Mirror of Justice

Reply to Rick G.

Reply to what?  This.

Jab?  Jab?!  I don't do no stinking jabs!

(Any "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" fans out there?  Rick?)

Disorientation

I am very disoriented, after reading Michael S.'s post, immediately preceding.

$1,000,000 to the first MOJ blogger or reader who can explain why (i.e., other than Rick Garnett).

:-)  ;-)  :-)  ;-)  :-)  !!!!!

Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice award winner nominated for Surgeon General Post

From Whisper in the Loggia:

...the President drew further from the US church's diverse ranks this morning with the nomination of his Surgeon General -- this time, an African-American Catholic.

Founder of a rural Alabama health clinic for the poor that was devastated three times (twice by hurricanes, once by fire) since its founding in 1990, Dr Regina Benjamin was reelected to a second term on the board of the US' Catholic Health Association at its yearly assembly last month in New Orleans. Even more notably, though, Benjamin's work both at home and nationally were recognized in 2006 when Pope Benedict awarded her the papal cross Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice ("For the Church and the Pontiff") -- the Roman accolade reserved for laity, religious and permanent deacons who've given distinguished service to the church.

The first African-American woman to lead a state medical association, the 53 year-old nominee -- whose grandmother helped found a Black Catholic parish, its first Masses offered in her living room -- must be confirmed by the Senate before she can become the nation's "top doc." ...

An MOJ reader from Europe on "Caritas in Veritate"

This from Pasquale Annicchino:

A Progressive-Conservative Pope?

Prof. Scarpelanda  posted the article authored by Ross Douthat on Caritas in Veritate  and published by the New York Times.

According to Douthat: “Benedict’s encyclical is nothing if not political. “Caritas in Veritate” promotes a vision of economic solidarity rooted in moral conservatism (...)It represents a kind of left-right fusionism with little traction in American politics” and that: “For liberals and conservatives alike, “Caritas in Veritate” is an invitation to think anew about their alliances”.

While it is true that Caritas in Veritate hardly fits within the liberal/conservative categories of American politics, the European laboratory may introduce some surprises in the debate.

A careful reading of the new philosophical  theorization (Progressive-Conservatism) advanced by Phillip Blond for the Tories in the U.K. may reframe the debate.

 David Cameron synthesized Blond’s Progressive Conservatism with the motto: “Conservative means for Progressive ends”.

 Is it something similar to what Benedict XVI is proposing?

Interestingly enough in December 2008 Blond advanced his ideas for a “Catholic economy”. The video is available on Youtube.

Do the “new alliances” have a kind of European flavour?

Blond also wrote for the NYTimes (February 2008)

See also the recent article published by Blond on “The Independent”: Without a concept  of virtue our politics and our banks are doomed.

Pasquale Annicchino

Junior Fellow Law and Religion Programme, Siena

Now, Notre Dame's Fr. Richard McBrien weighs in ...

In his column today for NCR, "Women religious leadership conference has been faithful to its mission," here.  An excerpt:

[I am amazed] that there could be any "doctrinal" concerns about the organization and its leadership.

Some of the finest women religious in the United States, and worldwide, have headed the Leadership Conference. By identifying only a sample, I do not mean to imply that those sisters who remain unmentioned are (or were) of lesser quality and achievement.

The list of past national chairpersons and presidents of the Leadership Conference reads like a Hall of Fame of religious life: Mary Luke Tobin, Thomas Aquinas (Elizabeth) Carroll, Margaret Brennan, Francis Borgia Rothleubber, Joan Chittister, Mary Dooley, Theresa Kane, Nadine Foley, Doris Gottemoeller, Camille D'Arienzo, and so many others.

Moreover, the Leadership Conference's mission statement is as straightforward in its pastoral and doctrinal purposes as it could possibly be: "to promote a developing understanding and living of religious life by: assisting its members personally and communally to carry out more collabora-tively their service of leadership in order to accomplish further the mission of Christ in today's world; fostering dialogue and collaboration among religious congregations within the church and in the larger society; [and] developing models for initiating and strengthening relationships with groups concerned with the needs of society, thereby maximizing the potential of the conference for effecting change."

But there are certain key words and phrases, like "developing," "dialogue," "collaboration," "change," and "today's world," that are red flags for some church officials and a minority of women religious who are locked into the religious culture of the 1940s and 1950s, when nuns wore elaborate habits, remained for the most part confined to their convents and religious houses, took the names assigned to them, often those of male saints, and limited their apostolic activity principally to teaching children, and ministering to the sick, orphans, and unmarried pregnant girls.

It was unthinkable in those pre-conciliar years for a nun to appear in secular clothes, however simple, to engage in apostolic activities outside the convent or religious house, to reclaim their baptismal names, and to become engaged in ministries of social justice, human rights, and peace.

It was even more unthinkable that these now highly educated women would begin to think for themselves and to speak and act accordingly.

That is what seems to bother their critics the most.

Is there an echo in here?

In yesterday's NYT:

What the Sisters Are Up To

By FRANCIS X. CLINES

Across 30 years, the modern version of the Sisters of St. Joseph has been revolutionizing the treatment of imprisoned women in New York. Thanks to the nuns’ efforts, mothers are now allowed to care for their infants on the inside and remain close to their children in creative visitors’ programs. Once they are paroled, these women and their children can find a year’s shelter in one of nine Providence House sanctuaries the nuns created in defunct city rectories and convents.

The order has never lacked courage: five members were guillotined in the French Revolution for giving shelter to the hunted. Now it is the bewildered community of American nuns that is the subject of two sweeping Vatican investigations. The question is whether the sisters are “living in fidelity” to the religious life — a question being put to nuns in no other nation.

Vatican investigations called “visitations” usually focus on serious flaws like the pedophilia scandal. So, what are nuns doing wrong? That is the question being asked by the sisters and legions of Catholic laypeople.

“Well, it’s all nonsense,” says Bob Bennett, a lawyer who led the church’s lay inquiry into the priest pedophilia scandal — which, he says, the church has still not fully addressed. He is amazed that American nuns, of all good people, are suddenly being scrutinized. “They are the jewels, the church’s class act,” he says.

The sisters won’t talk publicly about fears that the Vatican’s goal is to push them back toward a more submissive veil-and-wimple past. At the Providence House programs last week, they talked instead about the myriad problems of their ex-con mothers trying to get a grip on life. As ever, the nuns labor at the brink, begging alms to keep their mission going. “Look, none of us are marching to get women ordained,” one sister said in putting down the cliché that they seek to undermine Rome.

Tom Fox, editor of The National Catholic Reporter, suspects the inquiries are steeped in patriarchy and male chauvinism. “Next time, let’s have our women religious study the quality of life of our male clerics,” is Mr. Fox’s advice.

"The Audacity of the Pope"

Yesterday’s New York Times ran a thought provoking op-ed by Ross Douthat  on Caritas in Veritate and the need for political re-imagination.  Here are parts of it:

Papal encyclicals are supposed to be written with one eye on two millenniums of Catholic teaching, and the other on eternity. But Americans, as a rule, have rather narrower horizons. As soon as the media have finished scanning a Vatican document for references to sex, the debate begins in earnest: Is it good for the left, or for the right? For Democrats, or for Republicans?

*    *    *

Benedict’s encyclical is nothing if not political. “Caritas in Veritate” promotes a vision of economic solidarity rooted in moral conservatism. It links the dignity of labor to the sanctity of marriage. It praises the redistribution of wealth while emphasizing the importance of decentralized governance. It connects the despoiling of the environment to the mass destruction of human embryos.

This is not a message you’re likely to hear in Barack Obama’s next State of the Union, or in the Republican Party’s response. It represents a kind of left-right fusionism with little traction in American politics.

But that’s precisely what makes it so relevant and challenging — for Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

*    *    *

Catholics are obliged to take seriously the underlying provocation of the papal message — namely, that our present political alignments are not the only ones imaginable, and that truth may not be served by perfect ideological conformity.

So should all people of good will. For liberals and conservatives alike, “Caritas in Veritate” is an invitation to think anew about their alliances and litmus tests. ...

Any thoughts?

Picking the Pope

In response to Michael's jab, a few things:  First, with all due respect to Fr. McBrien, and notwithstanding the fact that Michael and I like many of the same books, Eamon Duffy's is a better history of the Popes.

Second, I (obviously) realize (as does Pope Benedict) that we have had some sub-optimal Popes and that it is (thankfully) not necessary for us to regard every Pope in history as having been specifically identified and imposed on the Church by the Holy Spirit.  That said, I'm comfortably confident that the selection of this Pope -- even if he is not as much like Pres. Obama, or as responsive to the concerns of Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and her friends as she might like -- fits nicely within the Holy Spirit's promised-by-Christ guidance, protection, preservation, and inspiration of the Church.  

Third, although I've learned from some other MOJ-ers to try to avoid the "surely you can agree that X" move, I'm happy to agree with my friend Michael that President Obama's speech -- even if it was, like every presidential speech, part of a political program (not that there's anything wrong with that) -- was an inspiring and hopeful one.  Why shouldn't I?  After all, I am not one of sorry sorts who is unable to recognize and praise the good that folks with whom I disagree do.

St. Bernard, pray for us

St. Bernard of Montjoux is the patron saint of alpinists.  I'll be invoking him next week, when I'm climbing here:

"Catholicism as Antidote to Turbo-Capitalism"

Here!

Dear Robert,

Amen!

A follow-up to Michael

 

 

Thanks to Michael Perry who has brought our attention to The New York Times article posted this afternoon regarding President Obama’s stirring speech given to the Ghanian Parliament. As Michael’s reference to the speech itself and to The New York Times article about it point out, the President noted that responsibility for the plight of Africa and its salvation does not rest with particular forces solely outside of Africa or inside.

 

Earlier today our President stated that,

Now, it's easy to point fingers and to pin the blame of these problems on others. Yes, a colonial map that made little sense helped to breed conflict. The West has often approached Africa as a patron or a source of resources rather than a partner. But the West is not responsible for the destruction of the Zimbabwean economy over the last decade, or wars in which children are enlisted as combatants. In my father's life, it was partly tribalism and patronage and nepotism in an independent Kenya that for a long stretch derailed his career, and we know that this kind of corruption is still a daily fact of life for far too many.

 

It may well be that the President has been listening to and taking stock of what the Pope, the Holy See, and those who represent it have been proposing for some time. For example, in 2007, the Holy See, through its Permanent Observer to the United Nations, offered parallel thoughts to those issued by the President today. In particular, Archbishop Celestino Migliore stated behalf of the Holy See and Pope Benedict that,

The international community is called to assist African countries develop policies that promote a culture of solidarity, so that their economic development may go hand in hand with integral human development. On the other hand, good governance and institution-building efforts, correct use of aid and anti-corruption measures are primary responsibilities of the recipient countries and are essential if international aid is to bear fruit.

 

I am certain we all share Michael’s pride in and endorsement of the President’s stirring remarks presented today in Ghana. But let us also acknowledge that some of his efforts to achieve good in the world, especially in those places most in need of it, have been preceded by those of others including the Roman Catholic Church and her exhortations over the years that have brought attention to the plight and promise of Africa. As we applaud the President, so, too, must we applaud those who have gone before in efforts to achieve the same noble goals for the betterment of humanity.

 

RJA sj

Should a faithful Catholic who is rich--i.e., "very rich"--be willing to pay more taxes to fund universal health care?

Here, here, and here.

Whether you voted for or against Obama, ...

... whether your name is Rick Garnett or John O'Callaghan or whatever--and even if you believe that the Holy Spirit picked Joseph Ratzinger to be pope (cf. here; BTW, Joseph Ratzinger himself [!] suggested, in effect, that for one who is familiar with the history of the papacy, such a claim is not plausible)--surely you can applaud this ... at least, this.  (Or was the speech no more than a predictable political stratagem?)

Here; here too.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Who among those now living is more familiar with the history of the papacy than Rick's colleague, Notre Dame's Fr. Richard McBrien?  See here.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger on the Holy Spirit and the papacy:

Speculating on the identity of the new pope prior to the conclave, the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus wrote in his “Rome Diary” that, once elected, “faithful Catholics will have no doubt that he is the choice of the Holy Spirit.” The new pope’s own view is more modest. Asked in 1997 whether the Holy Spirit picks the pope, Ratzinger responded: “I would say that the Spirit does not exactly take control of the affair, but rather like a good educator...leaves us much space, much freedom, without entirely abandoning us.... Probably the only assurance he offers is that the thing cannot be totally ruined. There are too many contrary instances of popes the Holy Spirit would obviously not have picked.”

Allen is justified, therefore, in claiming that when Ratzinger was made prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1981, he was “the first truly first-rate theologian to become the Pope’s top doctrinal authority since St. Robert Bellarmine in the sixteenth century.”

Read the rest, here.

Blessed John Newman on Catholic universities

Thanks to my colleague and MOJ-friend John O'Callaghan for sending this along:

Here, then, I conceive, is the object of the Holy See and the Catholic Church in setting up Universities; it is to reunite things which were in the beginning joined together by God, and have been put asunder by man. Some persons will say that I am thinking of confining, distorting, and stunting the growth of the intellect by ecclesiastical supervision. I have no such thought. Nor have I any thought of a compromise, as if religion must give up something, and science something. I wish the intellect to range with the utmost freedom, and religion to enjoy an equal freedom; but what I am stipulating for is, that they should be found in one and the same place, and exemplified in the same persons. I want to destroy that diversity of centres, which puts everything into confusion by creating a contrariety of influences. I wish the same spots and the same individuals to be at once oracles of philosophy and shrines of devotion. It will not satisfy me, what satisfies so many, to have two independent systems, intellectual and religious, going at once side by side, by a sort of division of labour, and only accidentally brought together. It will not satisfy me, if religion is here, and science there, and young men converse with science all day, and lodge with religion in the evening. It is not touching the evil, to which these remarks have been directed, if young men eat and drink and sleep in one place, and think in another: I want the same roof to contain both the intellectual and moral discipline. Devotion is not a sort of finish given to the sciences; nor is science a sort of feather in the cap, if I may so express myself, an ornament and set-off to devotion. I want the intellectual layman to be religious, and the devout ecclesiastic to be intellectual.

Obama is "more Catholic than the Pope"?

The claim that Pope Benedict XVI is a "liberal" was, I thought, implausible.  Now Kathleen Kennedy Townsend is upping the ante.  She contends, here, that "Barack Obama represents American Catholics better than the pope does."  "Notre Dame awarded the president an honorary degree," she concludes, "because it saw the need to highlight the best of Catholic teaching as applied to politics: the ability to open the eyes of those who would prefer to keep them closed, and to open the hearts of those who would prefer not to know the pain that their actions cause. The pope has a lot to learn about Catholic politics in America. Barack Obama can teach him." 

Wow!  (To be sure, there are those who would "prefer to keep [their eyes] closed" -- e.g., those who breezily brush aside questions about America's abortion-rights regime with quips about their "pay grade", or those who imagine that Pres. Obama is something other than a committed supporter of that regime.)

Townsend's mention of the Notre Dame honorary degree reminded me that one of the things I think was most regrettable about the decision, and the way it was defended and spun, was that the University allowed itself to be used to advance the President's (quite understandable, politically speaking) strategy of (subtly) separating American Catholics from their (not particularly popular at the moment) bishops and their authority.  Maybe Townsend's piece is a preview of the next move?  Having told American Catholics what the "right way" is to be Catholic (i.e., "don't be like that close-minded fuddy-duddy, Bishop D'arcy"), the President is now positioning himself as a model for what American Catholics should want in the (or, "their") Vicar of Christ.  Thanks, Ms. Townsend, but I think I'll stick with the one the Holy Spirit picked.

Welcome back to "Evangelical Catholicism"

After a two-year-or-so hiatus, the very interesting blog "Evangelical Catholicism" is back.  (Contributors Michael and Katerina had been blogging at Vox Nova. More here.)

John Allen, Notre Dame's Cathy Kaveny, and Others on Obama and the Vatican

New York Times

July 10, 2009

Back to Honduras ...

Very interesting piece in The New Republic (7/10/09), by David Fontana of George Washington Law, here.

Honduras and Constitutional Democracy

Here in the United States, the removal of President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras has prompted disparate reactions from the political right and political left. Conservatives (fearing the influence of Hugo Chavez and his authoritarian brand of politics, with which Zelaya had aligned himself) have tended to side with the coup leaders. Liberals (fearing a return to the era of Latin American military coups) have tended to side with Zelaya.

But both sides are missing a layer of complexity, one that suggests the Honduras crisis isn't an easy case of heroes and villains. What is taking place in Honduras is actually a debate over an old and difficult question: Can a democratically enacted change to a constitution be itself unconstitutional?

[Read the rest, here.]

"When Benny Met Barry"

Rick's friend David Gibson is at it again, over at dotCommonweal, here.

Family Ties: What do we think?

Over at Prawfsblawg, Dan Markel, Ethan Lieb, and Jennifer Collins have put up their "intro freaky post" describing their recent book project, "Privilege or Punish."  As much as I like the authors, I have to agree that the post -- and, indeed, the project -- is kind of "freaky."  Here's a bit:

we basically claim that the state should exercise substantial caution and indeed hostility to most attempts to distribute these benefits or burdens based on one’s family status. This is a controversial stance, but we conclude that in many circumstances there are simply too many costs to the criminal justice system when it gives special treatment based on one’s family ties or responsibilities.

Moreover, even when the criminal justice system does not suffer in terms of its ability to reduce crime and to impose accurate and adequate punishment, the signals of such family ties, burdens, and benefits are often expressly denigrating the lives of those who don’t live by the rules of a heterosexual and repro-normative conception of family life. Our view is that a criminal justice system in a liberal democracy has to be especially careful about sending these messages of denigration and inequality through its most awesome instruments of power, coercion, and condemnation.

To be sure, we might think the law does a bad job, in specific instances, of taking account, in an appropriate way, the reality -- and it is a reality -- that persons are situated in families, which are themselves natural human societies.  But it is not at all clear to me what it would be about any attractive conception of "liberal democracy" that should make it the case that the state not only should not, but may not, take account of, and appropriately respect and protect, this reality.

 

Thoughts?

Robert George on the marriage debate

Here, at Public Discourse,  is an interview with Prof George, about the state-of-play in the debate over re-defining marriage to include same-sex relationships.  A taste:

[An] insidious and brutal way in which many advocates of sexual liberalism deploy cultural power in the cause of redefining marriage is by depicting their opponents as bigots. Across the country, they have pursued a strategy of intimidation against anyone who dares to dissent from their position in a public way. Their appalling treatment of Carrie Prejean is merely one example. Their relentless personal attacks on her were designed to send a clear message to others who aspire to succeed in any area of public life, from beauty pageants to careers in journalism and politics: “If you oppose us, if you have the temerity to express support for the conjugal conception of marriage, we will smear you as a rube and a bigot, make your life hell, and do our best to ruin you.”

Ninth Circuit rejects pharmacists' religious-conscience claims

The Los Angeles Times has the story, here:

The right to freely exercise one's religion "does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a valid and neutral law of general applicability," the 9th Circuit panel wrote.

"Any refusal to dispense -- regardless of whether it is motivated by religion, morals, conscience, ethics, discriminatory prejudices, or personal distaste for a patient -- violates the rules," the panel said.

At First Things, Wesley Smith warns that (among other things) the decision "also means that all pharmacists in the state must dispense death to terminally ill patients in Washington who receive lethal prescriptions."  Paul Moses, at Commonweal, weighs in here,

I wonder whether Pres. Obama's much-touted-by-some-Catholics "reasonable conscience clause" would protect these pharmacists?

Hibbs on the new encyclical

Here is philosopher Thomas Hibbs, commenting on the encyclical:

“Democracy in good faith no longer has any essential reproach to make against the church. From now on it can hear the question the church poses, that it alone poses, the question, Quid sit homo?—What is man?”

The French political philosopher Pierre Manent frames in quite dramatic terms the situation of the Church in the democratic era. Amid the shallow media debates over whether the latest papal encyclical, Pope Bendict XVI’s Caritas in Veritate, leans left or right, there is a good chance that readers will miss the central philosophical claim of the document: “the social question has become a radically anthropological question” (italics in the original text). By subordinating all economic systems to the question of the common good, understood as integral human flourishing, the document opposes reductionism, whether in theory or practice, in liberal or conservative forms.  

There is a lot of talk already about the document’s dizzying capaciousness, the way it seems to want to discuss everything and embrace almost everything, even things that seem on the surface incompatible. It is easy enough to affirm the Pope’s affirmation of both subsidiarity and globalism, but the document, largely because it does not say enough about the nature of the common good, leaves us guessing a bit as to the principles needed to spell out the relationship. Further reflection about these matters would have to begin, not just from the question, “What is man?”, but also from the queries such as, “What does it mean for human persons to hold things in common?” and “What are the peculiar forms of social life in which human persons now hold—and can learn how better to hold—things in common?”    

Even to raise these questions is to sense how distant we are from the world of contemporary political discourse, where the tendency is toward the privatization, not just of religion, but of questions concerning the good, individual and communal. Indeed, a pressing question for a document such as Caritas in Veritate is this: why is it so easily ignored by the wider society, both by the media, political leaders, and ordinary citizens? Catholics fawning over Obama will quickly retort that he has embraced Catholic social thought, especially in the form of Cardinal Bernardin’s “seamless garment.” Aside from the fact that he ignores Bernardin’s insistence on the non-negotiable priority of the sanctity of human life, as well as Benedict’s claim that “openness to life is at the center of true development,” Obama seems to need instruction in the dictionary definition of “seamless.”  

For Manent, democracy—increasingly defined by the pursuit of a freedom unfettered by any external restraint, authority, or law—“neither wants to nor can respond” to the questions raised above. The Pope is not quite so despairing, but his own document gives us reason to think that its teaching will at best be distorted when not smugly dismissed. Benedict makes, as some in the media have noticed, numerous references to the current economic crisis, but he also speaks of other crises, including the one arising from a Promethean spirit of technological mastery, the will to remake both human life and the natural environment according to our unrestrained desires. Benedict astutely points to numerous signs of the fraying of the project of mastery. Our task, as sympathetic readers, is to communicate the teaching of Caritas in Veritate to others, so that they in turn may be better able to articulate the hopes and fears of our time—a time in which the meaning of humanity itself is very much in doubt.

Thomas S. Hibbs is Distinguished Professor of Ethics & Culture and Dean of the Honors College at Baylor University. 

Horizonal Catholicism & the Economy of Communion

Thanks, Michael P., for the link to John Allen’s latest, in which he discusses, among other things, John Coleman’s analysis of the “paradox” that “Roman Catholicism should be the religious actor best positioned to engage the issues raised by globalization, but aside from debt relief, its impact so far has been marginal” and set out the theory that official Church structures "may lack the inner organizational flexibility for rapid and networked response to global issues as they arise," and surmises that "semi-autonomous and more local Catholic sub-groups will be the major actors in activist global networks."

 

Allen wonders about the role of what he calls "horizontal Catholicism" – “a host of movements, associations, ad-hoc networks, and religious communities, engaged in the issues raised by globalization in a staggering variety of ways. These malleable, rapid-response forms of Catholicism will exercise a steadily more important role in framing Catholic social activism as the century unfolds.”

 

I think that Allen is on to something.  Having followed the developments in the Focolare Movement’s “Economy of Communion” project since its inception in 1991, I sense that one of the reasons its framework is so solid it that it is able to combine a flexible and responsive local presence with a unified international vision and cultural approach, as I have discussed here, here and here.

 

Development needs within local communities are assessed within a framework of a broader commitment on the part of everyone – both those who share and those who receive material resources – to live a “culture of giving.”  The sharing of material resources is always linked to the commitment to build a true sense of family within the community, a place to share stories about how God’s loving intervention has come to meet material needs, and inspired further efforts to be a “gift” for others in a variety of ways.  These stories, in turn, foster continued commitment in the part of those who operate the Economy of Communion businesses throughout the world.  The structure is flexible and responsive not only in a practical sense, but also in its capacity to build authentic human relationships, which then serve as a foundation for social and economic development.

 

Based on this somewhat anecdotal experience, I think there’s much for us to mine in Allen’s statement, “The experience and insight of this horizontal Catholicism might also become a fertile locus teologicus, meaning a valuable foundation for new trajectories in Catholic social doctrine.”