Vatican Document on Corruption

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Vatican Document on Corruption

"Makes Societies Less Just and Less Open"

VATICAN CITY, OCT. 10, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Here is the document "The Fight Against Corruption," written by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, issued today by the Vatican press office.

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"The Fight Against Corruption"

1. The International Conference organized by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace on the theme "The Fight against Corruption" was held in the Vatican on June 2-3, 2006. Participants included high-level officials of international organizations, specialists and scholars, ambassadors to the Holy See, professors and experts.

The purpose of the conference, as stated by Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino, was to arrive at a better understanding of the phenomenon of corruption, to identify the best methods for countering it and to explain the contribution that the Church can make in this undertaking. Distinguished speakers, scholars and experts on the phenomenon in question helped the participants gain insight into what corruption is and how to counter it at the global level (Antonio Maria Costa), in the private sector (François Vincke), in the public sector (David Hall), in civil society (Jong-Sung You), in rich countries and in poor countries (Eva Joly), depicting the harsh impact of this phenomenon on the poor people of the world (Cobus de Swardt) and the characteristics of a culture of corruption (Paul Wolfowitz). Bishop Giampaolo Crepaldi presented an overview of the aspects of the social doctrine of the Church regarding these issues.

2. The phenomenon of corruption has always existed, nonetheless it is only in recent years that awareness of it has grown at the international level. In fact, with regard to conventions on corruption and plans of action adopted by individual states and groups of states and by international organizations in the area of international trade, in the discipline of international commerce and especially in the field of finances, the majority of these efforts have been made in the last 15 years. This means that corruption has only recently become recognized as a significant phenomenon and that a negative judgment of it is spreading at the worldwide level, while at the same time there is a growing awareness of the need to fight it. To this end, methods for an empirical analysis and a quantitative assessment of corruption have been put into place that will allow for a better understanding of the dynamics behind the illegal practices connected with it. Thus, it will be possible to come up with more adequate methods, and not only law-based systems and repression, to fight these phenomena.

This recent change was brought about in particular by two important historical factors: The fall of ideological blocs after 1989 and the globalization of information. Both of these processes have contributed to shedding greater light on corruption and making people more effectively aware of it. The opening up of borders as a result of the process of globalization has made it possible for corruption to expand with greater facility in respect to the past, but also offers greater opportunity to fight it, by means of more resolute and coordinated international cooperation.

3. Corruption is a phenomenon that is not limited by politics or geography. It exists in rich countries and in poor countries. The economic impact of corruption is difficult to establish with precision; in fact, available data is often inconsistent. Nonetheless, we are dealing with enormous amounts of resources that are taken away from the economy, from production and from social programs. The costs are borne by the citizens: The price of corruption is paid by using monies intended for the legitimate use of society.

Corruption crosses all social sectors: It cannot be attributed only to those who work in the economic sector or only to public officials; nor is civil society exempt. Corruption is a phenomenon that involves both individual states and international organizations.

A ready climate for corruption is fostered by a lack of transparency in international finances, by the existence of financial havens and by the disparity between the level at which corruption is fought -- often limited to the level of single states -- and the level at which corruption is carried out, usually at the supranational and international levels. It is also facilitated by limited cooperation between states in the fight against corruption, by the excessive differences in the norms of various legal systems, by the lack of media coverage of corruption in parts of the world, and by the lack of democracy in various countries. Without a free press, without democratic systems of checks and balances, without transparency, corruption is made that much easier.
Corruption is a cause of great concern today, in that it is also connected to drug trafficking, to money laundering, to the illegal trade of arms, and to other forms of criminality.

4. If corruption causes serious harm from a material point of view and places a costly burden on economic growth, still more harmful are its effects on immaterial goods, closely connected to the qualitative and human dimension of life in society. Political corruption, as the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church teaches, "compromises the correct functioning of the state, having a negative influence on the relationship between those who govern and the governed. It causes a growing distrust with respect to public institutions, bringing about a progressive disaffection in the citizens with regard to politics and its representatives, with a resulting weakening of institutions" (No. 411).

There are very clear and empirically demonstrated connections between corruption and an absence of culture, between corruption and functional limitations of institutional systems, between corruption and the index of human development, between corruption and social injustices. This is not merely a process that weakens the economic system: Corruption hinders the promotion of the person and makes societies less just and less open.

5. The Church considers corruption to be a very serious fact that distorts the political system. The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church offers a very negative judgment: "Corruption radically distorts the role of representative institutions, because they are used as an arena for political bartering between clients' requests and governmental services. In this way political choices favor the narrow objectives of those who possess the means to influence these choices and are an obstacle to bringing about the common good of all citizens" (No. 411). Corruption is listed "among the causes that greatly contribute to underdevelopment and poverty" (No. 447) and sometimes it is also present within the very mechanisms by which aid is given to poor countries.

Corruption deprives peoples of a basic common good, that of legality: respect for rules, the correct functioning of economic and political institutions and transparency. Legality is truly a common good intended for everyone. In fact, it is a critical key to development, insofar as legality makes it possible to establish correct relationships between society, the economy and politics, and insofar as it makes possible the framework of trust on which economic activity is based. As a "common good," it must be appropriately promoted by all people, in fact all peoples have a right to the good that is legality. Among those things that are owed to men and women by virtue of their being human persons is, precisely, legality. The practice and the culture of corruption must be replaced by the practice and the culture of legality.

6. From the perspective of overcoming corruption, very positive developments are seen in the transition from authoritarian to democratic societies, from closed to open societies, from vertical to horizontal societies, from centralized to participatory societies. But this passage is not automatically positive. Great care must be taken that the new openness does not undermine the strength of moral convictions and that plurality is not a hindrance to solid social bonds. The breakdown of moral standards in many advanced societies can conceal a great danger of corruption, as great as the danger present in the rigidity of so many archaic societies. There are societies that are highly structured, very rigid and closed, and even societies that are authoritarian within themselves or toward the outside world. There are societies that show much greater flexibility and mobility, with streamlined structures and democratic institutions that are open and free.

On the one hand, we can note how corruption is facilitated in the first type of societies, because it is more difficult to become aware of the presence of corruption within them: Those who are corrupt and who corrupt others can remain hidden and even protected when there is no transparency and when the state is not authentically based on the rule of law. Corruption can perpetuate itself because it can count on a situation of stability. On the other hand, however, we can easily note how, in the second type of societies also, there are hidden dangers. Excessive pluralism can possibly cause an undermining of the ethical consensus of the citizens. Confusion arising from different life styles can also weaken moral judgment with regard to corruption. The disappearance of the internal and external borders of these societies can lead to facilitation of the international exportation of corruption.

7. To avoid these dangers the Church's social doctrine proposes the concept of "human ecology" ("Centesimus Annus," 38), which can also be a useful criterion in the fight against corruption. The attitudes of corruption can be satisfactorily understood only if they are seen as the result of a breakdown of human ecology. If the family is not put in a position to fulfill its educational role, if laws contrary to the authentic good of men and women -- such as those against life -- miseducate citizens concerning what is good, if the pace of justice is excessively slow, if basic morality is weakened by tolerance of transgressions, if living conditions have deteriorated, if schools do not stimulate personal growth and do not create independence, it is not possible to guarantee "human ecology"; and the absence of human ecology allows the phenomenon of corruption to thrive.

In fact, it must not be forgotten that corruption implies a whole series of relationships and complicity; it involves the numbing of consciences, blackmail and threats, unwritten agreements and conspiracies that first involve, overall, people and people's moral conscience, and after, their structures. This, then, is the context for the enormously important task of the moral education and formation of citizens, and for the duty of the Church, which -- with her communities, institutions, movements and associations, and with the presence of individual members of the faithful in every segment of modern society -- can play an ever more significant role in preventing corruption. The Church can cultivate and promote the moral resources that will help to build a "human ecology" in which corruption will not find an hospitable habitat.

8. The Church's social doctrine makes use of all its fundamental guiding principles, which it puts forth as indications of personal and collective behavior, placing them on the front-line in the battle against corruption. These principles are the dignity of the human person, the common good, solidarity, subsidiarity, the preferential option for the poor, the universal destination of goods. Corruption stands in radical contrast to all these principles. It exploits the human person, disdainfully using men and women for selfish interests. It represents an obstacle for achieving the common good, because it is based on individualistic criteria of selfish cynicism and illicit special interests.

It is a contradiction of solidarity because it gives rise to injustice and poverty, and a contradiction of subsidiarity because it does not respect the different social and institutional roles but corrupts them. It also acts against the preferential option for the poor by hindering the proper delivery to the poor of the resources intended for them. Finally, it stands in contrast to the universal destination of goods because the good of legality, as we have already seen, is a human good for every man and woman, intended for all people.

The whole of the Church's social doctrine proposes a perspective of social relationships that is completely at odds with the practice of corruption. Thus we can understand the gravity of this phenomenon and the Church's utterly negative judgment with regard to it. We can also understand the origin of the great resource that the Church brings to the fight against corruption: the entire body of her social doctrine and the work of those who are inspired by it.

9. The fight against corruption requires a greater conviction, by means of the consensus given to moral evidence, and a greater awareness that this fight will provide important social advantages. According to the teaching of "Centesimus Annus": "Man tends toward good, but he is also capable of evil. He can transcend his immediate interest and still remain bound to it. The social order will be all the more stable, the more it takes this fact into account and does not place in opposition personal interest and the interests of society as a whole, but rather seeks ways to bring them into fruitful harmony" (No. 25).

This is a very effective and realistic criterion. It tells us to aim at the characteristics of virtuous behavior in men and women, and also to encourage these characteristics; to think of the fight against corruption as a value, and also as a need; that corruption is an evil, and that it also involves a great price; that rejecting corruption is a good, and also an advantage; that abandoning corrupt practices can lead to development and well-being; that behavior marked by honesty is to be encouraged and behavior marked by dishonesty is to be punished. In the fight against corruption it is very important that responsibility for illicit acts be exposed, that the guilty be punished with reparative measures aimed at restoring socially responsible behavior. It is likewise important that there be rewards for countries and economic partnerships that work in conformity with an ethical code that does not tolerate corrupt practices.

10. On the international level, the fight against corruption requires that people work together to increase transparency in economic and financial transactions and to enact within different countries uniform legislation in this area. At the present time funds arising from corruption are easily concealed, as are the dishonest gains of corrupt governments; these governments are able to export huge amounts of capital effortlessly with many forms of complicity. Harmonized or uniform legislation is to be encouraged as a step in prevention, so that poor countries do not attract this illicit capital solely because such uniform legislation is lacking.

Since organized crime knows no borders, international cooperation between governments also needs to increase, at least with regard to juridical cooperation in the area of extradition. The ratification of agreements against corruption is very important, and it is desirable that the number of countries ratifying and enforcing the U.N. Convention against Corruption increase. There remains, however, the problem of the concrete application of these agreements, since -- because of political motivation -- they are not observed in many countries, even in countries that have signed them. It is necessary that a common accord be found also at the international level for confiscating and recovering what has been illegally obtained; at present, norms regulating such procedures exist only within individual Nations.

It is the hope of many that an international authority against corruption will be established, with the ability to act autonomously even while working in conjunction with States, and with the ability to verify whether crimes of international corruption have been committed and, if verified, to punish the perpetrators. The principle of subsidiarity can be useful in this area, applying it to the different levels of authority at work in the fight against corruption.

11. A particular kind of attention is called for with regard to poor countries: they must be helped, as noted above, when there are voids at the level of legislation and when they do not yet have adequate legal institutions for the fight against corruption. Bilateral or multilateral cooperation in the area of justice -- for the improvement of prison systems, the acquisition of investigative competence, the structural independence of the courts with respect to the government -- is most useful and is to be fully included in aid given for development.

Corruption in developing countries is sometimes caused by Western corporations or even by state or international agencies; other times it is brought about by corrupt local oligarchies. Only with a consistent and disciplined approach on the part of rich countries will it be possible to help the governments of poorer countries to acquire credibility. A most desirable approach is certainly the promotion of democracy in all countries, the promotion of a free and vigilant press, and the revitalization of civil society. Specific plans on the part of international agencies, developed on a country-by-country basis, can lead to good results in this area.

The local Churches are heavily involved in the formation of a civil conscience and in the education of citizens to a true democracy; episcopal conferences of many countries, have made interventions against corruption and on behalf of a society that is governed by law. Local Churches should cooperate in a valuable manner with international organizations in the fight against corruption.

Vatican City, Sept. 21, 2006
Feast of St. Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist

Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino
President

Bishop Giampaolo Crepaldi
Secretary

JCD Clarke

J.C.D. Clarke
distinguished faculty page; Department of History page
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English Society, 1660-1832 : Ideology, Social Structure, and Political Practice during the Ancien Régime
Reviews: UCLA, IHR (alt)

The Language of Liberty
Revolution and Rebellion
Review of Our Shadowed Present

Gavin White, The Scottish Episcopal Church: A New History


Note: Appearing at the Hall Center for the Humanities, Richard Dawkins

Papal Address to Bishops of Western Canada

Papal Address to Bishops of Western Canada

"The Human Need to Confront Sin Never Goes Away"

VATICAN CITY, OCT. 9, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Here is the address Benedict XVI delivered today to the bishops of the Western Catholic Conference of Canada, with whom he met on the occasion of their five-yearly visit to Rome.

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[In English]

Dear Brother Bishops,

"We should celebrate and rejoice ... he has come to life; he was lost and is found" (Lk 15:32). With fraternal affection I warmly welcome you, the Bishops of the Western Catholic Conference of Canada, and I thank Bishop Wiesner for the good wishes offered on your behalf. I warmly reciprocate them and assure you, and those entrusted to your pastoral care, of my prayers and solicitude. Your meeting with the Successor of Peter concludes the visits "ad limina Apostolorum" of the Canadian Bishops' Conference. Notwithstanding the increasingly secular climate within which you serve, your reports contain much from which you can draw encouragement. In particular, I have been heartened to note the zeal and generosity of your priests, the selfless dedication of the Religious present in your Dioceses and the increasing readiness among the laity to embolden their witness to Christ's truth and love in their homes, schools, places of work and in the public sphere.

[In French; translated by ZENIT]

The parable of the Prodigal Son is one of the most appreciated passages of sacred Scripture. Its profound illustration of the mercy of God and the important human desire for conversion and reconciliation, as well as the restoration of severed relations, speak to men and women of every age. Man's temptation to exercise his freedom by distancing himself from God is frequent. Now the experience of the Prodigal Son makes us see at the same time that in history and in our own lives, when freedom is sought outside of God, the result is negative: loss of personal dignity, moral confusion and social disintegration. However, the Father's passionate love for humanity overcomes human pride. Freely lavished, it is a forgiving love that leads people to enter more profoundly in the communion of Christ's Church. It truly offers all peoples unity in God and, as perfectly manifested by Christ on the cross, reconciles justice and love (cf. "Deus Caritas Est," No. 10).

[In English]

And what of the elder brother? Is he not, in a certain sense, all men and women as well; perhaps particularly those who sadly distance themselves from the Church? His rationalization of his attitude and actions evokes a certain sympathy, yet in the final analysis illustrates his inability to understand unconditional love. Unable to think beyond the limits of natural justice, he remains trapped within envy and pride, detached from God, isolated from others and ill at ease with himself.

Dear Brothers, as you reflect upon the three characters in this parable -- the Father in his abundant mercy, the younger son in his joy at being forgiven, and the elder brother in his tragic isolation -- be confirmed in your desire to address the loss of a sense of sin, to which you have referred in your reports. This pastoral priority reflects an eager hope that the faithful will experience God's boundless love as a call to deepen their ecclesial unity and overcome the division and fragmentation that so often wound today's families and communities. From this perspective, the Bishop's responsibility to indicate the destructive presence of sin is readily understood as a service of hope: it strengthens believers to avoid evil and to embrace the perfection of love and the plenitude of Christian life. I wish therefore to commend your promotion of the Sacrament of Penance. While this Sacrament is often considered with indifference, what it effects is precisely the fullness of healing for which we long. A new-found appreciation of this Sacrament will confirm that time spent in the confessional draws good from evil, restores life from death, and reveals anew the merciful face of the Father.

Understanding the gift of reconciliation calls for a careful reflection on the ways to evoke conversion and penance in man's heart (cf. "Reconciliatio et Paenitentia," 23). While manifestations of sin abound -- greed and corruption, betrayed relationships and exploitation of persons -- the recognition of individual sinfulness has waned. Behind this weakening of the recognition of sin, with its commensurate attenuation of the need to seek forgiveness, is ultimately a weakening of our relationship with God (cf. Address at Ecumenical Vespers, Regensburg, 12 September 2006).

Not surprisingly this phenomenon is particularly pronounced in societies marked by secularist post-Enlightenment ideology. Where God is excluded from the public forum the sense of offence against God -- the true sense of sin -- dissipates, just as when the absolute value of moral norms is relativized the categories of good or evil vanish, along with individual responsibility. Yet, the human need to acknowledge and confront sin in fact never goes away, no matter how much an individual may, like the elder brother, rationalize to the contrary. As Saint John tells us: "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves" (1 Jn 1:8). It is an integral part of the truth about the human person. When the need to seek forgiveness and the readiness to forgive are forgotten, in their place a disturbing culture of blame and litigiousness arises. This ugly phenomenon, however, can be dispelled. Following the light of Christ's healing truth is to say with the father: "My son, you are with me always and all I have is yours" and we must be glad "because your brother ... who was lost ... is found" (Lk 15:31-32).

The lasting peace and harmony so longed for by individuals, families and society underpin your concerns to deepen reconciliation and understanding with the many First Nations communities found in your region. Much has been achieved. In this regard, I have been heartened to learn from you about the work of the Catholic Aboriginal Council for Reconciliation and the aims of the Amerindian Fund. Such initiatives bring hope and bear witness to the love of Christ which draws us forward (cf. 2 Cor 5:14). Yet there is still much to be accomplished. I therefore encourage you to address with compassion and determination the underlying causes of the difficulties surrounding the social and spiritual needs of the Aboriginal faithful. Commitment to truth opens the way to lasting reconciliation through the healing process of asking for forgiveness and granting forgiveness -- two indispensable elements for peace. In this way our memory is purified, our hearts are made serene, and our future is filled with a well-founded hope in the peace which springs from truth.

With fraternal affection I share these reflections with you and assure you of my prayers as you seek to make the sanctifying and reconciling mission of the Church ever more appreciated and recognizable in your ecclesial and civic communities. With these sentiments I commend you to Mary, the Mother of Jesus, and to the intercession of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha. To you and to the priests, deacons, Religious, and lay faithful of your Dioceses I gladly impart my Apostolic Blessing.

[Original text: multilingual]

© Copyright 2006 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Scientists to create 'frankenbunny' in big research leap

From NOR

Scientists to create 'frankenbunny' in big research leap

Scientists are planning to create a "frankenrabbit" by fusing together human cells with a rabbit egg.

It is hoped the "chimeric" embryos, which would be 99.9 per cent human and 0.1 per cent rabbit, could lead to breakthroughs in stem cell research which could one day cure diseases such as Alzheimer's or spinal cord injury.

The embryos will allow scientists to perfect stem cell creation techniques without using human eggs.

"If we learn how to do this with animal eggs, we should be able to have more success with human eggs, and I'd much rather know that if we were going to ask women to donate eggs that we were very likely to get stem cells as a result," said Chris Shaw, at the Institute of Psychiatry.

"We know this is a huge challenge after Dr Hwang in South Korea failed to get stem cells despite having 2,000 human eggs."
Teams in London, Edinburgh and Newcastle are to submit application to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority this month, requesting licences to create embryos that will be 99.9 per cent human and 0.1 per cent rabbit or cow.

The HFEA is encouraging the applications after legal advice. The embryos will be allowed to grow for only 14 days, at which point they will be cells smaller than a pinhead.

While chimeric embryos created from non-human species could be useful in developmental studies and as further evidence that there are natural kinds, this sort of experiment is abominable.

Toward a Global Common Good

Toward a Global Common Good

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin Marks "Laborem Exercens" Anniversary

PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania, OCT. 7, 2006 (Zenit.org).- Here is the text of the keynote address given by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin at Villanova University on Sept. 25, to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the encyclical "Laborem Exercens."

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Catholic Social Teaching and Human Work
By Diarmuid Martin
Archbishop of Dublin

Work is at the center of the Church's reflection on human identity and activity. When the dignity of the person fades from its central position in the realities of work, then upheavals and insecurity inevitably emerge in society. Each generation then must address the challenge of how the centrality the human person in the world of work is respected within the changing and ever complex situation of its time.

This applies also to us in our era of globalization. Globalization, one can say, faces us with "new developments in industry, new techniques striking out new paths, changed relations of employer and employee, abounding wealth among a very small number and destitution among the masses."[1] These are appropriate words, but you may be surprised that I take them from the very first paragraph of "Rerum Novarum." They were written in 1891 in the context of the industrial revolution. They serve to remind us that each generation is faced with a similar challenge in its efforts to evaluate how developments in industry and technology affect "the condition of workers."

When we celebrate the anniversary of "Laborem Exercens" we are celebrating also the anniversary of "Rerum Novarum" and of that series of great social encyclicals which have been written to commemorate the groundbreaking encyclical of Leo XIII which gave rise to the modern era of Catholic social teaching.

The centrality of work

"Laborem Exercens" was the first of three social encyclicals of Pope John Paul II. It was written at a crucial time in modern history, at the beginnings of a process which would eventually lead to the fall of the Eastern European communist systems. Ten years later, Pope John Paul in his later encyclical "Centesimus Annus" could say: "the fundamental crisis of the systems claiming to express the rule and even the dictatorship of the working classes began with the great upheavals which took place in Poland in the name of solidarity. It was the throngs of working people which foreswore the ideology which presumed to speak in their name."[2]

The context in which "Laborem Exercens" was written then was that of the emerging crisis of the Communist systems in Central and Eastern Europe and the foresight of Pope John Paul II who more than most understood just how that system had failed to recognize the dignity of work. From concrete experience he was acutely aware that any form of materialism or economic system that tries to reduce the worker to being a mere instrument of production, a simple labor force with an exclusively material value, inevitably ends up distorting the essence of work and the social fabric itself.

Catholic social teaching has always stressed the fact that "work, because of its subjective or personal character, is superior to every other factor connected with productivity; this principle applies, in particular, with regard to capital."[3]

A key tenet of "Laborem Exercens"[4] in its analysis of the priority of labor over capital is its affirmation that human work has a twofold significance: objective and subjective.

In the objective sense, work is the sum of activities, resources, instruments and technologies used by persons to produce things, to exercise responsible dominion over the earth, in the words of the Book of Genesis.

In the subjective sense, work is the activity of the human person as a dynamic being capable of acting in ways which correspond to the specific vocation of the human person. "Laborem Exercens" notes that "Man has to subdue the earth and dominate it, because as the 'image of God' he is a person, that is to say, a subjective being capable of acting in a planned and rational way, capable of deciding about himself, and with a tendency to self-realization. As a person, man is therefore the subject of work."[5]

According to Pope John Paul, work in the objective sense constitutes the contingent aspect of human activity, which constantly varies in its expressions according to the changing technological, cultural, social and political conditions. On the other hand, work in the subjective sense represents its stable dimension, since it does not depend on what people produce or on the type of activity they undertake, but only and exclusively on their dignity as human beings.

The Compendium of the Social Teaching of the Church stresses then that "This subjectivity gives to work its particular dignity, which does not allow that it be considered a simple commodity or an impersonal element of the apparatus for productivity."[6] It is the human person who is always then the measure of the dignity of work: "In fact there is no doubt that human work has an ethical value of its own, which clearly and directly remains linked to the fact that the one who carries it out is a person."[7] Work therefore is for human person, the human person is there not just to work.

The business enterprise

The priority of labor over capital has been such a dominant theme of Catholic social doctrine that many had the feeling that the social doctrine of the Church was not friendly to the business community. It was said that the social teaching of the Church was not comfortable with the concept of profit and more concerned with the distribution of wealth than with the generation of wealth.

There is indeed a tendency within the social teaching of the Church to stress the rights of workers and workers organization and the responsibility of public authorities to address all forms of exploitation. This is understandable and correct. This was due in many ways to the epoch in which the modern era of the social teaching emerged, during the height of the industrial revolution when the position of workers and their rights was dramatic and required urgent attention.

Today the situation of the world of work has changed somewhat and it would be useful to reflect on how the social teaching of the Church has addressed and must address this new situation.

When I look at my own country, Ireland, I can see how the structure of a modern economy has changed. I left Dublin to study and to work Rome in 1969. In those years, Ireland was the poor relative of all the economies of the European Union. Unemployment reached up to 17% nationally and we had parishes in Dublin where that figure reached up to 70%. There was widespread poverty and what one would effectively have had to call structural poverty. Where unemployment reaches 70%, social integration breaks down. There was large emigration of both skilled labor and of ordinary workers.

I returned to Ireland three years ago to find a very different situation. Unemployment stands at less than 4%. Growth this year will be about 5%. Ireland has become a country of immigration, from all over the world, but especially from the newly acceded countries of the European Union. Since the accession of new countries to the European Union a little over two years ago at least 150,000 new immigrants have arrived in Ireland from those countries alone.

What has happened? How did it happen? There are many reasons. Ireland was at the right position at the right time. Ireland received funds from the European Union and used them well in improving infrastructures. And of course, the Irish are the Irish!

But there are also other lessons to be learned which I believe an attentive reading of the social doctrine of the Church can also help us understand better. These lessons are also linked with the nature of a modern economy in the knowledge era.

Many people tend to look at international economic life with a certain skepticism, even anxiety. Globalization has added further unknowns and threatening phenomena for the lives of many. International speculators are considered rapacious and unscrupulous, especially in the aftermath of various international economic crises where uncontrolled speculation was understood to have played a major role in the destruction of entire economies. The shape of the current global market economy tends to make people feel that their jobs are at risk and their pensions insecure.

There is also a certain ambivalence in the attitude of the wealthier countries which adds to the climate of insecurity. I was present in Doha when China was admitted to the World Trade Organization. I was present at the festivities which celebrated the event and its importance for a global, open, rules-based trade system. The Western countries stressed how much free trade can do for international development and especially for the poor countries. Open markets were celebrated as the road signs to development for all. But today, when China begins using its enormous advantage and Western jobs in the textile industry are at stake, those same Western countries are talking about protectionist measures and progress on the Doha round has ground to a halt.

Catholic social teaching traditionally had reservations about assigning a determinant role to the market in managing international economic relations. I remember the outcry from certain circles on the occasion of the publication of the encyclical letter, "Sollicitudo Rei Socialis," when Pope John Paul dared to criticize in the same breath -- but in a differentiated fashion -- not just communism but capitalism. Some years later, then, I remember the almost triumphal joy with which the affirmations of the market in the subsequent encyclical "Centesimus Annus" were greeted. Christian social reflection and the market have a difficult relationship.

The problem was not entirely with the Church. Certain economic theorists tend to reject any outside societal interference in the market process, except that of guaranteeing the necessary legal framework which will permit the market to work. Government should keep its fingers out of the working of the market, keep taxes down, keep social expenditures to a level which does not make business non-competitive, keep social legislation regarding working hours and contracts as broad as possible. The market, the theory goes, should be left to do its task of creating wealth which would generate employment and in its own way permit social benefits to trickle down, even if only drop by drop to reach the poorest. There is much truth in these affirmations, but at times this viewpoint had become almost a dogma.

Knowledge-based economy

A modern economy is more and more a knowledge based economy. The so-called industrialized nations are in fact post-industrial economies where the service sector dominates. The success of a modern economy is greatly linked with the possibility of access to knowledge and with the management of knowledge. The principal resource of such an economy is the human person, with his or her creativity and capacity for innovation.

Indeed, the more resourceful the person can be made, the greater a creative resource he or she is for the economy. In a modern economy, investment in people and in those social infrastructures which value human capacity can no longer belong only to the realm of philanthropy, but constitutes an essential element in any healthy program of economic investment. The Compendium of the Social Doctrine notes that "allowing workers to develop themselves fosters increased productivity and efficiency in the very work undertaken. A business enterprise must be a community of solidarity that is not closed within its own company interests."[8]

The economies that have done well are those which have invested in their people, that is, in education and health care and in improving the basic technological capacity of the work force, in such a way as to permit them to enter into the national and the global economy as real actors and protagonists. On the other hand, the unskilled or the nations which do not posses adequate social infrastructures are those destined to remain on the fringes of social and economic progress. The unskilled are the first victims of any economic crisis.

One of the most significant factors which contributed to Irish economic growth was in fact the quality of the educational system, which despite deficiencies in both buildings and curriculum did manage to produce young people with creative and innovative ability who were able to insert themselves with the necessary flexibility into a modern business economy. Paradoxically, in its period of wealth Ireland has not been investing enough in its educational system. There is a major crisis in some aspects of the health system. There will never be social progress without sustained economic growth. But even the extraordinary economic progress that we have seen in Ireland will on its own ensure social progress at the same time.

Creativity and innovative capacity are key factors in today's world. Pope John Paul recognized that "whereas at one time the decisive factor of production was the land, and later capital … today the decisive factor is increasingly man himself…; his intelligence enables him to discover the earth's productive potential and the many different ways in which human needs can be satisfied."[9] Pope John Paul notes then that a business "cannot be considered only as a 'society of capital goods'; it is also a 'society of persons.'"[10]

In the past the distinction between labor and capital was perhaps then a more radical one. Today one talks about human capital and social capital, terms I do not particularly like, since they tend to treat persons as objects. The reality is that it is the subjectivity of persons and the subjectivity of society which drive forwards a modern knowledge-based economy. The worker in today's economy is a real protagonist.

The Compendium of the Social Teaching of the Church sums us these reflections affirming that "all of this entails a new perspective in the relationship between labor and capital. We can affirm that, contrary to what happened in the former organization of labor in which the subject would end up being less important than the object, than the mechanical process, in our day the subjective dimension of work tends to be more decisive and more important than the objective dimension."[11]

When then the Compendium of the Social Teaching of the Church vigorously reaffirms the traditional Church teaching on the dignity of work through stressing the right to work[12], the rights of workers[13], the duty to work[14], the importance of rest from work,[15], it does so confident in the validity of Pope John Paul words that "the integral development of the human person through work does not impede but rather promotes the greater productivity and efficiency of work itself."[16]

Certainly, the current global economy offers great opportunities, but these do not always favor workers. While there is a recognition that human creativity is the driving force of a modern economy, its most precious resource, there is a tendency to look on work as just another factor in the cost of production, to be treated just like any other factor. Indeed there is a tendency to look on labor costs as one of the principal economic factors and to move production to where labor costs are most advantageous. This does indeed offer great opportunity to poorer countries, yet it also leads to a tendency in which the rights of workers and especially of the power of workers' associations are weakened.

In fact, the current labor market is such that it is becoming harder to see a business enterprise as a "society of persons," as Pope John Paul saw it to be. Even the smallest business enterprise may have components of its activities in different countries or continents. The terms employer and employee take on a different significance as different components of an enterprise are outsourced to a series of intermediary enterprises around the world. In such a situation it is easy for respect for workers' rights to fall out of the picture. Consumers in the West can however send the message that they are not just interested in the designer logo on their shirt, but also in the working conditions under which that shirt was produced.

The opportunities which a knowledge-based economy can bring are also relativized by the fact that, as Pope John Paul noted: "many people, perhaps the majority today, do not have the means which would enable them to take their place in an effective and humanly dignified way within the productive system in which work is truly central. They have no possibility of acquiring the basic knowledge which would enable them to express their creativity and develop their potential. They have no way of entering the network of knowledge and intercommunication which would enable them to see their qualities appreciated and utilized. Thus if not actually exploited, they are to a great extent marginalized; economic development takes place over their head, so to speak, when it does not actually reduce the already narrow scope of their old subsistence economies."[17]

Work, the family, migration

In fostering a broader understanding of the relationship between work and the human person, "Laborem Exercens" stressed the relationship between work and the family. The Compendium of the Social Teaching of the Church takes this theme up making an appeal. "Family and work, so closely interdependent in the experience of the vast majority of people, deserve finally to be considered in a more realistic light, with an attention that seeks to understand them together, without the limits of a strictly private conception of the family or a strictly economic view of work."[18]

The world of work today is not particularly favorable to the family. More and more people have to travel long distances to work. It is not just that both parents have to work, but it can happen that one or both spouses have to work two jobs to earn sufficient to maintain the family. Today we often encounter the phenomenon of the "working poor," people who are in the labor market, but who do not earn sufficient […] for them and their families to survive. Very often those who work end up paying higher contributions for health and insurance and receive fewer benefits than the person who is unemployed.

Catholic social teaching recognizes the specific contribution of women to the world of work. The Compendium notes that "the feminine genius is needed in all expressions in the life of society and therefore the presence of women in the work force must also be guaranteed. The first indispensable step in this direction is the concrete possibility of access to professional formation."[19] It notes the forms of discrimination which exist against women in the work force, but also stresses their need to be able to reconcile their responsibilities in work and those in the family.

One of the key factors in Ireland's economic success has been the high participation of women in the work force. But in speaking with people, in listening to the talk shows on the radio and the letters to the newspaper, one can see that we are still a long way away from a satisfactory response to what women really desire in this area. Very often women have to work just to keep up the family income, when they would prefer at certain periods to be free to address family responsibilities, and be able to return to the work force without suffering disadvantage.

The Compendium looks at the complex situation, characteristic of many societies, of migration and work. Migration has always been a dimension of the world economy; it will inevitably become a normal dimension of an economy that is global. It notes that "institutions in host countries must keep careful watch to prevent the spread of the temptation to exploit foreign workers, denying them the same tights enjoyed by nationals, rights that are guaranteed to all without discrimination."[20] It recalls especially "the right of reuniting families." I would also add, from a European point of view, the need to be vigilant in the face of anti-immigrant sentiment, often racist in its character.

Ireland has become a country of immigration. In my two years as archbishop of Dublin I have designated chaplaincies for large communities from Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Romania, Nigeria, the Philippines and for Syro-Malabar Christians from India. These immigrants have brought a real enrichment to Irish culture and to the Irish Church. There is however the serious problem that they often represent important talent which is being lost to their own countries at a time in which it is most needed. Some will return to their countries enriched by the experience they have gained establishing an informal sharing of technology and know-how.

Work, the state and the market

Market forces very often demand non-intervention on the part of the state, but on their part they make demands on the way society is structured and thus on the ability of the state to carry out its role. The effects of the dominance of market ideology may be much more far-reaching than we at times realize. "Small government" and "low-tax regimes" can of course be a sound policy. Social goals can, at times, be achieved more efficiently through market means and by the private sector. Pension policy is moving more and more in this direction.

But who takes responsibility for guaranteeing those social goals in times of economic crisis? Who will provide the basic safety nets to defend the weakest, or those who are excluded in the short or long term? Would many of our small governments have the capacity to cope with the human and social consequences of a major market crisis?

Right across Europe today the questions of the relationship between government and market and between market growth and equity are difficult political questions. The ability of the state to cover the costs of pensions, health care and social services is reduced just at the moment in which there is also a certain feeling of precariousness about employment security. Politicians can reply in a populist way and perhaps damage precisely that agility of the market to foster growth.

Pope John Paul in his encyclical "Centesimus Annus"[21] tries to balance the roles of the market, of the state and of a broader participatory society. He notes that "the free market is the most efficient instrument for utilizing resources and effectively responding to needs."[22] Interestingly, the Compendium would seem to go even farther noting that "the free market is an effective instrument for attaining important objectives of justice."[23] But the Pope also stresses that "there are collective and qualitative needs which cannot be satisfied by market mechanisms. There are important needs which escape its logic. There are goods which by their very nature cannot and must not be bought and sold."[24]

The Compendium stresses that part of the role of the state in the face of the market is to ensure that it is truly free.[25] The state has the task of determining an appropriate juridical framework for regulating economic affairs in order to safeguard the prerequisites of the free market, which presumes a certain equality between the parties. In that way the state should guarantee that free competition curbs the excessive profits of individual business and responds to consumers' demands through bringing about a more efficient use and conservation of resources.

But the Compendium also stresses that since "the market takes on a significant social function in contemporary society it is important to identify its most positive potentials and create conditions which allow them to be put concretely into effect."[26] It notes that "Economic activity, above all in a free market context, cannot be conducted in an institutional, juridical and political vacuum."[27] And it takes up the important affirmation of Pope John Paul II, namely, that "Economic freedom is only one element of human freedom. … When it becomes autonomous, then economic freedom loses it relationship with the human person and ends up alienating and oppressing him."[28]

Indeed it must be pointed out that no sector of human activity can be excluded from ethical scrutiny. Ethics also belongs to the real world. Ethical scrutiny deals with individual behavior: observing the rules and ethical principles such as trust and honesty, which are incidentally also essential to the market. But ethical scrutiny, being based on the concept of responsibility, must lead each person to reflect on all the foreseeable consequences of their actions, including the consequences for society as a whole. The market and economic activity constitute only one dimension of human activity and, while following their own internal norms, still remain at the service of the broader community.

A truly global and inclusive economy

A distinguishing characteristic of the market today is that it is global. One could dedicate the rest of the evening to discussing the nature of a global economy and the advantages and disadvantages that it brings. I wish however to stress one simple point: a global economy must be truly global. Global must be made synonymous with inclusive. An economic system which leaves on its margins huge sectors of the population or entire regions of a nation or of the world will always remain fragile. The inclusion of the widest possible number of people or nations as protagonists is a primary interest of the global economy. A global economy which produces massive exclusion will be neither global nor stable.

One of the major problems with the current economic situation is the existence of glaring inequalities and of a lack of models -- and perhaps political will -- to resolve the question. There have always been winners and losers in any economic model: In today's global economy there are extraordinary winners and disastrous losers.

One possible positive result from globalization, however, may be a restoration of the concept of the common good and a realization that today there exists a "global common good" which urgently needs to be protected. This applies to the protection of human rights, the protection of the environment but also the protection of the dignity of work. It is becoming more and more obvious that what happens in one part of the world inevitably has repercussions elsewhere. No nation, not even the most powerful, can go it alone.

Respecting the global common good, however, cannot be limited to enforcing certain negotiated economic, financial and commercial norms and standards. Liberalization of trade and finances, for example, is not an end in itself. Liberalization will only lead to growth when certain other conditions are met. But neither is growth in itself is the ultimate value. Growth with equity and inclusion is better than growth which generates great inequalities and exclusion. Growth with stability is better than a growth accompanied by volatility and precariousness.

Conclusion

My rather disordered reflections on this anniversary of the encyclical "Laborem Exercens" have led me to stress -- perhaps with too much optimism -- that the nature of a modern economy may provide new openings for dialogue between Christian social reflection and the world of work and the economy today. A modern economy recognizes that it is not the market which is its driving force. The market is only a means which can more efficiently ensure that the fruits of human creativity can flourish and be distributed.

We should not overlook the fact that "Laborem Exercens" looks on human work not just as the work of an isolated individual. Human work has an intrinsic social dimension. A person's work, in fact, is naturally connected with that of other people. Pope John Paul notes that "more than ever, work is work with others and work for others."[29]

Human work can build solidarity. But it can do so only if the world of work is structured and oriented towards solidarity and enables all to participate through their work in the building up of a world where all can realize themselves in God's image.

Pope Benedict XVI in his encyclical "Deus Caritas Est" has noted that with the Jesus' teaching "the concept of 'neighbor' is now universalized."[30] True neighborliness embraces all. The Good Samaritan responds in love to an unidentified person on the road, just because he is a person, for no other reason than that he is a fellow human being suffering. But if "neighbor" is universalized, it is also not reduced to a generic, abstract expression. Neighbor is not an abstract concept: but a concrete person.

The teaching of Jesus, who came to reveal to us that God is love, is a teaching which is the opposite of the dominant consumer mentality. The consumer mentality tends to utilize or to use for personal satisfaction. Through work the person can give of his or her talents to ensure that all can realize fully the image of God that is within them. In that way work can witness also that "love of neighbor is a path that leads to the encounter with God, and that closing our eyes to our neighbor, also blinds us to God."[31]

--- --- ---

[1] Encyclical "Rerum Novarum," No. 1.
[2] Encyclical "Centesimus Annus," No. 23.
[3] Compendium of the Social Teaching of the Church, No. 276.
[4] Encyclical "Laborem Exercens," Nos. 5-7.
[5] Ibid., No. 6.

[6] Compendium of the Social Teaching of the Church, No. 271.
[7] "Laborem Exercens," No. 6.
[8] Compendium of the Social Teaching of the Church, No. 340.
[9] "Centesimus Annus," No. 32.
[10] Ibid., No. 43.

[11] Compendium of the Social Teaching of the Church, No. 278.
[12] Ibid., Nos. 287-300.
[13] Ibid., Nos. 301-30.
[14] Ibid., Nos. 264-266.
[15] Ibid., Nos. 284-286.

[16] "Centesimus Annus," No. 43.
[17] Ibid., No. 33.
[18] Compendium of the Social Teaching of the Church, No. 294.
[19] Ibid., No. 295.
[20] Ibid., No. 298.

[21] cf. "Centesimus Annus," No. 40.
[22] Ibid., No. 34.
[23] Compendium of the Social Teaching of the Church, No. 347.
[24] "Centesimus Annus," No. 34.
[25] cf. Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, No. 352, and "Centesimus Annus," No. 15.

[26] Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, No. 350.
[27] Ibid., No. 352.
[28] "Centesimus Annus," No. 39.
[29] Ibid., No. 31.
[30] "Deus Caritas Est," No. 15.
[31] Ibid., No. 16.

Sigh. Where does one start with something like this. I'll write something on it if I can.

Fundamentalists? We?

Fundamentalists? We?
Bad science, worse philosophy, and McCarthyite tactics in the human-embyro debate.

By Patrick Lee & Robert P. George

We have in many places argued for the humanity and fundamental dignity of human beings in the embryonic stage of development and all later stages. In defending embryonic human life, we have pointed out that every human adult was once an embryo, just as he or she was once an adolescent, and before that a child, and before that an infant, and before that a fetus. This is not a religious claim or a piece of metaphysical speculation. It is an empirical fact. The complete human organism — the whole living member of the species Homo sapiens — that is, for example, you the reader, is the same human individual that at an earlier point in his or her life was an adolescent, a child, an infant, a fetus, an embryo. From the embryonic stage forward, all you needed for your survival and continued growth towards adulthood along the continuum of human development was a suitable environment, adequate nutrition, and freedom from grave disease.

In short, we have argued — though it is fairer to say that we have pointed out, since the scientific facts are not in dispute — that human embryos do not differ in kind from (other) human beings; rather, they differ from other human beings merely in respect of their stage of development. Embryos, fetuses, infants, adolescents, and adults are not different kinds of being — the way a human, an elk, a spider, a cucumber, and an amoeba are different kinds of being. Embryos, fetuses, infants, adolescents, and adults are the same kind of being at different developmental stages.

Still, Lee Silver in “The Biotechnology Culture Clash,” published in Science and Theology News (July 18, 2006), and more fully in a new book entitled Challenging Nature, insists that our views about the humanity and dignity of the human embryo are grounded in religious beliefs. He accuses us of concocting a scientific sounding case against embryo-destructive research in an effort to impose our religious beliefs on others while evading the constitutional prohibition of laws respecting an establishment of religion.

So Now We’re Fundamentalist Theologians?
Silver says that the claim that human embryos are human beings at an early stage of development is “hidden theology.” This could mean two different things. First, as this claim is presented in the book, Silver asserts that we actually hold our position on the status of the human embryo on theological grounds. We are, he suggests, hiding this fact, manufacturing arguments that sound scientific, but are in reality merely a cover for our real, theological, and indeed, “fundamentalist” grounds.

To describe such a claim as an ad hominem argument is to exaggerate its standing. It is nothing more than ad hominem abuse. Silver knows that we are Catholics, and so he uses that fact to suggest that our real ground for believing that human embryos are human beings is Catholic doctrine. But here he has things exactly backwards. Our ground for believing that human embryos are human beings is the indisputable scientific fact that each human embryo is a complex, living, individual member of the human species. Although our claim does not rest on the authority of the Catholic Church, or any other religious body or tradition, we find the Church’s teaching against human embryo-killing credible precisely because it — unlike Silver’s contrary teaching — is in line with the embryological facts. If “fundamentalism” consists in obstinately clinging to a moral, religious, or political view in defiance of empirically demonstrable findings of science that falsify its premises, we are not the fundamentalists in this debate. It is Lee Silver himself who has fallen into a form of fundamentalism.

The biological fact that human embryos are human beings in the earliest stages of their natural development is, to say the least, inconvenient for Professor Silver. So he commits the very offense of which he accuses us and others who oppose his agenda. He hides his ideology under a veneer of science. But the veneer is easily pulled off and the truth exposed. Just examine any of the major embryology texts now in use in American medicine. What you will find is the teaching that a new human individual exists from the earliest embryonic stage forward. That individual is a complete, though, of course, developmentally immature, member of the human species, whose life — whether it lasts for nine minutes, nine days, nine years, or nine decades — is a human life.

The second thing Silver could mean by his “hidden theology” allegation is that our argument depends on an implicit theological premise, whether or not we are aware of it. In the bulk of his analysis, this seems to be Silver’s claim against us. It is a bold charge, and to support it, Silver would have to show that at least one of the premises of our argument is such that anyone asserting that premise must depend on religious faith for his presumed awareness of it. For example, if one could show that a person could advance a particular argument only if he presupposed that God is three persons in one being, or that God became man — propositions about the inner life of God or about his free choices, and so in principle not provable by reason unaided by faith — then it would follow that the argument depended on a theological premise. So, what religious dogma does Professor Silver find lurking in our premises? What is the unstated religiously dogmatic assumption of our argument? At what point are we “stealthy servants of God” (as Silver characterizes us on p. 116)? The hidden assumption, according to Silver, is the following: that a thing either is or is not a human being (though, curiously, on p. 83 Silver actually quotes Robert George openly asserting this supposedly “hidden” assumption).

According to Silver, “This assumption comes from an interpretation of Genesis by certain religious groups that strictly follow the Bible. Genesis 1:27 says, ‘God created man in His own image.’ And that is interpreted by some as meaning that God created man instantaneously. There can be no such thing as gradual creation because then you have partial man, and man would not be in the image of God. There is no such thing as a partial God. God is absolute.”

This is risible. First, the supposed theological argument grounding the key assumption does not even make sense. Formally, the argument would be: “God is not partial; humans are like God; therefore no humans are partial.” But by this argument pattern one could also conclude that humans must be uncreated, perfect, infinite, and eternal. Is it really likely that such nonsense would be the hidden inference bolstering our assertions?

Second, the idea that a thing either is or is not a human being is not a proposition about the inner life of God or about God’s free choices — propositions beyond the reach of reason unaided by faith. Why assume that a very straightforward proposition about human individuals is something knowable only by religious faith?

Third, many philosophers, both ancient and contemporary, some religious and some not religious (e.g., Aristotle, David Wiggins, Roderick Chisholm, Peter Van Inwagen, E. J. Lowe, and many others) have ably defended this proposition on philosophical grounds.

Fourth, this proposition is part of common sense (a fact that doesn’t by itself prove it, but does provide support for it). Most people believe that they persist through time, and so, by implication, that there is a profound difference between their becoming this or that (say, tall or tan), and their coming to be at all. If I am the same concrete being yesterday and today, then I exist completely at each time that I exist (though I constantly change by acquiring new qualities, changing in quantity, and so on). And if I exist wholly at each time that I exist, it follows that I came to be, that is, began to exist, at once and not gradually. Otherwise, during my coming to be I would exist partially, not wholly. Thus, as common sense would have it: there are degrees in various qualities and quantities, such as colors or sizes, but there are no degrees about whether an individual exists or not; either he exists (however developmentally immature or tiny) or he does not.

Finally, there are strong philosophical arguments in favor of this common sense view. The denial of it logically entails what is sometimes called “perdurantism,” or “the temporal parts view” — namely, that a person is only a series of events or experiences spread out in time, like a baseball game or a song. On this view, the temporal extent of a person is part of what he is, and at any one time he exists only partially, not fully. As a consequence, according to this view, “I today” and “I yesterday” refer not to the same concrete individual, but to different temporal phases of the whole series temporally extended.

Were You You Yesterday?
This view has several grave problems, two of which we will mention here. The first difficulty is that, according to this view, a human being (or any ultimate subject of existence) is the sum of time-slices suitably connected (say, by biological or psychological continuity). But what is a time-slice, and, how could time-slices give rise to a human organism’s (or any organism’s) extension through time? If the time-slice itself does not have temporal extent, then the addition of any number of time-slices to each other will not give rise to a temporally extended series — just as the addition of any number of unextended points will not produce an extended line. On the other hand, if the time-slice of a human being does have temporal extent, then no explanatory gain has been achieved by denying a persisting human being, since one will then (by necessity) have admitted that an individual as a whole can persist through at least some extent of time. But if one must admit persistence through time at one level, why not admit it at the level that common sense and explanatory practice seem to demand — that is, the lifetime of a human individual who persists through time?

A second problem with the temporal-parts view is that, in effect, it actually implies the complete denial of change. On the temporal-parts position, a particular object, such as a human being, is not wholly present at any given time. Rather, just as an object has spatial parts, so that at small portions of space only part of it is present, so (on the temporal parts view) each object has temporal parts. An object, for example an apple, has a part that is present at one time, say on Monday, and another part that is present at another time, say on Tuesday. The apple is composed of different temporal parts or stages. Thus, the apple is green at one temporal stage (Monday) and red at another temporal stage (Tuesday). But on this view it follows that in the strict sense there simply is no change. A flagpole that is green at one spatial part and red at another part does not involve any change; but by the same token, an apple that is green at one temporal part and red at another temporal part involves no change either. For real change to occur, the same subject must first be characterized in one way and then in another way.

But it is obvious that change does occur. Consequently, an object (a substance) is not just a series of events, but exists wholly at each time that it exists. When it comes to be, it must come to be at once (though, of course, once it comes into being it may, depending on the kind of substance it is, grow in size and proceed through various developmental phases towards maturity). Changes can precede this substantial coming to be, changes that dispose the future constituents of the substance more and more to that substantial change. For example, fertilization is a gradual process that results in the coming to be of a new organism. But the organism itself does not exist until the process is completed. Prior to the completion of this process it is not correct to say that the new organism partially exists. (It does not “partially exist” during the process.) When it comes into existence, it comes into existence as a whole organism. But the substantial change itself — the actual change from not existing to existing — must be at once.

Thus, both common sense and philosophical arguments provide strong support for the proposition that human beings cannot partially exist, that a human being either is or is not. It is ridiculous to claim — as Silver does — that this proposition is a hidden theological assumption. (Indeed, it would be ridiculous to classify it as a theological belief, as opposed to a philosophical one, even if it could be shown to be incorrect.)

Part and Whole: A Basic Distinction
In addition to claiming that our position is based on “hidden theology,” Silver presents an argument in the form of a reductio ad absurdum for his denial that early stage human embryos are embryonic human beings. He says: “Embryonic stem cells can develop into an actual person. So, based on the definition of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, embryonic stem cells are equivalent to embryos. Yet based on the molecular signals that you give the cells, the cells can change from embryonic to nonembryonic and back to embryonic. You can do this easily.” But the first sentence just quoted from Silver is simply false. Embryonic stem cells are functionally parts of a complete organism; they are not themselves complete human organisms. (When separated from the whole human organism, they are no longer functioning parts of that organism; they become mere cells — fundamentally different from whole, though immature, members of the human species.)

A human embryo — precisely because it is a complete member of the human species — can develop towards maturity, given a suitable environment and adequate nutrition. The embryo possesses the genetic and epigenetic primordia and the active disposition for self-directed growth towards the next more-mature stage. But this is not true of a stem cell or even of a mass of stem cells. Like somatic cells that might be used in cloning, they possess merely a passive capacity to be subjected to various techniques of asexual reproduction and so become parts of a new human organism.

Silver bases his claim that “embryonic stem cells are equivalent to embryos” on the fact that mouse embryos can be generated from embryonic mouse stem cells and have all of their genetic makeup, and cell lineage, derived from those initial stem cells. A tetraploid embryo-like entity known, though controversially, as a tetraploid “embryo” (“tetraploid” meaning that the entity has four sets of chromosomes rather than the normal two sets) is developmentally defective, so it can give rise only to trophoblastic cells (precursors of the placenta and associated tissues) and not to the cells of the “embryo proper.” When combined with mouse ES cells (ones that have a normal number of chromosomes), these can produce a chimeric mouse in which the cell lineage of its placenta and associated tissues is derived from the tetraploid entity (or “embryo”), and the cell lineage of the mature embryo (the “embryo proper”) is derived from the ES cells. From this, Silver infers that ES cells can by themselves develop into the mature stage of the animal (see his book, p. 140) — “by themselves” in the sense that the DNA in all of the mature embryo’s cells is identical to that in the ES cells.

Since it is often argued that human embryos are human beings because they can “by themselves” develop into mature humans, it follows — on Silver’s argument — that embryos and stem cells are (ontologically and morally) equivalent. But since it is absurd to think that ES cells are human beings, it also is absurd (Silver’s argument continues) to think human embryos are human beings.

This argument is a descendent of an earlier, similar argument that embryos are morally equivalent to somatic cells (such as skin cells) because somatic cells can produce mature human beings by way of cloning via somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). In SCNT the nucleus of a somatic cell is inserted into an enucleated ovum and they are caused to fuse by an electrical stimulus, the result (if all goes as planned) being a cloned embryo. It was argued (by Ronald Bailey, Peter Singer, and others) that since somatic cells are converted into embryos, and these grow into mature members of the relevant species, human embryos have no more exalted a status than ordinary somatic cells, such as skin cells. Some critics of this argument replied that the somatic cells cannot by themselves develop into mature humans, which is certainly true. The important point, though, is that the SCNT process makes use of the somatic cells to create entities of a different nature — using parts of human organisms (somatic cells) to make new complete human organisms at the embryonic stage of development.

Thus, in the context of SCNT cloning, somatic cells are analogous to sperm and oocytes (parts of whole organisms) rather than to embryos (which indeed are whole organisms). But Silver thinks production of a mature mouse by tetraploid complementation answers that reply: In this process, the more mature organism is derived directly from the ES cells, so the ES cells do (according to Silver) in some sense by themselves become whole embryos. He thinks this process shows that, just like embryos, ES cells also can develop into mature members of their species if they are just given a suitable environment.

Confusion over Tetraploid Complementation
However, this fundamentally misinterprets the results of tetraploid complementation. In addition, it repeats the mistake in the earlier argument. Tetraploid complementation does not show that the “entire embryo” can be derived from ES cells. The embryo (or embryo-like entity) generated from tetraploid complementation is a chimera, with parts derived from the original embryo that was induced to become tetraploid and parts derived from the ES cells. The placenta and other organs generated from the tetraploid cells are parts of the embryo. They are bodily organs that function only during embryonic life, but they are bodily organs none the less — analogous to baby teeth, which also function only during a portion of the animal-organism’s life cycle. The placenta is a vital organ of the embryo, and it is not directly made by the ES cells.

Moreover, in tetraploid complementation, the ES cells do not by themselves generate a mouse since they do not by internal self-direction develop into a mouse. So the ES cells are not mouse embryos or their equivalent, and never were. True, the mature mouse’s cell lineage is completely derived from the ES cells, but an analogous point is also true in SCNT cloning — the DNA of the mature mouse or sheep or other animal is identical to that of the donor somatic cell (although the cytoplasm from the enucleated ovum also has a determinative effect). The central point is that, just as in SCNT cloning, so here: the manipulation (in this case, the combining of the ES cells with the tetraploid entity or “embryo”) generates a new type of biological entity. This is demonstrated by the profoundly new type of behavior observed in the entity produced by the process or processes of tetraploid complementation. The manipulations involved do much more than merely release an inner capacity of the stem cells. The combining of the stem cells with the tetraploid embryo does not merely place these cells in an environment hospitable to the process of organismal development. Rather, it transforms them from functional parts to components of an actively developing whole organism. Or, more precisely expressed: the combining of the stem cells with the cells of the tetraploid embryo generates a new organism, an organism that is not a stem cell.

The tetraploid complementation procedure is simply a type of cloning. In the most common form of cloning — SCNT — a new organism is generated; it comes into being as an embryo which immediately begins actively developing itself into the more mature form of the whole organism it now is. Completely analogous to what occurs in tetraploid complementation, the new embryo in SCNT cloning has the same genetic code as the somatic cell. The combining of stem cells with a tetraploid embryo does to the mouse stem cells what fusing an enucleated ovum does to a somatic cell in SCNT, the procedure that generated Dolly the sheep and many other cloned mammals — namely, it produces a distinct, whole organism.

So a stem cell does not “become” an embryo (the way an embryo truly does become a fetus, an infant, a child, an adolescent, and an adult). Rather, many stem cells are used in a cloning process that, if successful, results in the production of a new and distinct organism. The proof that this results in an entirely new and distinct organism is that it has a radically different trajectory of growth.

Thus stem cells are not equivalent to embryos. They lack the defining feature of embryos, namely, the internal active disposition to develop themselves to the mature stage of the organism of the relevant species. If placed within an environment suitable for the development of human embryos, human stem cells do not do what embryos do. (The crucial fact that by themselves — that is, when not introduced into a pre-existing, albeit defective, tetraploid embryo — ES cells produce only disorganized masses of tissue, either embryoid bodies or teratomas, is conveniently ignored by Silver.) Only if human stem cells are joined with other factors so as to generate a distinct and whole organism in SCNT, or in the combining of stem cells with tetraploid embryo-like entities, does an embryo come to be.

Several passages in Silver’s book indicate that he regularly fails to see the significance of the distinction between a whole organism, on the one hand, and a tissue or part of an organism, on the other hand. Thus, he believes our argument is easily refuted by pointing out that a single human skin cell or a teratoma has the same genetic code as other (whole) members of the relevant species. But our argument has never been simply that human embryos are human beings because they have the full genetic code. Rather, we have always argued that their full genetic code, plus (and more importantly) their internal active disposition for self-directed development toward the mature stage of a human, show that they are what the standard embryology texts say they are, namely, distinct and whole (though immature) individuals of the human species.

Stem Cells Are Human Too?
Having assumed erroneously that one can convert a human stem cell into a human embryo and back again quite easily, Silver then says:

So then you can ask, ‘How many human beings are there in a dish of embryonic stem cells?’ If there are a million cells in the dish, and you separate all the cells, then you have a million human beings. But you can then put them back together to form a single organism. What happened to the 999,999 human beings? Robert George would say they all died.

He supposes that this is a decisive argument, but in truth it is a failure. The prospect of actually creating and then killing almost a million human embryos merely by separating cells is a figment of Silver’s imagination.

To the question, “How many human beings are there in a dish of embryonic stem cells” the answer is: none, for stem cells, like other somatic cells, are not human beings.

When Silver asserts next, “If there are a million cells in the dish, and you separate all the cells, then you have a million human beings,” this is simply incorrect. You must do much more than merely separate stem cells in order to generate embryos. Separating them will merely spread them apart. Like a somatic cell, a stem cell must be fused with something else that will transform it from a part into a whole in order to produce an embryo.

But suppose that a lab were successfully to produce a million clones from human embryonic stem cells. How many nascent human beings would you have? The answer is: a million. Of course, no one, to date, has managed to demonstrate success in cloning even a single human embryo, using the methods that succeeded (with much labor) in other mammals. The scenario Silver proposes (which involves producing a million clones in a short time) is not possible today, and perhaps will never be possible. It certainly cannot be “easily done.” Moreover, if tetraploid complementation were successfully performed on human stem cells, only one human organism would be generated from several stem cells, not one embryo per stem cell.

Conspiracy Theories
Silver’s errors in dealing with embryological science are nothing by comparison to the extraordinary charges he makes when he turns his attention to political matters. Silver claims to have uncovered an extremist right-wing conspiracy among academics and politicians. He asserts that there is a highly organized effort by “fundamentalists” to gain control over portions of our government and schools, in order to impose a narrow religion on all.

For example, Nigel Cameron is a Christian who claims to present pro-life arguments that can appeal to all people, whether religious or not. Silver first exposes Cameron’s Christianity, quoting from an article Cameron wrote extolling the merits of a theological understanding of medicine. Silver then says that Cameron is using “code words” to convey religious messages to Christians, codes that are not recognized as religious by unsuspecting seculars. He adds: “Cameron’s tactics are taken from the playbook of clever fundamentalists who feel impelled to instill their beliefs as soon as possible, not just in their own children, but in everyone else’s children as well” (p. 102). Again, Silver refers to pro-life intellectuals, including Robert George, as advocates of an ideology who put forth “scientific-sounding arguments to advance their case” (p. 112). He warns of the craftiness of fundamentalists who might lure scientists into arguing with each other: “And so fundamentalists often succeed in transforming a religious debate into a dispute among scientists”(p. 118). One must especially be careful to resist their secular-sounding slogans, which (again) are codes that usually only fundamentalists understand the true meaning of: “Theological terms and ideas are translated into secular-sounding code words and phrases. Sanctity is converted into dignity, the soul becomes life, and the biblical version of morality is presented as a secular bioethics” (p. 118).

Here Silver veers from bad science and even worse philosophy into sheer paranoia. He seems incapable of understanding that the issues about which he is writing are complex and difficult matters on which reasonable people can reasonably disagree. Instead, he assumes that anyone who does not share his opinions is a “fundamentalist” (or dupe of the “fundamentalists”) and is part of a sinister conspiracy to impose a theocracy.

Speaking of Robert George, Silver writes: “Almost certainly, George knows that his so-called ‘scientific evidence’ finds no acceptance among any secular, molecular, or modern developmental biology professor at any major research university” (p. 108). Yet a glance at any of the standard embryology textbooks rebuts this claim. See, for example, Bruce Carlson, Human Embryology and Developmental Biology (St. Louis: C.V. Mosby, 2004); William J. Larsen, Human Embryology, 3rd ed. (2001); Keith Moore and T.V.N. Persaud, The Developing Human, Clinically Oriented Embryology, 7th ed. (2003); and Ronan O’Rahilly and Fabiola Mueller, Human Embryology and Teratology, 3rd edition (2000).)

According to Silver, one should also be wary of conservative think tanks, since they are actually hot-beds of conspiracy: “Evangelical think tanks and lobbying groups proliferate with innocent-sounding names like the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity, which is directed by the fundamentalist Nigel Cameron” (p. 118). (It would probably be useless to point out to Silver that Dr. Cameron is no fundamentalist, and does not direct the center in question.) Indeed, according to Silver, “The subterfuge is more subtle, but no less potent, in the academic realm. One particular secular-sounding word — natural — frequently infuses the arguments of diverse opponents of biotechnology” (p. 119). Here the entire philosophical tradition of “natural law” reasoning on ethics, whose roots predate Christianity by at least three centuries in the works of Aristotle, becomes a mere façade for the “fundamentalist” conspiracy.

In the end, Silver’s manner of arguing degenerates into a form of McCarthyism. He relentlessly uncovers the Christianity of various lawyers, political figures, writers, physicians, and academics, describing them as “stealthy servants of God.” On his list of Christian “fundamentalists” and individuals collaborating with them (some of whom are Jews) to impose Christian theological dogmas on the entire nation are: Johns Hopkins Medical School surgeon and President’s Council on Bioethics member Benjamin Carson, Oxford University legal philosopher John Finnis, Harvard Law School professor Mary Ann Glendon, Stanford University consulting professor and President’s Council on Bioethics member William Hurlbut, former President’s Council on Bioethics executive director Yuval Levin, and Johns Hopkins Medical School psychiatry professor and President’s Council on Bioethics member Paul McHugh. We wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Silver has a list of 205 card-carrying fundamentalists and their fellow-travelers. Perhaps he will ask others, “Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Christian religion?”

Losing It Completely
Going from the ridiculous to the bizarre, Silver extends his conspiracy theory to his fellow scientists. As we have observed, he insists that human embryonic stem cells are the equivalent of embryos because they are (he supposes) capable of developing into human babies. Why hasn’t the public been made aware of this remarkable “fact”? Because, he says, scientists have deliberately kept the public in ignorance: “stem cell scientists know this fact, but they have succeeded in hiding it from the public at-large.” Oh, those stealthy servants of science! There they are, in full knowledge of a key fact about embryonic stem cells, but deliberately covering it up lest the unenlightened masses become alarmed and start slapping new restrictions on legitimate research.

One can be forgiven for savoring the irony here. If, as Silver claims, stem cell scientists have deliberately concealed what they believe to be the truth about embryonic stem cells — namely, that they are equivalent to embryos — then he has established that embryonic stem cell scientists cannot be trusted to be honest with their fellow citizens about facts that might be politically inconvenient. If, on the other hand, what Silver alleges about his fellow scientists is false, then his own credibility collapses.

Silver’s real problem is that the proposition that the human embryo from the zygote stage forward is a distinct, complete (though immature) human being, identical with the child or adolescent which later everyone will recognize as possessing basic rights — that this proposition is fully supported by arguments open to people of all faiths, or of no faith at all. He resorts to name calling (“fundamentalists”), ad hominem abuse, and McCarthyite tactics to distract attention from the scientific facts and their logical implications. Those implications are inescapable once we accept the moral principle that all human beings are entitled to equal concern and respect.

Contrary to what Silver imagines, the great threat to embryo-destructive research is not that “fundamentalists” will take control of the United States government; it is that citizens of every faith, or of none at all, will acquaint themselves with what modern embryology has revealed about human embryogenesis and development.

— Patrick Lee is professor of bioethics at the Franciscan University of Steubenville. . Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and director of the James Madison Program at Princeton University.

Thanks to Fr. Neuhaus at First Things.

Jurgen Habermas comes to BC

(source)

(source)

and gives a lecture... I should try to obtain a copy of the lecture, since I could not really follow it, partly due to the nature of the lecture itself, partly due to his accent...

I have not read much of his work, but he does seem to be a liberal and a internationalist... the Philosopher calls him a Marxist. He studied critical theory with Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno.

Illuminations: The Critical Theory Website
SEP entry on critical theory
Critical Theory resources
Horkheimer Archive
Horkheimer and the Philosophy of Education
SEP entry on Adorno
intro to Adorno
mythosandlogos page on Adorno
Adorno bio

Habermas Links:
Dual Layered Time: Reflections on T. W. Adorno in the 1950s
Towards a United States of Europe
Why Europe Needs a Constitution
The European Nation-State and the Pressures of Globalization
The Illusory "Leftist No"
Religion in the Public Sphere (html)
Bruno Kreisky Prize acceptance speech (Andrew Keen's blog entry)
Theorems of Legitimation Crisis
America and the World: A Conversation with Jürgen Habermas
Summary of The Philoosphical Discourse of Modernity: Twelve Lectures
wiki
EGS page
Publications
MIT Press
Northwestern page
Time profile
The Jürgen Habermas Web Resource
Habermas links
JH On Society and Politics
Theodor W. Adorno and Jürgen Habermas
The Critical Theory of Jurgen Habermas
A review of Religion and Rationality
Jürgen Habermas and the Public Sphere
more seconday lit

Les Amis de Kephas

website

FSSP in Urbe

St. Augustine Institute

St. Augustine Institute of Catholic Studies

associated with the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (not Saint Benedict Center)?

Inner life of a cell?

video, via Jimmy Akin

Two Roles for Catholic Philosophers

nice piece by Dr. Freddoso (other writings)

apparently he was advisor for one of the members of the Cornell Society