Law From a Catholic Lens
Kevin Lee on the Church and Legal Culture
Buies Creek, North Carolina, Aug. 26, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Much ink has been spilled over the supposed implications of having five Catholic justices sitting simultaneously on the U.S. Supreme Court.
But beyond speculation about what results this development may produce in specific cases such as abortion, there has been little discussion of what a uniquely Catholic understanding of American law actually means and how it may apply in the various substantive areas of law.
A new book, "Recovering Self-Evident Truths: Catholic Perspectives on American Law," (CUA Press), attempts to fill this void by explaining the theological and philosophical considerations that are foundational to a Catholic understanding of the law.
Kevin Lee, a professor of law at Campbell University, and author of the chapter titled "The Foundations of Catholic Legal Theory: A Primer," shared with ZENIT the contours of a distinctively Catholic understanding of law, and how Catholics may productively contribute to the law's development.
Q: What does it mean to offer a Catholic perspective on American law? Is it simply a critique of legal institutions like feminist legal theory, or does it offer something more?
Lee: A Catholic perspective must be concerned with what it means to be committed to Christ and to his Church.
So a Catholic perspective on American law means considering what law looks like from within that commitment.
It involves a critique of institutions and theories, but it also requires critical reflection on the patterns of meaning that shape and are shaped by the law and the legal system.
Q: Why is it necessary to ground an understanding of a legal system in a distinctively Christian anthropology?
Lee: It is not "necessary," in the sense that it is possible to create a legal system rooted in some other anthropology.
Much of contemporary American legal theory, for example, can scarcely be considered compatible with a Christian anthropology.
But I think Catholic anthropology has a contribution to make. It offers a unique understanding of the irreducible dignity of the person and the giftedness of the community.
Catholic thought affirms that human beings are creatures with particular natures, capacities and limitations.
We all have dignity as bearers of the "imago Dei," but we are also sinful and prone to weaknesses. We form communities naturally, through small acts of love and kindness, but that does not mean that we are not capable of meanness and selfishness.
The Anglo-American legal system could simply abandon its Christian roots as archaic or nonsensical, but doing that would mean abandoning our tradition and denying that tradition has anything to offer.
Anyone who would advocate that position would bear a heavy burden of proof.
Q: A number of scholars are rediscovering the Catholic influence on the formation of Western legal systems -- an influence that lasted well into the last century. Does the Catholic conception of reciprocal rights and duties, so long a part of Anglo-American law, continue to govern our legal system, or have individualistic and modern liberal theories such as those of John Rawls transformed American law?
Lee: There is no doubt that the contemporary Anglo-American legal system has been massively influenced by modern liberal democratic theories.
But, I don't think that Catholic thought is in total opposition to either modernity or liberalism. It is much more complex than that.
Modern liberals, like Catholics, are concerned with rights and justice.
For example, Pope John Paul II's passion for individual freedom against totalitarian rule found support among liberals.
The critique is more nuanced than a simple rejection of modernity and liberalism.
Q: What role does natural law play in Catholic legal theory? Is the natural law the "self-evident truths" that the American founders asserted governed political life?
Lee: Natural law is based on the belief that nature has rational purposes. It seeks to read moral precepts from such purposes as they are visible in nature.
Citing St. Paul's letter to the Romans, Christian natural law theorists have held that these precepts are based on self-evident foundational principles. But, it is a theory that is no longer widely accepted.
Modern science opposes the idea that there is any purpose to nature, moral or otherwise.
Contemporary secular philosophy largely denies moral truth altogether, and even contemporary Christian ethicists tend to look to virtue rather than law when speaking about morality.
Nonetheless, natural law theory still offers many insights and poses interesting questions.
For Christians, natural law theory has to be worked out in relation to the creation stories of Genesis. There are of course two antithetical natures for human beings in Genesis: one of eternal innocence and integrity, and the other of the fall and fragmentation.
The fall suggests a limit to our ability to gain moral knowledge from examining nature. It is possible to read the signs of nature correctly only if we understand the realities to which the signs refer.
But the fall impedes our capacity to know the ultimate reality because we no longer read the signs correctly. So a complete reading of the natural law will always elude our fallen, temporal selves.
Catholics typically have been more optimistic than Protestants in assessing the depth of our fallen nature. They have tended to argue that even the fall calls us to salvation because we can remember something of our pre-fallen state.
Protestants are more likely to see the fall as a complete forgetfulness of God that can only be healed by God's initiative. Nonetheless, Catholics and Protestants agree that we are deeply marked by the fall, and reason alone does not secure our ability to "read the signs" that tell of the purposes of nature.
That is why reason alone offers no sure guide to moral life. Benedict XVI has referred to the "pathologies of reason" to suggest this danger.
Christian moral theory must always be sensitive to excessive claims about the role that nature and natural reason can play in the moral life.
God's gifts of grace -- or example what St. Thomas called the infused virtues: faith, hope and charity -- are essential to the moral life, but they are typically discounted in natural law theories because they suggest limits to natural reason, and therefore moral knowledge is not self-evident.
Q: G.K. Chesterton and many other commentators have said that the American Declaration of Independence is a very Catholic document. Why would they make such a claim when all but one of the signatories were Protestants?
Lee: I believe Chesterton was referring to the presumption of equal dignity that he saw in the declaration and in the ethos of the American democracy. Equal dignity is part and parcel of the distinctly Catholic reading of Genesis that I referred to earlier.
Because Catholics affirm that the dignity of human beings is intrinsic and therefore independent of variable traits, it is equal among all persons.
Catholics affirm that human beings have an intrinsic dignity that is not contingent or alienable, that all human beings share equal dignity in the "imago Dei." That's a distinctively Catholic view.
It is not found in Locke, for example, who related human dignity to the contingencies of consciousness. I think that's what Chesterton had in mind.
Q: You argue that Pope John Paul II left an important legacy for those seeking to explore what the Catholic intellectual tradition may offer modern legal systems. Can you elaborate?
Lee: John Paul II was one of the greatest Christian thinkers of the last century.
His thought offers a unique Catholic approach to modernity. His philosophical project sought to be a modern science of human experience.
But, his work is also fully theological. For him, the point of philosophy is to live with divine wisdom. He offers a rich theological anthropology for thinking through difficult questions about matters such as the nature of moral value, the experience of moral meaning, and the scope of human agency and responsibility.
His work strikes out against the modes of human self-creation that are common in scientific and technological thinking. His insights into moral experience, human dignity, freedom, philosophy and wisdom are all hallmarks of the depth and substance of his thought.
I think we are only beginning to understand his importance both as Pope and as scholar. His legacy will continue to grow for a long time to come.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Kevin Lee on the Church and Legal Culture
Thursday, August 23, 2007
The need for dialectic
Couldn't it be said that one of the weakness of the neo-scholastic manuals is that first principles were usually not defended through dialectic, but merely asserted? Moreover, dialectic is very difficult to capture in writing, but is best done through conversation between the teacher and the student?
If that is the case, then could manuals be used, so long as they are supplemented by the use of dialectic in the classroom?
For another time: can the Summa Theologiae be said to be a manual and not only that, share in the weaknesses of the manualist "tradition"?
If that is the case, then could manuals be used, so long as they are supplemented by the use of dialectic in the classroom?
For another time: can the Summa Theologiae be said to be a manual and not only that, share in the weaknesses of the manualist "tradition"?
More fuzziness on capital punishment
From Michael Joseph at Vox Nova:
On August 21st, the Agenzia Fides of the Pontifical Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples issued a 13-page dossier on the death penalty.
No discussion of the common opinion of theologians or of traditional teaching on the licitness of capital punishment. The only authority cited? That of Pope John Paul II. And so again, the contemporary problem of understanding the different weights to be given to statements given by members of the Magisterium, even by those professing to be orthodox.
On August 21st, the Agenzia Fides of the Pontifical Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples issued a 13-page dossier on the death penalty.
No discussion of the common opinion of theologians or of traditional teaching on the licitness of capital punishment. The only authority cited? That of Pope John Paul II. And so again, the contemporary problem of understanding the different weights to be given to statements given by members of the Magisterium, even by those professing to be orthodox.
Papal Message to Interreligious Meeting
Papal Message to Interreligious Meeting
"Peace Is Both a Gift From God and an Obligation"
VATICAN CITY, AUG. 21, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Here is a Vatican translation of Benedict XVI's statement to Kahjun Handa on the 20th anniversary of the religious summit meeting on Mount Hiei.
Mount Hiei, in Japan, is home to the headquarters of the Tendai sect of Buddhism.
* * *
To Venerable KAHJUN HANDA
I am glad to greet you and all the religious leaders gathered on the occasion of the Twentieth Anniversary of the Religious Summit Meeting on Mount Hiei. I wish also to convey my best wishes to Venerable Eshin Watanabe, and to recall your distinguished predecessor as Supreme Head of the Tendai Buddhist Denomination, Venerable Etai Yamada. It was he who, having participated in the Day of Prayer for Peace in Assisi on that memorable day of 27 October 1986, initiated the "Religious Summit Meeting" on Mount Hiei in Kyoto in order to keep the flame of the spirit of Assisi burning. I am also happy that Cardinal Paul Poupard, President of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, is able to take part in this meeting.
From the supernatural perspective we come to understand that peace is both a gift from God and an obligation for every individual. Indeed the world’s cry for peace, echoed by families and communities throughout the globe, is at once both a prayer to God and an appeal to every brother and sister of our human family. As you assemble on the sacred Mount Hiei, representing different religions, I assure you of my spiritual closeness. May your prayers and cooperation fill you with God’s peace and strengthen your resolve to witness to the reason of peace which overcomes the irrationality of violence!
Upon you all I invoke an abundance of divine blessings of inspiration, harmony and joy.
From the Vatican, 23 June 2007
BENEDICTUS PP. XVI
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Keynote Address From Cardinal Bertone
Keynote Address From Cardinal Bertone
"Role of the Lay Faithful"
NASHVILLE, Tennessee, AUG. 18, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Here is the text of Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone's Aug. 8 keynote address at the annual convention of the Knights of Columbus.
The text is provided by the Knights of Columbus.
* * *
Celebrating 125 years of Faith in Action: Witnessing to the 'Yes' of Jesus Christ
Address of His Eminence Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone, S.D.B.
Secretary of State of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI
August 8, 2007
Knights of Columbus 125th Supreme Convention
First of all, allow me once again to express my sincere gratitude to Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson and fellow Knights for the invitation to visit Nashville for this historic 125th Supreme Convention of the Knights of Columbus. I am honored by the opportunity to address all of you this evening on a topic as dear to me as it is to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI: "Faith in Action: Witnessing to the 'Yes' of Jesus Christ."
This evening, I will reflect on the importance of this "Yes" for the Church's lay faithful. I will indicate some of the primary characteristics of the lay vocation within the Church and in society at large, and I will point to a few particular challenges facing the laity today.
Both in his work as a theologian and now in his ministry as the successor of Peter, His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI has repeatedly drawn attention to the distinctive and irreplaceable role of the laity in the renewal of the Church's mission in the modern world. At 78 years of age, Pope Benedict said "Yes" to his brother cardinals, to the Church, and to the Holy Spirit when he was asked to accept the Petrine ministry after the long and remarkable reign of the Servant of God, Pope John Paul II. The Holy Father's willingness to assume pastoral duties as Chief Shepherd of the universal Church bore witness to the fundamental attitude required of every Christian -- Pope, Bishop, priest, consecrated, or lay person; it is the disposition exemplified in our Lady's humble but sure response to the Lord's heavenly messenger in Nazareth: "Fiat!" -- "Yes!"
The "Yes!" of Faith in Jesus Christ
But what exactly is the essence of this "Yes"? More specifically, how is one to live it out as a member of the laity?
In regard to the first question, this "Yes" is quite simply the "Yes" of faith. It is our full, unmitigated acceptance of Jesus as Lord and our commitment to follow him as master and teacher. Indeed, the word "Yes" only makes sense within the context of a dialog between two persons: someone who utters the "Yes" and someone who accepts it. In the case of faith, the person to whom we utter this "Yes" is none other than the Son of God, the Anointed One, the Eternal Word made flesh. Pope Benedict has emphasized the critical need for each of us to encounter Jesus; more importantly, he has shown and continues to show -- both in his words and through his life -- that true fulfilment, joy, and lasting peace can only be found by saying "Yes" to God's plan of salvation as revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. Only in intimate communication with the incarnate Son of God do we discover the grace to "put our faith into action."
Your founder Father Michael McGivney was prophetic -- indeed, well ahead of his time -- in that he clearly understood that this complete and total "Yes" to Christ was in no way exclusive to those who received holy orders or had taken religious vows. On the contrary, it is a "Yes" required of every man and every woman.
As a young curate at Saint Mary's Church in New Haven, Father McGivney became keenly aware of the laity's need to be actively and fully engaged in the life of the Church by exercising virtue, cultivating prayer, and caring for others. He had a deep appreciation for the special characteristics of the lay vocation as being thoroughly immersed in the spheres of the family, civil society, and public life. He made it his goal to develop practical ways of ensuring that faith could be put into concrete action: especially by providing for the material needs of orphans, widows, the imprisoned, alcoholics, the unemployed, and the destitute.
However, it is sometimes easy to forget that Father McGivney's conviction was based on an even more fundamental insight: namely, that our concern for the needy and our perseverance in charitable works will eventually become attenuated and deprived of their deeper meaning if they are not rooted in faith -- faith understood as the indwelling of Holy Trinity in our hearts through divine grace as we renew our "Yes" each day to the person of Jesus Christ.
Faith and Love
This is precisely the message Pope Benedict XVI conveys through his Encyclical Letter Deus Caritas Est. When asked why he devoted his first Encyclical to the theme of love, he replied that he wished to manifest the humanity of the faith. Only by living the life of faith -- that is, only by deeply immersing ourselves in the love and mercy of God as revealed in Jesus Christ -- are we able to love and forgive our neighbor as ourselves. When it comes to living this faith in the midst of an increasingly complex and contradictory world, no one knows more about the obstacles and challenges that can so easily discourage us than the Church's laity. Whether in family life, in the workplace, or in the public square, lay persons are continually tempted to compromise their "Yes" to God by diluting Gospel values and by placing limits or conditions on love of neighbor.
The Holy Father underlined the unique challenges posed by the contemporary world to the lay vocation during his Pastoral Visit to Brazil. Noting that America is a "continent of baptized Christians," he asserted that "it is time to overcome the notable absence -- in the political sphere, in the world of the media and in the universities -- of the voices and initiatives of Catholic leaders with strong personalities and generous dedication, who are coherent in their ethical and religious convictions." The Pope insisted strongly that it is necessary for Christians who are active in these social and cultural milieus to strive to safeguard ethical values. Above all, he said, "Where God is absent -- God with the human face of Jesus Christ -- these values fail to show themselves with their full force, nor does a consensus arise concerning them. I do not mean that non-believers cannot live a lofty and exemplary morality; I am only saying that a society in which God is absent will not find the necessary consensus on moral values or the strength to live according to the model of these values, even when they are in conflict with private interests."[1] In short, being a Catholic in the world today takes courage; yet it takes no more courage than it did when Jesus called his first disciples in Galilee.
The role of the lay faithful: Vatican II and Benedict XVI
The Holy Father frames his teaching on the role of the laity within the context of the Second Vatican Council, and interweaves it in an unbroken line with the teaching of Pope John Paul II. The guiding principle is always the same: namely the "universal call to holiness."[2]
"It is quite clear," the Council fathers teach us, "that all Christians in whatever state or walk of life are called to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of charity."[3] Insofar as it is a call to holiness, the call to the lay state is no less a "vocation" than that of the priesthood or religious life. It has its own distinctive nature, which is absolutely essential to the healthy, overall functioning of the Body of Christ, the Church.[4] Lumen Gentium explains: "It is the special vocation of the laity to seek the Kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and directing them according to God's will."[5]
Clearly, if lay persons are to "carry out" and "develop" temporal matters according to "Christ's way,"[6] they must first know Christ. They must take seriously Saint Paul's exhortation to have "the mind of Christ."[7] This vision of the Church as proposed by Saint Paul and elaborated by the Second Vatican Council demands not only our active engagement with the world, but primarily our active engagement with the person of Jesus. Otherwise, we can easily fall into the trap of confusing the way of Christ with the ways of the world.[8]
Through Christ's passion, death, resurrection and ascension, he has renewed the face of the earth; but -- as is evident in the words he speaks in the Gospel of Saint John -- the "world" still "has not known" Christ, and in fact often "hates" Christ.[9] It is no surprise then that Christians often encounter resistance, opposition, and even persecution in the world. Pope Benedict reminds us that the only possible response for a Christian in the face of rejection is love -- a response made possible for us through the grace of Christ. Because God's very existence is love,[10] love is the very essence of the Christian life.[11] The universal call to holiness is about patiently, deliberately, and "programmatically" sharing this love with the world.[12] It is for this reason that the metaphor of "leaven" -- used by our Lord and adopted at the Second Vatican Council[13] -- so aptly describes the concrete reality of living as a Christian in this world: the work of Christians is often hidden, but nonetheless steady and consistent, causing the entire dough to rise.
"The Church sets out with humility on her journey, between the sorrows of this world and the glory of the Lord. On this journey, we will need to grow in patience." Nevertheless, as the Holy Father noted, "the Catholic Church grows in every century. Today too, the presence of the Crucified and Risen Lord is growing. He still has his wounds, yet it is precisely through his wounds that he renews the world, giving that breath which also renews the Church despite our poverty…In this combination of the humility of the Cross and the joy of the Risen Lord…we can go ahead joyfully, filled with hope."[14]
Enthusiasm and boldness, filled with hope, have always been characteristic of the Knights of Columbus, and this will no doubt remain at the heart of their apostolate in the future.
Cooperation in the Church: A Challenge and an Opportunity
I would like to pause for a moment to reflect on this point. Our integral and persuasive witness to the truth of the Gospel depends heavily on the ability of Bishops, priests, deacons, religious and laity to work together for the spread of God's Kingdom by acknowledging the distinctive role of each vocation within the Body of Christ. For the Knights of Columbus, perhaps this is most clearly evident at the parish level. How wonderful it is to behold the pastor, the local council of Knights, and the rest of the parish mutually supporting one another as they each exercise their unique forms of service for the building up of the local community!
During your time together at this 125th Supreme Convention, I would invite you to encourage and inspire one another by sharing experiences and ideas of how to facilitate effective cooperation between yourselves, your Bishops, your pastors, members of the parish staff, and the civic communities in which you live and work. If your local community is suffering from the wounds of division, be they large or small, take the opportunity to deepen your cohesion, since when this is lacking in a parish family or a local Church, the ability to witness to Christ in the larger society is weakened. At such times, prayer and faith are all the more essential to bring about healing and reconciliation. Pope Benedict writes: "the Spirit is…the energy which transforms the heart of the ecclesial community, so that it becomes a witness before the world to the love of the Father, who wishes to make humanity a single family in his Son."[15]
Benedict XVI's Pauline Vision of the Church
On June 28th -- the eve of the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul -- Pope Benedict announced the opening of a special Jubilee year commemorating the bimillenary of Saint Paul's birth. Over the next year, the Church will reflect on the life and writings of this great "Apostle to the Gentiles."[16]
In fact, the vivid images Paul uses to describe the Church -- both at the local and universal level -- have always been very dear to His Holiness. He employs them often in more informal discussions with clergy and laity.
For example, in responding to a question addressed to him during an audience with members of the clergy of the Diocese of Rome, the Holy Father recently said: "The Church, though a body, is the body of Christ and therefore a spiritual body, as Saint Paul teaches. This seems extremely important to me: that people will be able to see the Church not as a super-national organization, not as an administrative body or means for power and domination, not as a social agency -- even though she carries out a social and 'supra-national' mission -- but rather as a spiritual body.[17]
Pope Benedict is not only a man of deep theological wisdom; he also brings to the Petrine ministry extensive pastoral experience. He has no illusions about the serious challenges confronting local ecclesial communities today.
One such challenge is the tendency to focus too narrowly on the administrative, bureaucratic, and financial aspects of parish and diocesan life. Not that these are unimportant -- on the contrary! However, we end up viewing worldly realities through a distorted lens if we fail to see them with the eyes of Christ. We can only be prudent stewards of worldly goods if we freely subject them to the good of eternal life.
Every concrete method and strategy taught and promoted by Father McGivney in the public square was aimed at the good of the human person destined for eternal life. Father McGivney's legacy lives on today in the Knights' continuing effort to keep themselves -- and others -- informed about complex issues regarding human life, justice, freedom, and the common good.
Friendship and Joy: The Key to Understanding Pope Benedict XVI
Finally, I must say a word about two recurring themes in Pope Benedict's teaching which are absolutely essential for the "animation" of "the entire lives of the lay faithful": friendship and joy. These, I believe, are the keys for grasping Pope Benedict's thought on what it means to translate faith into action.
The words "friendship" and "joy" echo continuously throughout his preaching, especially when he addresses himself to young people as they prepare to gather for the 2008 World Youth Day in Sydney. According to Pope Benedict, "friendship" and "joy" have God as their primary reference. The Holy Father never tires of reminding us that God is near, that he is our friend, and that he is constantly speaking to us about the most essential things in life. He accompanies us on our journey through this life, in our joys and sorrows, and -- as a Good Shepherd who cares only for his flock -- he never abandons us.
At the 2005 World Youth Day in Cologne, His Holiness said this to the young people present: "A true revolution can take place only by radically turning to God without reserve; he alone is the measure of all that is just, while at the same time existing as love eternal. And what could possibly save us if not love?"
Love is the source of the Holy Father's inspiration in all that he undertakes, and especially in his commitment to dialogue. He has spoken with countless lay persons, listening attentively to their practical ways of reasoning. He truly follows the agenda he set for himself at the beginning of his pontificate: "My true program for governing the Church is not to carry out my own will or pursue my own ideas, but to place myself together with the entire Church in listening to the Word of the Lord, discerning his will, and allowing myself be led by him, because he alone will guide the Church through this phase of history."[18]
The Holy Father always teaches with clarity and precision, and with a spirit of humility and encouragement. He wants everyone to understand how beautiful and fulfilling it is to be a Christian, to experience a personal, living encounter with a life-changing "event," to meet the One who opens a whole new horizon and gives life a new, decisive direction. It is precisely for this reason that even the commandments are never too burdensome for us if we are abiding with Christ.
In his first public interview after having been elected Pope, the Holy Father summarized his deepest wish, both for young people and for the entire world:
"I want them to understand that it is beautiful to be a Christian! The generally prevailing idea is that Christians have to observe an immense number of commandments, prohibitions, precepts, and other such restrictions, so that Christianity is a heavy and oppressive way of living, and it would therefore be more liberating to live without all these burdens. But I would like to make it clear that to be sustained by this great Love and God's sublime revelation is not a burden, but rather a set of wings -- that it is truly beautiful to be a Christian. It is an experience that gives us room to breathe and move, but most of all, it places us within a community since, as Christians, we are never alone: first of all, there is God, who is always with us; secondly, we are always forming a great community among ourselves: a community of people together on a journey, a community with a project for the future. All of this means that we are empowered to live a life worth living. This is the joy of being a Christian; that it is beautiful and right to believe!"[19]
Indeed, how beautiful it is to believe, for to believe is to say "Yes" to Christ; and to say "Yes" to Christ is to bear witness to our faith in action. My dear Knights of Columbus, may you always remain men firmly committed to this "Yes" -- "Yes" to your families, to your Church, and to your communities -- but most importantly, to Christ who is the "Yes" to all our hopes and desires. God bless you all.
--- --- ---
[1] Papal Address at the Inaugural Session of the Fifth General Conference of the Bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean (Sunday, 13 May 2007).
[2] Lumen Gentium, 39.
[3] Lumen Gentium, 40; Cf. Romans 8:28-30.
[4] Cf. Romans 12:4-5
[5] Lumen Gentium, 31.
[6] Ibid.
[7] 1 Cor. 2:16. Cf. Phil. 4:7.
[8] Matthew 7:13-14. Cf. Deut. 30:15-20; Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1696.
[9] Cf. John 15:18; 1 John 3:13; Matthew 10:22 and 24:9.
[10] 1 John 4:8.
[11] John 13:34-35; 1 Cor. 13:13.
[12] Cf. Deus Caritas Est, 31.
[13] Luke 13:20-21; Lumen Gentium, 31. Cf. Matthew 13:33; Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2832.
[14] Cf. The Holy Father's Address to the Clergy of Belluno-Feltre and Treviso at Auronzo di Cadore (Wednesday 25 July 2007).
[15] Deus Caritas Est, 19.
[16] See Pope Benedict XVI's Homily for the Celebration of First Vespers of the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul given at the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside-the-Walls (28 June 2007).
[17] Response to a question addressed to Pope Benedict XVI during an audience with the priests of the Diocese of Rome (22 February 2007).
[18] Homily (24 April 2005).
[19] Interview with E. von Gemmingen, the head of the German section of Vatican Radio (15 August 2005).
Thursday, August 16, 2007
2 items from Thomistica.net
Resources for Modern Aristotelians (missing at the moment)
edit: post now works; website: Resources for Modern Aristotelians: Philosophical, Theological, Socio-Political and Pastoral
Check out: “How Simon Trumps Cajetan on Analogy.” In only 3 pages, this shows why the value of Simon’s crucial contribution to analogy does NOT depend on the Cajetanian framework he employed. Click on “Contributions to Modern Aristotelian Philosophy.”
How to help out John of St. Thomas
Possible republication of Cursus Philosophicus.
edit: post now works; website: Resources for Modern Aristotelians: Philosophical, Theological, Socio-Political and Pastoral
Check out: “How Simon Trumps Cajetan on Analogy.” In only 3 pages, this shows why the value of Simon’s crucial contribution to analogy does NOT depend on the Cajetanian framework he employed. Click on “Contributions to Modern Aristotelian Philosophy.”
How to help out John of St. Thomas
Possible republication of Cursus Philosophicus.
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
John Randolph of Roanoke
18th Annual Meeting of the John Randolph Club
Invitation by Dr. Fleming
RANDOLPH, John (1773-1833) Bibliography
John Randolph
John Randolph of Roanoke - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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 | | John Randolph of Roanoke |
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| A Study in American Politics Fourth Edition By Russell Kirk Table of Contents 6 x 9. 594 pages. Prefatory note, appendixes, Randolph chronology, select bibliography, index. |
The Embargo of 1807:
Jefferson, Madison, Gallatin, Randolph, and the Wreck of Republican Ideology
by Lo Faber
Skidmore College :: University Without Walls
Final Project, March 2006
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Jim Kalb on liberalism
Liberalism and Deceit, via Stony Creek Digest
I started reading Christopher Wolfe's Natural Law Liberalism; perhaps I will attempt a book review after I've finished.
I started reading Christopher Wolfe's Natural Law Liberalism; perhaps I will attempt a book review after I've finished.
Conclave: Tradition Makes a Comeback
Conclave: Tradition Makes a Comeback
Benedict XVI has restored the ancient rule of the two-thirds majority vote, which John Paul II had breached for the first time in centuries. The progressives are applauding. And a great canonist, Ladislas Örsy, explains why
Benedict XVI has restored the ancient rule of the two-thirds majority vote, which John Paul II had breached for the first time in centuries. The progressives are applauding. And a great canonist, Ladislas Örsy, explains why
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Boston Colloquy in Historical Theology
Boston Colloquy in Historical Theology
August 3 & 4, 2007
21 Campanella Way, Room 328
Boston College
Friday, August 3
I. 9:00-10:30: Paul LaChance, College of St. Elizabeth
“Analogical Predication of Transcendentals in Boethius”
Respondent: Eileen Sweeney Boston College
II. 10:45-12:15: Gregory LaNave, Dominican House of Studies
“Knowing God Through and in All Things: A Suggestion for Reading the Itinerarium mentis in Deum”
Respondent: Garth Green, Boston University
III. 1:15-2:45: Kevin L. Hughes, Villanova University
“The Scriptural Center of Bonaventure”
Respondent: Boyd Taylor Coolman, Boston College
IV. 3:00-4:30: Ian Levy, Lexington Theological Seminary
“Questions of Scripture and Tradition in the Late Middle Ages”
Respondent: Dale Coulter, Regent University
V. 4:45-5:45: Dennis Martin, Loyola University (Chicago)
“Tractate Writing beyond the University: Cloistered Public Intellectuals in the Mid-Fifteenth Century”
Respondent: Kent Emery, University of Notre Dame
Dinner: Boston Room, 6:30-8:30
Saturday, August 4
I. 9:00-10:30: Paul Gavrilyuk, Harvard University
“The Theology of Pseudo-Dionysius in Modern Eastern Orthodox Scholarship: A
Reappraisal”
Respondent: Warren Smith, Duke Divinity School
II. 10:45-12:15: Sandra Keating, Providence College
“Refuting the Charge of Tahrif: Abu Ra'itah (d. ca. 835 CE) and His First Risala on the Holy Trinity”
Respondent: TBA
III. 1:15-2:45: Paul Gondreau, Providence College
“The Passions and the Moral Life in Thomas Aquinas”
Respondent: Steve Brown, Boston College
IV. 3:00-4:30: Bruce Marshall, Southern Methodist University
“Christ and Israel in the Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas”
Respondent: Holly Taylor Coolman, Boston College
Roundtable Discussion: “What is Historical Theology?”
Alas I won't be able to attend since I am here in California for my sister's wedding. I had exchanged some messages with Dr. Martin over at Pontifications; it would have been nice to meet him in person. It'd be good to pick his brain about the 14th and 15th centuries, the intellectual environment both in the universities and the monasteries on the eve of the Protestant Revolt. He has also edited a book on Carthusian spirituality, and written another on 15th century Carthusian reform.
August 3 & 4, 2007
21 Campanella Way, Room 328
Boston College
Friday, August 3
I. 9:00-10:30: Paul LaChance, College of St. Elizabeth
“Analogical Predication of Transcendentals in Boethius”
Respondent: Eileen Sweeney Boston College
II. 10:45-12:15: Gregory LaNave, Dominican House of Studies
“Knowing God Through and in All Things: A Suggestion for Reading the Itinerarium mentis in Deum”
Respondent: Garth Green, Boston University
III. 1:15-2:45: Kevin L. Hughes, Villanova University
“The Scriptural Center of Bonaventure”
Respondent: Boyd Taylor Coolman, Boston College
IV. 3:00-4:30: Ian Levy, Lexington Theological Seminary
“Questions of Scripture and Tradition in the Late Middle Ages”
Respondent: Dale Coulter, Regent University
V. 4:45-5:45: Dennis Martin, Loyola University (Chicago)
“Tractate Writing beyond the University: Cloistered Public Intellectuals in the Mid-Fifteenth Century”
Respondent: Kent Emery, University of Notre Dame
Dinner: Boston Room, 6:30-8:30
Saturday, August 4
I. 9:00-10:30: Paul Gavrilyuk, Harvard University
“The Theology of Pseudo-Dionysius in Modern Eastern Orthodox Scholarship: A
Reappraisal”
Respondent: Warren Smith, Duke Divinity School
II. 10:45-12:15: Sandra Keating, Providence College
“Refuting the Charge of Tahrif: Abu Ra'itah (d. ca. 835 CE) and His First Risala on the Holy Trinity”
Respondent: TBA
III. 1:15-2:45: Paul Gondreau, Providence College
“The Passions and the Moral Life in Thomas Aquinas”
Respondent: Steve Brown, Boston College
IV. 3:00-4:30: Bruce Marshall, Southern Methodist University
“Christ and Israel in the Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas”
Respondent: Holly Taylor Coolman, Boston College
Roundtable Discussion: “What is Historical Theology?”
Alas I won't be able to attend since I am here in California for my sister's wedding. I had exchanged some messages with Dr. Martin over at Pontifications; it would have been nice to meet him in person. It'd be good to pick his brain about the 14th and 15th centuries, the intellectual environment both in the universities and the monasteries on the eve of the Protestant Revolt. He has also edited a book on Carthusian spirituality, and written another on 15th century Carthusian reform.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Scientists breed world’s first mentally ill mouse
Via Drudge:
Links:
Online Video: Mice, Men and Mental illness; Animal Models of Human ...
Of mice and mental illness - Nature Neuroscience
Of mice and mental illness
Mental Illness and Genetic Research - Page 2
BBC NEWS Health 'Fear gene' could unlock mental illness
Animal Aid
From The Sunday Times
July 29, 2007
Scientists breed world’s first mentally ill mouse
Jonathan Leake Science Editor
SCIENTISTS have created the world’s first schizophrenic mice in an attempt to gain a better understanding of the illness.
It is believed to be the first time an animal has been genetically engineered to have a mental illness. Until now they have been bred only for research into physical conditions such as heart disease. It will allow researchers to study the disease and develop treatments using a limitless supply of laboratory animals.
Animal rights campaigners have condemned the research, saying that it is morally repugnant to create an animal doomed to mental suffering.
The mice were created by modifying their DNA to mimic a mutant gene first found in a Scottish family with a high incidence of schizophrenia, which affects about one in every 100 people. The mice’s brains were found to have features similar to those of humans with schizophrenia, such as depression and hyperactivity.
“These mutant mice may provide an important new tool for further study of the combinations of factors that underlie mental illnesses like schizophrenia and mood disorders,” said Takatoshi Hikida, of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, a leading researcher.
The egg cells of mice were genetically modified by inserting a gene associated with schizophrenia into their DNA. The eggs were fertilised and grown into viable baby mice using surrogate mothers.
Animal Aid, a campaign group, said rodents were not a reliable way of modelling human disease.
Links:
Online Video: Mice, Men and Mental illness; Animal Models of Human ...
Of mice and mental illness - Nature Neuroscience
Of mice and mental illness
Mental Illness and Genetic Research - Page 2
BBC NEWS Health 'Fear gene' could unlock mental illness
Animal Aid
The Papers of John C. Calhoun
edited by Dr. Clyde Wilson
I would like to read this volume:
I would like to read this volume:
VOLUME XXVIII
A Disquisition on Government and A Discourse on the Constitution and Government of the United States
Edited by Clyde N. Wilson and Shirley B. Cook
The Papers of John C. Calhoun, Volume XXVIII is the final volume in a distinguished documentary edition, the first volume of which was published more than fifty years ago. While identical to others in the series in terms of typeface, binding, and letterpress printing, this volume does not contain any of John C. Calhoun's personal papers, rather it features Calhoun's only formal, scholarly writings on political science and political philosophy.
"A Disquisition on Government" is an examination of the first principles of political science, much in the model of Aristotle's Politics or Baron Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws. It examines basic principles of politics, including concepts of sovereignty and personal liberty and the relationships between states and nations.
"A Discourse on the Constitution and Government of the United States" is a focused study of American political thought and constitutional history since the ratification of the Constitution. It pays particular attention to antifederalist views of the Constitution, the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of the 1790s, and the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution. Comparable to the Federalist, Calhoun's "Discourse" articulates a southern-based, states' rights interpretation of the Constitution and examines the course of American political history from the viewpoint of the southern statesman.
Calhoun began writing the essays around 1845. His "Disquisition" was near final form at the time of his death, but the "Discourse" was still an unpolished draft. A year after Calhoun's death in 1850, Richard Kenner Crallé, a former secretary in the Department of State and a friend of Calhoun's, was entrusted by the Calhoun heirs to edit the essays for publication. Since the Crallé edition, it has been assumed that the two essays were separate works. However, as the Calhoun Papers staff prepared the concluding volume of letters, speeches, and remarks, they discovered evidence that Calhoun had intended the two essays to be a single, unified work of political theory and a critical examination of America's remarkable experiment in republican government. Whether published separately or together, these essays are among the classical texts of American political thought.
(2003) 6 x 9, 254 pages, cloth, ISBN 1-57003-502-4, $59.95s
Order the Book
Ryan T. Anderson reviews Natural Law Liberalism
Printed in the April 16, 2007 issue of National Review
About Rights
RYAN T. ANDERSON
Pick your fight: the “clash of civilizations” between Islam and the West, or the “clash of orthodoxies” between secular liberals and religious believers. To read much these days is to be assured that never has the world been more divided, or our nation so polarized.
Central to Western political liberalism is the notion that disagreement can be resolved through common deliberation — and that representative constitutional democracy is the best institution for such deliberation. This makes us think that any kind of clash can be solved through rational discussion of the truths we share. At the same time, however, our modern system is founded on skepticism about the ability of people and their governments to define and enforce a universal vision of the good life. This makes us think that there aren’t any real truths to be shared.
It is in response to such worries that Christopher Wolfe has written his new book, Natural Law Liberalism. Wolfe is a Marquette University political scientist who focused his early work on constitutional interpretation and judicial activism. He founded the American Public Philosophy Institute to support the efforts of such thinkers as Robert P. George, Russell Hittinger, and Hadley Arkes, who have been working to rearticulate the natural-law foundations of political life. Natural Law Liberalism is Wolfe’s contribution to the effort.
By liberalism, Wolfe means the whole range of modern political thought, from the early Enlightenment through the American Founding — the philosophical theory of government that emphasizes human equality, personal liberty, individual rights, participatory government, and the rule of law. And natural law, as Wolfe conceives it, is the long Western tradition of reflection on the nature of human flourishing and the rational principles that can guide human action and choice. His thesis is simple: If political liberalism is to justify itself at home and abroad, it must return to the classical tradition of Western thought and embrace natural-law theory as the account of its foundations.
The book’s argument has three parts. Wolfe begins by exposing the weaknesses of modern theories grounded in skepticism about the good life or in personal autonomy. Then he traces the historical development of liberalism and natural-law theory, showing how these traditions are compatible and mutually reinforcing. He ends with a brief sketch of natural-law liberalism, concluding that liberals should “ground their liberalism in natural-law philosophy,” while “natural lawyers should be liberals.”
Wolfe aims his criticism at several contemporary liberal theorists: John Rawls, Stephen Macedo, Amy Gutmann, Ronald Dworkin, and Joseph Raz. Some of these thinkers argue that there are purely political values that justify liberal democracy. These can be shared by all citizens, whatever their distinctive views about the good life, and the state must remain neutral between more comprehensive competing theories of human flourishing.
The other liberal theorists are — like natural-law thinkers — willing to ground political liberalism in direct appeals to the nature of human flourishing, but they define that flourishing in terms of autonomy and self-determination. Accordingly, they believe that the role of government is to secure the conditions for people to choose whatever they consider good. Think of the Supreme Court’s infamous 1992 “mystery” passage in Planned Parenthood v. Casey: “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”
Wolfe contends that both of these approaches fail. He argues, for instance, that liberal professions of neutrality smuggle in question-begging assumptions that favor left-wing policy on contested moral issues — in other words, “neutrality liberalism” loads the dice by covertly appealing to the liberals’ own preferred conceptions of public reason, and therefore of human nature. In such questions as, e.g., the value of unborn human life or the public recognition of same-sex unions, the appeal to political neutrality results in an affirmation of the partisan liberal view.
But perhaps most damning is Wolfe’s demonstration that none of these theorists could persuade an outsider to embrace Western classical liberalism. They cannot provide a defense of liberal ideals, institutions, or procedures that would be satisfactory to someone who didn’t already accept them. Contemporary liberals propound rules of engagement and procedures for preserving reciprocity, fairness, and “full and equal citizenship” without ever defending the value of these principles in the first place. Who besides committed liberals will find this convincing? How will this convert someone on the other side of the “clash of civilizations” to become a political liberal? And how do these theories provide a framework for settling the issues at stake in the “clash of orthodoxies”?
This is where Wolfe believes a liberalism grounded in the natural law can make significant contributions. He identifies the centrality of human reason and its ability to know the truth as foundational principles for natural-law philosophy. The objectivity of justice and value is grounded in the intellect’s ability to perceive the goods of human nature as reasons for action that direct one toward real fulfillment. It is within this framework that liberalism’s core principles are most compelling.
Political equality, for example, is most securely based on the natural-law understanding of human beings as free and rational. Despite variations of skill and strength, our basic capacity to act on reasons is the foundation for treating all humans with equal respect. There are no natural superiors or inferiors, there is no ruling class or ruled class — it is because citizens can grasp reasons for action and constitute themselves by free choice that justice requires the consent and participation of the governed.
Natural-law philosophy also provides a foundation for human rights, when rights are understood as protecting basic human well-being. So, for example, the right to speech is best understood as protecting the goods enabled by honest communication — goods such as knowledge, friendship, and health. This conception of rights also provides the framework for determining which forms of speech truly fall within the protections of the right: Deceptive speech and hate speech, for example, serve no goods and thus don’t deserve protection (though prudence may demand that we limit the power of government to suppress even these types of speech). Indeed, the natural-law tradition supports strong government in order to provide the necessary conditions for flourishing — while also demanding limited government to respect the primacy of individuals and their communities in determining themselves.
Besides offering stronger foundations for liberalism, natural law provides important correctives to modern thought. Most important, Wolfe believes, is a proper understanding of the state’s role in shaping citizens’ lives: Modern liberal claims notwithstanding, the polis inevitably teaches and forms the character of its citizens. Given that the goods of human nature are rationally knowable, the state should do what it can, in a limited and subsidiary fashion, to promote its citizens’ flourishing. Other natural-law correctives to bad modern theories include the importance of religion as an aspect of human well-being and the role of the family as the pre-political society that gives rise to political community.
Natural Law Liberalism is a scholarly discussion of intricate philosophical theories of government — not quite for the casual reader. As for specialists in the field, they are likely to find the book dated. Its first half comprises articles published during the 1990s. (Did we really need another critique of Rawls’s now well-known shortcomings?) The second half of the book is a general overview of liberalism and natural law, adding little to the work of John Finnis’s Natural Law and Natural Rights (1980) and Robert P. George’s Making Men Moral (1993).
The book will, however, make a good introduction for students of political philosophy who are unsatisfied with mainstream liberalism’s responses to the clashes of our time — and who wish to explore alternative conceptions more solidly founded on reason and human flourishing.
Mr. Anderson is a junior fellow at First Things. He is also the assistant director of the Program on Bioethics and Human Dignity at the Witherspoon Institute of Princeton, N.J.
Environmental movement and Natural Law
John Allen's latest column: For Benedict, environmental movement promises recovery of natural law tradition
Exactly, because by the Natural Law we are commanded to love ourselves and to love the community, and to aim for the good of the community, which includes its survival. A community can only exploit the earth and degrade the environment so long, before it jeopardizes its own survival. If one wants to say that out of their own self-interest political communities should be aiming at sustainability and living in harmony with the local ecology, while transforming it in ways both beneficial to man and to the other organisms living there, he can do so. (This is the kind of stewardship advocated by Wendell Berry, Wes Jackson, and Brian Goodwin.) I would just say that this is reasonable, and that exploitation is disordered.
An appeal to tradition? Again, I wonder if Mr. Allen is not simplifying what the pope said. As Fr. Pinckaers writes, freedom is ordered to excellence, or to virtue (and to authentic goods).
Not quite, Mr. Allen. One can discover certain precepts of the Natural Law, without having to develop an account of the Natural Law at the same time. Natural Law without reference to the Creator is incomplete. One can frame such precepts in a way that still affirms the primacy of human beings in the created material order, without the excesses of certain members of the environmental movement (Gaia hypothesis, misandry, etc.). Such primacy does not negate man's responsibility to be a good steward.
Transcript of that talk with the priests (in Italian).
From Ignatius Press:
On Conscience by Joseph Ratzinger
Pope Benedict XVI: The Conscience of Our Age by Vincent Twomey
The first question had to do with the formation of conscience, and Benedict replied with his now-familiar diagnosis of the cultural situation in the West. By truncating the sphere of reason to only those things which can be empirically verified or falsified, the pope said, spirituality and morality have been "expelled" from rationality, consigned to a merely subjective sphere, understood as a matter of individual taste and judgment.I wonder if this is Mr. Allen's own interpolation. Joseph Ratzinger has an essay in Crisis of Conscience (ed. John Haas)--I don't know if this is included in IP's On Conscience (link given below). [To be honest I found that essay to be a little bit lacking in precision, especially when compared with the essay written by Ralph McInerny in the same book.] The transcript of the Q&A session between the pope and the priests of the diocese of Belluno, Feltre, and Treviso is in Italian, and the language is a bit daunting. My suspicion is that the Holy Father does not explain the relationship between natural law and conscience in this way.
In response, Benedict proposed a two-pronged strategy, one being the path of religious faith, the other being what he called "a secular path." By that, Benedict appeared to mean natural law, the idea that nature itself carries a moral message that can be deciphered utilizing the faculty of conscience, even by those who aren't Christian or who aren't religious at all.
In the pope's mind, this seems to be where environmentalism enters the picture.
"Everyone can see today that humanity could destroy the foundation of its own existence, its earth, and therefore we can't simply do whatever we want with this earth that has been entrusted to us, what seems to us in a given moment useful or promising, but we have to respect the inner laws of creation, of this earth, we have to learn these laws and obey them if we want to survive," Benedict said. "This obedience to the voice of the earth is more important for our future happiness than the voices of the moment, the desires of the moment. … Existence itself, our earth, speaks to us, and we have to learn to listen."
Exactly, because by the Natural Law we are commanded to love ourselves and to love the community, and to aim for the good of the community, which includes its survival. A community can only exploit the earth and degrade the environment so long, before it jeopardizes its own survival. If one wants to say that out of their own self-interest political communities should be aiming at sustainability and living in harmony with the local ecology, while transforming it in ways both beneficial to man and to the other organisms living there, he can do so. (This is the kind of stewardship advocated by Wendell Berry, Wes Jackson, and Brian Goodwin.) I would just say that this is reasonable, and that exploitation is disordered.
From there, Benedict said, we may also learn anew to listen to the voice of human nature as well, discovering in other people and in human communities moral laws that stand above our own ego. In that regard, the pope said, we can draw upon the great moral experience of humanity. Doing so teaches that human liberty never exists in isolation from others; it works only if it's rooted in a sense of common values.
An appeal to tradition? Again, I wonder if Mr. Allen is not simplifying what the pope said. As Fr. Pinckaers writes, freedom is ordered to excellence, or to virtue (and to authentic goods).
In other words, Benedict sees in the modern environmental movement the most promising route for recovery of the natural law tradition. What today's rising ecological awareness presumes is that there are limits inscribed in nature beyond which humanity trespasses at its own peril. Without any particular reference to religion, the secular world today is arriving at its own version of natural law theory. Building upon that momentum, and directing it beyond environmental matters to questions of individual and social morality, is what Benedict seems to mean by a "secular path" to formation of conscience.
Not quite, Mr. Allen. One can discover certain precepts of the Natural Law, without having to develop an account of the Natural Law at the same time. Natural Law without reference to the Creator is incomplete. One can frame such precepts in a way that still affirms the primacy of human beings in the created material order, without the excesses of certain members of the environmental movement (Gaia hypothesis, misandry, etc.). Such primacy does not negate man's responsibility to be a good steward.
To extend a metaphor, one might say that Benedict XVI is trying to paint a distinctively Catholic shade of green.Ah, Fr. Bonino. I can't wait until this document is released.
I don't mean to suggest that the pope's environmental concern is entirely instrumental, as if he OKed putting solar cells on Vatican buildings simply because, in some round-about fashion, he thinks that'll convince people not to have abortions. He's made clear on multiple occasions that he regards defense of the environment as an urgent moral necessity all by itself. But Benedict also appears to see something deeper stirring in Western environmentalism, a new sense of moral restraint grounded in objective natural reality.
To put the pope's point simplistically, if the world is willing to limit its carbon output on the basis of the laws of nature, then maybe it will become more willing to accept limits arising from nature in other spheres of life as well.
At the moment, the International Theological Commission, the main advisory body to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has a sub-commission working on a document on Natural Law. A draft is expected to be ready for discussion in October. The project is being led by Dominican Fr. Serge Bonino, the editor of the Revue Thomist; the American member is Jesuit Fr. John Michael McDermott of the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio. It will be interesting to see if the sub-commission develops this line of reflection.
Transcript of that talk with the priests (in Italian).
From Ignatius Press:
On Conscience by Joseph Ratzinger
Pope Benedict XVI: The Conscience of Our Age by Vincent Twomey
Friday, July 27, 2007
Benedict XVI on Vatican 2 and its aftermath
All Against All: The Postconciliar Period Recounted by Ratzinger, Theologian and Pope
The period following Vatican II reminds Benedict XVI of the "total chaos" after the Council of Nicaea, the first in history. But from that stormy Council emerged the "Credo." And today? Here is the pope’s response to the priests of Belluno, Feltre, and Treviso
by Sandro Magister
ROMA, July 27, 2007 – Like two summers ago in Aosta, again this year Benedict XVI, during his vacation in the Alps, wanted to meet with the local priests and respond to their questions.
He did so on the morning of Tuesday, July 24, in Auronzo di Cadore, in the church of Santa Giustina Martire, against the backdrop of the Dolomite mountains.
The pope responded spontaneously to ten questions on a wide variety of issues.
For example, in relation to the growing presence of non-Christian immigrants in Italy and Europe, he explained how to reconcile the proclamation of the Gospel and dialogue with the other religions, beginning from “agreement on the fundamental values expressed in the ten commandments, summed up in love of neighbor and love of God.”
In regard to divorced and remarried Catholics, he urged first of all that couples be prepared for a “natural marriage, according to the Creator,” freeing them from the current idea according to which “it is normal to get married, divorce, and remarry, and no one thinks that this goes against human nature.” And in the case of a failed marriage, he encouraged that the divorced persons be made to feel that they are always “loved by Christ and members of the Church, even if they are in a difficult situation.”
On the clash between creationism and evolutionism, “as if these were mutually exclusive alternatives,” he explained that “this contrast is absurd, because on the one hand there is much scientific evidence in support of evolution,” but on the other hand “the doctrine of evolution does not respond to the great question: From where does everything come?” And he recommended a rereading of his lecture in Regensburg, so that “reason might be opened further.”
But the most interesting response was the last of the ten. To a priest who told him about his disappointment with the many dreams that were awakened in him by Vatican Council II but then vanished, Benedict XVI replied by recounting his own experience and his own views of the Council and the period after it: the initial enthusiasm, the tension between those who interpreted the true “spirit” of the Council as a sort of cultural revolution and those who instead reacted against the Council itself, the historic upheavals of 1968 and 1989, the Church’s ability to move forward, in spite of everything, along the right path, in silence and humility...
Here follows the complete transcript of Benedict XVI’s response on the Council and its aftermath:
"We had such great hopes, but things proved to be more difficult..."
by Benedict XVI
I, too, lived through Vatican Council II, coming to Saint Peter’s Basilica with great enthusiasm and seeing how new doors were opening. It really seemed to be the new Pentecost, in which the Church would once again be able to convince humanity. After the Church’s withdrawal from the world in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it seemed that the Church and the world were coming together again, and that there was a rebirth of a Christian world and of a Church of the world and truly open to the world.
We had such great hopes, but in reality things proved to be more difficult. Nonetheless, it is still true that the great legacy of the Council, which opened a new road, is a “magna carta” of the Church’s path, very essential and fundamental.
But why did this happen? I would like to begin with an historical observation. The periods following a council are almost always very difficult. After the great Council of Nicaea – which is, for us, truly the foundation of our faith, in fact we confess the faith as formulated at Nicaea – there was not the birth of a situation of reconciliation and unity, as hoped by Constantine, the promoter of the great Council, but a genuinely chaotic situation of a battle of all against all.
In his book on the Holy Spirit, saint Basil compares the Church’s situation after the Council of Nicaea to a nighttime naval battle, in which no one recognizes another, but everyone is pitted against everyone else. It really was a situation of total chaos: this is how saint Basil paints in vivid colors the drama of the period following the Council of Nicaea.
50 years later, for the first Council of Constantinople, the emperor invited saint Gregory Nazianzen to participate in the council, and saint Gregory responded: No, I will not come, because I understand these things, I know that all of the Councils give rise to nothing but confusion and fighting, so I will not come. And he didn’t go.
So it is not now, in retrospect, such a great surprise how difficult it was at first for all of us to digest the Council, this great message. To imbue this into the life of the Church, to receive it, such that it becomes the Church’s life, to assimilate it into the various realities of the Church is a form of suffering, and it is only in suffering that growth is realized. To grow is always to suffer as well, because it means leaving one condition and passing to another.
And we must note that there were two great historic upheavals in the concrete context of the postconciliar period.
The first is the convulsion of 1968, the beginning – or explosion, I dare say – of the great cultural crisis of the West. The postwar generation had ended, a generation that, after seeing all the destruction and horror of war, of combat, and witnessing the drama of the great ideologies that had actually led people toward the precipice of war, had discovered the Christian roots of Europe and had begun to rebuild Europe with these great inspirations. But with the end of this generation there were also seen all of the failures, the gaps in this reconstruction, the great misery in the world, and so began the explosion of the crisis of Western culture, what I would call a cultural revolution that wants to change everything radically. It says: In two thousand years of Christianity, we have not created a better world; we must begin again from nothing, in an absolutely new way. Marxism seems to be the scientific formula for creating, at last, the new world.
In this – let us say – serious, great clash between the new, healthy modernity desired by the Council and the crisis of modernity, everything becomes difficult, like after the first Council of Nicaea.
One side was of the opinion that this cultural revolution was what the Council had wanted. It identified this new Marxist cultural revolution with the will of the Council. It said: This is the Council; in the letter the texts are still a bit antiquated, but behind the written words is this “spirit,” this is the will of the Council, this is what we must do. And on the other side, naturally, was the reaction: you are destroying the Church. The – let us say – absolute reaction against the Council, anticonciliarity, and – let us say – the timid, humble search to realize the true spirit of the Council. And as a proverb says: “If a tree falls it makes a lot of noise, but if a forest grows no one hears a thing,” during these great noises of mistaken progressivism and absolute anticonciliarism, there grew very quietly, with much suffering and with many losses in its construction, a new cultural passageway, the way of the Church.
And then came the second upheaval in 1989, the fall of the communist regimes. But the response was not a return to the faith, as one perhaps might have expected; it was not the rediscovery that the Church, with the authentic Council, had provided the response. The response was, instead, total skepticism, so-called post-modernity. Nothing is true; everyone must decide on his own how to live. There was the affirmation of materialism, of a blind pseudo-rationalistic skepticism that ends in drugs, that ends in all these problems that we know, and the pathways to faith are again closed, because the faith is so simple, so evident: no, nothing is true; truth is intolerant, we cannot take that road.
So: in these contexts of two cultural ruptures, the first being the cultural revolution of 1968 and the second the fall into nihilism after 1989, the Church sets out with humility upon its path, between the passions of the world and the glory of the Lord.
Along this road, we must grow with patience and we must now, in a new way, learn what it means to renounce triumphalism.
The Council had said that triumphalism must be renounced – thinking of the Baroque, of all these great cultures of the Church. It was said: Let’s begin in a new, modern way. But another triumphalism had grown, that of thinking: We will do things now, we have found the way, and on it we find the new world.
But the humility of the Cross, of the Crucified One, excludes precisely this triumphalism as well. We must renounce the triumphalism according to which the great Church of the future is truly being born now. The Church of Christ is always humble, and for this very reason it is great and joyful.
It seems very important to me that we can now see with open eyes how much that was positive also grew following the Council: in the renewal of the liturgy, in the synods – Roman synods, universal synods, diocesan synods – in the parish structures, in collaboration, in the new responsibility of laypeople, in intercultural and intercontinental shared responsibility, in a new experience of the Church’s catholicity, of the unanimity that grows in humility, and nonetheless is the true hope of the world.
And thus it seems to me that we must rediscover the great heritage of the Council, which is not a “spirit” reconstructed behind the texts, but the great conciliar texts themselves, reread today with the experiences that we have had and that have born fruit in so many movements, in so many new religious communities. I arrived in Brazil knowing how the sects are expanding, and how the Catholic Church seems a bit sclerotic; but once I arrived, I saw that almost every day in Brazil a new religious community is born, a new movement is born, and it is not only the sects that are growing. The Church is growing with new realities full of vitality, which do not show up in the statistics – this is a false hope; statistics are not our divinity – but they grow within souls and create the joy of faith, they create the presence of the Gospel, and thus also create true development in the world and society.
Thus it seems to me that we must learn the great humility of the Crucified One, of a Church that is always humble and always opposed by the great economic powers, military powers, etc. But we must also learn, together with this humility, the true triumphalism of the Catholicism that grows in all ages. There also grows today the presence of the Crucified One raised from the dead, who has and preserves his wounds. He is wounded, but it is in just in this way that he renews the world, giving his breath which also renews the Church in spite of all of our poverty. In this combination of the humility of the Cross and the joy of the risen Lord, who in the Council has given us a great road marker, we can go forward joyously and full of hope.
> With the priests of the diocese of Belluno, Feltre, and Treviso, July 24, 2007
Acton Institute interview with Russell Hittinger
The Higher Law That Undergirds Virtue, Liberty, and the Government
Professor Russell Hittinger is the William K. Warren Professor of Catholic Studies and Research Professor of Law, at the University of Tulsa. He teaches and publishes in the areas of philosophy, theology, and law. His most recent book is entitled The First Grace: Rediscovering the Natural Law in a Post-Christian World and addresses contemporary issues involving the natural law. He also regularly lectures on the Natural Law and related topics.
R&L: You have done extensive research and written books on the subject of natural law. What is natural law?
Hittinger: The history of philosophy, theology, and jurisprudence is replete with different definitions. Some definitions emphasize the first principles of practical reason— principles which are implicit whenever we reason about conduct. We can call this order in the human mind. If we emphasize the order of nature, then we bring into view human nature itself as a standard for what ought or ought not to be chosen. We can call this order in nature. While Stoic thinkers of antiquity defined natural justice in relation to divine providence, it was Christian theologians who carefully defined natural law as lex indita, a law imprinted on our being by the Creator. The most famous definition is that of Thomas Aquinas: “This sharing in the Eternal Law by intelligent creatures is called natural law.” Thomas, of course, did not mean the entirety of the Eternal Law, but rather that part of it we can know naturally. All three definitions—order in the human mind, order in nature, and order in the divine mind—are correct, though Thomas was especially adept at harmonizing the three foci.
R&L: One of your recent books on natural law is The First Grace: Rediscovering the Natural Law in a Post-Christian World, published by ISI Books. Why do you consider the natural law to be the first grace?
Hittinger: The title of this book is taken from the letter of a presbyter named Lucidus who taught that after the sin of Adam no work of human obedience could be united with divine grace, that human freedom was not weakened or distorted but totally extinguished, and that Christ did not incur death for all human beings. At the Second Council of Arles (473), Lucidus retracted his position. In the letter of retraction, the natural law is mentioned twice. The natural law is said to be the “first grace of God” (per primam Dei gratiam) before the coming of Christ (in adventum Christi). Lucidus also affirmed that, according to Romans 2:15, the natural law is “written in every human heart.” This did not suggest that, after sin, and without the restoration of the human soul by grace, that mankind know the natural law in every detail, or with perfect clarity. Nor did it suggest that what remains of human moral responsibility after sin is sufficient for the righteousness communicated by Christ. But it did mean that the early church rejected Lucidus’ position that human beings are unable to do any moral good.
R&L: Why must the natural law be “rediscovered?”
Hittinger: Natural law is always “discovered,” at least in the sense that it is not constructed or “made” by the human mind. The sub-title of my book, however, bids us to understand once again that the fundaments of morality constitute a “higher law.”
R&L: How does or should a proper understanding of the natural law affect the political and social institutions of society, if at all?
Hittinger: One of the questions that haunts the modern mind is whether moral judgment is bereft of any note of authority save the private estimation of the individual subject. In my view, no one expressed the question, with all of its ramifications, better than Thomas Hobbes. To be sure, individuals make judgments; but whose judgments have public authority? Slowly, but inexorably, modern culture posited a dichotomy between individual judgment and public authority. Natural law could no longer be reckoned a higher law, expressing a supra-public order of law. In our country, we were fortunate indeed that at the time of our founding, natural law still was deemed a higher law that rendered individuals and societies subject to a divine bar of authority. Disagreements or skepticism about matters of revealed theology and ecclesiology did prevent the founders from affirming a transcendent source of moral norms. James Madison’s Memorial and Remonstrance (1785) argues very explicitly that the ground of religious liberty is the antecedent duty of every human soul to the Creator of the natural commonwealth.
It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage and such only as he believes to be acceptable to him. This duty is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of civil society. Before any man can be considered as a member of civil society, he must be considered as a subject of the governor of the universe.
R&L: Many commentators contend that the reigning philosophy of law within the courts of the United States is positivism. Would you agree? How is the positivist philosophy of law different than the natural law?
Hittinger: Positivism can mean different things. On the one hand, there is a kind of lawyerly positivism that insists that the descriptive task of saying what the law “is” is analytically separate from what the law “ought to be.” This kind of positivism allows a moral critique of human law. On the other hand, there is what I call a “cosmological positivism,” according to which all norms of conduct are imposed, posited by the human mind. The great myth of Prometheus, told in Plato’s Protagoras, is still the best example of cosmological positivism. On this view, there is no separation of law and morality, for civic morality is entirely a creature of human law.
I propose that although our legal culture sometimes seems to hover between these two kinds of positivism, we still exhibit a deep and persistent expectation that human law satisfy moral norms. Americans believe that human commands ought to comport with moral rights. Every nook and cranny of human law is litigated, as though law must fall in line with natural justice. In ways that are truly astonishing, Americans demand not only that law be just, but also that society be just. At the same time, Americans are reluctant to impose “morality.” From one point of view, this is a contradiction. From another point of view, it indicates how difficult it is to shake ourselves loose of natural law. The most controversial Supreme Court decisions—on religion, sexual conduct, marriage and family, affirmative action—bear the marks of dissatisfaction with legal positivism. Typically, both sides in these disputes appeal to something like natural law and natural rights.
R&L: In Casey v. Planned Parenthood, The United States Supreme Court has defined individual liberty as “the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” Is this definition of liberty consistent with the natural law? If not, what definition of liberty would be consistent with the natural law?
Hittinger: Clearly, this dictum does not appeal to the black-letter law of the United States Constitution. Rather, it appeals to a transcendent notion of justice—transcendent, in the sense that there are norms more fundamental than the rules imposed by human legislators. Our Court routinely “discovers” (rather than claiming to “make”) natural standards of justice. The reader of my book will not be in doubt that I believe that the Court’s discoveries are very flawed. For one thing, the Court often asserts liberties which subvert law itself. The Casey dictum, literally understood and applied, would cancel out obligation to obey the Court’s own verdicts.
R&L: What role should religion play within the formal process of lawmaking within a society, if any?
Hittinger: This is difficult to answer abstractly because “religion” can mean so many different things. Some Supreme Court decisions have gone so far as to say that “religion” means the conviction that there exists transcendent sources of morality; religion can mean the merely subjective “religious” state-of-mind of the legislator; religion can also mean the religious-historical sources of custom and common law relating to matters of marriage and family, crime, civil associations, and so forth. Thus, “religion” has become an artificial category, sometimes expanded, sometimes cut and trimmed, for the purpose of winning legal, political, and policy arguments. Because ordinary human beings tend to make judgments according to standards that transcend mere human rules, and because relatively few of us have a highly articulated super-structure of philosophy or theology, religion is a rather foggy and elusive target. An extreme version of First Amendment jurisprudence interprets the establishment clause in such a way as to forbid the state from recognizing the specifically religious content and importance of the free exercise clause. To recognize specifically religious conscience is to establish religion. The danger here is that the right of free exercise of religion is drained of content, and then tends to be collapsed into an all-purpose right of free-speech or self-expression. Although academic legal literature abounds with efforts to define religion, the issue remains unsettled. At the national level, all kinds of religious discourse is in evidence, and courts rarely try to intercept it on First Amendment grounds; yet, at the level of a local public school, even a moment of silence can be struck down as a violation of the establishment clause.
R&L: Is it appropriate for religion to have any impact on the development of law within a society, such as the United States, that places a high value on individual liberty?
Hittinger: We are a free society. Society is not a creature of the state. So long as people are religious, religion will have at least an indirect bearing upon public policies and laws through society itself. A state would have to either destroy religion or destroy society for it to be otherwise. Compared to other political cultures, Americans tend to enjoy a very vivid sense of social liberties distinct from the institutions of the state.
R&L: Does a person need to be a Christian before he or she can accept the principles of the natural law?
Hittinger: No, of course not. Read the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.
R&L: Do you think that Christianity—and any other theistic religion for that matter—is currently being excluded from public policy debates? If so, what effect do you think this has on societal norms and values?
Hittinger: Increasingly, truly believing Roman Catholics and Protestant Evangelicals are regarded by the elite culture as having no sense of public justice, as having a private lust to impose their religion. This cartoon-like view is especially apparent whenever one gets into the precincts of public law and academia. It is much less true in the world of business, sports, civic associations, and in the day to day life of municipal culture.
R&L: As a scholar and professor, how does your faith inform your studies and teaching?
Hittinger: You carefully phrased the question “as a scholar and a professor.” Taken in just this way, let me say that I am very inclined to look for the good sense in our western habits and institutions. I view even the most adamant secularist positions as part of our common culture. A Christian can take a more inclusive view of the quest for truth. Christ is our redeemer by the cross, but he is also the second Adam, and hence the consummator of human history.
R&L: Does your contact with university students leave you optimistic or pessimistic regarding the rediscovery of natural law within society?
Hittinger: Speaking generally, I do not think that students are very well formed in their respective theological traditions. Over some twenty years of teaching, I have seen more students arrive at the university with an amorphous sense of religion accompanied by a therapeutic sense of morality. By way of exception, I often find that orthodox Jews and some Reformed tradition students are more attentive to their traditions at the intellectual level. Catholics are usually somewhere in between. Students mature very rapidly in their 20s, and therefore it is a crucial time in their lives. Usually, by the age of 25 or so it is clear whether a young man or woman will develop an intellectual curiosity about the big questions of morality, the soul, and God. Every generation is a work in progress.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Christopher Mirus, Aristotle's Teleology and Modern Mechanics
His Ph.D. dissertation here; you may need some sort of academic library affiliation to gain access.
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