If anyone still wonders whether Pope Benedict shares his predecessor's steadfast opposition to our invasion of Iraq, the answer appears to be a resounding yes.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Bush and Blair . . . Still Wrong on Iraq
Monday, June 25, 2007
Does Dawkins Embrace Design?
Over at First Things, Robert Miller and Francis Beckwith are having a wonderful exchange about Richard Dawkins and the intelligibility of "wasting one's gifts" in the absence of a theistic worldview. (Begin here, then read here and here.)
The Donors Have Spoken
A new survey has found that nearly 60 percent of infertility patients are willing to donate their frozen embryos for use in stem cell research. This figure is roughly three times the percentage of those who are willing to donate their frozen embryos for adoption. According to the researcher:
This provides additional support for the stem cell legislation and for how to think about the legislation. This will not change the view of people who hold the position that destroying embryos is immoral and never justifiable. That's a coherent position that these data cannot challenge. But for people who believe that there might be some circumstances in which early human life can be ethically destroyed to achieve another human end, this is important data.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
More on the Vatican's DMV Problem
With the heading "Cardinal Martino Opens DMV at Holy See," the blog Catholic Ramblings observes a "failure of catechesis":
The Decalogue, and the embodiment of the Word in Jesus Christ, are the sum of the moral law. The Church in its Catechism and in its Tradition have already provided and continue to provide moral teachings needed to form solid consciences, and for this purpose, the Catechism, for example, outlines the various implications and demands of each particular Commandment. Yet as individuals endowed with free will, we are charged with exercising a well-formed conscience in particular situations, since no human document or body of documents could provide clear answers for every human contingiency. And besides, certainly the “rules of the road” or the “Ten Commandments for Motorists” are implied in the moral law already: be charitable to others, do not kill or recklessly endanger another, do not flagrantly risk the lives of your passengers, do not become enraged. I suppose my point simply put is that the same charitable task could have been more seriously accomplished by reminding the faithful of the application of the moral law–of the Decalogue and the Great Commandment–to all our activities, including our driving. This would have provided the faithful with assurance that our daily choices are morally significant and that the Church has a genuine interest in them, while simultaneously avoiding the needlessly flippant and even pedantic form of Martino’s document.
Traffic Laws and the Immigration Question
An MoJ reader comments on the Vatican's new Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road:
It seems to me that the document restates traditional Catholic teaching on obedience to the positive laws, but I wonder whether that teaching takes proper account of the difference between civil and criminal codes, and more specifically the functionality of laws designed to encourage rather than to coerce absolutely. One might analogize to laws which would tax pollution, permitting companies to buy the right to pollute from cleaner factories (thus creating an economic incentive to build cleaner factories). On the one hand, one could say that pollution is immoral and wrong in all cases; but on the other hand, we all pollute somewhat (esp. if CO2 is pollution), and that type of law would shift from a punitive approach to an incentive approach.
It seems to me that speed limits for automobiles are functionally similar. We know that we can go a little above the speed limit safely, but the risk of substantial fines deters us from speeding very much. It is quite possible to imagine a detector placed in the license plate, with monitors around the interstate highways of a state, so that the state could calculate the driver's rate of speed all the time, and fine you accordingly, sending a bill to your address every month (or perhaps automatically deducting it from your bank account). If we conceptualize speeding in this way, I wonder whether it's fair to say that any excess of the speed limit is per se wrong.
Of course, the circumstance of someone driving recklessly, or unsafely, or drunk, is something else. That seems to be a direct violation of the obligation of charity, whereas the simple violation of a speed limit is only a violation against charity inasmuch as the positive law requires a limit which is safe. (E.g., Congress used to require a 55mph speed limit even on I-80 through Nebraska.) I suppose following the speed limit would be a prophylactic protection, if I might use that phrase, of the obligation of charity, but not a direct requirement.
I analogize to immigration, because it seems to me that immigration violations are substantially similar to speeding violations. They violate the positive law, but in many if not most cases, would implicate immorality only to the extent that it's immoral to violate the positive law. Of course, the main question with regard to illegal immigration is whether the punishment fits the crime; but it seems to me that the moral status of the violation may be relevant to that consideration.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
The Road to Holiness
I realize that traffic accidents are a serious problem around the world, and that the Gospel has implications for every dimension of the common good. Still, when I saw a Vatican document on traffic safety with a section heading "Christ is the Way, He is the Road," I thought it was from The Onion. Then I saw it referenced at multiple blogs, so I decided to check it out. Seems to be real. Here is an excerpt from the Vatican's Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road:
From Christian commitment in places of road and rail transport, which we call Pastoral Care of the Road, also arises the duty to draw up and promote a fitting and corresponding expression of “spirituality”, rooted in the Word of God. Such spirituality sheds the necessary light to give meaning to the whole of life, stemming precisely from the experience of road and rail transport. The contemporary phenomenon of mobility should be experienced by Christians, by exercising the theological and cardinal virtues. For the faithful, the road also becomes a path to holiness.
Perhaps sprawl isn't so bad after all . . .
More from Minneapolis
One highlight from last week's Conference on Catholic Legal Thought was the conversation about Bill Cavanaugh's Theopolitical Imagination. There were some productive points of tension and clarity, particularly between Cavanaugh's Augustinian and Patrick Brennan's Thomistic leanings, with some healthy skepticism from Cavanaugh toward the political work of John Courtney Murray, and a robust defense of Murray by Brennan and others, including Villanova's Michael Moreland. One refrain shared by everyone was the woeful state of Catholic political theory. Cavanaugh views the state as a product of our imagination, which was not a popular opinion in this group. Echoing Augustine, he believes that the state is temporarily necessary for the restraint of vice, unlike Thomas, who believed that the state is part of the natural order. One realization for me is that I need to read de Lubac, who looms large in Cavanaugh's political theory. Hopefully this conversation will continue to unfold, and will be joined by more Catholic legal scholars, over the coming years.
UPDATE: If the state is part of the natural order, does that mean that a post-state world is contrary to the natural order, or does "the state" in Thomas's writing simply signify the temporal authority, a role that could be filled by an international organization or global authority? Consider this reflection from Brian Tamanaha:
Whether in the name of some ideology, or some image of national purity or dominance, or in the name of religion, or simply to plunder, states have time and again massacred their own people, or conscripted their own people and flung them at others to kill and be killed. The number of human lives extinguished by states, and in the name of states, well exceeds a hundred million.
Learn this history and you will see the price patriotism exacts. For many reasons, I feel fortunate to have been born in the United States, but I don’t love my country. It has no love for any of us. A cold, manipulative, object of affection, the state fans patriotism, then asks those who love it deeply to prove their love by dying or sacrificing their limbs for it.
It will not happen in my lifetime, but I look forward to the day when states are no more. As difficult as it is to imagine what a political future without states might look like, the state system is a relatively recent innovation in human history and there is no reason to think we will be burdened with states forever.
Is such a wish inherently contrary to a Catholic view of the world?
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Virtue Jurisprudence
Larry Solum and Colin Farrelly have put together a volume of essays titled Virtue Jurisprudence. Here is the description:
This book is the first authoritative text on virtue jurisprudence - the belief that the final end of law is not to maximize preference satisfaction or protect certain rights and privileges, but to promote human flourishing. Scholars of law, philosophy and politics illustrate here the value of the virtue ethics tradition to modern legal theory.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Into the Briar Patch
Over at First Things, Hadley Arkes notes the push by some pro-choice advocates, in the wake of Gonzales v. Carhart, to have state legislatures shore up the right to abortion. This is not an entirely unwelcome development, in his view:
But behold: With this panicky recoil from the holding in Carhart, the liberals are now behind the push to have the states start legislating again on abortion. With each move, they affirm the premise that the legislatures may indeed legislate on this subject. Their aim, of course, is to vindicate the right to abortion, but they will find that, as they try to shape that right, they will also be marking, unavoidably, the limits of abortion. And those limits, they will discover, will be drawn far less broadly than any “limits” that can be found in the law of abortion as it has been shaped by the federal courts. The champions of abortion rights fancy they are taking the initiative, resisting the Court that has been altered now by the presence of John Roberts and Samuel Alito. But in the face of these initiatives, the pro-life side might well bring back that old line from Br’er Rabbit in the Uncle Remus stories: “Please don’t throw me in that briar patch.” But, of course, Br’er Rabbit, in the briar patch, was in his element. For the liberals to bring the issue of abortion into the arena of politics, in the legislatures, is to bring us into the briar patch, where they are likely to suffer some disagreeable surprises.
It also bears noting that Arkes is not too impressed with President Bush's work in this area:
The melancholy side of this situation is that the pro-life side should be playing defense at all. In the aftermath of Gonzales v. Carhart, a pro-life president could have induced real strains in his adversaries by offering a moderate follow-up to the case: Even many Democrats, including Harry Reid, voted for the federal bill on partial-birth abortion, a bill containing criminal penalties. Mr. Bush could have come forward with the proposal that we enforce the bill with measures short of criminal penalties: We could simply withdraw federal funds from all hospitals and clinics that housed the surgery. That measure, too, would command massive support in the country. Even people who regard abortion as a legitimate “personal” choice have been unwilling to regard it as “public good” that has to be paid for by everyone else. And yet, with a step of that kind, the president would throw the pro-abortion party into the most grievous tensions. The Democrats surely know that, if Congress could use its power over spending to restrict abortions, it could legislate on abortions every step of the way, without even appearing to legislate. After all, if hospitals and clinics do not accept the federal money, they are still free to do the surgeries and put the burden of litigation on the government. But if the Democrats resist, they resist on a terrain that is heavily, sharply tilted against them.
All of this might have taken place if there were a White House genuinely interested in taking even modest initiatives in advancing the pro-life argument. But quite apart from the aversion of this president to doing that sort of thing, there is the most curious want of political reflexes. Any move of this kind taken by the president creates strain for the Democrats in Congress. And any strain for the opposition will impair them on other matters as well. It would keep them off balance in dealing with the war in Iraq, or in their campaign to bring down the U.S. Attorney General, or to undercut the measures of this administration in waging the war against terrorism. We may count this as the season of paths newly opened, of leverage newly discovered. But it also the season of unfolding revelation about an administration that will not defend its measures, not defend its own people, and where it declines to take costless initiatives, even when they would divide its enemies and hearten its friends. It is the season of deficits in political leadership, made ever clearer with each passing week.
Friday, June 8, 2007
A defining moment for "the religious left"
Marc Ambinder, an editor of the Atlantic Monthly, has some questions for the "religious left" in the wake of the presidential candidates' faith/values forum on CNN:
What is the religious left, really? Is it a movement? Is it a demographic cleavage that has no political significance? Is it organized? Does it have a core? What are its priorities? How does it reconcile church with state? Does it have aspirations to attain client status along with other Democratic interest groups?
That Sojournors founder Rev. Jim Wallis is influential is not in dispute. The forum was proof enough of that. That the Democratic candidates are attentive to religion and values is evident from how often the frontrunners talk about it. But there was no real clarity to last night's forum. Wallis told the audience that he wanted the forum to focus on poverty -- its motto was "Vote Out Poverty," he said -- but only two of the roughly 20 questions touched on the issue.
David Kuo says the night belonged to Senator Clinton, who skillfully deployed evangelical "code words" in her comments. Daniel Pulliam at the Get Religion blog concludes:
The narrative for this story going into next year’s elections has two paths. One involves members of the pew vote moving away from the policies that are aligned with the current administration for various reasons, whether it be the war in Iraq or immigration policy or economic policy. The second storyline, which will be harder to track due to the heavy emphasis on the first but potentially more longlasting and significant, is whether or not there is a genuine formation of a voting block known as the religious left.
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