Michael McCarthy has an article in the 25 March issue of The Tablet in which he complains that “the Church appears not to have even the faintest notion” of the threat to the health of the planet. It appears that by “Church” here he means the hierarchy and, perhaps even more narrowly, Rome or the Pope. He concludes: “When the environment was merely a quality-of-life issue the Church could get away with [ignoring the issue]. It was a disappointment, but it did not irretriebably damage the Church’s relevance and moral authority. But as the envfironment becomes a life-or-death issue for the world, the Church is going to find itself overtaken by the historical process, helpless and uncomprehending, just as it was by socialism, just as it was by fascism.

“How can the Church hope to help its children cope with the strange, terrible crisis of the twenty-first century if it cannot see it coming? How can it hope to advise those who wish to take the urgent steps that might still stave off the worst? What excuse will it give for its failure, for being caught out by history for a third and fatal time?” What strikes me about this is that the issue is posed in terms of “the Church,” but does not speak about the Church, but about the hierarchy. This for me is not just a terminological question. If the matter is as serious as McCarthy claims, then it’s something that the Church, in the proper sense, the Christian faithful ought to be engaged in. OK, yes, the hierarchy should be providing some leadership, but as with the workers’ problem in the late 19th-century, often enough the history-making engagements have come from below. I wonder what McCarthy might have to say to “the children of the Church”. jak

The third annual national audit results will be released tomorrow at noon (Eastern) on the USCCB Web site. Two other reports will be issued:

Also to be released as part of the Charter implementation report is the annual survey by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), Georgetown University, with new data on allegations and costs related to the sex abuse crisis; and a Supplemental Data Analysis done by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, based on the data gathered for its study of the “Nature and Scope of the Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Clergy 1950-2002,” released in 2004.

It will be interesting to see if the Chicago situation will be accounted for. Happy Lent.

Karl Rahner and Hans Urs von Balthasar are rightly considered the two giants of twentieth century Catholic theology, indeed, as contemporary “doctors of the church.”

Though their approach to theology is often dramatically different, they converge upon the heart of the matter: the person of Jesus Christ as God’s very presence in our midst and our call to loving relationship with God in Christ.

Two-thirds of the way through Rahner’s daunting Foundations of Christian Faith, one finds this lyrical outpouring: spiritual food to satisfy Lenten fast.

Christian life is not merely satisfying universal norms which are proclaimed by the official church. Rather in these norms and beyond them it is the always unique call of God which is mediated in a concrete and loving encounter with Jesus in a mysticism of love. This is always quite unique and cannot be deduced from anything. Nevertheless, it is practiced within the community of those who believe and love which we call church. For in the church, in its gospel, in the kerygma which is directed beyond all teaching to the unique heart of each individual, in sacrament, in the celebration of the Lord’s death, but also in private prayer and in the ultimate decision of one’s conscience, Jesus offers himself immediately as the Christ, and in him God offers himself.

Walter Esler, a week or ten days back, spoke of the lack of beauty in the liturgy. I’ve heard the complaint before, and often enough to make me think that there are many Catholics who don’t associate the liturgy with beauty, or beauty with the liturgy. Think, for example, of the lists of favorite hymns that have come out in recent weeks–where post-conciliar songs and ditties predominate in the top-ten. (A priest recently told me of preparing a couple for a wedding, and one of the party said he’d like a “classic” hymn, like “On Eagle’s Wings” or “Be Not Afraid” ! )

Someone has compared most of the post-conciliar music to finger-painting–fine for children, but not exactly works of art.

How much does making the Mass an expression and an experience of beauty enter into the minds of those planning the liturgy? of those who are carrying it out?

It actually is possible to celebrate the “New Mass” (now old, so old it’s the only Mass a generation or two knows! ) with beauty. How often does that happen?

Are you planning on joining the cast of thousands at the Los Angeles Religious Education Congress this year (March 30-April 2)? We are. If so, stop by booth 688 and say hello to Commonweal people Paul Baumann, Tom Baker, and me. Free magazines for those who say they heard about the booth on dotCommonweal.

As anticipated, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved a more moderate version of HR 4437, the controversial immigration bill that had Cardinal Mahony threatening civil disobedience. The committee adopted an ammendment offered by Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) that would shelter churches and other charities from prosecution should they provide aid to undocumented residents (the previous version protected individuals only, not organizations). Gone from the new bill: the provision that would have made “unlawful presence” a felony, along with the required construction of a barrier along a third of the U.S.-Mexico border. Added: a temporary guest-worker program.

More changes will come once the bill hits the full body of the Senate–for two long weeks of debate. Will Durbin’s ammendment hold? Will “unlawful presence” be re-felonized? Will the border barrier make a comeback? Stay tuned. With the midterm elections fast approaching, Florida and the Southwest very much in play, this is a dance worth watching.

A historical note: The London Tablet recently carried a fascinating piece by Jonathan Luxmoore and Jolanta Babiuch on the early intellectual development of John Paul II. The articles details the late Pope’s deep engagement with and sympathy for Marxist thought in the early 1950s, as evidenced by a little read and indeed willfully forgotten Wojtyla text. (George Weigel dismisses the text in his biography of John Paul II, as well as in a recent letter to the editor of the Tablet, perhaps because it complicates Weigel’s ceaseless effort to enlist John Paul II in the neo-con army.)

Luxmoore and Babiuch remind us that Catholic social thought as it emerged in the mid-nineteenth century, with its intensely social view of the human person, remained as close or closer to socialism than it did to liberalism. (On this point, see Benedict XVI.)

More broadly, the article points us to one answer to Mark Sargent’s query about Catholic liberalism and its future: Catholic liberalism as on display in Commonweal remains committed to engagement with the various political and intellectual traditions that swirl around us, not merely the preservation of Catholic thought from alien invaders. Engagement does not mean capitulation, although this is always one risk. Instead it means approaching the world a bit like the young Karol Wojtyla, ready to listen as well as to proclaim.

Last Friday I went to Stations of the Cross in search of something. A darkened sanctuary. A quiet room. A sense of the season. I needed to be still. I needed to stand and kneel, to hear and say, that which is impossible to say alone, “We adore You, O Christ, and we praise You; Because by your Holy Cross You have redeemed the world.”

But when I arrived at church Friday evening, I was told by my priest that the congregation was to remain seated. We were trying something “new.” The Stations were to appear on a video screen at the front of the sanctuary. There would be no standing, no walking, no kneeling, no incense. Elderly people and nuns shifted nervously in their seats; Catholics unmoored. How could they sit as the story of Jesus’ torture and execution was told? The posture was all wrong. Some covered their faces, others looked around in dismay. We needed the ritual. We needed to kneel. We didn’t want to be spared the indecency, it was part of why we’d come.

There’s a photo in my parent’s kitchen of my siblings and I on our knees in footed pajamas around an Advent wreath. Small children, we couldn’t have known what the season was all about, but even then it was beautiful and terrifying. We got to stay up late and watch candles illuminate the darkness. There was reading and a little singing, and sometimes, when we were still small, there was kneeling; that uncomfortable position, reserved for sadness and awe.

I know it’s easy to complain about the liturgy, but I think, especially in Lent, that we need to be allowed to kneel.

Last week, Peggy Steinfels posted on John Allen’s interview with Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, the superior general of the Society of Jesus, culling from the brief, but fascinating exchange the question, What’s a magazine for? In reading Kolvenbach’s response to a question about Tom Reese’s departure from America last May, I was struck by a curious discrepancy between Kolvenbach’s version of the story and one aspect of it reported last May by Allen. Here’s the Q&A from the March 17 Word from Rome:

One early controversy of his papacy centered on Fr. Tom Reese
from America magazine. What are the lessons of that episode for
Jesuit-sponsored publications?
America magazine, under
the competent and dynamic guidance of Fr. Tom Reese, believed that the
best service to a mature Catholic public was to let the two sides of a
controversial question to defend their views. … However, this
orientation did not meet the approval of some pastorally concerned
priests who were worried about a negative effect on the faith-growth of
the Catholics. They expect that Jesuit publications will offer clear
standings to meet the questions of the day, avoiding confusion and
relativism. Unhappily, instead of changing his policy, Fr. Reese
resigned. This episode takes us back to St. Ignatius when he speaks
about sentire cum ecclesia (feeling with the church). …

Did the initial concerns about America come from the United States rather than the Vatican?
Yes, from clergy outside the Jesuits in the United States, including some in senior positions.

By contrast, here’s what John Allen reported about Reese last May:

Everyone acknowledges that over the last five years, concerns about certain articles published by America on topics as diverse as condoms, gay priests, the 2000 Vatican document Dominus Iesus,
and pro-choice Catholic politicians have reached the Congregation for
the Doctrine of the Faith, and that the congregation in turn raised
these concerns with the superior general of the Jesuit order, Fr.
Peter-Hans Kolvenbach.

What has confused some observers, however, is whether or not
the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith actually sent a letter
demanding that Reese resign, and to what extent then-Cardinal Joseph
Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, was personally involved in these
discussions.

Based on conversations with senior Jesuit sources in Rome May
11, I can confirm that a letter was indeed sent by the Congregation for
the Doctrine of the Faith in the early months of 2005, before
Ratzinger’s election as pope, to Kolvenbach [italics added]. I have not seen the
letter, and therefore I do not know if it contained a direct order to
remove Reese, or if it was a more vague expression of a desire to see a
change in direction at America. The Jesuit sources said, however, that the thrust of the letter was clear — that Reese’s position was no longer tenable.

The bit of news in Allen’s interview is that Kolvenbach confirms what was long suspected: complaints about America came from U.S. clergy, “including some in senior positions.” This conforms to what sources have told me.

But Kolvenbach’s explanation of Reese’s departure does not. On his telling, “some pastorally concerned priests” are the main actors. Does it seem plausible that a few “pastorally concerned priests” could effect Reese’s departure? Doesn’t it make more sense that the CDF acted on complaints from senior bishops, as several sources reported?

Most important, what happened to the letter from the CDF to Kolvenbach that clearly said Reese had to go? What about the period of scrutiny the magazine underwent in 2002, when the CDF ordered it to shape up or face direct episcopal oversight? What about the 2003 all-clear given to America by the Vatican, informing the magazine that the scrutiny was over, after America responded to the CDF’s concerns? None of this features in Kolvenbach’s version of events.

Rather, he makes it sound as though a simple disagreement over editorial policy occasioned Reese to reconsider his position as editor. That isn’t how it happened.

Since I live in California, I wanted to offer a few random thoughts about the whole immigration law contretemps. I’m not driving toward a particular conclusion here. I just want to offer some fodder for discussion.

California’s economy is deeply dependent on the labor of undocumented workers. This is true in agribusiness, obviously, but it’s also true in a number of other sectors, including restaurants, certain types of construction, janitorial services, personal care services (e.g. nannies, elder care, home cleaning services, etc.). Californians like to wax indignant about undocumented workers, but they often don’t see the connection between their relatively comfortable standard of living and the large pool of undocumented laborers that supports it.

There is no question that the continued influx of undocumented workers has a labor market impact. There is certainly literature on this. As an anecdote, I’ll offer that decades ago the Service Employees International Union had a master contract covering janitorial contractors in Los Angeles. The vast majority of those janitors were African-American. In the late 70s/early 80s, non-union contractors employing immigrant workers (both documented and undocumented) began to underbid contractors particpating in the master agreement. It took SEIU another decade to reorganize the industry, which is now almost entirely Latino.

The influx of both legal and illegal immigrants also has had a major impact on public services in California, particularly in education and health care. One-third of the population of Los Angeles County has no health insurance, which is at least one of the reasons (not the only one) that the county hospital system is in a perpetual state of crisis. However, what is not generally realized is that many illegal immigrants are, in fact, paying taxes: sales, property and even income taxes in some cases.

Having said all this, I’m not sure I see a solution. A cursory glance at human history suggests that borders on a map have never really prevented people who really wanted to migrate from doing so. A nation certainly has a right to police its borders, and enforcement activity can help reduce the number of illegal border crossings. But there is also a real limit to what border enforcement can accomplish. A significant number of illegal immigrants are people who overstay temporary visas. The border economies are deeply intertwined, with thousands of people crossing each day to work, shop and socialize. Families are often composed of individuals who are legally here and those that aren’t.

As to the legislation passed by the House last fall that has come under criticism by a number of Bishops, I haven’t read it yet, so I won’t offer my opinions. But I will say that those who believe that vaguely worded laws don’t invite abuse of prosecutorial discretion are being a bit naïve. But I don’t know enough yet to say whether that is the case here.

Damon Linker reviews Neuhaus’s new book, Catholic Matters:

Several Catholic writers have contributed
to fashioning a potent governing philosophy for traditionalist
Christians, but the one who has exercised the greatest influence on the
ideological agenda of the religious right is Richard John Neuhaus–a
Catholic convert from Lutheranism, and a priest who for the past two
decades has attempted to lead an interdenominational religious
insurgency against the secular drift of American politics and culture
since the 1960s. In his voluminous but remarkably consistent writings,
Neuhaus has sought nothing less than to reverse the fortunes of
traditionalist religion in modern America–to teach conservative
Christians how to place liberal modernity, once and for all, on the
defensive. Any attempt to come to terms with the religious challenge to
secular politics in contemporary America must confront Neuhaus’s
enormously ambitious and increasingly influential enterprise.

Much, much more here (free registration required).

It’s Friday and I couldn’t resist posting this. I am not at all opposed to using pop culture as a vehicle to consider more profound questions about the meaning of life. But everybyody has their limits. I have to say, that I think this is past mine. May God forgive me, if this is actually doing some good. It may just be that I’m getting old. I actually think Madonna’s “Papa Don’t Preach (I’m gonna keep my baby”) did do some good.

In the March 23rd issue of Origins, Father James Heft, SM, Chancellor of the University of Dayton, has a suggestive and lucid discussion of “Catholic Universities as Open Circles: Academic Freedom.”

Heft does not minimize the challenge posed by the ambition to be both a first rank university and to be distinctively Catholic. He writes:

“Universities that wish to be truly Catholic need to take very seriously the enormity of the challenge before them lest they confuse the purpose of a Catholic university with mainly pastoral concerns, important as they are, and the defense of Catholic morality, often reduced to matters of sexuality. At a Catholic university, no significant development in knowledge or culture should remain unexplored nor should philosophy and theology be prevented from playing a central role in that conversation.”

Heft offers the metaphor of an “open circle” for the sort of university he envisions: one that both privileges the Catholic intellectual tradition and values the enriching contribution of other traditions. And he sees the incarnation as providing “a theological focal point” for this endeavor.

This last affirmation needs, I think, much greater articulation and development. I believe we have been too reticent, in Catholic colleges and universities, about forthrightly confessing the Name that lies at the very heart of Catholic faith and the intellectual tradition it has engendered. We risk being too anonymously Christian.

Reading articles, listening to addresses concerning a university’s Catholic identity, I too often experience what Augustine describes in Book Seven of his Confessions. Reading “the books of the Platonists,” Augustine found intellectual illumination in them. But he did not find Jesus Christ who is the very face of God.

Too often, in my view, Catholic colleges and universities seem content to display merely generic labels: “forming men and women for others,” “being open to the Spirit.” But unless these well-intentioned terms are anchored in the concrete particularity of the Lord Jesus, the incarnate Word of God, they remain shapeless, lacking form and content.

I am not advocating mindless invocation, but mindful and faith-filled exploration of the Christic center that captivated and inspired Augustine and Aquinas, Teresa and Teilhard. If this Center holds and allures, then the circle can indeed embrace discerningly: “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious” (Philippians 4:8 ).

The concerns expressed by the Cardinal Newman Society and others regarding the Catholic character of Catholic colleges and universities in the United Sates is of personal interest to me. For the past four years at Notre Dame, where I’m a senior, the debate about Notre Dame’s Catholic character or lack there of has focused squarely on the University’s sponsorship of two events: the Vagina Monologues, and the Queer Film Festival.

In other words, Notre Dame’s Catholic character, something inherently difficult to quantify or define, has been strictly defined, not in terms of church attendance or the seriousness with which the student body approaches their faith, but in terms of hot button issues involving sexual sins, and not, mind you, the sexual sins of heterosexual men and married people, but the sexual sins of single women and gay people.

Every year a men’s dorm on campus puts on a comedy review full of raunchy straight guy sex jokes, certainly un-Catholic in their character, and yet the review is rarely mentioned in Notre Dame’s “Catholic character” debate. It’s not seen as any kind of threat, but rather, as free expression. In short, it’s curious when and where a university’s Catholic character is invoked. No one speaks of it when a university is building a business school or accepting money from the government that may go towards weapons research, but everyone has an opinion when it comes to feminists and dating.

Too often Catholics themselves define what Catholic is, in the same tired and reductive ways that non-Catholics do. That is, being Catholic is all about being against things, think, abortion, and gay marriage. Accepting such a limited definition we become caricatures of ourselves, and do violence to the mysteries and complexities of our faith. Catholic colleges and universities should not be safe havens from mainstream culture where students are never asked to encounter anything with which they do not already concur. Rather, they should be places where the ideas and tendencies of mainstream thought and culture are brought into conversation, perhaps correctively so, with the ideas and tendencies of the Roman Catholic Church.

Amy Welborn asks whether we’re really having an honest debate about HR 4437. The National Review, as I noted below, thinks Cardinal Mahony’s staunch opposition to the bill is much ado about nothing. It’s been suggested that the bill doesn’t really say what the cardinal says it does. From my post below:

Mahony and others object to the language in the bill that would criminalize the behavior of anyone who “assists, encourages, directs, or induces a person to reside in or remain in the United States, or to attempt to reside in or remain in the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such person is an alien who lacks lawful authority to reside in or remain in the United States.” The bolded words are the legal novelties in this bill, and that’s what has Catholic leaders worried.

One of the bill’s authors claimed the new language was meant to address the Dept. of Justice’s request for stricter penalities against those who forge I.D.s for illegals. But isn’t the added language a rather blunt instrument for carrying out that request? Are the editors of the National Review right in their criticism of Cardinal Mahony? One law professor sent me the following clarifying e-mail:

The new language in HR 4437 does, I think, substantially broaden the statute, particularly the addition of the word “assists.” Providing services that help someone to live in the U.S. when they might otherwise go back (in the absence of those services) would seem to fall within the language of the statute as the proposed changes would amend it, but not as it is currently written, and people providing those services would seem to be at the uncertain mercy of prosecutorial discretion. Consequently, I think the National Review is wrong to say that Cardinal Mahony is being hypocritical in light of his failure to criticize the existing statute.

One way around this result would be for the statute expressly to define “assists” narrowly. In the absence of a limiting definition, the everyday meaning of the word normally controls. And in this case that meaning is quite broad. Here’s how Webster’s defines assists: “to give support or aid.” It’s hard not to see the provision of charitable services to people here illegally as supporting them or aiding them in a way that arguably causes them to remain in this country when in the absence of that aid they might otherwise have no choice but to go home.

According to the editors of the National Review:

The American Catholic bishops are waging an intense, sophisticated campaign to promote their version of immigration reform, which happens also to be big business’s version of immigration reform. The campaign comes complete with brochures, a well-designed website, prayer cards, bracelets, and phony arguments.

The editorial goes on in a similar fashion, culminating in the suggestion that Cardinal Mahony is bearing false witness. No, really.

Andrew Sullivan posts on a disturbing poll indicating that U.S. Christians generally favor torturing suspected terrorists. Catholics, it turns out, are most hospitible to the idea:

Twenty-one percent of Catholics surveyed said it is “often” justified and 35 percent said it is “sometimes” justified. Another 16 percent said it is “rarely” justified, meaning that nearly three of four Catholics justify it under some circumstances. Four percent of Catholics “didn’t know” or refused to answer and only 26 percent said it is “never” justified, which is the official teaching of the church.

What group is least supportive of torture? White Evangelicals? Nope. White Protestants? Wrong again. Those who self-identify as secular are most opposed to using torture against suspected terrorists. Just 10 percent of secular respondents say torture is permissible “often,” and 41 percent say “never.” “In other words,” as Andrew puts it, “if you are an American Christian, you are more likely to support torture than if you are an atheist or agnostic. Christians for torture: it’s a new constituency. Another part of the Bush legacy.”

How did this happen? U.S. Catholic bishops have been anything but silent on the issue. Thanks especially to work of Bishop John H. Ricard, several well-crafted statements are on the record. But something has gone haywire on the receiving end. This is a teaching moment that must be seized.

Apropos of our discussion on this site a few days ago about the Cardinal Newman Society, America magazine has an editorial this week on this very topic. The editorial notes that after the promulgation of Ex Corde Ecclesiae, the USCCB set up a standing committee of bishops and presidents of Catholic colleges and universities that meets twice a year:

In a memorandum dated Jan. 30, 2006, the retiring chair of the committee, Archbishop John G. Vlazny of Portland, Ore., spoke for the entire committee in writing to those U.S. bishops who are identified as “ecclesiastical advisors” to the Cardinal Newman Society. The society purports to measure the actual state of Catholic colleges and universities in the United States. The Bishops and Presidents Committee “has regularly monitored the publications and positions of the Cardinal Newman Society,” Archbishop Vlazny notes, “and has found them often aggressive, inaccurate, or lacking in balance.” The archbishop urges the ecclesiastical advisors to look more closely at the methods of the society, which the committee has found to be “often objectionable in substance and in tone,” misrepresenting the Catholic colleges and universities in the United States that it criticizes.

“There is no intellectual, cultural, religious or political tradition of interpretation that does not live by the quality of its conversation; there is also no tradition that does not eventually have to acknowledge its own plurality and ambiguity.”

–David Tracy, Plurality and Ambiguity: Hermeneutics, Religion, Hope

Look at the Right go. Yet another salvo from the National Review shot across the bow of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Buckley’s conclusion is worth quoting in toto:

President Bush endorsed the House bill and asks the Senate to act on
it. He hardly understands himself to be rejecting the canon of
Christian behavior towards our fellow men by making the point that free
and independent societies have the right to prescribe immigration
codes, and need especially to reject such distortions of Christian
dogma and practice as invite the wrong kind of attention to appropriate
divisions between church and state.

It strikes me as a stretch to suggest that Cardinal Mahony’s call for civil disobedience, should the bits of HR 4437 he finds objectionable be signed into law, is meant as an attack on the right of “free and independent societies…to prescribe immigration code.” Likewise, no bishops have intimated that President Bush “understands himself to be rejecting the canon of Christian behavior towards our fellow men.” The whole canon? Bit much. The concern, I think, is just the part about the works of mercy.

But I should let the cardinal speak for himself.

(Be sure to read Mark Sargent’s post below, “Immigration Legislation and Moral Witness.”)

After two days of technical difficulties (maddeningly slow server response), the March 24 issue of Commonweal is finally available. Be sure to check out John J. DiIulio Jr.’s piece, “The Catholic Voter: A Description with Recommendations,” Paul Lauritzen’s article “Holy Alliance?: The Danger of Mixing Politics & Religion,” and the editorial on the Boston Catholic Charities gay-adoption controversy, “Abandoned Children.”

If you’re not already a subscriber and you like what you see, consider our trial offer of six months for $17. Cheap!

We are approach the one year anniversary of the death of Terri Schiavo.  Schiavo’s case ignited a debate both inside and outside the Church about the ethical issues involved in end-of-life care.  In the March 10th issue of Commonweal, Paul Lauritzen discusses the recent evolution of Catholic teaching on these issues and some of the challenges it raises.  He concludes with the following observation:

Both the view that providing nutrition and hydration for PVS patients is morally obligatory, and the position that providing a feeding tube is a form of care and not treatment, represent a shift in Catholic teaching. Understandably, commentators who have noted this shift have sought to downplay its significance, perhaps hoping that the change will be confined to cases involving persistent vegetative states. My own view, though, is that the changes are much more profound than anyone has acknowledged. They threaten to dismantle not simply Catholic teaching on end-of-life issues but much of Catholic moral theology generally. When natural constraints on human actions are treated so cavalierly, when what we can technically do appears to determine what we ought to do, the wisdom of the tradition that recognizes the goodness of our embodied existence and the fact that mere existence is not an ultimate good, seems to have been lost. If the ordeal of the Terri Schiavo case helps us to recognize the possibility of such a loss, it will not have been in vain.

A good summary of the findings in the audits released yesterday by the Chicago Archdiocese. (Here’s the Chicago Tribune‘s story.) I haven’t had a chance to digest the nearly 100 pages of material, but I invite those who have to evalute the response of Barbara Blaine, president of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP):

“Admitting obvious wrongdoing is not real progress. This is nothing
new,” said SNAP president Barbara Blaine, who is calling for George’s
resignation.


“It’s not the church’s procedures that are flawed, it’s the church’s leadership that is flawed,” she said.

UPDATE: This local TV news story on the reaction of local Catholics contains an intriguing observation from a younger Chicago priest:

Father Ryan says the sex abuse scandal has had an effect on Catholic
young adults, and much depends on whether a young adult has been
directly affected by this scandal. He said it is important to remember
that young adults experience the church at a local level and are not
concerned with what bishops are doing.

I think he’s got it half right. Assuming the story summarizes his thoughts accurately: while it’s certainly true and crucial to realize that religious attachment happens at the local level, the spectre of hypocrisy is a powerful repellent to young adults.

I was happy ton see Robert Imbelli’s posts containing links to a guest editorial in the Boston Globe actually recognizing that there was a religious liberty issue in the Catholic Charities adoption imbroglio and to an interview with Archbishop O’Malley in that same paper that was not entirely a sandbagging. The Globe‘s track record has not been that good, as we have been discussing over at Mirror of Justice. Here’s my contribution to a discussion of an editorial in the Globe arguing that we “liberal Catholics” ought to throw in the towel and leave the Church:

Thanks to Rick [Garnett] for linking to the op ed by one Joan Vennochi in the Boston Globe arguing that “liberal Catholics” should leave the Catholic Church. When I lived and practiced law in Boston 20 plus years ago, I loved the Globe because it had the best sports page around, which I could admire even though I was (and am) a die-hard Yankees fan. Its sports page is still excellent, but the rest of the paper makes me gag. Between the gleefulness of its coverage of the sexual abuse crisis, its patronizing suggestion of the formation of a new “catholic charities” and its publication of Vennochi’s inane suggestion, it has abandoned any attempt at evenhandedness or even understanding toward the complexities of these issues, particularly the importance of religious liberty. Rick is quite right in suggesting that liberal Catholics (at least this one) would not find her argument “comprehensible,” let alone appealing. After all, what is she trying to say? It seems to be that if one accepts “liberal ideology” (whatever she means by that) one should abandon the Church, because the Church persists in taking positions inconsistent with liberal ideology. Where to begin in refuting this non sequitur? First of all, what does “ideology” have to do with religious belief? “Liberals” who are Catholic are Catholic because they believe in Jesus Christ and the one holy, catholic and apostolic church. So long as one holds that core spiritual belief one does not “leave” the Church. Second, many of us who define ourselves as “liberal Catholics” are as much as odds with elements of “liberal ideology” as we are with elements of Catholic teaching, particularly the fetishization of the autonomous rights bearer and a tendency towards moral relativism. Third, we recognize that the Church is a battleground, in which doctrine changes and evolves, moral discernment by mortal humans is imperfect, and that the People of God are pilgrims struggling to find their way with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We reject the awful certainty of ideologues such as Vennochi. Perhaps that is what makes us “liberal.”

Immigration “reform” legislation pending before Congress has generated concern not only among immigration lawyers and policy makers, but in the Church, as the this article in the New York Times indicates.

Leaving aside the merits of the legislation for the moment, the Church’s critical position has generated the usual resentment at a religious institution daring to stick its nose into a policy contoversy, and surprise at this particular religious institution’s audacity at claiming a moral high ground given the abuse scandals. The notion that the Church would also urge resistance against an unjust law apparently also strikes some as frighteningly novel.

I won’t get into the fundamental question of the Church’s right, indeed obligation to bear moral witness, because there is a threshold question of whether the proposed legislation actually creates a new problem for the Church in its ministry to illegals by imposing a clearer or stronger legal obligation to report them to the authorities. Some believe the Cardinals are getting excited about nothing, because the changes are not all that drastic. See this discussion in the National Review online.

My Villanova colleague Beth Lyon, an expert immigration lawyer and scholar, does not buy that argument. She writes:

If [the legislation] passes, it is certainly
arguable that this provision would change the Church’s obligations. The [National Review piece] correctly noted that the level of change would depend on how “assistance” “to reside in…or remain in” is interpreted. Three organizations that are working closely on this (American Immigration Lawyers Association, National Council of La Raza, and National Immigration Law Project) are taking the position that humanitarian assistance in the interior could be penalized by these changes contained in H.R. 4437. It is my understanding from AILA that the Senate version will not contain the expanded criminal grounds. Overall, my sense is that this is a red herring and will be dropped, the real issues being amnesty and how much it will cost industry (in the form of worker protections) to legally access guestworkers.

Unfortunately, the Church and others are forced to expend resources to get the red herring dropped, and I think they are right to do so.
The Church’s alarm also seems founded in light of current legal developments in Europe. The European Union issued a directive in 2002 ordering member states to adopt legislation sanctioning “any person [this includes non-profit organizations] who intentionally assists [a foreign national] to enter, or transit across..[or] to reside [in] the territory of a Member State [illegally].” The directive notes that “Any Member State may decide not to impose sanctions…for cases where the aim of the behaviour is to provide humanitarian assistance to the person concerned.” A few governments have created domestic legislation implementing the directive, some with harsher standards than others. The Churches’ Commission for Migrants in Europe, with which the International Catholic Migration Commission cooperates, reported that “we are extremely worried that in recent decisions of the EU on facilitating illegal entry and residence exemptions for humanitarian organisations…remain optional.”

I come away from this with the conclusion that the bishops and Cardinals are not making a mountain out of a molehill. They are taking a position on something significant. So here are the real questions: First, does their opposition to these provisions express Catholic social teaching faithfully? Second, is it appropriate in a liberal democracy for the Church to oppose and even urge resistance to such a policy?

A number of the issues we have been discussing lately–the Boston Catholic Charities situation, the removal of Tom Reese as editor of America, etc.–involve issues of ecclesiology.  Specifically, they raise the question about the circumstances under which the Holy See should intervene in the affairs of a particular church (or in the case of America, the local chapter of an international religious order).  There’s no question that–canonically–the authority to do so exists.  But under what circumstances should it be exercised?

Imagine the following situation: a Catholic charitable organization in central Africa is trying to place a large number of children orphaned due to AIDS.  In some cases, the organization has placed children in families where the husband has more than one wife.  Clearly, such a family situation is contrary to Catholic teaching on marriage.  The position of the Church is that a man with multiple wives cannot be admitted to the sacraments. But given the large number of orphans to be placed and the need to provide them with stable homes, the agency proceeds with the placements.

What if the Holy See demanded that this practice cease?  I can imagine the local bishop–presuming he was equipped with a certain degree of intestinal fortitude–saying something like the following:  “We’re well aware of what the Church teaches on marriage and this is reflected in our sacramental discipline and our catechesis.  But we have a unique situation here that we have to contend with, given the large number of children orphaned by AIDS and long-standing tribal customs regarding multiple marriages.  If we were to consent to your request, it would probably be misinterpreted as something we were doing under orders from Rome, and could prove a setback to our ongoing efforts at evangelization.  It would be better if you allowed us to deal with this problem locally.”

It seems to me that this was, in fact, how the Church operated for centuries.  Local issues of various types were sometimes referred to the Pope for resolution, but there was no expectation–nor ability, given the state of communications technology–that the Pope address all manner of local issues.  There is a certain wisdom in the Church’s principle of subsidiarity, which suggests that local solutions are to be preferred to those made by bodies at a higher level.

What would have happened if, in the Catholic Charities situation, the Holy See had said to the MA Bishops: “Look, we see a potential problem here, but we’re open to ways of resolving it that take into account your specific situation.”  Or, with respect to the situation at America,”This seems to be an issue between the U.S. Bishops and the U.S. Jesuits and our preference would be to let the two groups work this out in a way that respects the cultural norms of the United States.”

Would the ultimate outcome been different in either of these cases? Perhaps not.  But there is no question that Roman intervention in the affairs of the church in the United States does not always sit well with American Catholics or Americans generally.  That does not mean it should never happen.  Sometimes it is necessary.  But it should probably be used judiciously and sparingly, with an eye toward the impact on our overall efforts at evangelization.

Thoughts anyone?

The Catholic Common Ground Initiative, founded by Cardinal Bernardin, will celebrate its 10th Anniversary this August. Last weekend I participated in a meeting of the Common Ground Committee to take stock of where we’ve been and what directions we might take in the future.

The Initiative’s Founding Document, “Called to Be Catholic: Church in a Time of Peril,” seems even more relevant today than it was ten years ago.

One of its principles deserves special pondering. “We should presume that those with whom we differ are acting in good faith. They deserve civility, charity, and a good-faith effort to understand their concerns. We should not substitute labels, abstractions, or blanketing terms — ‘radical feminism,’ ‘the hierarchy,’ ‘the Vatican’ — for living, complicated realities.”

In this spirit, I strongly recommend the interview with Archbishop Sean O’Malley that appeared in today’s Boston Globe.

I wonder if you’all saw this item in this week’s Word From Rome: John Allen interviews the Jesuit General Hans-Peter Kolvenbach. Among Allen’s questions and Kolvenbach’s responses are the following.

Allen: One early controversy of his papacy centered on Fr. Tom Reese from America magazine. What are the lessons of that episode for Jesuit-sponsored publications?

Kolvenbach: America magazine, under the competent and dynamic guidance of Fr. Tom Reese, believed that the best service to a mature Catholic public was to let the two sides of a controversial question to defend their views. … However, this orientation did not meet the approval of some pastorally concerned priests who were worried about a negative effect on the faith-growth of the Catholics. They expect that Jesuit publications will offer clear standings to meet the questions of the day, avoiding confusion and relativism. Unhappily, instead of changing his policy, Fr. Reese resigned. This episode takes us back to St. Ignatius when he speaks about sentire cum ecclesia (feeling with the church). …

Allen: Did the initial concerns about America come from the United States rather than the Vatican?

Kolvenbach? Yes, from clergy outside the Jesuits in the United States, including some in senior positions.

Steinfels: Most issues have three or four sides, not just two. How can the Catholic church and its tradition have a credible presence in U.S. culture if it can’t even talk about two sides of a controversy, much less three or four.

America has, in fact, held up well under its new editor, but if the head of the Jesuits and other senior clergy, i.e., U.S. cardinals and bishops, think that debate and contestation are not among the tasks of Catholic journals and intellecutals, their heads are deeper in the sand than I believed possible. Not to toot Commonweal’s horn, or NCR’s, but there is considerable virtue in publications that are willing and able to grapple with the dark issues of the day by presenting more than one side of an issue precisely because they know there are mature Catholics reading their pages.

More than liberals or conservatives, what the Catholic church needs are writers, editors, intelllectuals who make it their business to sustain a credible Catholicism.

I’ve read countless pages of often turgid philosophical prose over the years, but the words that have had the most abiding impact come from, of all people, Descartes. The advocate of “clear and distinct ideas” once said: “Common sense is what is most widespread and least used.”

In the midst of the turmoil over same-sex adoptions, a welcome display of common sense appears in a column in today’s Boston Globe. Charles Glenn writes: “The public policy issue is not whether Catholic Charities is correct about the harm of same-sex parenting; it is whether an agency with by all acccounts a highly succcessful record of adoption placement is to be prevented by over-regulation from exercising its best judgment about which families are suitable.”

I agree with Robert Imbelli that the Boston Globe editorial board as magisterium is an unalluring prospect. Granted, it might improve the Osservatore Romano sports page.

Still. Does no one share a more basic disappointment? If I have it right, Catholic Charities in Boston and San Francisco very occasionally placed hard-to-place children with gay/lesbian couples as part of their adoption programs. Case by case this was deemed best for the children. And despite much blustering to the contrary little empirical evidence suggest that gay/lesbian families “damage” adopted children while much empirical evidence demonstrates that unstable living situations do. Then a Vatican convinced that Catholic Charities could not countenance this practice intervened, with Archbishop Levada now emailing his old archdiocese, where the practice had apparently not seemed troubling to him at the time, ordering his one-time colleagues to cease and desist.

The ethicists among us can parse the fine points of “material cooperation.” And I won’t touch upon the political uproar in Massachusetts. But isn’t this an example of a reasonable Catholic casuistry being replaced by an unattractive, even sectarian, purity?