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Culture War Lessons From Ruth and Naomi
Halfway to Heaven
Newsweek has picked up the story of Ave Maria Town. Joe Knippenberg has some follow-up questions for lawyers.
Rob
Professional Ethics and Individual Conscience
I appreciate Eduardo's point about the relevance of professional standards to the interplay between an individual provider and the state. These standards, however, do not seem to be having much impact, much less a dispositive impact, on the pharmacist debate. The American Pharmaceutical Association supports "the individual pharmacist's right to exercise conscientious refusal and supports the establishment of systems to ensure patient access to legally prescribed therapy without compromising the pharmacist's right of conscientious refusal." Granted, a statement of support for conscience is different than the AMA's explicit prohibition on certain conduct, but it still warrants deference that has not been afforded it (at least in Illinois and Massachusetts).
To be clear, I do not support a legal right of conscience for individual pharmacists, but I fully support the integration of faith with professional identity as long as one does not expect the integration to be costless. And I welcome an active mediating role for professional associations in staking out moral claims on behalf of their members and in resisting efforts by the state to trump those claims. I just hope that such associational claims will be given the same deference when they create tension with our embrace of unfettered autonomy for the individual consumer as when they are arrayed against state power.
Rob
Walking Out on the Death Penalty
My guess is that many of those who generally oppose the introduction of a health care provider's personal moral convictions into her legally prescribed professional role will applaud this example of that same phenomenon. Is it OK for professionals to defy the wishes of the state based on their moral convictions, but not OK for professionals to defy the wishes of an individual consumer?
Rob
Christianity, Islam and Europe
Last week Sandro Magister gave a talk on the future relationship of Christianity and Islam in Europe at a conference convened by Archbishop Chaput in Denver. An excerpt:
A new cathedral church was built twelve years ago in Evry, to the south of Paris. It is recognized as the masterpiece of one of the most famous architects in the world, Mario Botta of Switzerland. During Sunday Mass, it is half-empty. But the nearby mosque is overflowing with the faithful. The imam of the mosque, Khalil Merroun, asserted in an interview: “The Catholic Church should not feel Europe belongs to it. The advice I give my Catholic colleagues is to ask themselves why their faithful don’t live their spirituality.”
Read the whole thing here. (HT: Open Book)
Rob
Monday, February 20, 2006
Consumer Demand and Modern Worship
Get Religion has an intriguing post on consumer demand and the modern Christian worship experience. While it is written primarily from a Protestant perspective, much of its sentiment applies to the average Sunday mass, as reflected by a comment on one of Amy Welborn's related posts:
[I]n a world that possesses the C Minor Mass, the Icelandic Sagas, and Albrecht Durer, where does Dan Schutte, the poet of "Footprints" and Thomas Kinkade fit in? I know it's a stupid question to ask but did mediocrity exist in the Garden, or was it a consequence of the Fall of Man? Who takes the blame for Thomas Kinkade?
Rob
More Personhood Readings
Duquesne law prof Alison Sulentic recommends the proceedings of the November 2005 session of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, titled Conceptualization of the Human Person in Social Sciences. She also recommends Wojtyla, Person and Community: Selected Essays (Catholic Thought from Lublin), which "is very useful in understanding John Paul II's view of personhood, as well as his reading of Aquinas on this point."
Rob
Sunday, February 19, 2006
Personhood
Larry Solum periodically provides an introduction to fundamental concepts in legal theory, geared primarily toward law students. Today's topic is personhood, and the introduction only gives a hint of the concept's depth. While it's impossible to do justice to the intellectual tradition underlying "personhood" in a blog format, we could at least provide a more robust reading list. So what sources would Catholic legal theorists add to Solum's bibliography?
Rob
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Response to Rick on Pharmacists and Conscience
Rick asks whether my op-ed explaining why the conscience movement among pharmacists is misguided can also be characterized as explaining "why the movement to pass laws overriding a pharmacist's right of conscience is misguided." The answer is yes, with a caveat: the reproductive rights lobby is misguided in this context not so much for trying to override a pharmacist's right of conscience, but for trying to override a pharmacy's ability to carve out any sort of distinct moral identity. In other words, the problem lies in the effort to close down the space needed for the meaningful exercise of conscience, not in the effort to override the legal enshrinement of conscience.
An example of that closing space emerged today from Massachusetts, where the pharmacy board ordered Wal-Mart to carry emergency contraception at all of its locations in the state. As a physician who had recently filed suit against the chain explained, "My patients should not have to shop around." This nicely underscores the point of my criticism: if we're going to take moral pluralism seriously in this country, being forced to "shop around" may not be such a bad thing.
Rob
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Romance & Altruism
It seems that a romantic relationship is beneficial not only for the participants, but for the broader society as well. A study by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago finds a link between romantic love and altruistic behavior. Other interesting findings include links between prayer and altruism, and between being raised in a two-parent family and altruism.
Rob
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