For those of us missing the thrill of picking the NCAA basketball tourney winners, here's a slightly different sort of pool. (Sense of humor required.)
Rob
Monday, April 11, 2005
The #1 Seed in the Italy Region Looks Strong . . .
Sunday, April 10, 2005
Cardinal Law and Common Sense
American victims of priest sexual abuse are planning to protest Cardinal Law's celebration of a mass honoring John Paul II. If I were in Rome, I think I'd be inclined to join them, as I have not been made aware of any persuasive explanation for the prominent role given to Law. I've heard talk of protocol, but if the Vatican could do away with the three hammer strikes to the forehead as the means by which to confirm a pope's death, couldn't the standard operating procedures have been altered just a bit in this context as well?
Rob
UPDATE: Over at The Seventh Age, Jason Adkins responds to my question:
[M]aybe allowing (and even compelling) Bernard Law to preach at one of these Masses may be of tremendous service to a Church that could learn from the mistakes of its past. Perhaps putting someone like Law in front of the cardinals could be a powerful lesson about what can happen when they are careless in the exercise of their authority, as well as the spiritual consequences that may ensue. It gives him the opportunity to share his prayerful reflections over the past couple of years since his exile in Rome with the rest of the College of Cardinals. Perhaps he has something powerful to teach and preach to his colleagues. I'm willling to give him the benefit of the doubt and think that the other cardinals may feel the same way. He has certainly been shamed and chastened and has had to think alot about his mistakes. This could be a real positive for the Church.
The reason I think this is a possibility is because by all accounts, Bernard Law is a very good man with an amazing record of pastoral accomplishment, commitment to justice, and personal humility who happened to both make some gross errors in judgment as well as be in the wrong place at the wrong time. To impart to him sheer evil, malfeasance and bad faith is just plain calumny and fails to deal with the complexity of the sex abuse crisis. No doubt that he feels miserable and truly sorry for everything that happened. But perhaps he was mired in a Church culture that relied on "experts" and other specialists who believed with a little treatment or a change of scenery, these problem priests would be cured. Acting in the context of the post-conciliar era and its stupid deference to "science" and experts in all fields from liturgy to psychology and pastoral care, and relying on the fads and trends of the time out of a supposed duty to empower the laity and the wisdom of the new scientist/psychologist priests of the modern world, the Church mired itself in a huge crisis. But to have gone against the grain and resisted this at the time would have been nothing short of heresy. Most of the same activists that are championing reform in the wake of the abuse crisis, are the same that sought and built a church culture that relied on the wisdom of the age rather than ageless wisdom.
So my point is, let's all step back, take a deep breath, and maybe consider that this might be a positive moment for the Church. The way I look at it is this has to be a profoundly penitential moment for Law. Having the responsibility of preaching to all of the cardinals after screwing up and dragging the Church through as much mud as it was because of his mistakes can be nothing but chastening. I suspect he will approach this opportunity with much humility, and serve as a very important cautionary tale as the cardinal electors ponder the successor of John Paul the Great.
I appreciate the thoughtfulness of Jason's response (although I don't see how resisting the mindset that led to the sex abuse crisis would have been "nothing short of heresy"), and I hope, like Jason, that Cardinal Law uses the opportunity to impart his hard-earned lessons to his colleagues. But is this the most appropriate vehicle for those lessons to be imparted? Whether it's accurate or not, the general perception is that it is a huge honor to celebrate any of the nine masses. Coupled with the widespread belief that the Vatican did not treat the abuse crisis as seriously as it should have, the pedagogical value of Law's role is not the lasting impression to emerge from this episode. This is not to suggest that Law is evil, but simply that he showed a profound lack of judgment -- a lack of judgment that facilitated unspeakable crimes. Placing him in this role so soon after the scandal seems misguided. By way of clumsy analogy, Ken Lay may have learned a lot from the demise of Enron, and his industry colleagues may stand to gain much from his newfound wisdom and humility. But if Lay has something to teach executives, it should be as a straightforward lecture stripped of pretense and the trappings of honor, not as the keynote address at a Chamber of Commerce awards banquet.
Rob
Saturday, April 9, 2005
Is the Reformation Over?
I've just learned that one of my favorite Christian writers, Mark Noll, has a new book coming out this summer that may be of interest to MoJ readers. Titled Is the Reformation Over? An Evangelical Assessment of Contemporary Roman Catholicism, the book is "a clarion call for a new appreciation among evangelicals of the current character of the Catholic Church." Timothy George endorses the book with the provocative suggestion that "[t]he Reformation is over only in the sense that to some extent it has succeeded."
Rob
Wednesday, April 6, 2005
Evangelicals and John Paul II
Timothy George, dean of Beeson Divinity School, offers an interesting perspective on Pope John Paul II's legacy in evangelical circles, asserting that "the Pope gave evangelicals the moral impetus we didn't have."
Rob
Friday, April 1, 2005
Stem Cell Gold Rush: Who Could Object?
For those interested in following the course of the stem cell research "gold rush" among states, I came across this website. I did not realize that Maryland and Illinois are also well along the path toward funding embryonic stem cell research. The debate occurring in the Illinois legislature lends some insight:
A Senate committee voted 7-4 to approve legislation Thursday that would put Illinois at the nation's forefront of stem-cell research. The $1 billion proposal, an initiative of state comptroller Dan Hynes, would position Illinois only behind California in terms of funding for stem-cell studies. . . .
[Senator] Syverson also questioned whether Illinois would own the patent rights to cures researchers might discover while using state funds.
Hynes . . . assured the committee that all grant recipients would be signing patent and intellectual property agreements where the state would be sharing royalties.
If the measure is approved by both legislative chambers and the governor, a 2006 statewide referendum would ask voters to approve $1 billion bond issuance to fund the institute.
The proposal's sponsor, state Sen. Jeff Schoenberg, D-Evanston, said he's confident voters would support the measure because everyone has a loved one, neighbor or co-worker who suffers from a debilitating disease.
Right there we know all we need to know about the future prospects of embryonic stem cell research. Who could possibly object to alleviating the suffering of our loved ones, especially when the patent-driven income stream is so tantalizing?
Rob
Thursday, March 31, 2005
Colorado Puts Religion in its Place
Today's installment in our ongoing coverage of the intensifying battle over health care providers and moral agency comes from Colorado, where the legislature has passed a bill that would require Catholic hospitals to provide information and referrals to rape victims that would allow them to "avoid pregnancy."
The Denver Post's article (thanks to Open Book) provides a provocative angle from the start, evidenced by the opening line: "Gov. Bill Owens faces a test of his Catholic faith." Apparently, this bill could only be objectionable to a Catholic politician. Potential concerns over institutional autonomy are simply distractions, it seems, from the primary obstacle: Catholic hang-ups about abortion and contraception.
The Post's strange phrasing, however, is nothing compared to the terms of the legislative debate:
[D]uring debate on the floor of the House Tuesday, Rep. Jack Pommer, D-Boulder, said that the bill was about medicine, not religion.
"We don't take rape victims to a church," he said. "We take them to a hospital (which has) ... a commitment to provide the best and most complete treatment to anyone who shows up."
Usually politicians who seek the privatization of religion aren't so explicit about it. Representative Pommer makes it plain that it would be permissible for the Catholic Church to adhere to its beliefs inside the physical church building itself, but once we step outside those walls, all bets are off.
Rob
Massachusetts Joins the "Gold Rush"
As I've noted previously (see here and here and here), there is a "gold rush" mentality taking over the stem cell research debate at the state level. Now Massachusetts is joining the fray:
State senators overwhelmingly approved a measure yesterday promoting embryonic stem cell research in Massachusetts, dealing a defeat to Governor Mitt Romney by endorsing a research technique that involves the cloning of human cells. . . .
Many senators described yesterday's vote as historic, suggesting that Massachusetts is putting itself at the forefront of scientific efforts that could lead to cures of diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. . . .
Soon after the 35-2 vote, Senate President Robert E. Travaglini said it ''sends a very clear message that we are serious about removing the cloud over this type of research that offers so much promise and hope to so many families that are afflicted with debilitating and degenerative diseases."
Rob
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Pharmacists and Political Anarchy
As I've noted previously, the battle over pharmacists' ability to take moral responsibility for their professional conduct continues to heat up. Yesterday the Washington Post ran a front-page article on the issue, including the story of:
Neil T. Noesen, who in 2002 refused to fill a University of Wisconsin student's birth control pill prescription at a Kmart in Menomonie, Wis., or transfer the prescription elsewhere. An administrative judge last month recommended Noesen be required to take ethics classes, alert future employers to his beliefs and pay what could be as much as $20,000 to cover the costs of the legal proceedings. The state pharmacy board will decide whether to impose that penalty next month.
According to the New York Times' Paul Krugman, the trend toward "conscience" legislation to protect pharmacists like Noesen is another example of rampant religious extremism in this country:
The closest parallel I can think of to current American politics is Israel. There was a time, not that long ago, when moderate Israelis downplayed the rise of religious extremists. But no more: extremists have already killed one prime minister, and everyone realizes that Ariel Sharon is at risk.
America isn't yet a place where liberal politicians, and even conservatives who aren't sufficiently hard-line, fear assassination. But unless moderates take a stand against the growing power of domestic extremists, it can happen here.
So unless we use the coercive power of the state to force all pharmacists to make available all legal pharmaceutical products, we are inviting political assassinations and anarchy. And Krugman styles himself a moderate?
Rob
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Moral Judgment and the Death Penalty
The Colorado Supreme Court has vacated a death sentence based on the jury's consultation of the Bible during deliberations. The evidence showed that:
(1) one or more jurors brought a Bible, a Bible index, and handwritten notes containing the location of biblical passages into the jury room to share with another juror during deliberations in the penalty phase of defendant’s trial; (2) these extraneous materials contained a passage commanding the death penalty for murderers and another instructing obedience to civil authorities; and (3) these passages were pointed out by at least one juror to another juror before the jury reached its unanimous verdict imposing the death sentence.
My inclination is to embrace the majority's ruling, but the dissent's argument is not lightly brushed aside:
The jurors’exposure to Romans 13:1 and Leviticus 24:20—21 was not prejudicial to Harlan because the jurors were required to make an overwhelming moral decision, namely whether the death penalty was an appropriate punishment for Harlan. To this end, the court instructed the jurors to "apply [their] reasoned judgment in deciding whether the situation calls for life imprisonment or the imposition of the death penalty"(emphasis added). The court further told the jurors that "you must still all make a further individual moral assessment of whether you have been convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the death penalty, instead of life in prison, is the appropriate punishment for [Harlan] in this case"(emphasis added). As such, the jury instructions squarely directed the jurors to consider their moral and religious precepts, as well as their general knowledge, when making a reasoned judgment about whether or not to impose the death penalty.
. . . .
[B]y choosing to define the written version of these commonly known biblical passages as "a higher authority,"the majority elevates form over substance. Many people know large parts of the Bible by heart and can quote certain passages verbatim with persuasive alacrity, particularly when the ideas in those passages are as widespread and generally known as those referenced here. It is without doubt that a juror may relate passages of scripture from memory during deliberations, and that such recitation would not even be considered extraneous, much less prejudicial. It makes little sense, therefore, that the exact same passage in written form is somehow enshrined with an authority that the spoken or remembered passage lacks.
In so holding, the majority puts death penalty jurors in an impossible bind; jurors are instructed to make the ultimate decision about life or death based on their individual moral assessment –so long as their individual moral assessments are made from memory. This holding is demeaning to all jurors, but especially the jurors in this case, because it assumes that jurors cannot be trusted to think for themselves or follow the law in the face of written, but not spoken, religious passages.
My experience with jurors leads me to emphatically reject the majority’s way of thinking. Jurors chosen to serve in death penalty cases are selected for their ability, stated under oath, to uphold the law, apply the law to the facts, and to make reasoned judgments based upon their respective backgrounds and beliefs. To presume that jurors who have a religious background cannot distinguish between the written biblical passages referenced here and the written jury instructions –a presumption that must be made in order to find prejudice in this case -is to underestimate their intelligence and to belittle their participation in our legal system.
The dissent has a point: if we expect a jury to make a moral judgment on a morally laden issue like the death penalty, it seems strange to categorically rule out the foundation on which many jurors' moral judgments will be based. And I'm not certain that the "internal source" (OK) versus "external document" (not OK) distinction can bear the weight the courts seem to place on it. Further, eradicating the moral component from a jury's imposition of the death penalty strikes me as a solution bringing a new set of problems. Is it better to have jurors looking to the Bible as they hold a person's life in their hands, or to have them view death as a strictly amoral function of the legal apparatus?
Rob
Monday, March 28, 2005
Skeletons in the Closet
As someone new to the Catholic tradition, I am constantly discovering important truths in my journey. Occasionally, however, I stumble across a couple of skeletons rattling in the closet. Recently I read the 1832 encylical Mirari vos, in which Pope Gregory XVI lamented the "absurd and erroneous proposition which claims that liberty of conscience must be maintained for everyone," and the 1864 Syllabus of Errors, listing among "the principal errors of our times" the beliefs that "every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true," and that "it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship."
The Church's stance changed dramatically through the important work of folks like John Courtney Murray. Murray's role in bringing the Church around to recognize a fundamental implication of human dignity, however, raises important questions about our Catholic legal theory project. Should Catholic legal theorists be focused on defending the real-world implications of the moral anthropology as articulated by the Church, or should we also challenge the Church's teaching on issues where we, as individuals, believe it falls short of the truth claims embodied in the moral anthropology? If the Church was mistaken about religious liberty, is the Church mistaken about some other aspect of the social order today?
One topic that will immediately come to mind, of course, is same-sex marriage and civil unions. Charles Curran, for example, has written a new book on the moral theology of Pope John Paul II (HT: Open Book):
The methodological gap in Pope John Paul II's moral theology arises, Father Curran says, when his willingness to accept the capacity of the Church to learn truth in social-justice teaching is abandoned when the focus is personal and sexual morality. "In the social teaching," he says, "you have accepted much more a reality of historical development. Things develop and change over history and over time. You have also tended to emphasize much more the person as the center of things."
The pope "uses what I call a relationality model. It sees the human person in the multiple relationships with God, neighbor, world, and self," says Father Curran. "Now if you look at sexual ethics, the emphasis is on the eternal, the immutable, and the unchanging. What has always been true."
My concern here is not so much with the merits of the sexuality arguments, but with our disposition toward them. As Catholic legal theorists, do we approach them strictly on their substance, or is there a presumption that we accept and defend the Church's position? Is the presumption rebuttable? In other words, are we to function strictly as Apostles, spreading the Church's Good News to the world? Or are we to act as the Old Testament prophets, speaking hard truths to authority, including the Church itself? Or are we to do both, and if so, how?
Rob
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