Mirror of Justice

Mary Cheney Speaks

New York Times
January 31, 2007

Mary Cheney Publicly Defends Her Pregnancy
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE

Mary Cheney, the lesbian daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, today for the first time publicly defended her decision to become pregnant and asserted that same-sex couples are equally capable of raising children as heterosexual couples.

“When Heather and I decided to have a baby, I knew it wasn’t going to be the most popular decision,” Ms. Cheney said, referring to her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe. She then gestured to her middle — any bulge disguised by a boxy jacket — and asserted: “This is a baby. This is a blessing from God. It is not a political statement. It is not a prop to be used in a debate, on either side of a political issue. It is my child.”

Ms. Cheney, 37, was speaking at a panel discussion sponsored by Glamour magazine at Barnard College in Manhattan. The baby, whose sex she has not publicly disclosed, is due this spring and will be the sixth grandchild for the vice president and his wife. Ms. Cheney, who is vice president of consumer advocacy for AOL and lives in Virginia, has not said how she became pregnant.

Her father became testy last week during a CNN interview when the host Wolf Blitzer asked what he thought of conservatives — specifically James C. Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family— who are critical of his daughter Mary’s pregnancy.

In refusing to answer, Mr. Cheney told Mr. Blitzer  that he was “over the line.”

Ms. Cheney said in a brief interview after the panel that she was not speaking for her father, but that when she saw the interview, she also felt Mr. Blitzer had crossed a line. “He was trying to get a rise out of my father,” she said.

Today at the panel discussion, inside a stuffy room decorated by portraits of stern-looking former Barnard presidents, Cindi Leive, the editor of Glamour, asked Ms. Cheney if she had anything to say to critics like Mr. Dobson.

Mr. Dobson wrote in Time magazine last month that years of social research “indicates that children do best on every measure of well-being when raised by their married mother and father.” He also wrote that his group believes that “birth and adoption are the purview of married heterosexual couples.” (Two of the researchers whom Mr. Dobson cited in his article have complained that Mr. Dobson distorted their views and said they disagreed with his conclusions.)

Ms. Cheney noted Mr. Dobson’s distortions of the research he cited and added: “Every piece of remotely responsible research that has been done in the last 20 years has shown there is no difference between children raised by same-sex parents and children raised by opposite-sex parents; what matters is being raised in a stable, loving environment.”

She said  Mr. Dobson was entitled to his opinion, “but he’s not someone whose endorsement I have ever drastically sought.”

 

Response to Rick's Query

Capital Punishment, Rick.  It shows the Tradition in development, enables you to distingsuish the position of John Paul II, which is a bit ahead of the Tradition on the issue, from the  present position of the Tradition, and, above all, permits you to discuss a issue of cardinal importance for LAW STUDENTS.  (Invite Richard Posner to participate in the discussion!)

Catholic Social Thought class

So, I'm working on the syllabus and readings for a seminar, "Law and the Catholic Social Tradition," that I'll be teaching at the University of Chicago Law School in the Spring quarter.  That quarter, as I understand it, is only 8 weeks long, and our class is scheduled to meet once a week (with an additional special get-together with Cardinal George).  So, with only 8 meetings, I'm wrestling with what to cover, what to read, and what to emphasize.

It seems to me -- and I would very much welcome reactions -- that it would not be best to, say, pick 8 important encyclicals and do one per week.  I'm more inclined to identify leading themes, or particularly salient problems, and focus on those.  Here's what I'm working with right now:

1.  Introduction to basic themes; historical context (French Revolution through Leo XIII). 

2.  The Nature, Role, and Problem of the State.

3.   The Structure of Society (subsidiarity).

4.  Individuals, Markets. Community, and Solidarity.

5.   Religous Freedom, Pluralism, Conscience.

6.  Prudence, Politics, and Legal Moralism

7. The Family as a Social Institution

8.  Nationalism, Cosmopolitanism, Internationalism, and Patriotism.

Thoughts?  Reactions?  Suggestions?

comment on Welby case

In large part because I don't think I have a clear idea of the underlying facts, I am not entirely sure how to evaluate the Welby case. I have been concerned by some of the arguments made in defending Welby's actions. For example, the article by John Paris from the Tablet had the subtitle--"A life too burdensome." That seems to me the wrong approach to take. Catholic teaching on this issue has drawn a distinction between burdensome treatments and burdensome lives. To regard some lives, in impaired conditions, as too burdensome gets close to denying the good of human life. In the Terri Schiavo case, for instance, that seems to be precisely the dynamic. To the people who were so eager to have her food and water withdrawn, her life was not worth living and some, her husband, regarded her as already dead. But for Terri, the treatment wasn't burdensome. Her life had a value that ought to have been respected throught he continued administration of ordinary care. That was the point of John Paul II's message on the treatment of PVS patients. But for Terri's husband, her continued existence was obviously too burdensome. 

Human life, however valuable, need not be preserved at all costs and there are situations where the treatment may be too burdensome (or extraordinary or disproportionate). Maybe that was the case in the Welby situation. Most commentators think that it was permissible to have removed the respirator in the Karen Ann Quinlan case, although her food and water were not withdrawn and she lived for a number of years. Maybe the Welby case was different, though, because he seemed intent on securing his death (not just avoiding atreatment that had proved too burdensome). The whole use of his case to promote the "right to die" movement in Italy seems to suggest that something more significant was going on then just replaying the Quinlan case. The ideological use of his situation and death certainly weighed into Cardinal Ruini's decision to deny a Church funeral.

Richard M.   

Dissenters, Not Heretics

Fr. Edward Oakes makes the case that Protestants are not heretics.  He argues that both sides lost something significant in the Reformation, noting, for example: "No church historian doubts that the Catholic Church after Trent began to emphasize behavior as the marker of Catholic identity in ways unique in her history."  The whole thing is rich and worth reading, but here's an excerpt:

Luther’s point can be easily satirized and misconstrued–and by Catholic polemicists was–as if he were saying that behavior doesn’t matter, and that God was “letting us off the hook.” To take a modern analogy, the Catholic controversialists were in effect comparing Luther’s view of God to the California jury that acquitted O.J. Simpson of charges of murdering his wife even though he was obviously guilty–and here he is now living the high life and playing golf in Florida! Is that really the kind of justice we want to ascribe to God? But such a charge abuses Luther’s position, for he was more than willing to insist that a Christian’s justification must be reflected in the transformation of his behavior if a genuine faith were really the material cause of his justification.

Similarly, the Council of Trent was extremely nuanced in its decree on justification. For one thing, it had Paul’s letters to consider, which could hardly be made to say the opposite of what they do say. Additionally, the overpowering authority of St. Augustine on the matter could not be gainsaid. Thus the path to a superficial works-righteousness was blocked from the outset. No doubt, later Protestant polemicists claimed that Catholics were taught that they could “earn” salvation by going on pilgrimages, doing works of charity, and the like. But if Catholics believed that (and maybe a lot did on the popular level), they had no support in Trent’s carefully crafted decree.

"Clash Looms With Vatican"

"As China's Bishops die off," the Wall Street Journal reports, in this long article (subscription required), "Clash Looms With Vatican."

As Beijing and the Vatican escalate their battle for control of the Roman Catholic Church in China, people like Bishop Liu Jingshan are caught painfully in the middle.

The head of a diocese in the dusty plains of western China, the 93-year-old bishop is one of the church's last living links with a pre-Communist China, when Catholics could freely profess their allegiance to the pope. Bishop Liu also serves in the compromised present-day world of Catholicism in this country, in a government-approved church which the Vatican and many Catholics view as illegitimate.

This is a huge story, and I commend the WSJ for devoting so many column inches to it.  That said, as I have written here before, it is unfortunate that the storyline in pieces about China's efforts to run the Catholic Church always frames the issue as a "power struggle" between the "Vatican" and China for "control" over the Catholic Church.  No, the issue is Catholic control of the Catholic Church.

second annual Scarpa Conference in Catholic Legal Studies

The second annual Scarpa Conference will be held on October 16, 2007, in Villanova University's Connelly Center. Its topic will be "The Judicial Office in Our Constitutional Democracy: Avoiding Dogmatism on a Disputed Question." Please mark your calendars, and please spread the word to others who might be interested. All are welcome. Details about registration will be available as the time approaches.  Mark Sargent and I hope to have the opportunity to welcome lots of MoJers and friends-of-MoJ to Philadelphia and Villanova for what promises to be a rich discussion and perhaps colorful discussion of a deeply important and widely debated cluster of issues in (Catholic) legal theory.

Justice Antonin Scalia will deliver the keynote address. Also presenting papers at the Conference will be Professor Paul Kahn, Professor Jean Porter, Professor James R. Stoner, and Professor Jeremy Waldron.

Paul Kahn is the Robert W. Winner Professor of Law and the Humanities and Director, Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human Rights at the Yale Law School. Professor Kahn is the author of Legitimacy and History: Self-Government in American Constitutional Theory; The Reign of Law: Marbury v. Madison and the Construction of America; The Cultural Study of Law: Reconstucting Legal Scholarship; Law and Love: The Trials of King Lear; Putting Liberalism in Its Place; and Out of Eden: Adam and Eve and the Problem of Evil.

Jean Porter is the John A. O'Brian Professor of Theology at The University of Notre Dame. Professor Porter is the author of Natural and Divine Law: Reclaiming the Tradition for Christian Ethics; Nature and Reason: A Thomistic Theory of Natural Law; Moral Action and Christian Ethics; and The Recovery of Virtue: The Relevance of Aquinas for Christian Ethics.

James R. Stoner, Jr., is Professor of Political Science at Louisiana State University. Among his many writings are Common Law and Liberal Theory: Coke, Hobbes, and the Origins of American Constitutionalism and Common Law Liberty: Rethinking American Constitutionalism.

Jeremy Waldron is University Professor at New York University. He was previously University Professor at Columbia University. Professor Waldron came to Columbia from Princeton University, where he was the Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Politics. Among Waldron's books are God, Locke, and Equality: Christian Foundations of Locke's Political Theory; The Dignity of Legislation; Law and Disagreement, and The Right to Private Property.

Announcement:

SECOND ANNUAL SCARPA CONFERENCE

IN CATHOLIC LEGAL STUDIES

The Judicial Office in Our Constitutional Democracy:

Avoiding Dogmatism on a Disputed Question

Aristotle taught that ideally we should prefer to be ruled by the animate justice of the wise man, but prudentially we must prefer judges who give effect to written law. Thomas Aquinas agreed: "Since . . . the animate justice of the judge is not found in every man, and since it can be deflected, it was necessary, whenever possible, for the law to determine how to judge, and for very few matters to be left to the decision of men." Aquinas taught, furthermore, that faced with an unjust law, the judge must refuse to proceed to judgment. The judge was to be a twice-measured measure - first by the written law, then by justice. Contemporary Catholic social doctrine is in accord.

From a range of starting points, many contemporary legal and political theorists reject a justice-based limitation on the judicial function. From the left, the leading argument is that "justice" is inevitably only a cover for politics, with the result that the judge should not be empowered to substitute her politics for that of the majority. From the right, the predominant argument is that a proper commitment to democracy requires a democracy-forcing judicial office. Justice Antonin Scalia has urged a "dogmatic democracy."

The Second Vatican Council (1962-65) was, remarkably, silent on the topic of democracy. Although Catholic social teaching since the Council has offered encouragement to those working on behalf of democracy, it has consistently denied that a democratic pedigree is sufficient to justify legislation or judicial judgment. The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (2004) warns against theories of political legitimacy that would exempt the products of democratic process from institutional moral scrutiny.

How are we to define, so as to be able to legitimate, the judicial office in our constitutional democracy? "The judicial power is neither a platonic essence nor a pre-existing empirical classification," Paul Bator observed. "It is a purposive institutional concept, whose content is a product of history and custom distilled in the light of experience and expediency." In the spirit suggested by Bator, the Second Annual Scarpa Conference in Catholic Legal Studies will inquire into how to determine the metes and bounds of the judicial office, with special attention to its relationship to democratic legitimacy and to the unique demands of the modern administrative state.

By bringing the perspectives of the Catholic tradition into dialogue with those of contemporary Anglo-American jurisprudence and political theory, the Conference will provide an opportunity to develop fresh critical perspectives on the "purposive institutional concept" that, as a matter of fact, shapes the judicial practice that in turn decides the directions that we can or cannot take in this democracy. If the majority loses sight of the demands of justice, natural law, and natural right, does political morality or constitutionalism demand that the judge refrain from going beyond the positive law? In the long run, can we be "dogmatic" about democracy?

Staying Theocentric

William Willimon's essay on preaching has implications for Catholic legal theorists too:

I tend to begin sermons with anthropology: descriptions of what we are doing or should do, who we are or who we wish we were. I do this because I assume that most people are more interested in themselves than in God. As Luke says, the huge crowds from all over Judea came not only to "hear him" but also "to be healed," to plug into the therapeutic "power" that "came forth from him." We tend to ask not "What is God really like?" but rather, "Jesus, what have you done for me lately?" Narcissism is a hard habit to break.

Jesus is more theocentric in his preaching. A sermon is a sermon when it's about God. We learn implications for human behavior only after we learn who God is and what God is up to.

Another thing. The discourse is eschatological. It's a vision not of present arrangements, but of what God will get when God's kingdom is come, God's will is done on earth. One doesn't hear much eschatology in my mainline denomination these days because most of us have got it so good. We're sitting on top of all this world has to offer, and we don't want to be, in Luther's words, "damned for the gospel" in order to be dragged kicking and screaming into some other world. Eschatology says that God is disruptive and dangerous before being creative. In this inauguration address, Jesus declares war, announcing an invasion related to a whole new world.

An Item of Interest

[Another interesting item from MOJ friend Gerry White (Trinity College Dublin, Law):]

Cardinal Martini and Euthanasia: When It Is Licit to Cut Life Short
For the former archbishop of Milan, the seriously ill person has at every moment the right to interrupt the care that keeps him alive. No, objects the president of the Pontifical Academy for Life. But the real clash is between Martini and the pope

by Sandro Magister

ROMA, January 30, 2007 – Just nine months after the bombshell manifesto of opposition to the reigning pope published in the Italian weekly “L’espresso” – on artificial insemination, embryos, abortion, euthanasia – cardinal Carlo Maria Martini has returned to the last of these topics, euthanasia, with an article that appeared on January 21 on the front page of the Sunday edition of “Il Sole 24 Ore,” the leading economics and finance newspaper in Italy, and one of the most important in all of Europe.

This time as well his statements have been interpreted as a criticism of the papal line of absolute opposition to intentionally caused “gentle death.”

And again this time – like nine months ago – the official Catholic media have shrouded cardinal Martini’s statements in silence, while the secular media have amplified them.

But a controversy that pits the highest leaders of the worldwide Church against each other with conflicting positions on topics of such importance cannot remain hidden within the Church itself.

It is a controversy with its own concrete proximate cause, background, and developments.

[To read the rest of this interesting article, click here.]

John Edwards weighs in on Eduardo Peñalver's side!

Dear Friend,

As I've traveled the country, I've talked to thousands of people who work one or more jobs and still struggle to keep food on their tables and make ends meet. Righting this inexcusable wrong is a core goal of our work together.

In less than 72 hours, the Senate will likely vote on a proposal to raise the federal minimum wage to $7.25 an hour. It's a long overdue change that will immediately help over 13 million people, many living at or below the edge of poverty. But it will only happen if you speak up.

Last week, the Senate Republicans filibustered a clean version of the proposal, and now they're trying to force Democrats to either pass billions of dollars more in corporate tax breaks or give up raising the minimum wage.

The only way to beat the special interests is to prove to every Senator that the American people are watching. It's time to tell the Senate that American workers deserve a raise - no strings attached:

Last year I worked with many of you and with our partners to help pass ballot initiatives raising the minimum wage in six states - so I know first hand how much support this has among working Americans. And I also know it's the right thing to do.

There's no doubt the minimum wage is too low: a full-time minimum wage worker brings in just $10,712 a year, less than half of the poverty level for a family of four.

There's no doubt it's been too long: in the ten years since the minimum wage was raised -- the longest delay in history -- the cost of living has gone up 25%.

And there's no doubt a higher minimum wage is good for the economy: studies show that cities and counties with higher minimum wages maintain or even increase employment levels.

The only doubt is whether the corporate lobbyists and their Republican allies will be able to dilute and delay the proposal at the expense of American workers.

If we raise our voice now, you and I can help make sure that doesn't happen.

Creating the working society we believe in -- where every full-time job provides the dignity of a decent income and a springboard to future opportunity -- will require bold fixes for the ways our system treats workers. These include shifting the tax burden off the backs of wage earners, providing full child care benefits for working families, defending the basic rights of workers to organize -- and raising the minimum wage.

It can happen, but only if we seize the big moments and speak out for what is right.

Sincerely,
John Edwards

Inequality

I take your point, Rick, about the process by which wealth is produced and how those gains are distributed, although I'm not sure I agree that there is no moment at which gains (or, perhaps, expected gains) in wealth from entrepreneurship are allocated as between owners of capital and their employees and at which that allocation can be assessed from the point of view of its impact on inequality.  But I'm no economist.  Even if there were not such a moment, however, I don't think that the principle I'm endorsing is meaningless.  Another way to think about it might be to ask about the consequences of reducing inequality.  We might say that inequality should be reduced until the reductions begin to have a significant impact on the well being of those at the bottom (which should itself be viewed as based on a mixture of absolute and relative factors).

Solum on "natural justice"

The superhumanly productive Larry Solum has posted a new paper, "Natural Justice."  Here is the abstract:

Justice is a natural virtue. Well-functioning humans are just, as are well-ordered human societies. Roughly, this means that in a well-ordered society, just humans internalize the laws and social norms (the nomoi) - they internalize lawfulness as a disposition that guides the way they relate to other humans. In societies that are mostly well-ordered, with isolated zones of substantial dysfunction, the nomoi are limited to those norms that are not clearly inconsistent with the function of law - to create the conditions for human flourishing. In a radically dysfunctional society, humans are thrown back on their own resources - doing the best they can in circumstances that may require great practical wisdom to avoid evil and achieve good. Justice is naturally good for humans - it is part and partial of human flourishing. All of these are natural ethical facts.

Natural Justice develops these claims in four stages. Part I contextualizes the claim that justice is a natural virtue in relationship to Hume's famous argument about deriving ought from is, Moore's open-question argument, and the so-called fact-value distinction. The upshot of the discussion in Part I is the claim that there are no clearly decisive objections to existence of natural ethical facts.

Part II traces the movement from neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics to virtue jurisprudence by articulating a theory of the judicial virtues. Among these are the virtues of practical wisdom and of justice. Practical wisdom or phronesis is best understood on the model of moral vision, which in the context of law is legal vision or situation sense. The virtue of justice is best understood as lawfulness. Just humans are law-abiding or nomimos - in that they internalize the widely shared and deeply held social norms of their social groups. This part concludes with the claim that a legally correct decision is the decision that characteristically would be rendered by a fully virtuous judge under the circumstances of the case.

Part III argues that natural justice can be understood on the model of natural goodness as articulated in the work of Philippa Foot and Michael Thompson. The intuitive idea is that justice as lawfulness is naturally good for reason - using social creatures in human circumstances. This part also articulates and responds to a variety of objections.

Part IV concludes by articulating the sense in which an aretaic theory of law that incorporates a natural virtue of justice as lawfulness can be viewed as an expression of the natural law tradition. The natural law idea that an unjust enactment is not a true law corresponds to two senses in which positive laws can fail to be nomoi (in the technical sense specified by virtue jurisprudence). First, a given enactment may contravene deeply held and widely shared social norms. Second, such enactments may be fundamentally inconsistent with the purpose of law - the promotion of human flourishing.

I'm very attracted to Professor Solum's (and others') efforts regarding aretaic jurisprudence.  My questions for him, and these others, are:  First, does "virtue jurisprudence" require a theory of the state, i.e., a theory that explains why it is (assuming that it is) the case that the state may employ coercion (i.e., the law) to push citizens toward virtue?  Second, does "virtue jurisprudence" require a teleological account of the person, in order to pour content into the idea of "human flourishing"?

Controversy at Duquesne Law School

The Chronicle of Higher Education
January 29, 2007

Duquesne U. Ban on Politicians at Commencement Draws Protest Petition From Law Students

By KATHERINE MANGAN

Law students at Duquesne University were circulating a petition on Friday protesting a decision to bar two likely presidential candidates and a Pennsylvania congressman from speaking at the law school's commencement this spring.

The university's president, Charles J. Dougherty, said that three of the speakers whom the law dean, Donald J. Guter, had proposed inviting were inappropriate because their political views might offend people, and their beliefs might be at odds with the Roman Catholic Church's teachings.

In a letter to administrators of the Catholic university, Mr. Dougherty explained why he would not allow invitations to be sent to Sen. Barack Obama, an Illinois Democrat; Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican; or Rep. John P. Murtha, a Democrat from Pennsylvania. The two senators are regarded as leading contenders for their party's presidential nominations in 2008, although neither has officially declared his candidacy. Mr. Murtha is a strong critic of the Iraq war.

"I had two reasons for disapproving the politicians," the president wrote. "First, I believe that a high-profile partisan political figure is inappropriate for a commencement speaker. Anyone of that description, including all three proposed, is sure to offend large numbers in the audience."

"Even if such a speaker steers clear of political content," Mr. Dougherty continued, "it makes a political statement that we provided them an occasion and a platform -- and one in which there is no possibility for dialogue or the expression of alternative points of view." He said the university had no objection to inviting politicians and policy makers to discuss controversial ideas in forums where different sides could be aired.

The second reason, he said, "is the likelihood that some or all of these politicians have taken public positions on issues in opposition to Catholic church teachings."

"I have not done the research on these individuals to know this is true," he said, "but this possibility is another good reason to avoid politicians as commencement speakers."

The president did approve of Mr. Guter's fourth candidate to speak: Alberto J. Mora, a former general counsel of the U.S. Navy.

Mr. Guter, who became the law dean in 2005 after a high-profile career in the Navy, said he was new to academe but found the president's objections puzzling.

"Each person I invited I felt we had a reasonable chance of getting because I had either worked with him or worked with someone who worked with him," the dean said on Friday. He said he had approached the offices of the four men and asked staff members if their bosses would be interested in speaking. In each case, the answer was either yes or maybe. Mr. Guter had not, however, extended a formal invitation to anyone.

"My intent was to go to the president and ask for blanket approval for all of them and see who could come," he said.

Last year the Duquesne administration did not oppose another politician Mr. Guter invited as graduation speaker: Sen. Lindsey O. Graham, a Republican from South Carolina. "I must have missed a meeting when the policy changed," Mr. Guter said.

He added that he felt the candidates' views on topics like abortion were "non-issues" because they would not be mentioned during a commencement speech.

"Besides," he said, "I don't think Senator Obama has done anything to promote abortion, but he has written about the need to do everything possible to reduce the need for a woman to have an abortion."

The petition being circulated on Friday called on the president to reconsider his decision.

Michael V. Quatrini, a third-year law student and president of the school's Student Bar Association, was among those who objected to Mr. Dougherty's stance.

"I find it ridiculous," Mr. Quatrini said. "Barack Obama wouldn't be there to discuss gay marriage or any social policy the Catholic church is for or against. Graduation speakers are there to give us guidance and inspiration, and it seems crazy to pass up the opportunity to have someone of their stature here."

More on the Controversy in the U.K.

The Guardian
January 29, 2007

These US-style culture wars seeping into Britain are an absurd distraction.
Hysteria over the gay adoption row, while Iraq is barely debated, reflects a wider insecurity among liberal progressives.
By Madeleine Bunting

On the same day as parliament was having its first debate for two and a half years on the Iraq war, the row blew up over the Catholic church's plea for exemption on allowing gay couples to adopt. No prizes for guessing which issue dominated the front pages, the blogs and the airwaves. While gay adoption and Catholicism prompted a vigorous, passionate debate, the one about the Iraq war languished down the running order.

Of course, it's daft. A war that has cost more than half-a-million lives and destabilised one of the most volatile regions of the world is finally being debated in the institution that purports to be at the heart of our democracy. Huge questions are at stake about the nature of Britain's relationship with America, the future of the Middle East and the lives of our servicemen. But a horrible combination of frustration, fear and fatigue has killed off our appetite to consider the Iraq war. In sharp contrast, gay adoption and Catholicism is an issue that will materially affect only a handful of people (no gay couple in their right minds wanting to adopt would approach a Catholic agency) but the set piece battle it provoked attracted huge attention.

Even odder, a cabinet and party which have faithfully followed Tony Blair into the Iraq war, whose squeaks of opposition to his "war on terror" have been so sotto voce as to be barely audible, suddenly discovered their voice last week. For several days, the rebels valiantly took to the airwaves to stand their ground in defence of the Equality Act - Lord Falconer, Peter Hain, Jack Straw and Alan Johnson. Their stolid defiance of alleged Downing Street sympathy for the Catholic church was welcome. But why now, why over this particular issue?

An important principle was at stake, of course. What's the point of an anti-discrimination law that allows exemptions to carry on discriminating? But the incident also illustrates how it's not just Blair who is thinking about his legacy. Many of his colleagues are also reflecting on a near-decade of dutiful loyalty and asking what it has achieved. In the tally, the Equality Act - along with other measures such as civil partnerships, the Human Rights Act and age discrimination - is a powerful balm for consciences bruised from years of marching obediently into the government lobby.

Historians will be able to pick apart Labour's poor record on tackling inequality and encouraging social mobility, its emasculation of democracy and fudged constitutional reform before even starting on its foreign policy. But the advances in human rights will represent Labour's most radical and courageous legacy. The parallel with the Labour governments of the 60s and 70s is striking. Their most enduring achievements were also in civil rights - decriminalisation of homosexuality, race relations and gender equality.

It is as if Labour has been hedged about by an economic system largely beyond its manipulation and it is only in the field of human rights that it finds scope to attempt to reshape society. Only in the area of human rights and anti-discrimination do Labour governments lead from the front, ahead of popular consensus, rather than trying to divine it from focus groups and faithfully reflect it.

Last week's rumpus was about much more than just an uppity cardinal, it was also one of those moments in public life snatched as an opportunity beyond Westminster for a bigger purpose. The hapless villain of the piece - the Catholic church - offered the perfect foil for a demonstration of liberal progressive moral superiority. The blogs hummed with an outpouring of anti-Catholic bile. Catholicism was lambasted as antediluvian, anachronistic and bigoted. In contrast, liberal progressives came out shining with moral fervour. Faith - of all varieties - has become one of the phenomena against which a demoralised post-socialist centre-left chooses to define itself.

AC Grayling offered a masterpiece of the genre on the Guardian's blog site, Comment is Free, in which he bewailed the "enslavement of the European mind by the absurdities of Christianity". He blamed Christianity for a thousand years of dark ages - for the daub and wattle instead of Roman arches and domes. "A struggle to escape the church's narrow ignorance and oppression saw the rebirth of classical learning ... in the Renaissance." Advances in learning and freedoms since are in jeopardy "now that toleration and secularity has allowed the cancers of organised superstition to regrow ... and in battling to stop progress, to return us to the dark of prejudice and irrationality".

Grayling's comic-book history is so extreme that it's funny. It wilfully omits how Christianity (and, incidentally, Islam) has fostered learning and science (even arches and domes) in Europe for hundreds of years - as well as providing the foundations for human rights and secularism itself. But it is his claim of the west's steady march of progress to the happy lands of a universal ideal of rationality and freedom that strikes so hollow. The more vehemently one hears liberal progressives claim progress, the more one wonders who they are trying to convince.

Increasingly, the stridency with which the non-religious attack the religious belies their own profound insecurity - that the progress they like to attribute to western or enlightenment values is a much-compromised property. It is challenged by almost everything we see around us: climate change, rising levels of mental ill-health, growing economic inequality fuelled by debt and hyper-consumerism. As Oliver James's new book, Affluenza, makes clear, the nostrums of the west's "good life" - success, fame, wealth - mask an extraordinary vacuity of purpose, a desperate, restless discontent.

Even on a more prosaic level, Jade Goody and Branscombe beach have been such absorbing spectacles because they echo our fear that the "progress" of rationality and freedom has done nothing to enlarge the human spirit. Indeed, the "larger freedoms of mind and action" of secular Europe cited by Grayling have proved just as much a licence for egotism as for noble achievement.

Having abdicated so much ground in political life - particularly over the economy - liberal progressives have to scrabble together another way to define their notion of progress, and they have recycled old anti-clericalism to attack religion. Faith has become a curiously faddish target in a new, ersatz politics. Judging by the outcry over the past few days, Catholics, or Christians in general, are lurking on every street corner to deprive the English of their most cherished liberties, as they have done all through history. The National Secular Society even raised the cry of English kings down the centuries last week: "Who runs Britain - the government or the Vatican?"

A version of America's culture wars has seeped into Britain, with edges of the same sort of hysteria that is all the more wildly misplaced in a country - as the British Social Attitudes survey last week reminded us - in which the majority is resolutely uninterested in religion. For those caught in the middle of this megaphone battle, sympathetic to the advance in human rights but alienated by the arrogant superiority claimed by liberal progressives and their diatribes against faith, it's an absurd distraction.

Still more on inequality

Returning to Tyler Cowen's argument about inequality and well-being, Eduardo writes:

. . .  I, however, think that a marginal increase in well being of the rich is not justifiable unless it -- at a minimum -- affirmatively improves things for those at the bottom.  Finally, depending on the size of the increase for the rich and the poor, the improvement for the rich might not be justifiable, even with a small benefit to the poorest, since the independent harm to social solidarity of added inequality might more than offset a small (absolute) improvment for those at the bottom.

I agree that the "harm to social solidarity" that could accompany increased inequality is a cost that, along with "improvement for those at the bottom," needs to taken into account when we evaluate a proposed policy or the state of affairs.  I disagree, though -- I think -- with the claim that "a marginal increase in the well being of the rich is not justifiale unless it . . . affirmatively improves things for those at the bottom."  One problem with this claim -- it seems to me -- is that it seems to envision "increase[s] in the well being of the rich" as somehow being bestowed from the outside, by some kind of all-seeing-well-being-allocator, rather than by, say, risk-taking, entrepreneurship, and skill.  (I realize, of course, that the rich could increase their material well being in other, less admirable ways, but we don't need to talk about inequality in order to criticize such increases.)  It seems too much to say that "the rich" (who are we talking about, exactly?) are categorically ineligible for what we normally would regard as just returns on investment, effort, and time unless those returns also cause or accompany increases in others' material well-being.

RIP Robert Drinan

Robert Drinan, S.J., died last night of pneumonia and congestive heart failure.  Although he was a controversial figure for many Catholics, he was tireless laborer in areas such as legal ethics and international human rights.  Rest in peace.

Effects of the Minimum Wage

I agree with Rick that the consequences of a minimum wage matter -- in the same way that the consequneces of any morals legislation matter within traditional Catholic approaches to legal theory.

The empirical record on the minimum wage is a mixed one.  In a series of articles, David Card and Alan Krueger have found that modest increases in the minimum wage have actually increased employment.  Here's the abstract of a paper they wrote in 1994:

On April 1, 1992 New Jersey's minimum wage increased from $4.25 to $5.05 per hour. To evaluate the impact of the law we surveyed 410 fast food restaurants in New Jersey and Pennsylvania before and after the rise in the minimum. Comparisons of the changes in wages, employment, and prices at stores in New Jersey relative to stores in Pennsylvania (where the minimum wage remained fixed at $4.25 per hour) yield simple estimates of the effect of the higher minimum wage. Our empirical findings challenge the prediction that a rise in the minimum reduces employment. Relative to stores in Pennsylvania, fast food restaurants in New Jersey increased employment by 13 percent. We also compare employment growth at stores in New Jersey that were initially paying high wages (and were unaffected by the new law) to employment changes at lower-wage stores. Stores that were unaffected by the minimum wage had the same employment growth as stores in Pennsylvania, while stores that had to increase their wages increased their employment.  (Card, David and Alan B. Krueger, "Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast-Food Industry In New Jersey and Pennsylvania." American Economic Review. September 1994: pp. 772-793)

See also David Card & Alan Krueger, Minimum Wages and Employment, 90 Amer. Econ. Rev. 1397 (2000) (confirming earlier results); Mark B. Stewart, The Impact of the Introduction of the UK Minimum Wage on the Employment Probabilities of Low-Wage Workers, 2 J. European Econ. Ass'n 67 (2004); Paul Wolfson & Dale Belman, The Minimum Wage:  Consequences for Prices and Quantities in Low Wage Markets, 22 J. of Bus. & Econ. Stat. 296 (2004).  Other studies (in fact, probably the majority of studies prior to Card & Krueger's work) have found modestly negative effects on low-wage employment.

So the economists can't seem to agree on this.  But, as in other areas of law, I think it's important not to lose sight of law's symbolic significance.  Making contracts to pay workers less than a minimum wage illegal has some communicative value independent of the actual consequences it generates for low wage workers.   Whether the positive effects of an increase in the minimum wage (in both communicative and concrete terms) outweigh the negative consequences is obviously a complex prudential calculation on which reasonable people of good will can differ.  I think a strong argument can be made, however, that, because negative employment consequences will be de minimis at some level (even for those who reject the Card & Krueger results) SOME level of minimum wage is morally required, if only for those symbolic reasons. 

Finally, even if folks like Posner turn out to be right, I don't think that relieves opponents of the minimum wage from the obligation to generate alternative proposals for ensuring that those earning sub-living wages in the absence of an adequate minimum wage law receive the material resources to which they are entitled as a matter of justice.  Since -- within the Catholic moral tradition -- the material well being of those at the bottom is a crucial measure of the justice of an economic order (along with the avoidance of excessive inequality, as we've been discussing), we as a society should be willing to tolerate even declines in aggregate wealth in exchange for absolute (and, to a point, relative) improvements for those at the bottom. 

Being opposed to tolerance of continuing poverty and excessive inequality does not commit one to any particular policy to remedy those problems.  But I would put the onus on those who oppose modest increases in the minimum wage to explain how they hope to combat poverty and excessive inequality more effectively.  I don't see those currently filibustering the minimum wage making heroic efforts to expand the EITC or to increase the rate of union representation in the private sector or to return the progressivity of our income tax to pre-Reagan levels.  Simply saying that the market will take care of it is not an option Catholics can endorse.

UPDATE:  I think I can explain the difference between Cowen's approach and mine more clearly.  Cowen (or really anyone who favors an exclusive focus on absolute well being of the poor) would appear to think a marginal increase in the well being of the rich is justifiable as long as it does not affirmatively harm the absolute well being of those at the bottom (some people who argue along these lines would refuse to honor increased envy among the poorest as a cognizable harm, though the arguments for disregarding envy have always struck me as unconvincing).  I, however, think that a marginal increase in well being of the rich is not justifiable unless it -- at a minimum -- affirmatively improves things for those at the bottom.  Finally, depending on the size of the increase for the rich and the poor, the improvement for the rich might not be justifiable, even with a small benefit to the poorest, since the independent harm to social solidarity of added inequality might more than offset a small (absolute) improvment for those at the bottom.

Jack Bauer and evil

I agree with Rick (BTW, I am hooked on "24" also) that Jack Bauer has used evil means to obtain arguably good ends.  Jack seems to understand that engaging in morally evil conduct has a corrosive effect on his own personhood.  A couple of years ago, (am I remembering this correctly) his daughter Kim was seeing another field agent.  Jack wanted him assigned a desk job not justbecause of the danger involved but also because the negative personality effect.   

From the 1/27/07 issue of The Tablet

[In connection with the news about a controversy in the U.K. that Gerry Whyte sent us earlier this week (here), this item--from the January 27th issue of The Tablet--is of interest:]

A Love Found Wanting

Martin Reynolds

This week, the Catholic Church stated that its adoption agencies would have to close if the Government forced them to accept applications from gay couples. Here, a gay Anglican priest describes how he and his Catholic partner took on a child and why they wish to do so again

We are a family with mixed religious backgrounds. Chris, my partner of 27 years, is a Roman Catholic and I am an Anglican priest. Our son is 19 now and preparing for college. We first got to know him 15 years ago, and for 10 years we were respite carers, with him staying with us for a third of his time. Then five years ago his family relationships broke down. He came to live with us permanently and we became his long-term foster carers. He is a wonderful lad whose severe learning difficulties and behavioural problems are but a tiny part of that whole person we have come to love with all our hearts.

At first we were reluctant to take him on full time for we already had my mother living with us and her frailty and health problems did not seem to be a good match with his needs. We should not have worried; they are firm friends and co-conspirators when our son is in the doghouse.

Our lives have all been transformed by this new family member and the extra-special care his needs demand. His prayer is awesome in its simplicity and directness and until recently he has enjoyed going to Mass with my partner. He occasionally comes with me - but he wants to say the Mass with me, and some of the congregation find that distracting.

While he has been preparing himself to start going to college in September our son has said that the one thing he wants more than anything else when he comes home are brothers and sisters. Chris and I were taken aback by this but, after a lot of thought and seeing how great he is with younger children in the family, we decided to try.

"Trying" in our case means applying to fostering and adoption agencies, and we did try, among others, the local Catholic adoption agency here in Cardiff, offering our experience and a loving home for two more children. Perhaps Chris was a little naive in thinking that as a Christian home bringing up the kids in the Catholic faith, this would somehow make the difference. As well as wanting the confidence that comes from dealing with fellow Christians, the Catholic adoption agencies have a super record of placing children with severe disability and giving first-class support afterwards.

The selection process for all adopting families is exhaustive. Highly skilled social workers spend long hours intruding very rightly in every area of your life. It takes many months of meetings to prepare a report for the adoption panel that will decide to support your application or not. Having been a panel member for many years I know how detailed and revealing these reports are and the struggle people endure to complete the process.

When we telephoned our local Catholic agency, the St David's Children Society in Cardiff, we explained our circumstances truthfully. The receptionist told us that they did not accept gay couples as adopters. To be turned down without even being asked your name, seems, in the circumstances, rather a harsh dismissal. Gerry Cooney, the agency's director, was disturbed by this account, and says, "Our policy written into our procedures for at least the last two years has been to redirect gay couples to local authorities and other voluntary agencies sympathetically and supportively." There are other agencies of course, and two have taken a keen interest in taking us to the panel stage, but since that day of rejection Chris has not taken our son to Mass at a Catholic church. Nor has he been able to go to Mass alone - a source of great sadness for both of us since our faith has been a driving force.

Rejection is something you must expect in this difficult process, we may still meet that at the end of the road when the adoption panel meets late in the year, but to meet rejection at the front door of your own Church is hard to bear and Chris is suffering.

The process of becoming a long-term foster parent or adopting is discriminatory in itself, and for the sake of the children it needs to be. The children we are contemplating taking into our lives and homes are among the most challenging (and rewarding) in our community. But we believe they deserve our getting a hearing. And if, after all the careful sifting and detailed analysis, we are found wanting, then so be it.

Of course we are not unaware that the language coming from the Vatican in recent years about gay couples has been increasingly tempestuous. But each time it seemed that the sensible bishops of the English and Welsh hierarchy have had the sense and compassion to rush to moderate its bitterest edges.

The document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2003 saying that giving adopted children to gay couples was "doing them violence" was a particular low point in my partner's relationship with his Catholic faith and each week he would remove pamphlets that referred to it from the back of the church. Now the bishops of England and Wales appear to want to toe the Vatican line. Last Tuesday I noticed that the Archbishop of Birmingham, Vincent Nichols, refused to take part in a live debate with the Labour MP Chris Bryant on Channel 4 News and insisted on being interviewed separately. Earlier in the day, Archbishop Peter Smith of Birmingham told Premier Christian Radio that he did not have time to discuss the issue with me on their Drivetime programme. I think the archbishops are afraid that we are going to ask some very difficult questions.

The fact is that there is great inconsistency in the Church's approach. Some Catholic adoption agencies in England and Wales welcome applications from unmarried couples with no faith - singles and even gay or lesbian singles. The real question here is that of civil partnerships, for the solid legal foundation that civil partnership (and marriage for same-sex couples elsewhere in Europe) offers to lesbian and gay people is being perceived by Rome as an enormous threat, and the adoption issue is almost a side bar to that.

In the end, of course, it all comes down to money. The Catholic Church might continue to discriminate against lesbian and gay couples if the Church found the millions of pounds it costs annually to run its adoption societies. In the current system most of the money comes from the Government and it will find it hard, if not impossible, to give the exemptions the Church asks for.

This is not an argument with two sides. This is not a debate between Catholic rights and gay rights - this is about very vulnerable children, thousands of them, waiting in inappropriate conditions for a loving family to help mend broken hearts. Many of these kids have disabilities - many have been in as many as 20 and more different short-term placements.

The children in our care system are who we should be putting first and for their sake alone the Catholic Church should move on. If its agencies place children with a gay or lesbian couple the whole world knows it will not be because they want to but because those acting for the children's best interests think that that is where that child might flourish - and if it is a home like ours, where the child would be taught the faith, so much the better.

And what of us? We have already had mentioned to us a couple of children who have such profound disabilities that they will never know the gender, yet alone the sexuality of the loving parents they need. They cannot see nor hear and will only know love from the tender way they are cared for. If only the Church could know this love.

Jack Bauer and moral philosophy

I love, and am completely hooked on, the tv-show, "24."  I would pay a substantial sum of money to somehow have the first five seasons erased from my mind, thereby making it possible for me to start over and enjoy them, like new, again.  So, I was curious about this op-ed, by Brian Carney, in the Wall Street Journal, about the "moral philosophy" of Jack Bauer.

Carney is impressed by the fact that, on "24", "tragic choices" abound, and are rarely presented as simple, or as having easy answers.  (This is not to say that the show proclaims there aren't right answers, just that it is rarely clear, ex ante, what they are.)

Fair enough.  That said, I would have liked for Carney to at least that at least some of the things Bauer has done -- with admirably other-regarding motives, of course -- are, well, evil.  Aren't they?

Becker and Posner on the minimum wage

Prof. Gary Becker and Hon. Richard Posner have a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed about the minimum wage, called "How to Make the Poor Poorer."  (Link here, thanks to the Volokh Conspiracy.)  Here is an excerpt:

An increase in the minimum wage raises the costs of fast foods and other goods produced with large inputs of unskilled labor. Producers adjust both by substituting capital inputs and/or high-skilled labor for minimum-wage workers and, because the substitutes are more costly (otherwise the substitutions would have been made already), by raising prices. The higher prices reduce the producers' output and thus their demand for labor. The adjustments to the hike in the minimum wage are inefficient because they are motivated not by a higher real cost of low-skilled labor but by a government-mandated increase in the price of that labor. That increase has the same misallocative effect as monopoly pricing.

Although some workers benefit — those who were paid the old minimum wage but are worth the new, higher one to the employers — others are pushed into unemployment, the underground economy or crime. The losers are therefore likely to lose more than the gainers gain; they are also likely to be poorer people. And poor families are disproportionately hurt by the rise in the price of fast foods and other goods produced with low-skilled labor because these families spend a relatively large fraction of their incomes on such goods. And many, maybe most, of the gainers from a higher minimum wage are not poor. Most minimum-wage workers are part time, and for the majority their minimum-wage income supplements an income derived from other sources.

Now, I realize that there are solid and serious economists who believe that we can increase the minimum wage without harming the poor.  I do not know, for sure, who has the better of the argument.  I would think, though, that we could all agree that it really matters who is right, for purposes of evaluating what seems to be the near-unanimous view among those who care about Catholic Social Thought that the minimum wage should be increased.  Do the bishops, and those who promote this view, know whether or not Becker and Posner are right?  I take it we could agree entirely with Eduardo about the dangers of economic inequality but still think the minimum-wage question depends on answering -- or at least addressing -- some tough empirical questions?

"Moscow's Assault on the Vatican"

According to this piece by Ion Mihai, "[t]he Soviet Union was never comfortable living in the same world with the Vatican. The most recent disclosures document that the Kremlin was prepared to go to any lengths to counter the Catholic Church’s strong anti-Communism."  More specifically, Mihai contends that the infamous 1963 play by Roch Hochhuth, The Deputy, which inaugurated the re-working of Pope Pius XII by the press from a heroic friend of the Jews to a heartless accomplice to the Holocaust, was the outgrowth of KGB efforts to undermine the Holy See's moral authority.

If this is true . . . wow.  Will anyone investigate?

Is it worth it?

The case of Saint Louis University v. Masonic Temple Association of St. Louis involves Tax Increment Financing ordinances.  To oversimplify (big-time), the City of St. Louis designated the area around SLU as a "redevelopment area" in order to make tax-increment financing available for some SLU-related redevelopment projects, including an arena.  A lawsuit followed (brought and funded, apparently, by a real-estate developer who stands to gain if the TIF ordinance is invalidated), raising (among other things) state and federal establishment-of-religion arguments.

Long story short:  SLU defends on the ground that, among other things (quoting SLU's brief in the MO Supreme Court):

Nowhere do the University’s bylaws state that it is or even should be controlled by the Catholic Church or by any other religion.  The Church’s lack of control over

Saint Louis

 

University

and its board are shown by the sale of its hospital to Tenet Healthcare in 1998.  The sale was made directly against the strong and well publicized objection of the Catholic Archbishop of

St. Louis

.  (Biondi Depo., Ex. Vol. V, at p. 24, ll. 1-11). . . .

Saint Louis

University

is not controlled by any religion or religious creed; rather, it is fully controlled by an independent corporate board.  It does not discriminate in either hiring or admissions based on religion (or any other classification impermissible under state or federal law).  It does not require its students or faculty members to attend confessions or masses.  It does not require Catholic catechism.  Rather, it operates in and supports a spirit of academic freedom and open inquiry -- even in instances when such freedom and inquiry runs contrary to the teachings of the Catholic religion. . . . 

By adopting as its primary corporate purposes the encouragement of learning and extension of the means of education, by dedicating itself “to the service of its immediate community,” and by committing itself to achieve these ends through means “appropriate to a university in our society, including teaching, research and the discovery, presentation and communication of knowledge,” the University has made clear that it is not controlled in carrying out its mission by a “creed” in the sense of a formalized system of religious beliefs.  Rather, the University has chosen to be a “university” as that term is used in twenty-first century America, marked by the academic freedom and independence of thought that are essential characteristics of universities in modern American life. . . .

Response to Rick on Inequality

Rick -- I agree that absolute well being is important, and I completely agree with you that Cowen is correct to insist that we consider it (and consider it to be very important).  But I don't think that was his only point, at least not as I read his op-ed.  He makes pretty clear that his focus on absolute well being is exclusive of any real concern with inequality as such (hence his point about life not being a race against others, a zero sum game, and his question about why we should worry about it at all). My goal in discussing Sen was primarily to make the point -- often overlooked -- that a conern with inequality as such is not inconsistent with a concern about absolute standards of living (and vice versa).

Remembering Judge Richard Arnold

I was blessed, after law school, with the opportunity to work for a brilliant and decent man, Judge Richard S. Arnold of the United States Court of Appeals.  Judge Arnold died a little over two years ago, on September 23, 2004.  (Here is a blog post I did, right after learning about his death.)

The University of Arkansas-Little Rock's Bowen School of Law now hosts an annual Arnold Lecture, honoring Judge Arnold and his brother, Judge Morris S. Arnold.  Last night, Justice Thomas -- who came to know Judge Arnold well, in connection with his assignment to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit -- gave that Arnold lecture.  Here is a report.

Here's a bit from a post I did, the day after Judge Arnold's death:

The Judge was humane, wise, and devout. . . .  There are few like him. In terms of the law, he was an old-school liberal who admired both Justice Black and Justice Brennan, and a textualist with originalist leanings who loved and respected Justice Scalia; he was a "strict separationist" who really did believe that such a legal regime was essential to preserving religious freedom; he was passionately committed to fairness and to the dignity and rights of litigants and defendants; he knew that the law should be just, yet knew also that judges cannot right every wrong. His writing was at the same time elegant and simple, clear and memorable. . . .

Judge Arnold was a great judge, and a deeply good man.  Thanks to the Bowen School of Law, and to Justice Thomas, for honoring him.

Cardinal George on individualism and renewal

This from a recent column by Cardinal George:

. . . There are many good people whose path to holiness is shaped by religious individualism and private interpretation of what God has revealed. They are, however, called Protestants. When an informed and committed group of Catholics, such as the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council, comes up with an agenda for discussion that is, historically, Protestant, an important point is being made. Catholics assimilated to American culture, which is historically Protestant, are now living with great tension between how their culture shapes them and what their Catholic faith tells them to hold.

. . .  The Second Vatican Council wasn’t called to turn Catholics into Protestants. It was called to ask God to bring all Christ’s followers into unity of faith so that the world would believe who Christ is and live with him in his Body, the Church. . . .

. . . What seems clear to me is that God is calling us to be authentically Catholic in our faith and also, perhaps paradoxically, Protestant in our culture. We live where we are, not in some ideal world where everything works smoothly. Those who withdraw into sectarian enclaves, even in the name of orthodoxy but without respect for or obedience to the mediators called bishops, are simply repeating the Protestant Reformation with Catholic tags. The one thing necessary is to live with discerning hearts and minds. We need to keep asking ourselves what is influencing our ways of thought, our decisions, our feelings and affections. A life of constant discernment is not always easy, but it’s joyful because it means living with the Holy Spirit, whose presence brings truth and consolation and unity. . . .

This is interesting, and not just for its possible relevance to "Evangelicals and Catholics Toget