In the course of yesterday’s post, “Calling all…,” someone referred to an article in America by Dennis O’Brien, which I called to his attention. Here is his reply:

Thanks for the referral. I found the discussion pretty depressing.

(1) Who is a “pro-choice” candidate? I assume it is someone who does not want Roe reversed. That does not mean that he/she is necessarily pro-abortion. We have laws which prohibit the possession and use of marijuana. I might well vote to repeal those laws not because I am in favor of drugs but because the law is ineffective and harmful. (I am more absolute on that than on abortion. I see no reason to ever take recreational drugs.)

(2) A candidate might have read my article in America (unlikely) and decided that while Roe is hardly a high example of constitutional law (is there a right to privacy? how far does it extend), pragmatically it is one possible solution to a very messy moral situation. If Roe is reversed, we are back with criminal law in the states which means:

(a) that there would be all sorts of abortion prohibition/permissions so that women would simply move from state to state — except the poor who would get back-alley treatment;

(b) One would have to face just how terrible is abortion as measured by the penalties.

Abp. Chaput seems to regard abortion as some species of “murder”. The penalty should be severe. Under the 19th and early 20th century Crimes against Persons act in UK, the penalty was life imprisonment for the woman and the abortionist. That would fit Chaput’s view. In the 2006 South Dakota proposed legislation “banning abortion” which was ardently supported by the dioceses in SD, it was specifically stated that there was no penalty for a woman who sought or obtained an abortion. (A fine or up to 10 years in prison for the abortionist.)

What does the woman say to Jesus at the last judgment? “I sought and obtained an abortion, I received no legal penalty, my Church supported no legal penalty, now you tell me it was murder!”

In sum, as far as I could see from the postings no one is willing to look at the excruciating problem of actual legislation. Folks who say that all action individual, social and political is moral are correct. (Even Aquinas said that!). The problem is that legislation can be so drawn that it makes the problem worse. It satisfies the moral urge of the legislator but does nothing to change the situation. Dan Callahan decided after his world-wide study that legislation does very little if anything to prevent abortions and a recent survey of places with open and restrictive legislation showed that the rates of abortion were similar. So, if you want to prevent abortion, stop smoking, cut down recreational drug use — punitive and restrictive legislation is not only a failure it probably makes the situation worse. I vote for the conservative candidate who wants to repeal Roe but is opposed to universal health care or the liberal candidate who is the reverse. Which one addresses the abortion issue constructively?

Dennis (O’Brien)

For those who are interested, here is the link for the latest version of Faithful Citizenship.  Per Thomas Reese, not much new here, although, as Margaret S. notes below, Archbishop Chaput seems to finally be getting on board with the program.  I suspect, though, that his change of heart regarding the permissibility of ever voting for a pro-choice candidate has as much to do with the prospect of a Giuliani nomination as anything else.  But maybe I’m too jaded.

What can be made of this statement (via John Allen) by Archbishop Chaput:

“I think there are legitimate reasons you could vote in favor of someone who wouldn’t be where the church is on abortion, but it would have to be a reason that you could confidently explain to Jesus and the victims of abortion when you meet them at the Judgment,” Chaput told NCR. “That’s the only criterion.”

Today is the eleventh anniversary of the death of Cardinal Joseph Bernardin.
The Gift of Peace is the book of reflections he wrote as he literally lay dying.
Here is an excerpt:

In the final analysis our participation in the paschal mystery — in the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus — brings a certain freedom: the freedom to let go, to surrender ourselves to the living God, to place ourselves completely in his hands, knowing that ultimately he will win out! The more we cling to ourselves and others, the more we try to control our destiny — the more we lose the true sense of our lives, the more we are impacted by the futility of it all. It’s precisely in letting go, in entering into complete communion with the Lord, that we discover our true selves. It’s in the act of abandonment that we experience redemption, that we find life, peace, and joy, in the midst of physical, emotional, and spiritual suffering.

This is the lesson we must first learn from Jesus before we can teach it to others.

Pacem aeternam dona ei, Domine.

Given all the talk about sacred music here lately, I thought I would draw attention to the podcast over at America on Bruce Springsteen’s new cd, “Magic.” Tim Reidy interviews Bill McGarvey of Busted Halo fame on Springsteen’s new record.

If you haven’t listened to Springsteen’s newest, it is his best work in years and Springsteen’s Catholic roots are evident in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. There are both political songs and more popular pieces. If you liked the early Springsteen, you are almost certain to like this album. If you don’t know Springsteen’s work and want to discover why so many people do, “Magic” is a good place to start.

For you Springsteen fans out there, I’m wondering if others heard some inflections of Warren Zevon in this material.

Mark Noll is as good as they get in church history, and much else–and he is a Wheaton evangelical at Catholic Notre Dame! (Someone ought to report an identity theft. I’m just not sure whose…) More to the point of several recent posts here, he has an essay on hymnody in the latest Books & Culture. I found it typically gold-standard Noll. Here’s a taste:

“The new Christian music of Andean, Thai, Tanzanian, or Mongolian congregations can be jarring to most believers from the West, even as Western hymnody can be as alien to those congregations as Western individualism, Western economics, or Western clothing (culture vs. culture). Likewise the contemporary praise of Hillsong can sound like an unintelligible musical tongue to believers whose roots are deep in Charles Wesley or John Newton, and vice versa (subculture vs. subculture). In these and many other occasions of musical disharmony, we see again the countervailing realities that have long marked Christian song: music is an exceedingly powerful medium for securing Christianity in a community; different forms of music are one of the most obvious manifestations keeping worshiping communities apart. Explaining why both realities exist requires attention to several theological truths.”

 Reactions & enlightenment welcome.

Jason Berry thinks not.

Cardinal Francis George, the archbishop of Chicago, is currently
preparing to assume the presidency of the Conference of Catholic
Bishops, whose annual meeting begins Monday in Baltimore. His new
position would make George highly visible when Pope Benedict XVI
arrives on his first trip to the U.S. next spring, which is fitting
because George was a valuable ally of then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger
when the cardinals’ conclave chose him to be pope in 2005.

The
problem is that George shows little indication of having internalized
the lessons of the scandal. He displays a stunning insensitivity to the
church’s failures. And twice since the 2002 conference in Dallas that
adopted the youth protection charter, George has flouted the church’s
supposed zero-tolerance attitude in his handling of abusive priests.

Read the rest right here.

Our 9:00 a.m. Eucharist today began with a stately “I Know That My Redeemer Lives” and concluded with a rousing “Shall We Gather At The River.”

Afterwards we gathered, not at the river, but at the parish center for coffee. An eighty-year-old, involved in prison ministry, collared me to discuss the homily (not, I confess, a frequent occurrence — the talk tends to focus upon the Sox or the Pats, much to this native New Yorker’s discomfort).

As we were chatting, I saw that a teenager wanted to speak. I beckoned him over and was rewarded with such an outpouring of joy as I have not experienced in some time. He was overflowing with gratitude for the love of God he experiences in the Eucharist, for how much Jesus means to him, for the blessings of family and home.

In the face of his joy, issues of hymns or chant, novus ordo or vetus ordo, seemed, while not unimportant, decidedly secondary. I have seldom experienced such radiance as I did this morning in the face of this Down syndrome teenager.

Was it chance or Providence, then, that led me to read this evening in the latest Commonweal Timothy Shriver’s article, “Silent Eugenics.” Here in part is what he writes:

Those who live with and care for people with
Down syndrome are able to do this because they know something that the
technicians of genetic testing may need to learn: in giving to one
another, we get back far more than we give. And in accepting
unconditionally the full dignity of every human being, we often
discover our own. In this way, the parents of children with Down
syndrome embrace the always-unfulfilled aspiration of our nation’s
founding-that we are all equal, capable, worthy of a chance, no matter
what. But does our nation still believe that?

At this moment, the stakes are high. For make
no mistake: we are in the midst of a silent resurgence of eugenics. The
idea that each of us has equal human value regardless of background,
wealth, religion, or disability-a cornerstone value of both our
religious traditions and our political heritage-is at risk today.

Religion reporter Susan Hogan/Albach has a piece in today’s Chicago Sun-Times that asks, “When and what did the archdiocese know?” She reports that in December 2002 a concerned father contacted the Archdiocese of Chicago to complain about Donald McGuire, SJ–convicted last year of molesting two high-schoolers and recently arrested by the feds for allegedly traveling internationally to have sex with a minor. (McGuire’s official status with the Jesuits is “in receipt of a dismissal”–meaning the SJs want him out, but he can appeal the decision.) The father informed the archdiocese that McGuire was sharing a bed with his nineteen-year-old son and “‘overwhelming’ another teen with porn and sex talk,” Hogan/Albach writes. “Letters sent by the dad to the archdiocese mention a third teen.” The letters provided to the archdiocese were written by family members of the other teenagers. According to the article, after receiving the letters, the archdiocese did not contact civil authorities or immediately remove McGuire from public ministry.

According to John O’Malley, director of archdiocesan legal services, the civil authorities weren’t contacted because the father’s son was nineteen at the time. What’s more, O’Malley explained, the father didn’t mention sexual abuse. “Where’s the offense? There’s no offense. We saw it as a Jesuit matter.” (Presumably O’Malley means “where’s the legal offense?”)

The father disputes that account. He “told the Sun-Times the archdiocese never asked about those boys or their ages,” Hogan/Albach reports. They were in fact minors. According to one of the teen’s parents, “McGuire was overwhelming him with pornographic materials and talking to him about sexual matters at every waking moment.”

Perhaps John O’Malley and people in the archdiocesan victims assistance office aren’t aware of this, but what is described in the letters constitutes sexual abuse. If the article has the facts straight, and the archdiocese received notification that a priest was sharing a bed with a nineteen-year-old and assaulting another teenager with porn and sex talk, and failed to notify the authorities, failed to investigate (which could have led to a suspension from public ministry), then the Archdiocese of Chicago violated the Dallas Charter its archbishop had approved just six months earlier. In December 2002, no one at the archdiocese bothered to ask the father how old the other teens were? Where was the sense of urgency so soon after Dallas? Where is it now?

David Gibson (below) points us to some of the emerging web commentary on the USCCB’s consideration of a new document on liturgical music. Some critics of contemporary
liturgical music are hopeful that the document will lead to a greater
appreciation for the Church’s broader musical tradition and Gregorian chant in
particular.

I am sympathetic to these concerns, but I think that Todd
Flowerday (see comment on David’s post) is correct that simply issuing documents is not going to do much to
improve the quality of liturgical music in most parishes. Even less useful, I suspect, would be the creation of another Vatican office or
institute.

An important thing to remember is that this is a discussion
that has been going on for more than a century. Amy Welborn’s suggestion that we should “sing the mass, not sing in the
mass,” is, of course, a reference to Pius X’s famous dictum to “pray the mass,
don’t pray in the mass.” Pius’s 1903 motu
proprio Tra le sollecitudini is often
remembered for its famous phrase that “active participation” in the liturgy is
the source of the “true Christian spirit.”
What is less well remembered is that the document sought to recover
Gregorian Chant as the music of the liturgy.
Among other reasons, Pius believed that chant was more conducive to
congregational participation than baroque or classical compositions.

The idea that ordinary Catholics might be taught to sing
Gregorian Chant at the mass was something of a revolutionary suggestion. Particularly in the United States,
the overwhelming majority of Sunday masses were Low Masses without music, and
Catholics—particularly those of Irish descent—tended to view congregational
singing of any type as something done by Protestants.

Many of the early figures of the liturgical movement
embraced the idea of teaching Catholics to sing chant. The Belgian Benedictine Lambert Beauduin
included the idea in a famous 1909 speech that is often cited as marking the
start of the modern liturgical movement.
In the United States,
Justine Ward founded the Pius X School for Liturgical Music in 1916 and
eventually trained more than 13,000 teachers in her method. Virgil Michel, one of the towering figures of
the American liturgical movement, later joined her faculty.

Like the liturgical movement itself, however, the movement
to encourage the singing of chant did not have a major impact on most American
parishes. There were exceptions, of
course, such as Fr. Martin Hellriegel’s Holy Cross Parish in St.
Louis and parishes in Chicago
led by liturgical pioneers Reynold Hillenbrand and Bernard Laukemper. But these were liturgical oases in a desert landscape.

By the 1930s, however, one can see a certain skepticism
about efforts to promote chant entering the writings of those involved in the
liturgical movement. Writing in the
liturgical journal Orate Fratres in
1937, Ferdinand Falque suggested that efforts to promote chant had not resulted
in singing of good quality:

Many contacts with chant enthusiasts and much patient
suffering at their “results” have convinced the writer that real damage is
being done of the cause of liturgical reform by their studied folly. When told simply that their achievements are
ugly they invariably come back with the retort:
“Ah, but you should hear chant as it should be rendered.” That’s exactly the point. It cannot be rendered as it should be,
because the knowledge and devotion that can give it life are lacking; not to
mention the more important fact, that the disposition to appreciate it has not
been created in the generality of men and women, who must nevertheless submit
to it, when they are entitled to something that would inspire them with
sentiments of prayer and devotion…People cannot be argued or commanded into
loving something which in its practical expression is definitely ugly.

Contemporary defenders of chant often argue that Vatican
II’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy has been misinterpreted, citing Article
116 in Chapter 6 (“On Sacred Music”) which states that “the church recognizes
Gregorian Chant as native to the Roman liturgy.
Therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place
in liturgical services.” The
Constitution, however, also made a number of other statements that weakened the
position of chant. Article 113, which deals with the language of music,
specifically references articles from other chapters dealing with the extension
of the vernacular to the liturgy. Article 114 stresses that when a service is
accompanied by chant, “the whole body of the faithful may be able to contribute that active participation which is rightfully theirs.”
Article 116 states that other forms of music “are by no means excluded
from the liturgical celebration.”
Article 119 states that, in mission lands, local musical traditions
should be incorporated into the liturgy.
Taking Chapter 6 as a whole—not to mention the rest of the
Constitution—it is hard not to conclude that Gregorian Chant stood in a
significantly weaker position after the Council than it did before it, and not
merely because of the way the Constitution has been subsequently interpreted.

This is not to suggest that the Council fathers at Vatican
II foresaw the wholesale disappearance of chant anymore than they foresaw the
wholesale disappearance of Latin. What
they did foresee, however, was that the national episcopal conferences—rather
than the Congregation for Rites—would be making the decisions about what kind
of music would be appropriate in the liturgy in their countries. This they have done and we are living with
the results.

I don’t recount this history to suggest a solution
because I don’t have one. Speaking for
myself, I find a significant amount (but not all) of contemporary liturgical
music to be a barrier to prayer. But
I’m not sure that many of my fellow Catholics agree. We’ve grown used to this stuff and I agree with some of the points made by Jeff Tuckerabout there having been a general decline in musical literacy in this country over the past century. But as Todd suggests, changing our minds will
take more than statements from the USCCB or a new Vatican
institute. It will take a significant
commitment of resources at the local level.
Absent that, I expect to be bracing myself for another verse of “Sing a New Church”
for some time to come.

Amy Welborn has cornucopius thoughts and links on the liturgical music debate going on in Rome and, next week, at the bishops’ meeting Baltimore. She links to a post by Jeffrey Tucker at the New Liturgical Movement site titled Top Ten Unknown Truths About Sacred Music. Tucker and Amy clearly have their POVs on the topic, and don’t finesse them. But they seem to point toward a Roman liturgy more along the lines of an Eastern Orthodox celebration, in which a mass is sung, and that’s it, musically speaking. As Tucker argues:

“Vatican II hoped to see that vernacular hymnody would decrease and the sung Mass would increase. Full, conscience, active participation in the Mass means: it is up to the people to do their part to sing the parts of the Mass that belong to the people.”

Or, as Amy Welborn puts it:

“It’s what the movers, shakers and futurists like to call a paradigm shift. You’ve heard of it, I presume. Can we have one, please?

Not sing at Mass….sing the Mass.”

Maybe, if every church were St. Peter’s. But I think even John Paul allowed “profane” music–that is, more than an organ and human voices–to be used once during a Mass. Perhaps it was conducted by Van Karajan. Anyway, this is not my field by any stretch, so perhaps others can explain where Welborn/Tucker et al stand on the spectrum.  

In his “Beliefs” column in today’s New York Times, Peter Steinfels writes of a new book, Do You Believe? Conversations on God and Religion. Its author is Antonio Monda, based in New York, as cultural correspondent for the left-leaning Italian newspaper, La Repubblica.

In his book Signor Monda interviews a number of prominent cultural figures about their beliefs. Steinfels highlights the following exchange between Monda and the 83- year-old Grace Paley:

[Monda] asked Ms. Paley, “Do you think that life after death exists?”

She replied, “Obviously no,” adding, “And an 83-year-old is telling you this, aware that she doesn’t have much time to live.”

And then, turning the tables on Mr. Monda, she asked, “And what is there for you after death?”

He replied, “The true life.”

“And what,” she came back, “is the life that we’re living at this moment?”

He answered, “A passage and a gift.”

The exchange serves as an apt prelude to tomorrow’s Gospel.

While Benedict XVI was expected to trim the Vatican bureaucracy, in keeping with his preference for institutional minimalism, the Curia may be set to expand by an office–one that would set limits on liturgical music. Before his election, Joseph Ratzinger advocated for such a Vatican office, and in ways large and small, since his elevation to the papacy he has sought to restore Gregorian chant and “traditional” and classical (i.e., his personal faves) music to center stage.

This week, Monsignor Valentín Miserachs Grau, director of the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music–a non-curial office dedicated to teaching sacred music–ramped up the volume. In an interview with L’Osservatore Romano, (reprinted by Zenit), Grau called for a centralized Roman authority over liturgical music, which he said has been the arena of greatest abuse since Vatican II:

“How far we are from the true spirit of sacred music, that is, of true liturgical music,” he lamented. “How can we stand it that such a wave of inconsistent, arrogant and ridiculous profanities have so easily gained a stamp of approval in our celebrations?”

It is a great error, Monsignor Miserachs said, to think that people “should find in the temple the same nonsense given to them outside,” since “the liturgy, even in the music, should educate all people — including youth and children.”

No doubt there’s been plenty of dreck out there, and I’m sure folks will want to hammer than point home. But a CDF for liturgical music? Interestingly, the US bishops are set to debate (and likely approve) an updated document on liturgical music next week at their fall meeting in Baltimore. It is expected to reflect the trend back to a solemn, Latinate, Occidental worship.

Anyone who has crossed the border into Canada recently, not to mention Europe,
doesn’t need an elaboration of this post’s title.

Today’s Wall Street Journal gives background and lays blame — in the process seemingly going against Wall Street’s own fervent desires.

To understand the dollar’s current woes, you have to look elsewhere — to monetary policy and economic management. The supply of dollars in the world is ultimately controlled by a single source, the Federal Reserve. With its aggressive easing in September, and again in late October, the Fed has signaled to the world that it cares more about creating dollars in the hope of limiting U.S. credit problems than it does about the dollar’s value. Investors can see this, and so they are dumping dollars and looking for other assets to hold. This includes commodities such as gold, which is now at $835 an ounce. The nearby chart from economist Michael Darda gives a sense of how far the dollar has fallen this year.

The world can also hear the silence from U.S. economic officials, whom they have come to believe are content with the dollar’s decline. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson mouths the ritual lines about a strong dollar, even as he keeps pressuring China to revalue the yuan. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke yesterday told Congress that inflation remains a risk, which shows that he at least has noted this week’s dollar rout. But his previous actions have left him and the Fed with a growing credibility problem that is perilous for any central banker.

I am not an adept in the dismal science, and would appreciate any “takes” by those better tutored than I.

A bipartisan group of lay Catholics has issued a statement (text here) entitled “A Catholic Call to Observe Civility in Public Life.”  The statement reads, in part:

As Americans we acknowledge deep divisions over some policy issues;
and recognize that some, who are active in political life and who
differ with the Church’s teachings on certain issues, such as,
abortion, stem cell research, the death penalty, and the justification
for war, air their differences in public and criticize the Church for
these teachings. Others, for political and even ecclesiastical reasons,
seek the public embarrassment of politicians whose public positions
differ with Church teachings through the public refusal of the
sacrament of Holy Communion or public admonition by the Bishops.

To right this wrong, we should observe the following principles.

• As Catholics we should not enlist the Church’s moral endorsement
  for our political preferences. We should do this out of respect for our
  fellow Catholics of equally good will but differing political
  convictions and our interest in protecting the clergy from being drawn
  into partisan politics to the detriment of the Church’s integrity and
  objectivity. 

• As lay Catholics we should not exhort the Church to condemn
  our political opponents by publicly denying them Holy Communion based
  on public dissent from Church teachings. An individual’s fitness to
  receive communion is his or her personal responsibility. And it is a
  bishop’s responsibility to set for his diocese the guidelines for
  administering communion.

• Catholic politicians who advertise their Catholicism as part
  of their political appeal, but ignore the Church’s moral teachings in
  their political life confuse non-Catholics by giving the appearance of
  hypocrisy.

• Bishops, and all involved in the leadership of The Church,
  should not permit The Church to be used, or appear to be used, as a
  partisan, political tool.

• As Catholics we must learn to disagree respectfully and
  without judgment to avoid rudeness in expressing our opinions to those
  whom we suspect will disagree with us, or in reacting to others’
  expressions of opinion.

• As Catholics we need to keep in mind the common humanity that
  we share with those with whom we disagree. We must avoid seeing them as
  “the enemy” in a life-or-death, winner-take-all political contest.
  

• As Catholics we should never lose faith in the power of reason
  - a unique gift from God to mankind – and we should always keep
  ourselves open to a reasoned argument. In this spirit we should defend
  our views and positions with conviction and patience, but without being
  obnoxious or bullying.

• As lay Catholics we should not pass judgment, and should avoid
  public statements that undermine the authority of the Church’s leaders.
  American Catholics know who their Church leaders are: their Bishops,
  Archbishops, and Cardinals.

Thoughts?

We all love Stephen Colbert.  Nice job, Mr. Peters!

Pat Robertson has endorsed Rudy Giuliani. Pat is a Pentecostal televangelist who wanted to be president once. Rudy is a Catholic who wanted to be a priest once, but will settle for pope if his own presidential ambitions don’t work out. Read about it here for now, but much more coverage to come elsewhere. Best bit was a snip from Rudy’s CBN interview back in September, which certainly qualifies for consideration in the John Kerry Catholic Candidate of the Year sweepstakes:

“I believe in God, I pray to God, pray to Jesus for guidance and for help,” Mr. Giuliani said. “I have very, very strong views on religion that come about from having wanted to be a priest when I was younger and having studied theology for four years in college, it’s an area that I know really, really well academically. I understand the history of religion. Man and women’s relationship to God is one of the strongest, if not the strongest motivating thing in human history.”

This story from the NY Times (11/7/07) about a Justice Dept. official who submitted to waterboarding to see what it was like suggests that the Justice Dept. may have had several different opinions from the counsel’s office on the practice, but only one was good enough for the Bush Administration.

The man who tried it out did this:

After his waterboarding, Mr. Levin went on to sign a new legal opinion on the limits of interrogation, released on Dec. 30, 2004, that made news with its ringing opening sentence: “Torture is abhorrent both to American law and values and to international norms.” That memorandum replaced a much-criticized opinion written in August 2002, which had defined torture as treatment producing pain equivalent to organ failure or death and had suggested that a president might be able to authorize torture under his constitutional war powers….

After writing the opinion denouncing torture, Mr. Levin…was told by Alberto R. Gonzales, the incoming attorney general, that he would not be nominated to lead the Office of Legal Counsel.

Read the whole sad story here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/07/us/07waterboard.html?ref=us

The British literary critic, Terry Eagleton, recently said of Graham Greene that the novelist belonged to that exclusive club of “lapsed or unorthodox ” Catholics. He went on to comment that no organization in the world is more effective than the Catholic Church in allotting honorary membership status to “semi-outsiders.” So, fellow bloggers, a little challenge: nominate a well known person for membership in that club. No credit for those who put forward James Joyce (too lazy a selection) or too ephemeral a celebrity (Madonna).

Those of you who have been following the depressing case of Donald McGuire, SJ, convicted last year of molesting two high-schoolers, will be interested to know that U.S. Magistrate Judge Arlander Keys just released Maguire on a $50K bond. McGuire was recently picked up by feds and charged with traveling internationally to have sex with a minor. Amazingly, McGuire’s lawyer pleaded with the judge not to deny him bail because he’s lived in the Chicagoland area for all of his seventy-seven years–
“I don’t know how much closer ties you can have to the community,” the lawyer said. His victims do.

Chicago Jesuit Provincial Ed Schmidt asked the judge not to release McGuire, because the private security he hired to monitor McGuire at his private (non-Jesuit) residence was no guarantee that he wouldn’t abuse again–and McGuire has a history of violating his superiors’ orders. And yesterday, Jesuit Superior General Peter Hans Kolvenbach informed the Chicago SJs that McGuire’s official status with the Jesuits is “in receipt of a dismissal decree.” Dismissing a Jesuit who has taken final vows, as I presume McGuire has, is not easy, and the convicted molestor can appeal the decision, just as he plans to appeal the Wisconsin conviction. But the CDF can fast-track this one, if it so desires. I imagine Cardinal George, if not Kolvenbach, has some pull in certain Vatican quarters.

“Values voters” aside, I don’t see how Rudy would get through primaries–much less a General Election campaign–if he continues to show the bumptious stubborness he was infamous for pre-9/11. The latest episode was his defense of his disgraced former NYC police commissioner, Bernie Kerik (a very genial rogue, as those who know him can attest). Kerik has already pleaded guilty to state corruption charges and is now facing a raft of federal charges, all for problems Rudy knew about beforehand. But in an interview with the AP, written up in today’s NYT, Rudy–whose push to have Kerik nominated as Director of Homeland Security led to the scrutiny that prompted Kerik’s downfall–defends Kerik’s record.

“Sure, there were issues,” Mr. Giuliani says, “but if I have the same degree of success and failure as president of the United States, this country will be in great shape.”

Ummm. If he becomes a convicted criminal and potential felon while in office, that would be okay? Rudy, Rudy. Rudy…

Okay, it’s early (though it seems like the campaign has been on forever), but here’s my prediction: It’ll be Mitt versus Hillary, and the Mormon Question will cancel out the Gender Worry. Oh, and I reserve the right to delete this post should I turn out to be wrong.

A couple of entries below, there was a discussion of abortion and film, centering around the movie Bella, which I haven’t yet seen. I finally got around to seeing Knocked Up this weekend, which isn’t an abortion movie, as much as it is a baby movie –as in “why not have a baby, if you’re already pregnant” movie.

For those of you who haven’t seen it, the plot is this: a beautiful career girl gets a promotion at E entertainment television, goes out clubbing with her sister to celebrate, ends up having a one night stand with a scruffy, puffy, stoner slacker dude, gets pregnant, decides to keep the baby (actually, barely considers the other options). He slowly looks up from his bong and decides to do the right thing. Hilarity, especially of the gross and scatological sort, abounds. The baby is born. Everyone is happy. The end.

There has been some discussion on the blogosphere of whether Knocked Up was a prolife movie or not. In one sense, it clearly was–the unborn life is presented as a baby. At the same time, the broader values aren’t those that one normally associates with prolife and pro-family activists. Kathryn Jean Lopez’s review of the movie nicely captures the problems from this point of view, I think.

Here is what I think the tension is: the movie reveals that traditional pro-life activists and pro-choice activists actually have more in common than they realize. More specifically, both have pretty clear ideas about how one should plan one’s life. There is a set order for each, although not the same order. And the key thing is to follow the plan.

What this movie does is call into question the notion of a planned life. Babies can and should be taken care of; they’re wonderful surprises. The key is to live with a certain ironic distance from the plan. The slacker’s values-a lack of ambition, an easy-going flexibility–actually helped him accommodate the unexpected turns his life took because of an unplanned pregnancy. It’s hard not to imagine that the ambitious guy–23 years old, first year in a top law school, on his way to law review, and a clerkship, and a respectable job–would have had been less willing to change plans to take care of the baby.

Here’s a sneak peek at our Nov. 9 issue, which will go up on the home page later this afternoon: “Torture’s Enablers”.

First you are strapped to a plank. Then the
plank is tilted so that your feet are above your head. Next a cloth is
pulled taut across your mouth, and finally water is poured directly
onto the cloth. Breathing becomes nearly impossible. You start to feel
like you’re drowning-because you are. The flow of water ceases just
before you pass out, and if you don’t tell the interrogators what they
want to know, the process begins again.

That technique, once routinely practiced by
the Khmer Rouge, is called waterboarding. It is a serious form of
torture, and as such it is prohibited by the Geneva Conventions and by
U.S. law. Yet at his confirmation hearings in October, Attorney
General-nominee Michael Mukasey testified that he did not know what the
process entails. “Is waterboarding constitutional?” Senator Sheldon
Whitehouse (D-R.I.) asked. “I don’t know what’s involved in the
technique,” Mukasey answered. “If waterboarding is torture, torture is
not constitutional.”

Given that the Department of Defense has
authorized waterboarding for use by U.S. personnel, perhaps it
shouldn’t surprise anyone that President George W. Bush’s nominee could
not manage a straight answer. Still, it’s hard to believe that someone
in Mukasey’s position doesn’t know what’s involved in waterboarding. As
retired Rear Admiral John D. Huston explained at the Mukasey hearings:
“Other than perhaps the rack and thumbscrews, waterboarding is the most
iconic example of torture in history. It has been repudiated for
centuries.”

Read the rest right here, and look for the home page update in a little while.

Also, thanks to Nick Clifford, here’s a link to Sen. Patrick Leahy’s statement on his decision to vote against Mukasey. We’ll see what his colleagues choose tomorrow.

Jon Levenson is the Alfred List Professor of Jewish Studies at Harvard Divinity School. He has contributed to Commonweal, and is, in my view, one of the most insightful commentators both on the Hebrew Bible and on Jewish-Christian dialogue.

In the recent issue of the Harvard Divinity Bulletin, he makes a number of challenging (and, I think, helpful) observations.

He suggests:

It should be no surprise that the new focus on the literary character
of the Hebrew Bible that has emerged over the past three decades has
gone hand in hand with a new appreciation of midrash, including the
midrashim that appear in the Bible itself—not only the Hebrew Bible but
also the New Testament. One of the most welcome developments of recent
years has been the increased awareness of how deeply rooted in the
scriptural interpretation of Second Temple Judaism both early
Christianity and rabbinic Judaism are. If we look at Judaism and
Christianity from that historical perspective, we see them not as mother
and daughter but as two siblings, descended from the common parent that
was the Judaism that preceded them both and, more distantly, from the
Hebrew Bible, which their common parent had long been reworking,
rewriting, and reinterpreting. That insight, which derives from
historical criticism but has important implications for the present, is
one that I have found to be highly productive. As yet, neither Jews nor
Christians have, for the most part, reckoned sufficiently with it.

He then ponders impediments to an in-depth dialogue:

On the Jewish side, the danger lies in a major difference between the
purposes for which Christians and Jews go into the dialogue in the first
place. If I may generalize (with due allowances for the exceptions),
Christians go into it because of religious motives, whereas Jews go into
the dialogue because of motives of communal self-defense and in pursuit
of better intergroup relations—to prevent defamation, persecution,
pogroms, and Holocausts. In my judgment, this altogether worthwhile
motivation often leads the Jewish participants to minimize too readily
the importance of theology, including the theological core of their own
tradition, as if the difference between truth claims were no more
significant than the difference between “eye-ther” and “ee-ther” or
between “tomayto” and “tomahto.” The logical end point is a religious
relativism that undermines the whole idea of Jewish-Christian dialogue
and ultimately can undermine as well the moral claims on which good
intergroup relations depend. Whether the subject is biblical
interpretation or interreligious conversation, in my judgment it is
imperative to remember how important what we say and do really is.

John Kerry has finally spoken about his faith and the 2004 campaign, and if he is not exactly eloquent, he is a good deal better than he was three years ago. (Sure, that’s a low threshold.) Kerry spoke to journalists at what was billed as an “informal session” at the Pew Forum, and Catholic News Service has an account of the event.

There is much of interest, and wisdom gained not only by his distance from the heat of a campaign, but also–it seems–from his subsequent conversations with several American cardinals. It was interesting that his Protestant mother (rather than his Catholic father) was most responsible for his being raised in the Church (a phenomenon I have noticed in other interfaith marriages).

His best line to one of his cardinal-mentors: “You have a position on abortion, but you don’t have a policy. I have to have a policy.”

I’d also like to see the bishops advocate some policies as strongly as they advocate their positions. But the Dems (and the GOP) need to meet them halfway. According to CNS, Kerry said “the Democratic Party is guilty of being overly strident on the subject…but support is growing within the party to try to find common ground with abortion opponents over reducing the number of abortions.”

That, as they say in TV news, remains to be seen.

NPR has an interesting story on the history of the waterboarding technique. Not much new information in the story, but it provides a useful summary of the technique’s past, in any event. Here are some excerpts:

Its use was first documented in the 14th century, according to Ed Peters, a historian at the University of Pennsylvania. It was known variously as “water torture,” the “water cure” or tormenta de toca — a phrase that refers to the thin piece of cloth placed over the victim’s mouth. …”The patient strangled and gasped and suffocated and, at intervals, the toca was withdrawn and he was adjured to tell the truth. The severity of the infliction was measured by the number of jars [of water] consumed, sometimes reaching to six or eight,” writes Henry Charles Lea in A History of the Inquisition of Spain.

But is it torture? A few clues:

In the war crimes tribunals that followed Japan’s defeat in World War II, the issue of waterboarding was sometimes raised. In 1947, the U.S. charged a Japanese officer, Yukio Asano, with war crimes for waterboarding a U.S. civilian. Asano was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor.

“All of these trials elicited compelling descriptions of water torture from its victims, and resulted in severe punishment for its perpetrators,” writes Evan Wallach in the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law.

On Jan. 21, 1968, The Washington Post ran a front-page photo of a U.S. soldier supervising the waterboarding of a captured North Vietnamese soldier. The caption said the technique induced “a flooding sense of suffocation and drowning, meant to make him talk.” The picture led to an Army investigation and, two months later, the court martial of the soldier.

UPDATE: BoingBoing  points its readers towards a new site, waterboarding.org. Here’s an excerpt from its inaugural post:

The confirmation vote for Michael Mukasey, nominee for United States Attorney General, is scheduled for Tuesday, November 6. In his confirmation hearing Judge Mukasey was asked for his opinion on waterboarding as a constitutionally valid technique for interrogation. Mukasey replied, “I don’t know what’s involved in the technique. … I think it would be irresponsible of me to discuss particular techniques with which I am not familiar.”

Waterboarding.org would like to offer to help the nominee become more familiar with water-based coercive interrogation techniques. Using unclassified sources, news reports, and historical records we are attempting to put together as clear a picture as possible of this technique, its history, its legality, and the scope of its use. We are also attempting to organize a group of doctors, paramedics, lawyers, and volunteers to allow anyone who remains confused or unclear on the details of waterboarding to safely subject themselves to as much of the technique as they are willing to endure.

We look forward to advising, educating, and assisting Michael Mukasey, future candidates, public figures, and anyone else who professes ignorance of our nation’s most controversial coercive interrogation technique.

A thread below, on abortion and film, evolved into a question of film ratings by the NCCB.  How helpful are they?

Grease, to my surprise, is rated “O”==morally offensive–by the Bishops’ Conference.  It’s the same rating as Last Tango in Paris and Saw.

Is a ratings system that lumps all three films together very helpful?

Apparently Mukasey’s unwillingness to call waterboarding torture along with his view that the president of the United States can operate outside the law weren’t enough to persuade Senators Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) that he’s the wrong man for the job. Their endorsement makes Mukasey’s confirmation all but assured. Schumer’s explanation is especially, well, tortured:

“Judge Mukasey is not my ideal choice,” Mr. Schumer said in a statement
afterward. “However, Judge Mukasey, whose integrity and independence is
respected even by those who oppose him, is far better than anyone could
expect from this administration.”

Really? So how do you explain Mukasey’s bizarre 180 on torture and executive authority from the first day of his hearings to the second? The tune-change was distressingly reminiscent of Gen. Petraeus’s turnaround on the question of whether the war in Iraq is making us safer. After Petraeus corrected his initial “no” with a “yes” just a few hours later, one senator wondered aloud whether the White House had gotten to the general. Likewise, I can’t but question whether such a thing happened to Mukasey. If so, what sort of integrity does that demonstrate? What kind of independence?

Did President Bush’s petulant complaints about the supposed holdup on Mukasey’s confirmation push Schumer and Feinstein to their decision? Or were they offered something in return? It’s hard to imagine the two liberal senators would be comfortable with Mukasey’s unwillingness to disavow waterboarding as torture, to say nothing of his testimony on executive authority, in which he suggested that the president is exempt from following certain laws when they conflict with his duty to protect Americans. A vote for Mukasey is a vote for an imperial executive branch. It is a vote against the very system of government Schumer and Feinstein swore to uphold.

Update: Former Nixon White House counsel John W. Dean sees something familiar about the Mukasey nomination:

As the Senate Democrats complete another sad concession to President
Bush, and confirms a nominee who refuses to declare “water-boarding”
torture, allow me to offer a brief historical reminder: the Senate
Judiciary Committee has conspicuously forgotten that there are direct
situational and historical parallels with Judge Mukasey’s nomination to
be Attorney General and that of President Richard Nixon nominating
Elliot Richardson to be Attorney General during Watergate.

Nixon’s Attorney General had been removed (and was later prosecuted
for lying to Congress) – a situation not unlike Alberto Gonzales’s
leaving the job under such a cloud. Nixon was under deep suspicion of
covering up the true facts relating to the bungled break-in at the
Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate, not to
mention widespread rumors that he had engaged in abuses of power and
corrupt campaign practices. Today, Bush is under even deeper suspicion
for activities far more serious than anything Nixon engaged in for
there is evidence Bush has abused the laws of war, violated treaties,
and ordered (or approved) the use of torture and political renditions,
which are war crimes.

Since Judge Mukasey’s situation is not unlike that facing Elliot
Richardson when he was appointed Attorney General during Watergate, why
should not the Senate Judiciary Committee similarly make it a quid pro
quo for his confirmation that he appoint a special prosecutor to
investigate war crimes? Richardson was only confirmed when he agreed to
appoint a special prosecutor, which, of course, he did. And when Nixon
fired that prosecutor, Archibald Cox, it lead to his impeachment.

Before the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee completely
cave-in to Bush, at minimum they should demand that Judge Mukasey
appoint a special prosecutor to investigate if war crimes have been
committed. If Mukasey refuses he should be rejected. This, indeed,
should be a pre-condition to anyone filling the post of Attorney
General under Bush.

If the Democrats in the Senate refuse to demand any such
requirement, it will be act that should send chills down the spine of
every thinking American.

Yesterday President Bush invited reporters into the Oval Office for a preview of a speech he gave later that day at the Heritage Foundation. He’s annoyed by how long the Mukasey confirmation is taking. Implying that the United States is at risk in the “war on terror” while operating without an attorney general, Bush again took the opportunity to remind us that “we’re at war.” Apparently operations in Iraq and Afghanistan can’t continue unless the acting attorney general is replaced with an official one. Or perhaps the president is wondering how he’s going to justify his “enhanced interrogation” program without an attorney general to provide legal cover.

The president was repeatedly asked about waterboarding, and he gave the tired response he and his people have been offering for far too long:

Q What is your own view about waterboarding?

THE PRESIDENT: I’m not going to talk about techniques. There is an enemy
out there. I don’t want them to understand — to be able to adjust one way
or the other. My view is this: The American people have got to understand
the program is important and the techniques used are within the law, and
members of the House and Senate know what I’m talking about, they have been
fully briefed.

Sorry, but if the president is being honest here (and I have my doubts), he is radically underestimating Al Qaeda. Like anyone who reads newspapers or has Internet access, Islamic terrorists know that the United States has authorized waterboarding (PDF). The enemy may be crazy, but they’re not dumb. So why pretend we’re up against half-wits instead of the cunning enemy we really face? Because the administration knows that admitting to waterboarding is admitting to torture, and torture is against international and U.S. law.

The Social Science Research Council has developed a blog of sorts to discuss Charles Taylor’s new opus, “A Secular Age,” two excerpts from which have been published in Commonweal.