Mom wrote and asked me about what I thought about all the controversy regarding President Obama's addressing the graduating seniors at the University of Notre Dame. I hadn't consciously articulated my thoughts until she asked, but now that I have, I thought that I would just copy it all down here. I would preface my comments by reassuring or informing anyone who found them objectionable from a Catholic perspective that I'm twice as orthodox as they are and am willing to prove it in public, internationally-televised debate, and that I can successfully do so with two glasses of wine on an empty stomach in my system, which proves both that I'm a notorious lightweight and that I am so orthodox that I'm willing to invoke Paul and foolishly boast about it because it's so true that I don't have anything to gain or to prove from it. That's my response to anyone whose most beloved rhetorical strategy is to deny the faith of anyone who disagrees with them, which has been more embarrassing in all this affair than anything having to do with the actual invitation to President Obama. So, as I wrote to Mom:

The Notre Dame thing is more irritating to me than anything else. It's a kind of short-sightedness that I find sometimes irritating or sometimes just disappointing. The same thing happened with Bush in 2001, but I don't know that that was made into such a big deal by the press, perhaps because the press felt any protest regarding Bush was part of the natural order of things. I call it short-sighted because I think it's an illusion at best that anyone would expect a President of the United States to perfectly line up with Catholic teaching. There are a number of things in the party platforms of both Democrats and Republicans that are utterly opposed to Catholic ethics, so this should be no surprise. Even someone perceived to be as politically "Right" as the late Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, publisher of First Things, had warned those around him that they ought to always expect the Republican Party to betray them, despite the current seeming alignment of Republican interests with some of the concerns of his circle. In the same way, when you were younger, it was taken as a matter of simple fact that the Democratic Party, the party of the "little guy," was the party that Catholics and Evangelical were going to be naturally aligned with. But then came the shift of the "New Left" in the 1968-73 period when what it meant to be "Left" in the Democratic leadership underwent an astonishing ideological transformation, not least in its new hostility to religious belief and expression. The Republican Party in the late 1970s made a conscious and concerted effort to pick up the Evangelicals as a voting block, with great success. Since the 2004 Presidential election, the political Right has gone back to that playbook and has been making a major effort to do the same thing with Catholic Americans, though not with such visible success, except among some bishops who ought to be a bit more circumspect and clever about the extent to which they are being used for partisan politics.

The basic political issue, both in the Notre Dame snafu and in the past several years, is of course abortion. Because human life in particular is held to be sacred, with each human being possessing the dignity of being the image and likeness of God, a human rights ethic that has any consistency includes an opposition to abortion. This has been the case in Christian teaching since the late first century, when we see the topic first addressed explicitly, or in parallel secular ethics like in the unedited version of the Hippocratic Oath, where ancient physicians of that school swore to protect life even in its earliest stages. With respect to the sketch of the political context of this Notre Dame debate that I just gave, I have seen very little evidence that the leadership of the Republican Party is interest in pursuing the abortion issue as a priority beyond using it for the gathering of a voting block: a few rallying cries during elections, blocking the use of American funds to commit abortions overseas, sure, but nothing beyond that. There has been nothing like the forcing of the issue in the way the Abolitionists did in the lead-up to the Civil War.

The shape and nature of the argument involved in all of this has great significance. The logic used to justify the act of abortion itself, that the undeveloped fetus is not yet a "person," is a philosophical logic. That the fetus is human and is alive is a simple matter of genetics. People who debate using that language are just being sloppy. The question of "personhood," or of "humanity" as a philosophical concept, is more hazy. But Catholic ethics has increasingly become sensitive to the use of this argument through history, where invoking the debatable nature of someone else's humanity ("so-and-so isn't really human": no one has ever used this argument with regard to their own humanity) has been the justification for every other atrocity that people now repudiate. We pride ourselves on being the sort of people who would never have done that awful thing, whether against Jews, Africans, Native Americans, Cambodians, Rawandans, Sudanese, whoever. But it seems significant that the logic and the shape of the argument is the same. Catholics led the opposition to legalized abortion when it became an issue in the United States and when it culminated in the Roe v. Wade decision at the same time as that hard Secularist shift in the Left. So abortion has in many ways been popularly perceived as a particularly "Catholic" issue by those on both sides of the argument. Within Catholicism, this has become as much a "litmus test" issue as it has by those supporting the idea of a right to abortion, who throw their support behind anything even perceived to have anything to do with abortion, such as recent debates over the use of fetal stem cells in medical research. (The logic being that if any ethical qualms are shown here, it amount to becoming too close to admitting that unborn human beings have political and human rights, and so therefore no ethical concerns can be allowed to be raised on this issue. If you look at the lobbying groups supporting such research, it is abortion-rights groups that lead the way: "science" as such has very little to do with the politics.)

For those opposing President Obama's appearance at Notre Dame, the assumption is that any perceived acceptance or honouring of Obama as President is tantamount to an endorsement of his position as a supporter of abortion. This is, of course, foolish. That argument, extended logically, would imply that any recognition of the authority of the government of the United States implies an endorsement of its current policies. This is the exact opposite of what a democracy entails, of course, where everyone can cheerfully oppose the policies of their government without recourse to succession or civil war: one just has to convince their fellows to follow another course during the next general election, and thus we have revolution without bloodshed. So the basic argument against recognizing President Obama in this way falls apart. Notre Dame has recognized and received a number of Presidents over the years, every last one of which can be found to be in violation of Catholic ethical principles on one point or another. (Whether President Obama's choice of accepting the Notre Dame invitation over the hundreds of other commencement invitations he has received is driven by any particular political agenda is not a question I'll bother to consider here.)

But, say those who push this point, the abortion question is a special one: it is a fundamental crime against humanity to kill those least capable of defending themselves, depriving them of the chance to achieve any potential in their lives. They point out that John Paul II highlighted the particularly egregious nature of this act as perhaps the most fundamental violation of human rights that we have ever committed. All true. If so, that raises the question of complicity again. We are either complicit in aiding and abetting our society's support of abortion or we are not. Honouring a President who supports the idea of abortion rights, they argue, creates a tacit support that is incompatible with being Catholic. Myself, I cannot accept this argument, for the reasons described above. If their argument is true, these people are also aiding and abetting abortion by remaining citizens of the United States and by recognizing the legitimacy of this administration. To be truly consistent, their options could only be emigration, revolution, or utter non-recognition of the government in a state of permanent civil disobedience, probably no matter whose administration is currently running the show. Any position other than these seems to me to be opportunistic and disingenuous, if they have really followed their logic to its natural conclusions. That is, one that is opposed to President Obama on a more individual and personal level, and is using the abortion issue as a front for that opposition, but without being willing to follow their own logic to its natural ends. To insist that there should be this utter "line drawn in the sand" over the mere appearance of the President of the United States at the University of Notre Dame, or even the specific honouring of him for other goods shown in his life, and not to therefore question whether there is the same "line in the sand" between their Catholicism and their American citizenship is to "have their cake and eat it, too." There are a few Catholics who have been that consistent regarding issues of church and state. I do not see it happening here, which to me undermines the seriousness of the protests being raised.

The question becomes one of the greater good. Which is the greater good? To exist together in a democracy where freedom from the threat of civil war is seen as more important than even disagreement on fundamental issues of human rights such as that seen in the abortion debate, where the status of even a human being's development and acquiring of human rights is questioned? Or to exist in a country that guarantees that right to life (and all attending human rights, even those opposed by the Political Right but supported by the Catholic Church) even if guaranteeing those rights must come at the cost of the political union of the nation itself? Unless people follow their arguments all the way to the fundamental issues, which to my mind is the same thing as saying that they admit what they are really arguing about, then I think they are just wasting their time. Or worse, showing off for the cameras, whether to demonstrate to others how serious they are, or whether to reassure themselves.

So no, I don't find the people debating President Obama's presence at and honouring by Notre Dame to be persuasive. I am a Roman Catholic Christian, who has thoroughly investigated and has been convinced of the truth of the questions of that faith. I am also an American, excited by the prospect of a diverse democracy built upon a fundamental conception of Natural Law and Human Rights – the intellectual children of the Medieval Catholic universities which were then fostered by the Modern age. I am also a loyal son of the University of Notre Dame du Lac, excited by that school's distinctive gift and history of voicing Catholicism into the university, national, and international cultures of our time. The presence of the President is one more day at Notre Dame, one more person present who is in the midst of the ongoing conversation or story of their life. I was never in doubt about the Catholicity of Notre Dame, so protesting President Obama's presence does nothing to convince me any more of Notre Dame's Catholicity. I was never in doubt of President Obama's not being Catholic, so protesting his presence does not tell me or him anything that we didn't already know. The willingness of several of the prominent protesters to call Notre Dame President Fr. John Jenkins's Catholic faith into question over his issuing the invitation? That doesn't convince me any further of the depth of their Catholic faith. Instead, I find the moment, the conversation, the appeal to decency, logic, law, the Good – all things that are good – I find that the appeal to these sorts of things that the President and Notre Dame would be talking about, these are all aspects of God's creation, of the action of the Word and the Spirit in the world. That being the case, all that the President actually has to talk about are those things that the Catholic Church affirms, even if he has yet to make some of those connections, himself. I'm content to let that process happen, to even pray for the occasion, and to let God do any convincing necessary, having long since learned the lesson that my being loud or rude in no way assists God in this work.

President Jenkins put it entirely sensibly when he said, "We are not ignoring the critical issue of the protection of life. On the contrary, we invited him because we care so much about those issues, and we hope . . . for this to be the basis of an engagement with him," as well as adding that, "You cannot change the world if you shun the people you want to persuade, and if you cannot persuade them . . . show respect for them and listen to them." Former President Fr. Ted Hesburgh also put it well when he said the other day, "No speaker who has ever come to Notre Dame has changed the University. We are who we are. But, quite often, the very fact of being here has changed the speaker."

Hmm. And that concludes my thoughts. Sorry about the length, Mom: you asked. (And you're the Irish parent.)

Mike

Shades of Aragorn!

Imagine having a royal who didn't see their position as merely a license to party and make their life meaningless! A constitutional monarchy that has the stones to take a moral stance and to slow down modernity's endless rush to fixate on their immediate desires as the chief of goods – I kinda gotta dig that. Case in point: he takes one stand, which is entirely his right by his legal position, and rather than slow down and take the matter as worth waiting on and thinking through as a nation and culture, his political opponent immediately moves toward altering the constitution and stripping the Grand Duke of his last political power. There's another reason to be thankful that our Founding Fathers recognized that even too much democracy wasn't necessarily a good thing, and that it's so difficult for us to alter our constitution: despite all the times such changes are proposed, it really doesn't lend itself to too many quick and fashionable changes. If our own constitution were a victim of our own last few decades of political polarization... yuck.

Der Spiegel reports on a conflict that caught my eye for both reasons of ethics and of constitutional law, as well as characterizing a cultural flaw in Modernity where ethics are simply reduced to questions of power. The fact that Der Spiegel doesn't even notice the latter problem – to which its own reporting seems to contribute – strikes me as characteristic of why the Grand Duke's veto – the power to slow down a process and provoke even more conversation – is especially important for democracy. Too bad.

Euthanasia Controversy: Grand Duke of Luxembourg Will Lose His Veto
Luxembourg's parliament looks ready to strip the Grand Duke of his last lawmaking power as a controversy over euthanasia comes to a head. One of Europe's last royals with political sway may lose his formal veto by taking a stand against a law legalizing euthanasia.

The Grand Duke of Luxembourg, who has said he would interfere with a decision by parliament, will likely be stripped of his veto in a historic decision after a heated showdown over a bill to legalize euthanasia.

Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg protested the bill and threatened to kill it next week by refusing to sign it into law.

Since parliament is expected to pass the bill, Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker said the Grande Duke has overstepped his role. Juncker personally opposes the euthanasia bill but says he will propose a change to the constitution to deny the Grand Duke his veto. His role by the end of 2008 could be reduced to rubber-stamping parliamentary decisions, instead of deciding whether to approve them.

"That means he will only technically enact laws," Juncker said, according to Reuters.

The euthanasia bill passed a first vote by parliament in February. It looks set to pass a second and final vote next week, but the Catholic Grand Duke announced on Tuesday -- in a closed-door meeting with leaders of Juncker's ruling Christian Socialists -- that he would refuse to enact the law.

His position tipped the tiny nation into the worst constitutional crisis in its history. The Luxembourg royal house has tried to block a decision by parliament only once before, when the Grand Duchess Marie-Adelaide refused to sign an education bill in 1912.

"I understand the Grand Duke's problems of conscience," said Juncker, "but I believe that if the parliament votes in a law, it must be brought into force."

The euthanasia bill has been controversial since 2001. It would let patients with "grave and incurable" conditions die at the hands of a doctor if they ask repeatedly to be euthanized and earn the consent of two doctors and a panel of experts. Medical and physician groups have opposed the bill, though, and so have many citizens of this traditionally Catholic nation.

It follows similar laws in the Netherlands and Belgium, where King Baudouin -- Henri's uncle -- abdicated for a day in 1990 to avoid signing a Belgian abortion law. The current Belgian king, Albert II, has signed Belgium's recent euthanasia and homosexual-marriage laws over his private Catholic beliefs.

The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is a constitutional monarchy, and the Grand Duke is its head of state. He has indicated that he won't stand in the way of any change to the constitution.

Today's the Feast of Lewis, being the 45th anniversary of his death, as well as those of Kennedy and Huxley.

My birth certificate showed up in the mail, which was a relief. My identity remains my own for another day. So all my paperwork is in order, and my files can be put away for another decade. The day was spent digging back into Chapter 1 of the dissertation, refreshing myself with what I had done there so that I could clarify in my mind what remained to do in this next chapter. I had a headache through most of Friday, though, which was discouraging. Still, over meals I watched a few episodes of the 1965 season of The Avengers, which I had found on sale the other day for a mere dollar. I hadn't seen these since I was in junior high, when they were my first exposure to quirky British television and intrinsic British coolness, as well as the more fundamental fascinations of Mrs. Emma Peel in a leather catsuit. The music, the camerawork, the locations: it was all great fun to watch now as an adult, and to remember 1965's contradictions from a 2008 perspective – of people who moved between upscale London buildings with their modern amenities and open-fire village pubs and houses, as both being "normal." The countryside village conditions, from my eye, though, were hardly removed from what I grew up considering "camping," they were so basic. Ireland was the last of the European nations to so modernize, with a lot of folks describing to me in 1997 how different things had been just a few years earlier, and how much more prosperous everyone was feeling in that "Celtic Tiger" economy as it made fundamental changes in the popular standard of living. So watching these were both fun "spy-fi" in themselves, as well as interesting historical documents in indirect ways.

The other morning I attended Fortunate's dissertation defense with Mike and Ellen, which was quite fun because this was one defense where I already knew the material in great depth, which is not often the case in our diverse and specialized dissertations. But Fortunate is an Augustine scholar, among other Early Christianity interests, who dissertated under Barnes, and did an historical project that he nevertheless tied in interesting ways to struggles today in divisions among African Christians, offering his work as a model of an historical pattern worth trying to avoid. The rest of the committee – Zemler-Cizewski, Dempsey, Johnson and Carey – all asked potent and interesting questions from their various specialties and perspectives. Mine was the only "public" question. In my own work, touching on the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, I had been struck by the fact that, as with many Church councils, no one had ever attended a council before, since there had been none in their lifetimes. So they sort of had to make up their own way of having a council. Since Fortunate's dissertation, and the faculty conversation regarding it, was more explicit about the African cultural elements Augustine and the other African council leaders were trying to rein in or modify, I asked about any particularly African characteristics in their councils themselves that Fortunate might have noticed. Most of that conversation seemed to stay in the moral mode, as well as mentioning the African concern with universal perspective or function in the Church, which one can see back to Cyprian in particular.

"Broken Nets": Augustine, Schisms, and Rejuvenating Councils in North Africa
Fortunate Ojiako, B.A., B.Th., M.A., M.A.
Marquette University, 2008.

This dissertation studies the schisms ("broken nets" according to Augustine) [he was using the image of the story of Jesus instructing disciples where to fish, with one casting of their nets resulting in a catch that burst the nets] that bedeviled the North African Church, as well as its moral conditions during the late fourth and early fifth centuries. This study equally shows the rejuvenating nature of the Aurelian/Augustinian councils. These councils sought to regenerate debased and erroneous aspects of North African customs. The sanative nature of the Aurelian/Augustinian councils is not only buttressed from Augustine's Letter 22, but also from the content of the conciliar decrees emanating from the North African councils. These reforms were liturgical, moral, as well as disciplinary in nature. In correcting the African Church customs, Augustine sought to align them with those of the universal church.

The trademark moral rigorism of the African Church that had dire consequence for her is likewise highlighted in this work. Rigorist views were espoused by Tertullian, Cyprian, the Donatists, and even Augustine's Catholic Church. Rigorism is also present in the consuetudo or the so-called African theology that sought exclusion for apostates and also rebaptized former heretics and schismatics. This work adumbrates that nets and broken nets were products of the time. While the Decian persecution of 251 AD gave rise to the lapsi, (and in extension Novatianism) the Diocletian persecution of 312 produced the traditores, which in turn aided the Donatist schism.

Part two of this work explores the state of the North African Church that Augustine and his cohorts sought through councils to reform. This section also examines the Cyprianic councils and the impact of customs and scriptural interpretations on the controversy in the North African Church.

The result of this dissertation will not only show the rejuvenating nature of the Aurelian and Augustinian councils, but also adds its voice to those among Augustinian scholarship that see a greater need and importance of studying Augustine more from his African environment. This is not in any way an attempt to discountenance the importance of other paradigms that go a long way toward a better understanding of Augustine.

A note from Sky News that Dan sent to me. I'm at my Mom's right now, on her dial-up, and so trying to get online is extremely slow, so much so that I just haven't really been bothering. Anyway, I can't help but notice the casting of Blair's conversion strongly in privatized terms by Sky News: the decision Blair made is a "personal" one, and the controversy provoked by his move is that some people have the notion that faith has public implications....

Criticism For Blair Over Conversion
Updated:19:21, Saturday December 22, 2007

Tony Blair's conversion to Catholicism has been criticised by commentators who argue his views as PM were at odds with church teachings.

Tony Blair has met Pope BenedictMr Blair was welcomed into the Roman Catholic church by the Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor - leader of the Roman Catholics in England and Wales.

Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor welcomed the politician's personal decision, which culminated in the ceremony at the chapel of the Archbishop's House in Westminster.

He said: "For a long time he has been a regular worshipper at Mass with his family and in recent months he has been following a programme of formation to prepare for his reception into full communion."

The move comes after years of speculation that Mr Blair, whose wife Cherie and four children are Catholic, would convert from Anglicanism after he resigned from Number 10 in June.

Converting while in office would have caused him problems in connection with issues such as abortion, contraception, homosexuality and faith schools.

The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) reacted with surprise to the news.

John Smeaton, SPUC's national director, said: "During his premiership Tony Blair became one of the world's most significant architects of the culture of death, promoting abortion, experimentation on unborn embryos, including cloned embryos, and euthanasia by neglect.

"SPUC is writing to Tony Blair to ask him whether he has repented of the anti-life positions he has so openly advocated throughout his political career."

Tory MP Ann Widdecombe, who converted to Catholicism in 1993, told Sky News it was possible in her opinion to be a practising Catholic and prime minister.

She said: "I think the crucial thing to remember is at the point you are received (into the Catholic church) you have to say individually and out loud 'I believe everything the church teaches to be revealed truth'.

"And that means if you previously had any problems with church teaching, as Tony Blair obviously did over abortion, as he did again over Sunday trading...you would have to say you changed your mind.

"And I think people will want to know that he did go through that process, because otherwise it will seem as if the church did make an exception for somebody just because of who he is."

Here's a pretty good New York Times op-ed on the Founder's intentions regarding Church and State, and their vision of balance between maintaining religion in the country and maintaining the neutral, secular nature of the state. I wonder, though, where the invocation of the Founders here as against the contemporary Evangelicals' language of America as a "Christian nation" is entirely relevant. I look at efforts today to get the Christian heritage of Europe named as a basis of European culture in the preamble to the Constitution of the European Union, and the ferocious opposition put up to that acknowledgment, despite the willingness to show a debt to other cultural factors, like the Greco-Roman heritage of Europe and the secularizing philosophical movement of the 18th century that dubbed itself the Enlightenment, from which the American Constitution sprang.

It seems that there have been a change in our culture since the 18th century that is relevant to this question of the identification of the Christian roots of both Europe and America, and that has to be taken into account beyond just a "chapter and verse" quotation of either the Bible or the records of the Founders. We have to understand that the nature of the Enlightenment itself has changed. In the 18th century, the process of secularizing government was one that all religious people could support because of the benefits to their faith itself in a religiously-neutral state. The various faiths were guaranteed protection from the power of the State, and could compete freely in a culture of ideas, laying out their various claims to and arguments for truth, that the State refrained from adjudicating. In this way, religions were treated in much the same way that the State refrains from interfering in scientific or technological processes to determining what is true.

In recent decades, however, the nature of that movement that was the Enlightenment has evolved from seeing religious neutrality as an artifice to a dogmatic position of its own. That is, to the Founders' minds, the religiously-neutral orientation of the State allowed a Protestant, a Catholic, a Jew, or a Unitarian the equal opportunity to be a member of Congress and to try to persuade other members to support their legislative vision, inspired by whatever religious faith the legislator professed, as long as the others could be persuaded of the common good which would result from that person's bill. Today it is different. Today the Enlightenment philosophy has morphed and become its own position, an anti-religious one rather than a religiously-neutral one. Legislators are now not to speak from any ideological perspective that has a basis in a religious faith. You cannot be a Catholic who has persuaded his heavily Catholic and Jewish constituency to support her because of a mutually-shared vision: you are only to speak from a non-religious base. This is, of course, to win an argument by disallowing any other positions. The Enlightenment heirs today invoke "neutrality" with religious fervor, but in fact mean that their dogmatic orientation is the only allowable one. You must think as they do: non-religiously. Any religion you want to invoke or play with after that is allowable because it is banished from the public sphere.

It is from this change in what the contemporary force of the Enlightenment has come to mean that the American Evangelical inclination to speak of the United States as a "Christian Nation" springs: America was indeed once a country that allowed the various religions and denominations a voice in the public sphere. There they could succeed or fail on the basis of whether they persuaded others their positions were to the public benefit. Now, they are on the receiving end of a relatively new, later-20th century spin on Constitutional interpretation that moves the First Amendment to a position that is hostile to religious motivation in the public sphere, instead of neutral toward it. Their very motives, expressions, and thoughts are being politically disenfranchised. It is small wonder that they can look to the more distant American civil past and see a country more characterized by Christian faith. Even if was never a "Christian Nation" in law itself, it was a nation where Christians could be active and vocal in their politics in a way they are increasingly being told is illegitimate. A purely secular, anti-religious state, if that is what America is moving toward, is one Christians will not be able to support. A disenfranchising Secular Left will thus continue to create the Religious Right they so complain about.

Op-Ed Contributor
A Nation of Christians Is Not a Christian Nation
By JON MEACHAM
Published: October 7, 2007 in The New York Times

JOHN McCAIN was not on the campus of Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University last year for very long — the senator, who once referred to Mr. Falwell and Pat Robertson as “agents of intolerance,” was there to receive an honorary degree — but he seems to have picked up some theology along with his academic hood. In an interview with Beliefnet.com last weekend, Mr. McCain repeated what is an article of faith among many American evangelicals: “the Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation.”

According to Scripture, however, believers are to be wary of all mortal powers. Their home is the kingdom of God, which transcends all earthly things, not any particular nation-state. The Psalmist advises believers to “put not your trust in princes.” The author of Job says that the Lord “shows no partiality to princes nor regards the rich above the poor, for they are all the work of his hands.” Before Pilate, Jesus says, “My kingdom is not of this world.” And if, as Paul writes in Galatians, “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus,” then it is difficult to see how there could be a distinction in God’s eyes between, say, an American and an Australian. In fact, there is no distinction if you believe Peter’s words in the Acts of the Apostles: “I most certainly believe now that God is not one to show partiality, but in every nation the man who fears him and does what is right is welcome to him.”

The kingdom Jesus preached was radical. Not only are nations irrelevant, but families are, too: he instructs those who would be his disciples to give up all they have and all those they know to follow him.
( Read more... )
Jon Meacham, the editor of Newsweek, is the author of “American Gospel” and “Franklin and Winston.”

Various articles and such that have caught my eye over the last several days and that I wanted to jot down. Vaclav Havel's unapologetic casting of the climate issue in wider language of morality. I thought this interesting and important because of the strong feelings the cultural Left has in support of environmental issues such as this, but who adamant argue against any idea of a moral order in so many other venues, particularly at the personal level. The article on filmmaker Bill Haney grabs my eye especially because of my awareness of the exploitation of Haitians in the Dominican Republic after loaning that Haitian community my then-girlfriend for two years. The ongoing question of the current importance of Europe's Christian heritage in its political self-conception and order is why the next article grabbed me, from a few weeks ago during Benedict XVI's pilgrimage to Austria. And the last article about lay people or women religious being given more authority in the Vatican is naturally interesting to someone studying ecclesiology....

Op-Ed Contributor
Our Moral Footprint
By VACLAV HAVEL
Published: September 27, 2007 in The New York Times
Prague

OVER the past few years the questions have been asked ever more forcefully whether global climate changes occur in natural cycles or not, to what degree we humans contribute to them, what threats stem from them and what can be done to prevent them. Scientific studies demonstrate that any changes in temperature and energy cycles on a planetary scale could mean danger for all people on all continents.

It is also obvious from published research that human activity is a cause of change; we just don’t know how big its contribution is. Is it necessary to know that to the last percentage point, though? By waiting for incontrovertible precision, aren’t we simply wasting time when we could be taking measures that are relatively painless compared to those we would have to adopt after further delays?

Maybe we should start considering our sojourn on earth as a loan. There can be no doubt that for the past hundred years at least, Europe and the United States have been running up a debt, and now other parts of the world are following their example. Nature is issuing warnings that we must not only stop the debt from growing but start to pay it back. There is little point in asking whether we have borrowed too much or what would happen if we postponed the repayments. Anyone with a mortgage or a bank loan can easily imagine the answer.

( Read more... )

Filmmaker found priest 'extraordinarily charismatic and principled'
By Mark Pattison
Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Filmmaker Bill Haney, who made the new documentary titled "The Price of Sugar," said one reason he decided to make a movie on the plight of Haitian sugar-cane cutters in the Dominican Republic was Father Christopher Hartley, the British-born priest who worked for several years with the Haitians and appears throughout the film.

"I found Father Christopher an extraordinarily charismatic and principled man," Haney said. Although "educated in the spirit of reflection and contemplation," he added, "he was a bold leader taking real-life risks on behalf of the principles that he committed his life to."

Another reason was "the kind of startling and stark and almost painful dichotomy between the lifestyle that the resort-dwellers were enjoying along the (Dominican) coast and the deeply, deeply troubling conditions that the sugar-cane workers were enduring just a few miles away," said Haney, a Catholic. "It kind of reminded me of the admonition that where the last among us go, so am I."

( Read more... )

Pope strongly urges Europe not to deny its Christian values
By John Thavis
Catholic News Service

VIENNA, Austria (CNS) -- Before an audience of Austrian political leaders and international diplomats, Pope Benedict XVI urged Europe not to jettison its Christian values -- especially when it comes to the rights of the unborn and the dying.

The pope made the remarks Sept. 7 in an ornate reception hall of Vienna's Hofburg Palace, which was packed with government officials, legislators, ambassadors and representatives to U.N. and other agencies.

After being welcomed warmly by Austrian President Heinz Fischer, the pope stood on a red-carpeted podium and declared bluntly: "Europe cannot and must not deny her Christian roots. These represent a dynamic component of our civilization as we move forward into the third millennium."

( Read more... )

Oh, and from Whispers in the Loggia, there's an interesting little story with the tongue-in-cheek title of The Curia's "First Lady", about Sister Enrica Rosanna, Benedict's blatant disregarding of reform of canon law in having a non-ordained person in a position of superiority over the ordained, which looks to be an increasing fact of even Vatican life....

Here's an interesting follow-up story to the overture made by Benedict XVI to Chinese Catholics in his recent letter to them. This isn't an official invitation from Beijing, but it certainly has some meaning in that it was allowed to be published by an official of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association. The feelers are definitely out.

I also include an odd, sad and funny little story about WWI having unusual payoffs for locals in Macedona.

Chinese Catholics Ask Pope to Visit
Jul 24, 10:45 AM (ET)

VATICAN CITY (AP) - A senior official in China's state-sanctioned Catholic Church said in comments published Tuesday that he would like Pope Benedict XVI to visit China.

Benedict did not dismiss the possibility but said the issue was "complicated."

Liu Bainian, vice chairman of the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, made the comments in an interview with Italian daily La Repubblica in which he praised Benedict's recent letter to China's Catholics as "positive."

"I strongly hope to be able to see the pope one day here in Beijing to celebrate Mass for us Chinese," Liu was quoted as saying.

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WWI Spirits Live on in Macedonia
Jul 23, 8:36 PM (ET)

By KONSTANTIN TESTORIDES

GRADESNICA, Macedonia (AP) - French adjutant-chief Eugene Rouges died with several of his men here when a German artillery shell exploded in their trench on Nov. 16, 1916.

But their spirits live on in Gradesnica.

More than 90 years later, visitors are still drawn to this former World War I battlefield, a remote mountain village in southern Macedonia, where the lure is more than military history: A liquid fortune in vintage cognac and wine lies buried in the old trenches.

Stefan Kovacevski, 64, is among residents who tasted the French army rations that have matured into an exquisite elixir.

"At first we were afraid to taste the dark, thick liquid," he said. "But ... this must be what people mean by the nectar of the gods."

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I've heard some buzz along the lines mentioned here, that Tony Blair was planning to convert to Catholicism after he leaves the Prime Minister's position in the U.K. I'll hardly pretend to be an expert on Blair, but I will certainly express some interest in the public significance of such a conversion in Great Britain, where there is such a particular history of defining itself over and against the Catholic Church since the noble Henry VIII suffered the memorable attack of his delicate conscience and seized all of the Church's property in the kingdom.

Blair Meets With Pope in Farewell Visit
Jun 23, 8:16 AM (ET)

By VICTOR L. SIMPSON

VATICAN CITY (AP) - The Vatican on Saturday bid farewell to Tony Blair as British prime minister, wishing him well on what it said were his plans to work for Middle East peace and interreligious dialogue.

Blair held long talks with Pope Benedict XVI, with the Vatican stop on his farewell tour fueling rumors that he plans to convert to Catholicism. The two men met privately for 25 minutes and then were joined for further talks by English Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor.

A Vatican press office called the audience a normal meeting between the pope and a government leader. Blair leaves office on Wednesday.

The statement, issued after the talks with Benedict and a separate meeting with Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, said there was a "frank" assessment of the international situation, including such "delicate" themes as the Middle East conflict and the future of the European Union.

The Vatican opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, which Blair has supported.

The statement said that best wishes were expressed for Blair's future, saying that he has expressed the desire "to dedicate himself in a particular way for peace in the Middle East and for interreligious dialogue."

Earlier this week, it was suggested that President Bush, a close ally, wants Blair to take the job of Middle East envoy for the Quartet of peacemakers - the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia. Downing Street has refused comment on the reports.

Greeted by Benedict, Blair explained that he had just arrived from an EU summit in Brussels.

"I heard it was very successful," Benedict said.

"Yes, we had a very long night. We finished up at 5:30 in the morning," Blair replied.

In an interview with The Times of London, Blair said Saturday the issue of his religious beliefs was complex and that he was nervous about discussing his faith with the pope.

"It's difficult with some of these things," Blair told the newspaper. "Things aren't always as resolved as they might be."

As for reports that Blair is on the verge of formally converting, a spokesman for the prime minister repeated the official line that "he remains a member of the Church of England."

Blair, his wife and children met Benedict in a private, hour-long audience a year ago. He also met with Pope John Paul II in 2003.

Blair's wife Cherie is Roman Catholic, the couple's children have attended Catholic schools and Blair habitually attends Catholic rather than Anglican services.

Huh. I missed this, but I would have been fascinated to watch. It was so clear after the 2004 election that the Democrats were being killed by having embraced the Secularist over-strong reading of "separation of church and state" having morphed into "separation of religion/spirituality from reality." In our polarized political landscape, as long as the Democrats kept sounded like they were opposed to any religious motive being acceptable for public and political action, they were going to drive far too much of the population into Republican voting as the only seeming possibility of free political exercise, no matter how opposed people might be to various Republican platforms. The Democrats needed to not try to suppress the use of religion in the public sphere (for which there is really no justification in the tortured First Amendment) but to rediscover the religious articulation of their own politics.

This sounds like a move in that direction, but Steinfels rightly points out it's a weak one. If the American Left is going to be as weak, shallow and misleading in its articulation of religious reflection and motivation as the American Right has been in recent years, that isn't much of an improvement: just more bumper-sticker philosophy. And for a country that's so anti-intellectual and so religiously/philosophically illiterate, it certainly won't "raise the bar" on the level of public discourse. (Here of course we must also point the finger at the American news media for collaborating with our politicians in dumbing things down to the lowest-common denominator.) The Democrats may talk about beating Bush, but this type of shallowness would be more along the lines of being just about winning and simply "becoming Bush." Steinfels' comments on the kind of questions that ought to be being asked seems right on target.


Beliefs
A Tentative First Step in Addressing Faith and Politics
By PETER STEINFELS
The New York Times
June 9, 2007

Almost a century ago, G. K. Chesterton made a comment that could most appropriately be applied to Monday night’s forum at which leading Democratic presidential candidates discussed faith and politics: anything worth doing “is worth doing badly.”

The purpose of the forum, organized by the liberal evangelical journal Sojourners and broadcast on CNN, was to hear what Democratic contenders might say about religion and whether they might convincingly enlarge the list of religious and moral (or “values”) questions to include topics like poverty, war and the environment rather than only those emphasized by the religious right.

Not a bad idea. Clearly, the nation and first of all the Democrats could use a better, broader, more sophisticated conversation about religion and politics.

Yet it is hard to imagine anyone serious about either of these subjects watching Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Senator Barack Obama and former Senator John Edwards on Monday without cringing at some of the questions or chafing at some of the speechifying and the general absence of intelligent follow-up.

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Watching out for me was daysprings, who forwarded to me a link to a most interesting article from The Atlantic Monthly (July/August 2007; Volume 300, No. 1; 75-84) called "Keeping Faith" on a Bishop Jin Luxian in the People's Republic. As I heard more from the perspective of the Underground Church, this was a really infomative look at a key figure from the government-recognized and -regulated Church in the Catholic Patriotic Association.

Though largely unknown outside of China, Jin is arguably the most influential and controversial figure in Chinese Catholicism of the last 50 years. He played a leading role in persuading the authorities to allow a prayer for the pope to be said during Masses in China’s registered, or “open,” churches and in developing a Chinese-language liturgy, and he was single-handedly responsible for training more than 400 priests—including several who became Vatican-recognized bishops—in Shanghai’s seminary. He’s also been an unabashed supporter of dialogue and compromise with the Communist government. He accepted ordination as a bishop without Vatican approval and has taken a leading role in China’s open churches, all of which still have to register with the Religious Affairs Bureau and are overseen by bishops appointed by the CPA in consultation with local congregations.

Defying canon law, as Jin has done on several occasions, is no small matter for a Catholic bishop. But Rome has tolerated his disobedience, largely because of what he’s accomplished in Shanghai. From his modern office, Jin looks out over a diocese that includes 141 registered churches, 74 priests (most under the age of 40), 86 nuns, 83 seminarians, and 150,000 laypeople. In Shanghai, at least, there’s been a significant rapprochement between the underground Church and the open one, particularly on the leadership level: Jin is the most prominent Chinese open-Church bishop who recognizes, albeit quietly, the authority of the pope.

Material associated with the article, such as an interview with the author, was generally available online. ( Read more... )

Here's a pleasant, educated, and blessedly sensible call by New York Times columnist Peter Steinfels on the need for a most minimal religious literacy for any basic education. I missed this when it came through the Times, and so I didn't see any Letters to the Editor in response, but I wonder if it provoked the classic enraged response that teaching anything about religion was the same thing as "forcing" religion on students (as though even parents can successfully force religion on their children). From an educator's standpoint – much less a theologian's – I've always been amazed and aghast by the viewpoint that equates ignorance with enlightenment and censorship with liberation. Studying constitutional law as part of my doctoral exam question on "religious discourse in the public sphere" was eye-opening: we've had a 60-year period of near-hysteria in the States on the subject. Going to Notre Dame after going to a state university was an eye-opener for me just to see students who could talk about any subject without panic....

At Commencement, a Call for Religious Literacy
By PETER STEINFELS
The New York Times
May 12, 2007

And so, members of the graduating class of 2007, we’ve come almost to the end of this commencement ceremony and of these brief commencement remarks.

We’ve told some predictable jokes about your imminent unemployment and your student loans. We’ve thanked your parents, praised your professors and stated the obvious about the world you are entering - that it is full of dangers, full of opportunities, full of wonders, misery, love, beauty, surprises and violence.

It is also full of religion.

There is some question whether your education has prepared you for this latter reality, which is, of course, very much related to the former ones.

For a long time, quite a few people assumed that a major point of higher education was to put religion behind you. Eventually, it was also assumed, the world would do the same. Things haven’t worked out that way.

Just what do college graduates know about religion? The data is sparse. But Stephen Prothero, chairman of the religion department at Boston University, has assembled a rather bleak picture from available polls as well as his own experience and that of other professors.

It is a huge scandal, Dr. Prothero writes in his recently published book, “Religious Literacy” (HarperSanFrancisco), that “every year colleges provide bachelor’s degrees to students who cannot name the first book of the Bible, who think that Jesus parted the Red Sea and Moses agonized in the Garden of Gethsemane, who know nothing about what Islam teaches about war and peace, and who cannot name one salient difference between Hinduism and Buddhism.”

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Well, my schedule management has suffered quite a bit of late, and I've not been updating here easily at all. More to come, but this will perhaps get me going again....

Introducing today: the long-overdue LJ-tag "restaurants" – all my previous discussion of which would have been under "friends" or city names and the like. How un-useful...!

Tonight featured a dinner out with my Uncle Bill and Aunt Helen, and was great fun. They were very interested in hearing about Jen, who, unfortunately couldn't join us because she's off working in a retreat center in Missouri for the weekend. Helen, who is very enthusiastic in all things, is very enthusiastic in her excitement to meet her. Bill interjected a bit of excitement when Helen sat down and joined us at the restaurant, saying that Jen and I had broken up yesterday. She gasped and turned to me for confirmation of this, and without missing a beat I explained that Jen hadn't told me until then that she'd undergone gender reassignment surgery, and Helen's eyes popped out of her head as her jaw disconnected and fell onto the table. When she realized we were pulling her leg, we then had a much more normal (and enthusiastic) conversation.

We ate down in the Third Ward, at a very agreeable and classy place called the Coquette Café, which Jen doesn't know and which we'll have to explore together some time in the future. (I had a French classic with their Coq au Vin: red wine braised chicken with mushrooms, pearl onions and smoked bacon.) Other than Jen, the chief topic of the night was their recent trip – just a few weeks ago – to visit their son, my cousin Ben, who is a junior at Ripon College, but who is spending this year studying in Córdoba, Argentina. Some of his desire to do some more traveling elsewhere afterward led us to talking about Jen a bit more in regard to traveling alone, which she had done in Chile not too far in the past, but which is something that always seemed very lonely to me and isn't something I've done. Ben appears to be developing a taste for it. He'll be back in June or July, and I'm looking forward to hanging with him and seeing the effect this year has had.

We've had some good time in with friends of late: Jen came over and joined me for dessert and chatter with Dan and Amy after I'd had a Grey's night at the Lloyds', and I've been tickled with how welcoming they are of her, and then the next evening we were part of a dinner party with a great couple among her friends named Doug and Michael. I was down at one end of the table, mostly talking away with Michael for the evening, and it was a good time of that sort of getting to know her more by getting to know her friends.

After working at home and attending our own Dr. Deirdre Dempsey's presentation at the Seminar on the Jewish Roots of Christian Mysticism on "Biblical Transmission according to Ibn Aṭ-Ṭaiyib," which highlighted some ancient Christian speculations on the origins of language and writing, that was pretty much the rest of my day. I'm in the Introduction, still, of Earthly Powers: The Clash of Religion and Politics in Europe, from the French Revolution to the Great War by the U.K.'s noted Third Reich historian Michael Burleigh, which, to this point, has been about historians and their take on the subject, and the intent of this particular study, than getting into the history itself. I had read a quite good review in last month's First Things on the second volume of the study, Sacred Causes: The Clash of Religion and Politics, from the Great War to the War on Terror, and it noted the wide praise the work was receiving. It certainly sounded more sensible than the silly secularist assessment of religion being the source of all evil, and sounded like it might have the positioning to be a consensus-changing study at the popular level, which particularly grabbed my attention. There's a bit of sloppiness in the editing – incidental mistakes that ought to have been caught, but they are more "detail facts" than "facts that determine the validity of the argument"-kinds of mistakes. It's still looking to be compelling and fun reading. I found a new copy in the used bookstores section of Amazon for a mere $5.50 (hardcover), so I've a copy to mark up now on the way....

As jucundushomo rightly noted, a well-contextualized article. (Although notably light, not surprisingly, on what I'd call news media responsibility on the persistence of certain misinterpretations. Yellow journalism tends to pop up on this subject because of the defensive secularism of the reporting caste.)

Keeping the Faith

Walk into a shop to buy a newspaper or a wurst or a Game Boy in the German city of Regensburg and your server will probably welcome you with a brisk “grüss’ Gott,” shorthand for “God greet you.” It’s the local form of hello: street-corner dudes and grandmas, everyone says it. This is Bavaria, Germany’s Catholic heartland, a region that gives the lie to the popular notion that Western Europe has tossed its Christian heritage in history’s dustbin. Bavaria is as modern as you please — a center of the European telecommunications industry, the home of BMW (as in Bavarian Motor Works) — but on any special occasion you see couples wandering around looking like Hansel and Gretel, in lederhosen and dirndls. Elsewhere in Germany, Bavarian jokes serve the same function that Polish jokes used to in the United States. Bavarians will tell you they hold to tradition, religion and antique styles of speech not out of stupidity or addiction to kitsch but because they believe these things encompass what is real and true.

The center of Regensburg is all old stone, a carefully preserved medley of medieval towers, gates and spires clustered on the banks of the Danube, and in various ways — the firmness of the material, the rigorous workmanship, the serious commitment to the past as a component of the present — you might see this clutch of buildings as a metaphor for the mind and heart of Bavaria’s most illustrious native. Joseph Ratzinger — Pope Benedict XVI — was born in a little village tucked between a ridge and a broad plain of farmland to the east, and the major events of his childhood and much of his adulthood played out around here. It was in many ways an idyllic, almost fairy-tale youth. The family home in Traunstein was an 18th-century farmhouse with a single wood-shingled roof covering living quarters, hayloft and animal stalls. The Roman Catholic Church provided both structure and spectacle: at Eastertime, black curtains hung on the windows of the village church, so that, as Ratzinger wrote in his 1997 autobiography, “the whole space was filled by a mysterious darkness. When the pastor sang the words ‘Christ is risen!’ the curtains would suddenly fall, and the space would be flooded by radiant light. This was the most impressive portrayal of the Lord’s Resurrection that I can conceive of.”

The Bavarian idyll dissolved: Nazi songs crept into the music books at school. Ratzinger entered the seminary in 1939 as Hitler’s soldiers completed the occupation of Czechoslovakia. Shortly after, at age 16, he was drafted and began his much-reported stint in the Hitler Youth, assigned to guard a BMW plant north of Munich. When the Americans arrived, they used his family home as their base and took him as a war prisoner. Throughout the Nazi experience, his father guided him to see it as an outgrowth of modern godlessness. The effect was to reinforce the idea of the church as a bulwark against darkness — against secularism and rationality run amok.

Returning to the seminary immediately after the war, Ratzinger became deeply influenced by the philosophy of personalism, which saw the basis of reality not in bloodless science but in the individual human being and whose adherents would come to include Vaclav Havel and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. He looked, too, to the German philosophers Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger as guides, for their inquiries into “pure being” allowed for a more human understanding of the world than the scientific materialism that was rapidly winning acceptance in Western culture. But all of this was mere supplement to Catholic theology. “Dogma” wasn’t a dirty word — it was the ground. “Dogma was conceived not as an external shackle but as the living source that made knowledge of the truth possible in the first place,” he wrote in his memoirs. Ratzinger rose rapidly through the ranks of Bavaria’s intensely rigorous Catholic institutions, holding the chairmanship in dogma at the University of Regensburg from 1969 to 1976, until he was appointed archbishop of Munich and Freising and his career focus shifted toward Rome.

So the occasion of the speech that Benedict made at the University of Regensburg last September — the speech that caromed around the world and caused protests in the Middle East and attacks on Christians and churches in Iraq, Somalia and the West Bank for his seeming to say that Islam is a religion of violence — marked a homecoming, albeit an incendiary one.

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Sandro Magister's article, with Benedict XVI's text, on the question of the public and historical role of Christianity in Europe's identity and ethics.

An “Apostate” from Itself: The Lost Europe of Pope Benedict

Even before its separation from God, Joseph Ratzinger sees the old continent withdrawing from itself, from “its very identity.” Fifty years after the Treaty of Rome, the most critical assessment is that of the pope. Here it is

by Sandro Magister

ROMA, March 28, 2007 – Fifty years after the signing of the Treaty of Rome, which in 1957 brought into life what today is the European Union, Benedict XVI has formulated a very severe diagnosis of the status of the continent. He has even come to the point of stating that Europe is falling into a “remarkable form of apostasy.”

John Paul II also spoke of “apostasy,” in the sense of the abandonment of the faith, in the 2003 apostolic exhortation “Ecclesia in Europa.” But Benedict XVI has gone even further. He has accused Europe of being ever more frequently an apostate “from itself, even before [being an apostate] from God”: to the point of “doubting its very identity.”

The pope formulated this diagnosis while receiving in the Vatican’s Sala Clementina on March 24 the cardinals, bishops, and politicians who were taking part in a conference organized in Rome by the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community, COMECE, dedicated to the theme of “Values and perspectives for the Europe of tomorrow.”

Among the Catholic politicians who spoke at the conference were the president of the Italian council of ministers, Romano Prodi; the president of Ireland, Mary McAleese; and the president of the European parliament, Hans-Gert Pöttering.

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It is one of the more peculiar traits of today's Secularism that the renouncing of our own cultural heritage is seen as a prerequisite to being "accepting" or "tolerant" of other cultural identities, particularly where "religion" is concerned. Ironically, this often manifests itself as a more-or-less anti-European attitude as a kind of reaction of guilt to past European imperialisms. I call this ironic because the new "non-cultural" orientation then typically becomes the "neutrality" that is forced upon all other cultures that haven't embraced this "neutral" Western Secularity, thus becoming the newest, most pervasive version of Western imperialism ever seen, most enthusiastically promoted by those who conceive of themselves as opponents of imperialism and of the West.

In that face of that particular goofiness, John Paul II and Benedict now after him have both encouraged the European Union to explicitly recognize the Christian roots of its own culture. This is rejected by those Secularists who have a conception of their own history that has utterly edited Christianity's influence out of the history of the developing tradition of international law and human rights. It is instead imagined that such things came out of only an aggressively secular Europe. A Europe divorced from its spiritual roots is an increasingly self-loathing one, ideologically, and one whose ability to contibute a strong leadership toward justice in the world is increasingly compromised. Christianity offers a worldview that justifies the highest view of humanity and individual persons that the world has ever known. The most secular regimes of the last century in Europe have committed some of history's greatest horrors. One suspects this is therefore no small debate.

Pope says EU denial of European religious roots is form of 'apostasy'

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Denying the Judeo-Christian roots of European culture and affirming there are no absolute values shared by all European cultures is a form of "apostasy," Pope Benedict XVI said.

Europe's "unique form of apostasy" involves renouncing its own identity as well as its faith in God, the pope said March 24 to participants in a congress marking the 50th anniversary of the Treaties of Rome, which led to the foundation of the European Union.

The congress, sponsored by the commission of bishops' conferences from European countries, brought together bishops, leaders of other European churches and Christian politicians to discuss ways to strengthen official EU references to religious and moral values.

The congress preceded a March 25 European Union summit and celebration in Berlin where leaders of the 27 countries that make up the union vowed to find a "renewed common basis" for their joint activities after France and the Netherlands failed to adopt the proposed European constitution.

Many church leaders and Catholic activists had criticized the proposed constitution for failing to make an explicit reference to the Judeo-Christian roots of Europe and a commitment to ensuring that EU policies would reflect Judeo-Christian values.

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A new case in the Supreme Court putting a new twist in the convoluted history of the relation between the government of the United States and religious organizations.

High Court Mulls Faith-Based Initatives
Feb 28, 10:08 PM (ET)

By FREDERIC J. FROMMER

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court wrestled Wednesday with the question of whether taxpayers have the right to challenge the White House's aggressive promotion of federal financial aid for religious charities.

At issue is whether a Wisconsin-based group of atheists and agnostics have legal standing, by virtue of being taxpayers, to bring their complaint in the federal court system.

( Read more... )

Every once in a while, you read an article or essay and just think, "Damn.... I wish I had written that." A few months ago, somewhere in here, I made a passing comment about how – as a scholar of the history of ideas, and one who has come to specialize even more strongly in theology and its history – the current publishing fad of screaming of dangers of "theocracy" in America was making me roll my eyes. The careful ignorance of history that it would take to throw that word on the function of religion in American politics didn't seem to me to be worth much more than embarrassed amusement. Another spin on Chicken Little's "THE SKY IS FALLING!!! THE SKY IS FALLING!!!" was, after all, more the game of the tabloid media, wasn't it?

I stand corrected. Ross Douthat, an associate editor at the Atlantic Monthly, read more widely in the literature and wrote a gently damning indictment of the overall thesis and the integrity of analysis throughout the recent publishing/intellectual phenomenon. Obviously, I've had an academic interest in "religion in public discourse" for some years, even doing one of my doctoral exam questions on it, under Professor Thomas Hughson, which was a real honour and opportunity for me. While I'm used to a certain level of hysteria about the subject from the dogmatically secular, I wasn't ready to see the lumping in of American religiosity (at least that segment of it that might have voted for Bush and could be called "religious conservatives") with the Taliban mullahs of Afghanistan. Yes, one could certainly say that they both had political beliefs that were influenced by religious beliefs, but I could say the same for such diverse figures as Michelangelo, Martin Luther King Jr., and even a Deist like Thomas Jefferson. Such lumping-together, though, has little to do with the reality expressed in such beliefs: instead of looking at the diverse content of various religious beliefs, we are given instead the dogmatic line that religious belief as political motivation is illegitmate in itself. Forbidden thoughts. (I include Jefferson because he was, after all, a real Deist, and not an anti-religious zealot, even though he's often been adopted by such people today as their secular patron saint. He thought his Deist beliefs were more true and better than the opposing beliefs around him, and he drew some political inspiration and guidance from them: just like any other religious believer thinking their own thoughts correct and drawing on their faith as informing their political philosophy. Believing your own opinions to be true: such an unusual crime!)

What Douthat's thorough survey of this latest run of public argument really offers is taking these authors more seriously than I had, and working through their collective argument with an eye toward similar themes, technique, and use of evidence and theory. I can hope that such a serious treatment might check the spread of such thinking from affecting the rhetoric of American politics much further. The curious parallel is with 20th century Anti-Communism. For all the milage that the American Left has gotten over the last fifty years in dealing with that paranoic outburst in American intellectual and political life, it would be the most bizarre of ironies if they cultivated such a similar all-explaining, paranoic theory against a home-grown reality like American religion. I understand that we'll always have a cultural taste for conspiracy theory: I do hope, however, to keep it away from government and the core of our culture. Religion is, of course, a trans-national force, one not limited to anything as minute as the destiny of a mere country like America, and its passing politics. To turn it into the target of such suppressive politics is blowing against the wind. So much better to learn to sail, whatever the conclusions of one's best (I hope!) religious reasoning.

Theocracy, Theocracy, Theocracy

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Ross Douthat

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American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century
by Kevin Phillips: Viking, 480 pages, $26.95

The Baptizing of America: The Religious Right’s Plans for the Rest of Us
by James Rudin: Thunder’s Mouth, 300 pages, $26

Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism
by Michelle Goldberg: W.W. Norton, 224 pages, $23.95

Thy Kingdom Come: How The Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America: An Evangelical’s Lament
by Randall Balmer: Basic, 242 pages, $24.95

This is a paranoid moment in American politics. A host of conspiracies haunt our national imagination, and apparent incompetence is assumed to be the consequence of a dark design: President Bush knew about the attacks of September 11 in advance, or else the Israelis did; the Straussians took us to war in Iraq, unless the oil companies did; the federal government let the levees break in New Orleans, unless it dynamited them itself.

Perhaps the strangest of these strange stories, though, is the notion that twenty-first-century America is slouching toward theocracy. This is an old paranoia: Back in 1952, the science-fiction libertarian Robert Heinlein’s Revolt in 2100 envisioned a religious tyranny toppled by a Freemason-led rebellion; in 1985, Margaret Atwood’s feminist dystopia The Handmaid’s Tale imagined America as a Christian-fascist “Republic of Gilead,” with its capital in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and its public executions staged in Harvard Yard. But the fear of theocracy has become a defining panic of the Bush era, reaching a fever pitch in the weeks after the 2004 election, when a host of commentators seized on polls suggesting that “moral values” had pushed the president over the top—and found in that data point a harbinger of Gilead.

Later, more cool-headed polling analysis suggested that the values explanation was something of a stretch: The movement of religious voters into the GOP played a role in Bush’s victory, but the uptick in his support between 2000 and 2004 seems mainly to have reflected national-security concerns. Still, these pesky facts didn’t stop Garry Wills from announcing the end of the Enlightenment and the arrival of jihad in America, or Jane Smiley from bemoaning the “ignorance and bloodlust” of Bush voters in thrall to a fire-and-brimstone God, or left-wing bloggers from chattering about “Jesusland” and “fundies” and plotting their escape to Canada.

The paranoia hasn’t yet burned down to embers. The term theocrat has become a commonplace, employed by bomb-throwing columnists, otherwise-sensible reporters, and “centrist” Republicans such as Connecticut’s Christopher Shays, who recently complained that the GOP was becoming the “party of theocracy.” And now the specter of a looming Khomeini’ism has migrated into the realm of pop sociology, producing a spate of books with titles like The Baptizing of America, Kingdom Coming, Thy Kingdom Come—and, inevitably, American Theocracy, the Kevin Phillips jeremiad that shot to the top of the New York Times bestseller list this spring.

Most of these books aspire to be anthropologies, guides for the perplexed that lead the innocent reader through what the subtitle of American Theocracy calls “the perils and politics of radical religion.” There isn’t perfect agreement on what to call the religious radicals in question: Everyone employs theocrat, but Kingdom Coming also proposes Christian nationalist, while The Baptizing of America favors the clunky Christocrat. Others have suggested Christianist, the better to link religious conservatives to Osama bin Laden—and of course there’s the ubiquitous theocon, suggesting a deadly mixture of Oliver Cromwell and Paul Wolfowitz.

But the various authors are in agreement about the main point, which is that something has gone terribly wrong with the separation of church and state in this country, and that America is poised to fall into the hands of people only one step from the ayatollahs. Today’s battles aren’t just a matter of ordinary political factionalism, they insist. The hour is much later than that, and nothing less than the republic itself hangs in the balance.

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