Mirror of Justice

Bretzke and Conscience

James Bretzke did not take the position that Richard describes. Father Bretzke maintains, as did Aquinas and the Catechism, that a person is morally bound to follow his or her conscience. He does not maintain that following one’s conscience is a guarantee of correctness. As he puts it, “It is the constant teaching of the Church that an individual always follow his or her conscience, even when that conscience might be in “objective” error on what is morally right.” He, of course, recognizes the obligation to form and inform our consciences and discusses the obligation at some length. What he rejects is the view (which he attributes to Grisez) that we are obliged in virtually every situation to follow the Magisterium instead of our conscience.

The Communion of Saints and the Big Tent

Susan on her blog wonderfully expressed a view of Catholicism: “I saw an image of the apostolic line stretching forward from Peter through the Popes over the years through to the present day Pope.  I saw that it is that apostolic line that holds the structure of this tent we call Catholicism.” Others in the tent are moved by a different image (the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive), namely the communion of saints. Consider a part of the description of the communion of saints from Joan Chittister’s wonderful book on the Apostle’s Creed, In Search of Belief 178, 182 : “The Creed is talking . . . about the unity of strangers that forms about the image of Christ who calls us beyond our past into a demanding and sometimes lonely present. In communion with these people who have lived their faith to the end before us, we all trek on, alone but together, together but alone, depending on the hand and the sight of the other to take us further still . . . . The communion of saints is not about the sinlessness of those who went before us. It is about sinfulness transcended, made holy in the milling of everyday life, of everyday politics, of everyday ecclesiastical consternation. The communion of saints is every color, every level, every challenge of mankind. It is the cosmic vision of Christ made plain. It crosses time and culture and the quagmires of national politics and Church conflicts to leave us with the face of a Church that is human [and] is us at our best. It is the Christ-face drawn differently in every age by every people.”

 For Chittister, the Church is not the institution, but rather “the gathering of the seekers who celebrate the continuing presence of Christ among them, in them, and through them. The Church is the assembly of believers who are a sign of the Christian tradition, who make Jesus present now, who by serving, loving, proclaiming in the Jesus in whom they believe make the link between the human community and the touch of God in time.”

Authority/Conscience

There is a tendency to confuse the responsibility of the bishops to teach with the responsibility to determine in conscience whether the teachings of the bishops are acceptable. Some think it warranted to decide that they will follow the Magisterium regardless of what it teaches. James T. Bretzke, S.J., forcefully argues that the latter position is untenable in his A Morally Complex World: Engaging Contemporary Moral Theology 112: “To replace the authority of conscience as the ultimate voice of moral authority, even if it be the pope or the bishops, would open up a huge number of problems concerning authority and mature human action. Heteronomy, the imposition of the moral law from some outside source . . . is not the traditional Roman Catholic position. Whatever authority one believes is absolute is, in effect, the voice of God for that person, and if we allow any outside authority – no matter how respected – to supplant the individual’s conscience, then we are, in effect, making this heteronomous moral authority into God for that person. Making into a “god” that which is not truly God is idolatry . . . .”

Father Dulles and Church Authority: A Response to Mike Scaperlanda

Mike Scaperlanda quotes what he regards as the wise remarks of Father Avery Dulles: "All Catholics are of course obliged to accept the definitive teaching of the Church on matters of faith and morals.  Even in the sphere of nondefinitive teaching, theologians should normally trust and support the magisterium and dissent only rarely and reluctantly, for reasons that are truly serious.  Dissent, if it arises, should always be modest and restrained.  Dissent that is arrogant, strident, and bitter can have no right of existence in the Church.  Those who dissent must be careful to explain that they are proposing only their personal views, not the doctrine of the Church.  They must refrain from bringing pressure on the magisterium by recourse of popular media." Mike thinks that the remarks about theologians apply a fortiori to non-theologians.

The remarks of Father Dulles raise many questions. What are the definitive teachings of the Church? Is the view that women can not be priests, as then Cardinal Ratzinger suggested some years back, one of them? Does the Church include the faithful? Is their reception of a doctrine necessary for a teaching to be definitive? Are all non-definitive teachings worthy of the respect Father Dulles suggests? Or was Father McCormick correct in suggesting that substantially less deference be afforded to various pronouncements the Church has made regarding women and sexuality? Does the prohibition of arrogant, strident, and bitter debate preclude civil, but robust and wise-open debate? Does the attempt to discourage debate in the popular media suggest that Commonweal and the National Catholic Reporter are illegitimate media? Is Mirror of Justice part of the popular media?

 What would have happened if Catholics had never objected to the teachings of the Church? Consider the statement of Father Robert Egan, S.J., in his excellent article, “Why Not Ordain Women,” (Commonweal, April 11): “If there were reason to believe the magisterium had never made a mistake, [one of the arguments against the ordination of women would be more understandable]. Yet the magisterium justified the institution of slavery, tolerated and endorsed a harsh misogyny and the oppression of women by men, defended the use of torture, blessed the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the burning at the stake of heretics, cultivated a disdainful and punitive attitude toward the Jewish people, insisted that sexual intercourse was morally tolerable only for the sake of procreation, condemned democracy, ridiculed the idea of religious liberty, denied the legitimacy of the idea of human rights, and condemned the separation of church and state. These last six teachings were only reversed at Vatican II, which some church leaders now claim was in perfect continuity with the church history preceding it.

 “All these teachings were probably considered ‘settled doctrine’ by the authorities who promulgated and wrote about them. That should teach us something about not trying to bind the future to the current stage of our own comprehension. . . . The church risks setting a bad example [in making theology a defense of magisterial teaching], modeling a behavior which, in any other social body, would clearly be considered falsifying and corrupting.”

 I cite Father Egan not for the purpose of igniting yet another debate about the history of the Catholic Church (though some may feel it necessary to dive in to the fire again). I simply state again that most American Catholics reject many teachings promulgated by the Vatican and the American Bishops. I doubt their attitudes toward the magisterium are in harmony with those of Father Dulles, and I think that some authors on this site do not agree with Father Dulles. Mirror of Justice could be a site in which professors (theologians or not) exchange their honest views about the magisterium. It can not be that if those of us who take a negative view of parts of the magisterium and the claims made for its authority are successfully discouraged from speaking. I doubt Mike thought his endorsement of the remarks of Father Dulles would really discourage discussion. It might suggest he thinks this would be a better site if it were exclusively designed to defend and interpret the magisterium with no questioning of it by non-theologians. But it is not. Not yet anyway.  If it were, a minority of us could move on. We could all potentially live long, happy, and [with God’s grace] at least partially holy lives. And we could agree to disagree whether the site were better or worse off.

Obama and Catholics

In his interesting and cogent analysis of the Democratic primaries and debates, Greg concludes that, "Obama now looks to be the weakest presidential candidate offered to Catholic voters by the Democratic Party since 1984." This may or may not be right, but I do not think it follows from the voting results in the Democratic primaries. What the Democratic primaries show is that Obama loses the Catholic vote to Clinton. That data shows little about how Obama would do with the Catholic vote against McCain. Indeed, it is theoretically possible (I would not say likely) that Obama could get a larger share of the Catholic vote against McCain than would Clinton. (Obama voters might not be willing to support Clinton; but Clinton voters might be willing to support Obama). It is unclear how much racial hostility figures into this picture. It is unclear how much hostility to strong women fits into this picture.
I do not even think current polls about how Clinton and Obama run against McCain are very good data. The race between the Democratic and Republican candidate is not in swing, let alone full swing. The Republican candidate is saddled with a bad war, a bad economy, and an 8 year Republican record that has little appeal to voters in the aggregate, Catholic or otherwise. Whatever the numbers are now, McCain will ultimately be on the defensive. In my view, it is way to early to suppose that either of the Democratic candidates offer less to Catholic voters (who themselves are not remotely monolithic) than prior Democratic candidates.

Academic Freedom II

Academic freedom is not freedom to say what the censors want you to say; academic freedom includes the freedom to challenge orthodox thought. Is academic freedom consistent with the mission of a Catholic university? After Vatican II, it seems to me that a “Catholic university” that resorts to censorship steps away from the best understanding of Catholicism and the meaning of a university.

 
Richard McCormick points the way to a rich concept of a Catholic university: “A Catholic university needs to image itself as an ‘open circle’ -- sufficiently circumscribed to constitute a community of discourse but open enough to welcome others with different perspectives. . . there must be at the heart of the campus, an ‘open circle’, a community of scholars who are committed to the Catholic tradition, and others who are committed to engaging it, and the religious and moral issues raised by it and by modern society.”

 
The President of Seattle University, Stephen V. Sundberg, S.J., uses this quotation to great effect in his, “The Catholic Character of Seattle University’s Academic Mission: Convening a Conversation,” http://www.seattleu.edu/home/about_seattle_university/administration/speeches/2008_provost_convocation.pdf. The address is worth reading not only for its wise understanding of the community of discourse that should mark a Catholic university, but also for its beautiful (but frank) description of the multilayered Catholic tradition.

 
McCormick’s quotation also points the way to answering Susan’s question about academic freedom. Unlike secular universities, Catholic universities should be free to take religious views into account in their hiring decisions.  But they should not impose sanctions on those members of the community who question Catholic orthodoxy. Catholic universities need a critical mass of orthodox Catholics, but they need a diversity of non-orthodox Catholics, people from other faith traditions and non-believers to participate in the community of discourse that belongs at the heart of a Catholic university. Thus, President Sundberg calls for and is prepared to financially support a far-reaching “Catholic conversation” led by knowledgeable Catholics with the “voluntary engaged participation of faculty from all disciplines, faiths, and persuasions.”

Doubt and Christianity

I’ve been reflecting on Rob’s statement of December 20 that he experiences anguish from “uncertainty about whether the Christian story to which I have committed myself is actually true.” It reminded me of Hans Kung’s wonderful book “Why I Am Still a Christian,” which argues that those in doubt have a choice to make about the existence of God: would you rather believe that there is no meaning in the universe or that there is a meaning and that you have a role to play in it? William James made a similar argument and Charles Taylor does so as well. Kung makes a similar argument with respect to Christ. It was a major factor in my return to the church. Nonetheless, it must be said that the idea to which we commit (except to the extent we stray) that God became man is a truly fantastic (but beautiful and surprisingly well founded) story. The existence of doubt even by saints should not be surprising.

I must admit though, I find the salvation story to be problematic to the extent it depends upon the notion of a permanent hell (which strikes me without divine vision as utterly disproportionate for almost anything one might do on earth). If hell is merely eternal death, however, (a view held by some theologians) and heaven is closeness to God in the hereafter, then a permanent hell strikes me as not unfair. If hell is permanent punishment (not just death) and a realistic possibility for many human beings, I can imagine someone in doubt preferring to believe that the universe has no meaning.

In the end, I believe that living a life in order to get to heaven or to avoid hell is not living a life for the right reasons. Living a life according to the two great commandments (with an effort to play a small role in bringing about the kingdom of God) because it is in our nature to do so and because God has instructed us to do so seems far better than living a good life for selfish instrumental reasons.

Romney's Overbroad Claims

I have a few comments on Romney’s speech. Romney said, “A person should not be elected because of his faith nor should he be rejected because of his faith. . . . I believe in my Mormon faith and I endeavor to live by it.” The first sentence of the quotation seems plainly overstated. If the religious views espoused by a candidate are considered relevant to government and are opposed by a voter, the voter rightly can vote against the candidate. This has nothing to do with toleration. The government must tolerate religions; citizens need not vote for candidates holding ideologies they oppose, religious or not, though they may at the same time believe that the government should not discriminate against those holding such ideologies.

 

 Romney also says, “There are some who would have a presidential candidate describe and explain his church's distinctive doctrines. To do so would enable the very religious test the founders prohibited in the Constitution.” This quotation embraces the same mistake. The test clause applies to government; it does not apply to the grounds that citizens employ in voting.

 I say this not to encourage voting against Romney, or to imply anything about the goodness or badness of the Mormon faith. The question does not even arise for me. I belong to the Working Families Party in
New York and will likely vote for whatever candidate is nominated by the Democrats.

The Priest as an Icon of Christ During the Mass

Sometime back Steve Bainbridge pointed to the Catechism's statement that the priest stands for Christ, is an icon of Christ, during the mass. Yet the priest in the most crucial part of the mass refers to Jesus in the third person. When is the priest supposed to be standing for Jesus and when not? I wonder whether the notion that the priest stands for Christ tends to give a view of the priest that is too exalted. Depending on how the notion of standing for Christ is interpreted, it could simply mean that the priest is supposed to be the most servile in the room, but the vestments tend to point to Christ as King, as does the role of the priest as teacher and his role in the consecration. I doubt that anyone attends mass to worship the priest. It does not help me to think of the priest as Christ, nor do fancy vestments help. Without questioning the role of priest as teacher or his role in the consecration, I prefer the view of priest as servant.

What it mean to be a Catholic? III

I did not maintain that Father Araujo thought the majority of American Catholics had separated themselves from the Church. I wondered whether under his premises, or that of the American bishops, or that of others on the MOJ site, the majority of American Catholics had separated themselves. I accept his answer, but I am left wondering why. What are the criteria that determine whether a Catholic by his or her beliefs has left the Church? The statement of the American bishops rejects selective assent to the teachings of Church leaders. But the majority of American Catholics engage in selective assent. To my mind, the American Bishops have claimed more power than they rightly have. I remain interested in determining what those who support the statement of the American Bishops think about the status of American Catholics and the American Church. If the Bishops are right, the Church in America (and elsewhere) is in crisis. To my mind, the problem is that the leaders of the American Church do not see the Holy Spirit working in the People of God.

The Vatican

I use the imprecise term the "Vatican" teaches instead of the "Church" teaches because I do not believe that teachings of Church leaders are necessarily teachings of the Church. I use the term Vatican as a placeholder for any belief that could count as a teaching of the magisterium. First, as I said in a prior post, "Related to this issue is the question of what counts as a teaching of the Church. If the Church is the People of God with the hierarchy playing an important leadership role, what is the status of hierarchal teachings that are not accepted by the faithful (recognizing that the question of what counts as acceptance could be very difficult to ascertain on some issues and easy on others)? I am unsure. Consider this passage from Lumen Gentium, “The entire body of the faithful, anointed as they are by the Holy One,(111) cannot err in matters of belief. They manifest this special property by means of the whole peoples' supernatural discernment in matters of faith when "from the Bishops down to the last of the lay faithful" (8*) they show universal agreement in matters of faith and morals. That discernment in matters of faith is aroused and sustained by the Spirit of truth. It is exercised under the guidance of the sacred teaching authority, in faithful and respectful obedience to which the people of God accepts that which is not just the word of men but truly the word of God.(112).”

    Second, as I said in another post, Of course, whatever the degree of authoritativeness of the objective conscience view, it does not purport to be an infallible teaching of the Church, and the issue before us is the degree to which one is required to assent to such teachings. There is a pastoral issue here that I think is of great importance. Father Sullivan, Magisterium: Teaching Authority in the Catholic Church 171-72, makes this point extremely well in my opinion:

 “I am convinced that it is important for Catholics to be aware of the difference between infallible and non-infallible teaching by the magisterium, and of the corresponding difference between the kinds of assent that each of them calls for. Ignorance of these differences can have several unhappy consequences. One is that Catholics who have actually fulfilled their obligation to practice docility regarding such teaching, and have been really unable to give their interior assent to it, may still feel themselves guilty of disobedience to the pope because they do not follow his teaching on a particular point. Another is that Catholics who do accept such teaching may judge all others who do not, to be disobedient or disloyal, and may be scandalized to know that even priests or theologians have reservations about certain points of ordinary papal teaching.

    “The tendency to obscure the difference between the infallible and the non-infallible exercise of magisterium, by treating papal encyclicals as though they were practically infallible, has, I believe, been largely responsible for the fact that many people, when they learn that encyclicals are not infallible after all, jump to the conclusion that one need pay no attention to them. If people have been led to think of the infallibility of the pope as the basic motive for giving their assent to his teaching, it is not surprising that when this motive is no longer available, their assent will fail as well.”

What does it mean to be a Catholic? II

I would like to probe further Eduardo Penalver’s August 31st statement that, “I am Catholic (although perhaps, based on what he says in his post and what he knows of my views, Fr. Araujo disagrees with that statement), and (I'm quite sure Fr. Araujo would disagree with this) I believe I would continue to be Catholic in some sense even if I attempted to completely sever my ties to this Church into which I and my ancestors were born.” I am interested in the sense that Eduardo and I would be Catholic if we joined the United Church of Christ or the Anglicans (the former would deny that they are Catholics; the latter , as I understand it, would maintain that they are Catholics, but not Roman Catholics). I assume Eduardo means something more than the values upon which we were raised would not leave us simply because we changed denominations. Presumably Father Araujo would agree with that. Moreover, I am intrigued by Eduardo’s position that the Protestant Reformation was a conflict within Catholicism. I doubt I would be persuaded by that, but I would like to hear more. I am already inclined to think that God’s saving grace will not depend upon the denomination to which we belong and that the People of God are not confined to Catholic Church members. But I would like to hear a little more from Eduardo – no rush!

What does it mean to be a Catholic? I

I would like to probe a little further Father Araujo’s statement that “I am mindful that there are those who consider themselves members of the Catholic Church but still challenge Peter while at the same time proclaiming their individual fidelity to the Church. . . . Whether anyone elects to bear allegiance to Peter is up to himself or herself. Should this person decide to depart from this loyalty, he or she leaves the Church notwithstanding personal protestations to the contrary.” Although there are distinctions, the statement reminds me of the November 14, 2006 statement of the U.S. Conference on Catholic Bishops, http://www.usccb.org/dpp/Eucharist.pdf, in which it condemned “selective assent to the teachings of the Church” and stated that those who “knowingly and obstinately repudiate her definitive teachings on moral issues” should not receive communion.

Between 1963 and 1974, for example, the majority position of American Catholics shifted away from that of the Vatican on issues such as whether sex before marriage was always wrong (from 74% to 35%), whether divorce after marriage is always wrong (from 52% to 17%), and whether contraception is always wrong (from 56% to 16%). Andrew Greeley,The Catholic Revolution: New Wine, Old Wineskins, and the Second  Vatican Council 39 (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 2004).

   Indeed, American priests, according to Greeley, also engaged in selective assent to the teachings of the Vatican. The Vatican, for example, maintains that homosexual relations, masturbation, and artificial birth control are always wrong, but only 56% of priests agreed with the Vatican’s teachings on homosexuality, 28% on masturbation, and 25% on birth control. According to the Bishops, should these Catholics not receive the Eucharist? Should these priests not be saying mass? Are they not obstinate? Are the teachings not definitive? Does departure on any single moral issue separate one from the Church or does it depend on the nature of the issue(s).
    For example, Richard McCormick argued that little deference to the  Vatican should be paid on issues relating to sexuality and women for a variety of what struck me as good reasons. Should he and those who thought like him not participate in the Eucharist?

These are obviously important issues and I wonder whether the generality of the Conference of Catholic Bishops general statement was designed to steer clear of them.  Clearly , at some point, rejection of Vatican teachings separates one from the Church. Have most American Catholics already done so according to Father Araujo? The Conference of Catholic Bishops? Other  MOJ participants?

The Big Tent

I must say I was heartened by the recent posts of Father Araujo and Eduardo Penalver. Araujo tells me that I may not be a Catholic if I do not have a certain kind of "allegiance to Peter."  (Like Eduardo (not to mention most American Catholics), I suspect that I do not have the kind of loyalty that Araujo has in mind though it is hard to be sure).

Penalver tells me that I do not leave the Church even if I sign up with the Episcopalians or the United Church of Christ ("at least in some sense" - a sense that Penalver believes Araujo could not subscribe to). My own view is that the Catholic Church has a large tent. How large that tent might be is contested. Some would see a much smaller tent than I. It would be hard to deny  that MOJ has a large tent, however. So I am heartened.

Wuthnow and Mainline Protestants

With respect to the decline in numbers in mainline Protestant denominations, some of the factors mentioned by Rob have surely played a role. Nonetheless, according to Robert Wuthnow (presented by him at a session honoring his work at the American Academy of Religion), 90% of the decline in numbers is attributable to lower birth rates.

The Good Samaritan Revisited

I enjoyed Tom Berg’s post about the good Samaritan. In my church (the Cornell Catholic Community), Father Robert Smith (among other things) also found a challenge beyond inclusiveness. He observed that the priest and the Levite did not help the victim in order to maintain ritual cleanliness. From this perspective, this resonates with the message Jesus often presented of the perils associated with too strict following of  rules. But before we liberals triumphantly ran with that theme, Father Smith came to the heart of his homily in which he asked us to reflect on the rules or self imposed limitations we have that prevent us from helping others more often, on the attention to worldly affairs that distracts us from the presence of Christ within us and from living a life in which we see others through the eyes of Christ.

Who is Welcome at the Table?

Much debate has addressed the use of the Eucharist as a stick to put pressure on politicians. There are even deeper questions. The Episcopal Church asks: “What is required of us when we come to the Eucharist?”
Its answer: “It is required that we should examine our lives, repent of our sins, and be in love and charity with all people.” http://www.episcopalchurch.org/visitors_11764_ENG_HTM.htm Jesus went further. At the Last Supper Judas received the Eucharist. In practice, my understanding is that all are welcome at the table in Episcopal churches. Is the regulatory approach of the Roman Catholic Church more consistent with scripture? Has the regulatory approach served pastoral needs better?

Same Sex Relations and the Church

The current issue of Commonweal has an excellent exchange between Luke Timothy Johnson and Eve Tushnet on same sex relations. Johnson argues that slave owners had the better scriptural argument over the morality of slavery, but we now understand them to be morally wrong. He thinks that those who believe same sex relations are sinful have the better scriptural argument, but that the scripture should be rejected in favor of our experience and the continuing creative work of the living God. Eve Tushnet points to centuries of tradition and to the limitations of contemporary experience. She, a lesbian, eloquently argues that many have crosses to bear and that celibacy for her is a cross and a blessing.

 I do not agree that the condemnation of homosexuality in scripture takes into account what we now know about sexual orientation. I think it condemns certain forms of casual or exploitative sex. So I disagree with part of what Johnson says. I am much taken with the view of Tushnet for herself, but I do not think God demands celibacy of gays and lesbians in general. Jesus, of course, did not speak to the issue.

I am, of course, aware that the Vatican teaches otherwise. I do not agree with positions the Vatican has taken on many issues involving sexuality, women, and marriage.

I should say once again that when I think of the Church, I do not think of the Vatican. I think of Jesus, the Communion of Saints, the People of God. I pray for the Pope and the Bishops (for the difficulty of their task and in particular that they will be better servants of a pilgrim church, as we all do), but I also pray on many issues that the Church will not be lead by them.

 

 

What Does It Mean to be in Communion With the Church?

In their relatively recent statement on the Eucharist, http://www.usccb.org/dpp/Eucharist.pdf, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops maintains that Catholics are required to conform their consciences to the Magisterium and they warn that selective departures from the Magisterium “seriously endangers our communion” with the Church. Nonetheless, this seems to suggest that some departures might be consistent with membership in the Church. They proceed to state that those who “knowingly or obstinately” reject the defined doctrines or definitive moral teachings of the Church should refrain from receiving communion because they have seriously diminished their communion with the Church. This too leaves open the question whether rejection of one teaching is fatal or rejection of more than one teaching is permissible and, if so, which ones. Certainly the spirit of the Bishop’s statement seems to suggest that Catholic are to agree or stay away from the Eucharist.

I do not have access to recent statistics as I write this. But American Catholics disagree with many moral teachings of the Church. Between 1963 and 1974, for example, the majority position of American Catholics shifted away from that of the Vatican on issues such as whether sex before marriage was always wrong (from 74% to 35%), whether divorce after marriage is always wrong (from 52% to 17%), and whether contraception is always wrong (from 56% to 16%). The same can be said of American Catholic priests. The Vatican , for example, maintains that homosexual relations, masturbation, and artificial birth control are always wrong, but only 56% of priests agreed with the  Vatican’s teachings on homosexuality, 28% on masturbation, and 25% on birth control.

What would happen if the Conference made a statement with no wiggle room,  maintaining that if you did not agree with the Vatican on all of the issues above and many others, you should not receive the Eucharist (or say mass if you are a priest)? I am uncertain about what the relevant priests would do. But regarding the lay population I suspect a small percentage would stay in the Church and not partake in the Eucharist. Many would leave the Church. And most would simply ignore the Bishops.

I am curious what people think. Assuming their attempts to change minds about morals are for the most part futile, should the Bishops try for a smaller American church filled with people who agree with what they take to be the truth? Could they achieve a church that was homogeneous in belief even if they tried? Why are they not trying for a smaller church? The Vatican won't let them? They don't want it? Alternatively, is the Holy Spirit using the People of God to tell the Bishops something that they do not yet get? Or have the Bishops struck the exact right note?

Yet another post on embryos and fetuses

Michael says, “The point is, you have switched from saying that the human organism has worth because of what it is to saying that a human organism has worth because it happens at the moment to possess certain characteristics, and this does undercut the argument that infants possess full moral worth and dignity.” But the question to be decided is what an embryonic human organism “is” namely is it yet a human being. Is it a human being when it possesses neither a nervous system nor a brain? Michael says that the nervous system/brain approach opens one up to other line drawing challenges as to when humanity begins. Perhaps so, but the presence of other challenges does not itself justify any particular different starting point; and every claimed starting point is open to challenge (including Michael’s).

I, of course, understand that those who opt for the nervous system/brain option can not prove they are right. But that does not show they are wrong. It may well be that no one can prove that the starting point they think is correct is in fact correct. In other words, Michael believes an embryo without a nervous system or brain is a human being and deserves to be treated as the moral equivalent as an infant. My question remains: can you prove it to people whose intuitions are different?

As to Professor Hill’s point that aliens from other planets can be persons without having brains or nervous systems. Certainly the latter is true (and angels can lack both), but they can not be human beings. And the question remains, how do you prove that an embryo is a human being (or, if you prefer, a human person) rather than a mere human organism)?

To summarize some points I have put forward in this thread. The view that an embryo or first trimester fetus is a human being full stop is not shared by an overwhelming majority of the American people. If they really thought the fetus was a human being, they could not possibly support some of the exceptions to abortion that they do. They apparently believe that the interest in life of such an entity is entitled to substantial moral weight but not to absolute weight. Consistent with this, many millions believe that Roe v. Wade should be overturned. But very small percentages of those on that side of the culture divide support the view that an embryo or fetus is a human being full stop. If a fetus or embryo is a human being full stop, the idea that abortion or embryonic stem cell research is the major civil rights issue of our time (as stated in Rick’s church bulletin) or an overriding political issue (as stated by Father Araujo or Robert George) follows naturally.  Moreover, the failure of embryos to attach to uterine walls resulting in their demise would be regarded as a major worldwide health problem. If I understand Robert George, he so regards it. But he is surely joined in the latter by relatively few. This does not mean he is wrong. It is a function of the Church to be prophetic. But, if the truth is written on our hearts (Evangelium Vitae, 2.2), I still believe more explanation is needed as to why so many people have contrary intuitions. Perhaps, however, contrary to the Pope, this is not an area in which the truth is written on our hearts. The question I have pursued may or may not reveal the limits of secular reason in this area (which in no way means there is not a right answer). I apologize for the repetition on my part. I am wondering whether we are near the end of this thread.  If so, I am happy to let others have the last words (at least, in the absence of severe provocation). I am grateful for the many excellent contributions.

Is a brain and a nervous system a necessary condition of being a human being?

I have certainly benefited from the argument put forward in our discussion and am thankful for the effort that Eduardo, Michael, and Robert have put into it. 

Robert George says that “To suppose that embryos are something other than human beings---rational animal organisms of the human species---is to undercut the ground for believing that infants, severely retarded persons, and comatose individuals are human beings.” He says, “Infants possess, as do embryos, the primordia (which are most fundamentally epigenetic) for self-directed development to the point at which they can immediately (though intermittently, of course, due to the need for sleep) perform characteristically human mental acts.  They possess in radical (=root) form the basic natural capacity that will in the course of development unfold to the point at which, if all goes well, they will be able to engage in conceptual thought, deliberation, and choice.  It is the possession of the basic natural capacity (shared by all human beings, even if blocked in the severely retarded), and not immediately exercisable capacities (possessed by some human beings but not by others, and possessed by some to a greater degree than by others), that determine the kind of substance a human being is, namely, a rational animal organism.”

There is, however, another possible distinction. Infants, severely retarded persons, and comatose individuals possess a nervous system and a brain; embryos do not. If it is argued that a human organism becomes a human being only when it develops a nervous system and a brain, the failure to recognize embryos as human beings does not undercut the ground for believing that infants etc. are human beings.

How well developed that nervous system and brain should be to regard a fetus as human is the subject of extensive debate. It would place humanity anywhere from the end of the first trimester to the end of the second trimester or early in the third. See generally Daniel A. Dombrowski and Robert Deltete, A Brief, Liberal, Catholic Defense of Abortion 43, 71-72 (2000). I am not arguing in favor of the brain/nervous system position though I do think it fits with the intuitions of many that the moral claims of a fetus are greater in the second and third trimesters than the first. I am suggesting that using this approach would not undercut the grounds for believing that infants are human beings and presents a challenge to efforts to demonstrate independent of authority that embryos are human beings as opposed to being "mere" human organisms. 

More on Professor George's post and my response

I have received an e-mail from a MOJ reader (a Catholic priest) who prefers to be anonymous that helpfully contributes to the discussion we are having:

In response to your most recent post in reply to Robert George, I think you mistake his point about what it is to be a "rational animal organism."  Here he speaks in terms of Aristotelian categories, I think, wherein to be a member of the species is to share in its essence, regardless of the accidents of one's participation (in the embryo's case, the accident of being at an early stage of formation). The importance of this is that it moves the rights discourse to the level of the categorical, and away from the "sufficient set of properties" conversation required to justify (inter alia) stem cell research.

 

Historically, looking for sufficient properties (beyond the property "human") in order to deem a human "rights worthy" has taken us down some pretty dark paths--excluding genders, races, economic classes.  It is not at all clear when it has taken us down a bright path, except as defined by the dominant party doing the classifying.

 

Note that the category "having a brain" doesn't get one to rationality, either.  There are various states of brain impairment--the severely and profoundly mentally retarded come to mind--that would be hard pressed to qualify for rights under any sort of regime that I can think of that would exclude embryos. 

 

The kind of categorical thinking required by the Aristotelian/Thomistic categories has the neat feature of rejecting the historically failed attempts to get at the subset of human beings genuinely meriting rights, and of giving full-throated support to the rights of human beings simpliciter.  This strikes me as the most humane and defensible account of human rights one might imagine, and the most demanding on society.  Thus, the severely and profoundly retarded, who cannot defend themselves, also need not be defended by adding up "plus factors" as to their rational development or the like.  Rather, they are to be defended as having the profound dignity of the human being, full stop. 

 

Sounds even progressive to me, and the implications applying the same thinking to the embryo would have for social policies (if taken seriously by all of us) in terms of our duties to the unborn would hardly be the stuff of conservative politics as traditionally understood.

Response to Robert George

I would like to offer a brief response to Robert George. As I see it, the question is whether the capacity to feel and think has moral significance or whether a human organism such as an embryo with no capacity to feel or think has the same moral status as a baby or adult.  An embryo can be characterized as a human being or, alternatively, as a human organism that could develop into a human being. Professor George says in Eduardo’s example that we should imagine that the babies could not feel or that the babies had no relationship to human beings, but that is a part of what those on the other side would argue makes them human. The embryo has not developed to that point.

Professor George says, “[W]e humans possess fundamental worth and dignity by virtue of the kind of substance we are---namely, a rational animal organism---and not in virtue of accidental qualities, such as the stage of development we happen to have reached.” Embryos, of course, are not yet rational. They have no brains. The assertion that they possess dignity regardless of their stage of development is precisely the point in question. It can not be demonstrated by assertion. Perhaps, demonstration, one way or another (without resort to authority) is not possible.

By the way, I do not think concerns about the morality of abortion necessarily rest on an assumption that the fetus is of the same moral status as a baby or an adult. One could argue as the U.S. Bishops do (of course, they agree with Professor George as well) that having an abortion interferes with God’s creative plan. This argument need not depend on the notion that embryos or fetuses have rights (Ronald Dworkin develops this view in Life’s Dominion) or are human beings from the time of conception. On that line of argument, abortion offends against God, not against fetuses or embryos. It could account for why many pro life Catholics might think that abortion is one important issue among many other important issues rather than an overriding issue.

First Things Denial

For a denial by Richard John Neuhaus that First Things has tried to "'baptize' the liberal tradition by equating our constitutional order with Catholic doctrine," see http://www.firstthings.com/

Response to Father Araujo

Many thanks to Father Araujo for responding to Eduardo and me.

I note that Father Araujo is silent on the question whether the doctrinal perspective he took in his post (that a Catholic can not in good conscience disagree with the Church on questions of morality) is consistent with American democracy.

He asks me to support the view that an overwhelming majority of American Catholics reject that perspective. I had principally in mind the very high percentage of Catholics that reject the
Vatican’s position on contraception. Clearly they know what the leaders of the Church think, but they do not feel obligated to follow their lead. Andrew Greeley has detailed the extent to which American Catholics do not feel obligated to adhere to Vatican pronouncements on morality in much of his work (see, e.g., The Catholic Revolution: New Wine, Old Wineskins, and the Second Vatican Council Now).

I agree with Father Araujo’s implication that Kennedy’s address to the Houston Ministerial Association was misconceived. I would have preferred it if President Kennedy had said that he was a Catholic, had deeply internalized Catholic values, but believed that Catholics had the right and the duty to follow their conscience when they disagreed with the leaders of the Church. In other words, he did not submit to the dictates of a foreign power. In this connection, I think any Catholic who publicly endorsed Father Araujo’s doctrinal perspective could not be elected President of the United States.

I do not contend that speaks against Father Araujo’s theological position. I think it is a mistake to suppose that theology must fit the needs of politics or the state (Stanley Hauerwas has spoken eloquently on the latter point (see A Christian Critique of Christian America in The Hauerwas Reader). Although I do not agree with Father Araujo’s position, the point of my post was exclusively political. Consequently I think the quotation from John Courtney Murray is relevant to Father Araujo’s theological position, but not to the point of my post (though I would be grateful for the citation, on or off line).

Father Araujo is puzzled by my reference to First Things Catholics. I certainly do not maintain that readers of First Things are necessarily First Things Catholics (I, in fact, suggested that Robert George, a contributor to First Things may or may not be a First Things Catholic). I had in mind the description of the First Things project in Damon Linker’s excellent book The Theocons (which is not to say that I wholly agree with his conception of the role of religion in politics). Linker maintains that the First Things project is to show that Catholic values of a particular stripe are American values. He maintains, as do I, that the effort is a failure. As I have suggested, I think the principles propounded by the Vatican and by First Things are far more absolute than those typically followed in this country.  I think that efforts to show that the United States is really a Catholic country or a Kantian country or any other deontology run up against the relentless tendency of the country to compromise. The Church can play a prophetic role; it can be influential; it can speak truth to power. But it is a pilgrim church and a divided church in a pluralistic, pragmatic country. The First Things project seeks to argue that a divided part of a minority church is really at the center of American political philosophy in a country dominated by Protestants. Not very likely, but the project has had far more political success than could have been predicted.

Response to Rick, Michael, Richard

I am really quite grateful to Rick, Michael, Richard, and Father Araujo for responding to my recent post (and, of course, to Eduardo for his contribution). I respond here to Rick, Michael, and Richard and will have to respond to Father Araujo later.

In response to Rick: I did not say that “the fact that Americans do not believe that it is immoral to destroy embryos for research purposes establishes that the immorality of destroying embryos for research purposes can only be established by ‘resort to authority.’” I said that the extent to which Americans do not follow Catholic values embarrasses the First Things attempt to show that Catholic values are American values. Moreover, I asked what arguments other than authority can be used to counter the position of the American majority and how natural law doctrine relates to this debate. To claim as Rick and Michael do that America has a “[deep] and core commitment to the equal dignity and worth of every human being from conception to natural death,” is a well phrased statement of a conclusion, but it is not an argument. It begs the question by asserting what many deny: that a human being (as opposed to a human organism exists from the time of conception). I am genuinely interested in determining what arguments can be made for the Catholic position outside resort to authority.

But, in the latter connection, I will add one more question. Suppose a Catholic is unsure about the morality of embryonic stem cell research, and, therefore, accepts the Church’s position (believing that having no strong reason to affirm or dispute it that she should accept it). Suppose further that this Catholic continues to think that the Church position is open to doubt. Does such a Catholic become less than faithful if she takes her doubts into account in the election process? Or must she vote as if she holds the Church’s position as a strong conviction (even though she does not)?

Which leads me to Richard’s response to my post on conscience and democracy:  As I said, I was responding to Father Araujo’s statement that “’Our faith teaches that Catholics cannot, in good conscience, disagree with the Church on questions of morality.’” Although it was not the point of my post, I do believe that a Catholic has the right and the duty to follow his or her conscience (which is informed by reflection, study, and experience, but is in the end subjective) even when it disagrees with the Church on questions of morality. I do not know what led Michael to think that I believe that following conscience can not involve erroneous judgment, but that is not and has never been my view. I did not defend my view of Catholic obligations and rights of conscience. We have been down that road on this site already.

The point of my post was rather was to maintain that if Catholics were to adhere to Father Araujo’s conception of the faith (in the main they do not) anti-Catholicism would rise (wholly apart from whether his conception of the faith is correct). I suggested among other things that most Americans have historically been suspicious of Catholicism on the ground that Catholics follow the dictates of a foreign power rather than exercising independent judgment (i.e., following their “subjective” conscience). I wondered how Father Araujo’s conception of the faith could be reconciled with American democracy. In response, Richard asks, “Does he mean to say that one could not follow the Magisterium on a disputed moral question without somehow breaking faith with American democracy? Or just that one could not support a law that was consistent with a moral view held by the Magisterium because that would violate the Establishment Clause?” The answer to both questions is an emphatic no. I know of no one anywhere who has taken the second position, and I do not believe a serious argument could be made for that view. In fact, I believe that Catholic citizens have a religious duty to act on their religious beliefs in political life and a moral right to express their religious views in political life. (I bypass here the restrictions that the Establishment Clause places on the reasons government can give for its actions, e.g., leaving aside ceremonial monotheism, government could not justify a law on the supposition that it has a privileged insight on what God has to say about a subject).

As to the first question, I think it depends on why the person has followed the Magisterium. If the person has followed the Magisterium through an exercise of independent judgment accompanied by deference, I do not think such deference is incompatible with good citizenship or American democracy (though many might disagree). I do think it is hard to reconcile absolute submission to the Magisterium with American democracy.

Embryos, Counterculture, and Natural Law

Robert George on the First Things blog, http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=477, remarked in connection with embryonic stem cell research that, “So, however much one might dislike Republican policies in other areas, it’s clear that the death toll under the Democrats would be so large as to make it unreasonable for Catholic citizens, or citizens of any faith who oppose the taking of innocent human life, to use their votes and influence to help bring the Democratic party into power.” This conclusion reasonably could be said to follow Vatican teaching. To kill an embryo for stem cell research is to kill an innocent vulnerable human being. To kill millions of innocent vulnerable human beings is to engage in acts arguably so heinous as to eclipse all other issues (poverty, torture, war, etc., though George would not necessarily concede that the Democratic party is better overall on moral issues even if abortion and stem cell research ceased to be issues). Let us assume for the moment that this is the most reasonable interpretation of Vatican teaching.

 It seems obvious that Vatican teaching in this respect is far removed from the values of the American people. If Vatican teaching is correct, the killing of embryos should be regarded as first degree murder. Yet, 60 % of the American people favor federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. I would imagine the percentage of Americans that would support murder laws for the killing of embryos is small. To be sure, a majority of Americans favor criminalizing abortion (though, not necessarily murder laws) in a wide variety of circumstances, but the overwhelming majority of people, including an overwhelming majority of Catholics, favor exceptions that they could not possibly accept if they thought an embryo or a fetus was the same thing as a baby (rape, incest, and in some circumstances, the life of the mother).

The first point of my post is to question the coherence of the First Things project (which George may or may not endorse). According to Linker, the purpose of the project is to show that Catholic values are American values. It seems obvious that Vatican values are far more absolute than those of the American people. Indeed this is the point of the epithet about the culture of death. In that regard, the First Things project is in tension with Vatican thinking. The Vatican thinks that American culture is far removed from a Catholic culture. The Vatican is not engaged in a project of American populism.

Another point of my post is to ask how the Vatican’s positions on embryonic stem cell research, abortion, and natural law fit together. The question in part is whether the Vatican’s position can be demonstrated without resort to its authority. If natural law is written on our hearts, the Catholic position should be capable of defense without resort to authority. Robert George argues in conformity with Vatican teachings that embryos are human individuals, that discrimination on the basis of the stage of human development is morally wrong, and that killing for research purposes can not be justified. But, as I have suggested, most people do not accept these views. To be sure, an embryo is a human organism (and I will assume that one can be distinguished from another though that does not fully capture what most think a human individual is). But the intuition of most people is that a microscopic group of cells (even those of a human organism) in a petri dish are not the same as an adult. They in fact believe that discrimination on the basis of human development makes sense (even if they were in favor of criminalizing embryo destruction, they would likely not consider the crime to be the same as infanticide). And they do not regard the failure of embryos to attach to uterine walls to be a health crisis. Perhaps they believe that the capacity to suffer, to feel, and to think are important to what it means to be a human being (even if they regard human life to be of some or considerable moral weight). What does one say to get beyond impasse?

 If the Vatican’s position can not be demonstrated (or defended on more persuasive grounds) to be right without resort to authority (a matter upon which I am eager to learn more), it should be recognized that those with different views have no knockout punches to throw either. This is not mathematics. But there is a truth of the matter. Someone somewhere is right here and many are wrong.

I wonder whether the natural law claim that the law is written on our hearts can hold up on these issues in a profoundly pluralistic society. The law written on the hearts of Vatican Catholics does not appear to be the same as the law written on the hearts of millions of other Catholics and non-Catholics in American society and elsewhere. Ironically the  Vatican takes a countercultural position at the same time it asserts that the truth is written on our hearts. I wonder whether disagreement here can simply be written off as the natural consequence of a “culture of death.” That phrase aptly describes a part of our culture. I would think it would appropriately be applied to someone morally insensitive enough to think that abortion, for example, raises no serious moral issue. Does it explain the range of disagreements on embryonic stem cell research and abortion?

Conscience and Democracy

In his recent post, Father Araujo argues that “The conscience of the faithful Catholic citizen, in its authentic form, is informed by objective truth as God has revealed and as the Church teaches.” Some on this site have argued, and Father Araujo also believes that an authentic conscience is not merely informed by Church teachings, but must conform itself to the teachings of the Magisterium. As Father Araujo continues, “’Our faith teaches that Catholics cannot, in good conscience, disagree with the Church on questions of morality.’” To fail to conform one’s conscience with the Magisterium, he suggests is not to be a faithful Catholic, and it is maintained that this is not only the current view of the Vatican, but the meaning of the Magisterium. Let us assume this to be correct.

For much of American history, anti-Catholicism was rampant because Catholics “took orders from a foreign power.” If Catholics were to accept the absolute power of the Magisterium (the overwhelming majority do not), is there any reason to believe that anti-Catholicism would not again become rampant? I suspect it would because the idea of freedom of (“subjective”) conscience is deeply embedded in the traditions of the country (it has also long been a part of Catholic tradition), and the idea of following the dictates of a foreign power seems undemocratic to most Americans.

This is not to say that “First Things” Catholics are wrong about freedom of conscience  (though I think they are); it is to say that it would be very difficult for them persuasively to maintain that their version of Catholicism is consistent with American democracy. On the other hand, the conception of conscience held by the overwhelming majority of American Catholics is fully consistent with American democracy. My understanding of what American Catholics believe is that appropriate respect and deference must be paid to the Magisterium, but respect and deference is not the same as absolute submission. It is the right and the duty of Catholics to follow their conscience, and, in doing so, they are faithful Catholics and good citizens.

Truth and Polarization

If I were writing a statement for a parish on the theme of “respect life,” I would worry that a sentence like “Our bishops – our pastors and teachers – have stated clearly that abortion, in particular, is not merely one ‘issue’ among many, but is the ‘fundamental human rights issue for all men and women of good will[,]’” would be unnecessarily polarizing. It is too easy to ignore that the overwhelming majority of American Catholics do not think that an embryo is the same thing as a baby even though they think that abortion is immoral in most circumstances. Many of them might deny that abortion is the “fundamental human rights issue for all men and women of good will.” They might read the statement (I am not saying that it was) as striving for political influence. I recognize that a parish might think it important to witness to the truth and, if people do not like it, so much the worse for them. But I believe it more constructive for a parish to encourage dialogue about issues such as these. In this connection, I would encourage us who are in parishes (as has a wonderful priest in the Cornell Catholic community) to reflect upon the Common Ground Initiative begun at the invitation of Cardinal Bernadin. http://www.nplc.org/commonground.htm. In so doing, we might reflect, as my priest suggested, on the presence of the Holy Spirit in the ongoing life of the Church