Is the embryonic stem cell debate in the U.S. a misplaced one? This story reenforces my sense and reading that adult stem cells are far more likely to produce viable medical results than embryonic stem cells. Any fair-minded scientists care to comment?

 ”PARIS — Physicians at four European universities have completed what they say is the first successful transplant of a human windpipe using a patient’s own stem cells to fashion an organ and prevent its rejection by her immune system….”

The rest is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/20/health/research/20stemcell.html?hp

Inexplicably, Newsweek has decided to run a short article on those who think Obama is the antichrist (HT: Steve Benen).  Here’s a taste:

After years of tribulation—natural disasters, other cataclysms (such as the collapse of financial markets)—God’s armies will vanquish armies led by the Antichrist himself. He will be a sweet-talking world leader who gathers governments and economies under his command to further his own evil agenda. In this world view, “the spread of secular progressive ideas is a prelude to the enslavement of mankind,” explains Richard Landes, former director of the Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University.No wonder, then, that Obama triggers such fear in the hearts of America’s millennialist Christians. Mat Staver, dean of Liberty University’s law school, says he does not believe Obama is the Antichrist, but he can see how others might. Obama’s own use of religious rhetoric belies his liberal positions on abortion and traditional marriage, Staver says, positions that “religious conservatives believe will threaten their freedom.” The people who believe Obama is the Antichrist are perhaps jumping to conclusions, but they’re not nuts: “They are expressing a concern and a fear that is widely shared,” Staver says.

I sure am glad I don’t belong to one of those fringe churches that thinks Obama’s election is a sign of the end-times.  I mean, even if they disagree with his views on abortion, who in their right mind would think that Obama’s election has anything to do with the apocalypse?  Oops:

His Eminence James Francis Cardinal Stafford criticized President-elect Barack Obama as “aggressive, disruptive and apocalyptic,“ and said he campaigned on an “extremist  anti-life platform,” Thursday night in Keane Auditorium during his lecture “Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II: Being True in Body and Soul.“

For the past few evenings, I’ve been watching this documentary on Bush’s torture policies.  I highly recommend it.  But as I watch it, I frequently think to myself that the rhetoric some bishops (and Cardinals) are preemptively unleashing against Obama on abortion would be easier for me to stomach if they had raised an outcry that was even remotely as emphatic about the officially sanctioned use of torture by the outgoing administration.  You know, intrinsic evils and all that.

After giving a talk in Northern California, I prepared for the long winter in Indiana by going on a trip with family to Disneyland–which advertises itself as the “Happiest Place in the World.”

You know what–it just well might be.

First of all, the weather –Southern California in mid-November. It was 85 degrees, with a cloudless sky, no humidity. I understand why people in Southern California want to live forever–from a visitor’s perspective, they’re already in paradise.

Second, I’ve never been anyplace that is so, well, spotlessly perfect. Not a piece of trash in sight. The rides don’t have any dust on them. As you walk up Downtown Disney to enter the park, late 80s and early 90s soft rock is playing (for the pocketbooks, uh, parents and aunts and uncles and grandparents), and the air is scented with jasmine.

Third, it’s really diverse. Not merely ethnically diverse–all the announcements are in Spanish and some in Japanese. But I’ve never seen so many people with disabilities, and Down’s Syndrome kids, and people of varying ages, in one place. Disney seamlessly accommodates them–providing strollers for kids, and wheelchairs and scooters for others. All the kiddie rides have stroller parking. But it’s more than facilities. I saw a rather large teenage boy with Down’s throw his arms around Princess Aurora (Sleeping Beauty), and she happily and warmly hugged him right back. He was over the moon. They’ve trained their people very well.

So what about happiness?

As far as I could tell, the happiest people were the 8-10 year olds. They had a comparatively large amount of freedom (Cell phones provide constant contact). And the bigger rides were great for them. The unhappiest people were the 1-3 year olds. Alas, most of their time was spent in a stroller; their parents were terrified of losing them, they couldn’t really see the point of waiting in line –which there’s a lot of at Disneyland — and were understandably upset when their parents spoke sharply to them for making a break for it.

Parents–well, I think there is a spirituality to Disneyland–you need to give up what you think the child should be having fun on, and let the child have fun on what the child wants to have fun on. That can be difficult and you have to draw a line somewhere–half an hour chasing a feather around the parking lot, say. But Disneyland isn’t a set of tasks to be accomplished

Two caveats for the dotcommonweal crowd.

1. As my sister observed, there is no irony at Disneyland. Moreover, there is no second naivete–there is only first naivete. Middle aged adults in mouse ears don’t see themselves as recapturing their childhood. They’ve simply reentered it, full stop. And on your third trip to Fantasyland (where the Princesses live) don’t try to strike up an adult conversation with a storybook character on the side–they don’t break character. If irony is the way you cope with the spectacle of grown-up people dressed like characters from Snow White, well, find another way to cope. And don’t say you’d like a beer–there’s none in the park.

2. It’s extremely expensive. There’s no getting around it. You can minimize it by not buying every souvenir thrust at you. But Disneyland is expensive –a once in a blue moon treat. And so you think about the disparities of rich and poor in this country as someone tries to get you to buy a picture of a child with Lilo and Stitch. But you push those thoughts out of your head for the day; you can’t solve poverty at Disneyland –the happiest place in the world.

P.S. I was at Disneyland, once before, briefly, as a graduate student, when the American Academy of Religion met at Anaheim. I remember going on the teacup ride with two now very distinguished theologians. But I won’t reveal their names. I don’t spin and tell.

Big 3 automakers have certainly made a terrible mess of things, but the debate over saving them reflects a double standard that often works to the detriment of blue-collar industries and, more importantly, their blue-collar employees.  There is a bias among economic-development policymakers and pundits in favor of white-collar businesses – reflected in huge tax breaks for office construction, and commentary that gives blunders committed on Wall Street an easier ride than those committed in Detroit.  This is one reason it was a lot easier to form a consensus about helping Wall Street than it’s been to reach one about aiding Detroit.

To illustrate, here are two recent Tom Friedman columns. He ably summarized the Big 3 automakers’ sins:

“How could these companies be so bad for so long? Clearly the combination of a very un-innovative business culture, visionless management and overly generous labor contracts explains a lot of it. ” He urges the harsh steps proposed by the Wall Street Journal’s former Detroit bureau chief  Paul Ingrassia.  He concludes: “somebody ought to call Steve Jobs, who doesn’t need to be bribed to do innovation, and ask him if he’d like to do national service and run a car company for a year. I’d bet it wouldn’t take him much longer than that to come up with the G.M. iCar.”

Friedman was much more mild in an October column on the collapse of Wall Street: “We need to get back to collaborating the old-fashioned way. That is, people making decisions based on business judgment, experience, prudence, clarity of communications and thinking about how — not just how much.”

As Father O’Neal noted in a comment on the previous post, the public letter by a Greenville, SC, pastor, Father Jay Scott Newman, saying those who voted for Obama should go to confession if they are to receive communion, has been repudiated by the adminstrator of the Diocese of Charleston. (The diocese covers the entire state, and is between bishops.) Father Newman seems to have put Monsignor Martin T. Laughlin in a difficult spot, as he is the Administrator, not the new bishop. But Laughlin was forthright in his statement:

CHARLESTON, S.C. (November 14, 2008) – This past week, the Catholic Church’s clear, moral teaching on the evil of abortion has been pulled into the partisan political arena. The recent comments of Father Jay Scott Newman, pastor of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Greenville, S.C., have diverted the focus from the Church’s clear position against abortion. As Administrator of the Diocese of Charleston, let me state with clarity that Father Newman’s statements do not adequately reflect the Catholic Church’s teachings. Any comments or statements to the contrary are repudiated.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “Man has the right to act in conscience and in freedom so as personally to make moral decisions.” The Catechism goes on to state: “In the formation of conscience the Word of God is the light for our path; we must assimilate it in faith and prayer and put it into practice. We must also examine our conscience before the Lord’s Cross. We are assisted by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, aided by the witness or advice of others and guided by the authoritative teaching of the Church.”

Christ gives us freedom to explore our own conscience and to make our own decisions while adhering to the law of God and the teachings of the faith. Therefore, if a person has formed his or her conscience well, he or she should not be denied Communion, nor be told to go to confession before receiving Communion.

The pulpit is reserved for the Word of God. Sometimes God’s truth, as is the Church’s teaching on abortion, is unpopular. All Catholics must be aware of and follow the teachings of the Church.

We should all come together to support the President-elect and all elected officials with a view to influencing policy in favor of the protection of the unborn child. Let us pray for them and ask God to guide them as they take the mantle of leadership on January 20, 2009.

I ask also for your continued prayers for me and for the Diocese of Charleston.

The CNS story on Laughlin’s statement says Newman was not available for comment, and his original letter, printed in the parish bulletin and posted online, does not seem to be available at the parish website any longer.

PS: Rocco has lots of info about the episode, including text of a follow-up note by Newman, also since removed from the parish website, defending himself against what he says were media misrepresentations of his answers to an AP reporter’s questions. “I insisted on receiving and answering the original questions in writing precisely because I knew that this might turn into a very ugly brawl designed to make me look like a raving lunatic seeking to coerce voters through spiritual blackmail rather than a shepherd warning his flock about the spiritual danger of supporting abortion, whether directly or indirectly…”

Father Jay Scott Newman, pastor of St. Mary Catholic Church in Greenville, SC, wasn’t waiting for the bishops to figure out what they should do. He sent a letter to his parishioners telling them that if they voted for Obama (“Barack Hussein Obama,” as he makes sure to note) they should not receive communion. In his letter to his “Dear Friends in Christ,” Newman (good name) says:

Voting for a pro-abortion politician when a plausible pro-life alternative exits constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil, and those Catholics who do so place themselves outside of the full communion of Christ’s Church and under the judgment of divine law. Persons in this condition should not receive Holy Communion until and unless they are reconciled to God in the Sacrament of Penance, lest they eat and drink their own condemnation.

Father Newman of course also notes that Obama was duly elected, and we should pray for him. But he has some pretty strong culture war rhetoric as well, about the unbridgeable gap between pro-choicers and pro-lifers:

Between these two visions of the use of lethal violence against the unborn there can be no negotiation or conciliation, and now our nation has chosen for its chief executive the most radical pro-abortion politician ever to serve in the United States Senate or to run for president. We must also take note of the fact that this election was effectively decided by the votes of self-described (but not practicing) Catholics, the majority of whom cast their ballots for President-elect Obama.

Isolated instance? Or predictable collateral damage from the church’s war within? Either way, it seems grossly unjust if only because there is so much confusion over who can take communion, and you have individual pastors freelancing all over the place.

The original Greenville News story is here (paper of the hometown of my alma mater–not BJU), the AP version here. H/T to Michael Paulson’s “Articles of Faith.”

Everyone has an opinion, but I think Padre Imbelli and others need to weigh with a definitive judgment on this libretto currently making the rounds:

“L’Obama, ossia L’Avvento del Messia: Opera in Tre Atti”

I can’t quite figure out the original source, but some say it’s the “Classical Music & Opera Forum” linked to in the title. Proper attribution welcome. Either way, it seems like the hand of someone with a good ear for opera and politics. A taste:

L’Obama, ossia L’Avvento del Messia: Opera in Tre Atti

Personaggi:

Barracco Obama, Il Messia, Redentore del Mondo……………………………….Tenore Miracoloso
Santa Micaela della Revoluzione, sua sposa……………………………………..Soprano Amaro
Giovanni Maccheno, Senatore, Avversario dello Obama…………………………Basso Buffo
Sara Palino, Governatrice del Alaska e Reginetta di Bellezza……………………Coloratura Buffa
Guglielmo Priapo, Ex-Presidente………………………………………………..Tenore Mentitore
Hillaria, sua Sposa, altra Avversaria dello Obama………………………………Soprano Ambizioso
Elena Tomasso, una strega……………………………………………………..Contralto Venenoso
Giuseppe Bideno, “Piedimbocca”………………………………………………Tenore Buffo
Il Spirito di Giorgio Secondo, L‘Abominazione………………………………….Baritono Cattivo
Il Spirito di Ruscio Limbago, Bocca Grande……………………………………..Basso Noioso
Jeremia Ritto, un uomo pazzo, pastore dello Obama……………………………Basso Demagogico
Guglielmo Ayers, terroristo Americano, amico dello Obama…………………….Tenore Anarchico
Un Sempliciotto…………………………………………………………………Tenore Profetica

Il Popolo, La Media Elite, Il Mondo, Il Congresso, Terroristi.

ATTO PRIMO
La Piazza del Cattedrale di Washington.

It is the day after the election…

Read on…
 

The Chicago priest, novelist, sociologist, newspaper columnist, friend of Commonweal and many others, remains in critical but stable condition at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge. Father Greeley fell and fractured his skull last Friday in a mishap getting out of a cab. Family and friends were keeping a vigil by his bedside, according to The Sun-Times. “We’re hopeful,” said his niece, Laura Durkin.

The bishops have concluded their intense debate on what they should do about politics and abortion and the new president and Catholics in public life and denying communion and…well, there was a lot to discuss, and not much consensus. And in the end the USCCB leader, Chicago Cardinal Francis George, tasked with saying everything and in the way everyone wanted, focused his 830-word statement largely on the prospect of President-elect Obama signing the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), should it pass Congress. Obama has said he would do so. CNS has the text here, and a story here.

The statement has a few nice flourishes, but is really a blast aimed at a specific target. The target is a good one, even if it never sees the light of day. The statement is also smart as there seemed to be a recognition that any attempt to address the range of other issues that divided the hierarchy (and the flock) would simply spill out into more public divisions. Hence, nothing has been settled, but at least they have a big common enemy in FOCA, and that’s often as useful as anything, at least in the short term.

Of course, others are sure to run with the statement as they will, to little good for the church. Bill Donohue interprets George’s statement as “Bishops warn Obama on abortion; Catholic Left rebuked.” Bill says: “Cardinal George explicitly rejected the ‘common good’ mantra of the Catholic Left that justifies legal abortion while pursuing ameliorative social policies that may reduce abortions.” Cardinal George’s latest remarks on that score seem far more nuanced than his personal pre-election motu proprio. The cardinal’s quote: “We express again our great desire to work with all those who cherish the common good of our nation.  The common good is not the sum total of individual desires and interests; it is achieved in the working out of a common life based upon good reason and good will for all.”

So the intramural battle will go on. Read the text and offer up exegesis, please.

PS: Yes, they are meeting in Baltimore; I mistakenly said Washington in an earlier post, the result of years of habit. I haven’t been to the meetings in Baltimore, but I like the fact that they moved it there, the mother see, and a deserving city in other ways.

I have tried to link, in several posts or comments, to several things I’ve written over the years on abortion and the law in the U.S.  The links never worked.  But I finally figured out how to do it, thanks to our very talented technology folk at ND. So, if you are not sick of the topic, here they are.  I think these URLs all work.

http://www.nd.edu/~ndlaw/faculty/kaveny/How%20Views%20of%20Law%20Influence%20Pro-Life%20Movement.pdf

http://www.nd.edu/~ndlaw/faculty/kaveny/kaveny-thomist-abortion.pdf

http://www.nd.edu/~ndlaw/faculty/kaveny/Choosing%20Life-Limits%20of%20Ordinary%20Virtue.pdf

Not the Dream Team some Catholics envisoned, but the President-elect dialed the Pope personally to thank him for the congratulatory telegram. According to CNS:

The Vatican spokesman, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, confirmed to Catholic News Service Nov. 12 that the president-elect telephoned the pope Nov. 11 “to thank the pope for his telegram, his congratulations” on winning the U.S. presidential election.

Further details about the call were not known, Father Lombardi said.

Pope Benedict sent his congratulations Nov. 5, referring to the “historic occasion” of the election, marking the first time a black man has been elected president of the United States.

Father Lombardi said Nov. 5 the pope prayed that “the blessing of God would sustain him (Obama) and the American people so that with all people of good will they could build a world of peace, solidarity and justice.”

The press office for Obama’s presidential transition team said all conversations with world leaders are private and no details would be released on this conversation or any conversation with world leaders.

A positive sign on both sides, and perhaps a nudge to the bishops meeting in Washington, who are trying to strike the right tone in their challenge/welcome to the new Democratic administration.

Then again, maybe they should be worried that Obama is campaigning for higher office. After all, Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Atlanta suggested that Obama’s election is a foretaste of what could happen in a conclave one day…Pope Barack I anyone?

…Or the Maryknoll priest faces excommunication, according to the CDF. NCR has the story, based on a letter Bourgeois sent to the Vatican.

According to Bourgeois’ letter, which is dated Nov. 7, the congregation has given the priest 30 days to recant his “belief and public statements that support the ordination of women in our Church, or (he) will be excommunicated.” The letter indicates that Bourgeois received notification from the congregation Oct. 21.

Bourgeois, a priest for 36 years, attended the ordination of Janice Sevre-Duszynska in Lexingon, Ky., Aug. 9 and preached a homily.

If Bourgeois is excommunicated at the end of 30 days, that would come just before the mass rally and protest against the U.S. Army’s School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Ga., that Bourgeois has organized for 19 years. In recent years, more than 15,000 people, many of them Catholic university students, have joined the three daylong rally and demonstration.

Question: Is holding his view on women’s ordination an “excommunicable” offense? Some might respond reflexively yes–or no–but there must be a canon firing in here somewhere. Or is it because he is a priest, in particular?

Maybe not. But, if you’re interested, you can watch EWTN’s live stream of the USCCB meeting here. They’re discussing “Catholic Teaching in Political Life” right now. Start your air-poppers.

Over at “The Catholic Thing,” Hadley Arkes considers his post-election options:

I’ve been on the internet, looking at real estate in … Malta. Just think, a four-bedroom townhouse, near the new marina, in Zabbar, $350,000 USD (asking). Hmm. It is not only that the outcome of our election portends a moral disaster at several levels. It is that the people around us, our fellow citizens, the people with whom we share control over our lives, have taken leave of their sober judgment, if they had possessed any.

BTW, as noted below, my point in posting this was the contrast with those disillusioned liberals who keep vowing to defect to Canada–but never do! Darn them. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But the Mediterranean? Conservatives know how to live, in exile at least.

Over the weekend, the New York Times ran a column on its coverage of the controversial Terrence McNally play Corpus Christi. Public Editor Clark Hoyt writes:

When Terrence McNally’s “Corpus Christi” was first produced in New York 10 years earlier, the Manhattan Theater Club said there were threats to burn down the theater, kill the staff and “exterminate” McNally. The play was canceled, but then reinstated after an outcry from other playwrights and the theater community. With protesters and counter-protesters in the street, the audience had to pass through metal detectors.

This time, there were no protesters and no metal detectors, but The Times’s coverage of “Corpus Christi” — a sympathetic review and an article linking the uproar a decade ago to the murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay college student in Colorado — hit a raw nerve with the group that organized the demonstrations against the play in 1998.

Bill Donohue, the president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, called “Corpus Christi” a “vile play” and charged that The Times liked it “not for artistic purposes but for its assault on Catholicism.” He urged his members to write to the public editor, and more than 150 did.

(…)

It is tempting for a secular and culturally liberal newsroom like The Times’s to dismiss such objections, especially because many appear to have come from people who neither saw the play nor read in full what The Times said about it. No self-respecting newspaper is going to avoid writing about a controversial work of art because it might offend some segment of the public. That would go against everything a newspaper stands for — examination of anything that happens in the public square — and Donohue told me he agreed that The Times should have covered the “Corpus Christi” revival. He just did not like what the newspaper said about it.

A number of Catholics I spoke to expressed outrage or embarrassment at Donohue’s methods. “He overreacts; he caricatures the things he objects to,” said Paul Baumann, editor of the independent Catholic magazine Commonweal, who himself gave “Corpus Christi” a negative review in 1998. “He raises the temperature in the room in a very unhelpful way.”

Read the rest right here.

Yesterday the Church celebrated the feast of Pope Saint Leo the Great. Leo is considered one of the great masters of the Latin Church’s homiletic tradition.

It has been my persuasion for some time now that we are gifted in our day with the example of a homilist who will rank among the great ones in the history of the Church: Pope Benedict XVI.

Sandro Magister of www.Chiesa fame has now edited a book of the Pope’s homilies in Italian, spanning the liturgical year. Of course they are all available separately on the Vatican website, but it is a joy to have them gathered in an accessible way. I hope the book will soon find an English translator.

At the presentation of the book Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the emeritus Vicar for Rome, offered some reflections. Here is an excerpt:

the homilies collected in this approachable volume demonstrate how the texts of the biblical readings of the individual celebrations can be understood in their full and authentic meaning, historical and theological, precisely as an integral part of liturgical action, and how on the basis of this fullness they can live in the present of the faith and speak to us. For this reason, reading and meditating on the homilies of Benedict XVI has become for many priests a valuable aid, and almost a paradigm for their personal preaching: in this regard, I myself have experienced how much listening to many of these homilies in person has helped my preaching, improving its connection to the Bible and the liturgy, and stimulating the attention and participation of those present. This book is therefore also a practical aid easily available to every priest, as a model to take as inspiration in his own homilies, not through rote repetition or imitation, but as a point of reference for his own personal efforts in assimilating and communicating the word of our salvation.

The rest of Cardinal Ruini’s remarks may be found here.

Or at least that’s how I read the editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal. Here’s the gist:

The car makers say that bankruptcy is unthinkable and “not an option.” And bankruptcy would certainly be expensive, not least for Washington itself, which could be responsible for 600,000 or so retiree pensions through the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. In that sense, the bailout is intended to rescue the politicians from having to honor that earlier irresponsible guarantee. But at least that guarantee would be finite. If Uncle Sam buys into Detroit, $50 billion would only be the start of the outlays as taxpayers were obliged to protect their earlier investment in uncompetitive companies.

* * *
If our politicians can’t avoid throwing taxpayer cash at Detroit, then they should at least do so in a way that really protects taxpayers. That means handing a receiver the power to replace current management, zero out current shareholders, and especially to rewrite labor and other contracts. Anything less is merely a payoff to Michigan politicians and their union allies.

 Paul Ingrassia, writing in the same paper, holds out the prospect of life-support. But at a premium price:

In return for any direct government aid, the board and the management should go. Shareholders should lose their paltry remaining equity. And a government-appointed receiver — someone hard-nosed and nonpolitical — should have broad power to revamp GM with a viable business plan and return it to a private operation as soon as possible.

That will mean tearing up existing contracts with unions, dealers and suppliers, closing some operations and selling others, and downsizing the company. After all that, the company can float new shares, with taxpayers getting some of the benefits. The same basic rules should apply to Ford and Chrysler.

These are radical steps, and they wouldn’t avoid significant job losses. But there isn’t much alternative besides simply letting GM collapse, which isn’t politically viable. At least a government-appointed receiver would help assure car buyers that GM will be around, in some form, to honor warranties on its vehicles. It would help minimize losses to the government’s Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.

But giving GM a blank check — which the company and the United Auto Workers union badly want, and which Washington will be tempted to grant — would be an enormous mistake. The company would just burn through the money and come back for more. Even more jobs would be wiped out in the end.

I’d love to hear Charles Morris’s take on this.

President-elect Barack Obama’s charisma, intelligence, and youth often caused commentators to compare him to John F. Kennedy. The endorsement of Obama by Caroline Kennedy and Sen. Edward Kennedy cemented the comparison, as did the obvious parallel between what Kennedy’s election represented for American Catholics and what Obama’s means to African Americans. I recently had occasion to look back at what Commonweal‘s editors had to say after certain crucial presidential elections, and I was once again struck by the strong similarities between the two men, and especially the treacherous political landscapes each had to navigate in being elected. Excerpted below are a few graphs from Commonweal‘s November 18, 1960, editorial:

We regard the decision which has been made by the American people not only as a critical comment on the past, not merely as a desire for a change, but as a sign of their trust in the future–and in this man whose full measure this country and the world have yet to take….

Senator Kennedy first had to overcome strong and articulate opposition within his own party. Some of the sharpest thrusts at the Senator were delivered by other Democrats before his nomination. Yet after the nomination he enlisted those people in his vigorous campaign. Although he backed the most liberal Democratic platform yet produced, he gained support in the South. Although many were distressed at his choice for Vice President, he extended his strength in Northern liberal areas. And he convinced those committed people who initially felt they would rather lose with Stevenson than win with anyone else that his battle was worth fighting….

We have no desire to turn a man into a legend before his time. Nevertheless, we think that Senator Kennedy promises to be the kind of leader who can accomplish many of these things. Not only has he the qualities enumerated by Mr. [Walter] Lippmann, but he has that intangible quality of charisma. Even while the political commentators were decrying his intellectual, unemotional approach people responded to him with a kind of excitement and enthusiasm that has not been visited upon this country since the days of Roosevelt. In directing his country through the times ahead, this quality can be a factor of incalculable importance.

I made my first visit to the Lateran Basilica two months ago (I’m sorry to say it didn’t make the itinerary for my very first trip to Rome, but I made sure to get there the second time around!). With this relatively fresh in my memory, I am able to picture what today’s feast celebrates more concretely than I have been in the past. If you take the Metro to the “San Giovanni” stop, as we did, you surface in the middle of a busy intersection, on the other side of the sturdy Roman wall that runs alongside the Basilica. We — my husband, my parents and I — couldn’t see any sign of the church when we emerged, and for the first few minutes we were mainly concerned with avoiding the traffic. Finally, we spotted a few of the Santi Apostoli who line the facade of the Lateran, facing the east, peeking over the Aurelian Wall at us. We passed through a gate in the wall and saw the Basilica looming ahead, looking like an echo of St. Peter’s (where we had just been). I didn’t know what the Lateran looked like, but once I saw it, I seemed to recognize it. And why not? After all, it’s my parish church. Yours, too.

Read the rest of this entry »

Re-reading Sacvan Bercovitch’s The American Jeremiad, I came across a comment (p. 169) in which Bercovitch invoked Tocqueville on the form of political rhetoric in the US.

“The contending parties, as Toqueville astutely noted, did ‘not publish books to refute each other, but pamphlets which circulate[d] at an incredible rate, last[ed] a day, and died.’”

Seems to me Toqueville would have an “a-ha” moment were he to encounter the blogosphere.

The day after the election, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Sr. Helen Prejean to talk to her about the election and what she would say to the new president about the death penalty in this country. As always, her passion for social justice was inspiring. You can listen to the podcast below.

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If and when the bishops do start talking about a new political strategy, they may want to keep in mind the remarkable victory of Tom (“Common Good Catholic”) Perriello over Virgil (Good ol’ Boy) Goode in Virginia’s fifth CD. Wish I could claim the WWF monikers as my invention, but they’re Mark Silk’s. Mark notes some of Virgil Goode’s major corkers, on Muslims and Mexicans, e.g., but at Slate, Dahlia Lithwick has the full monty–and she’s over the moon. Who wouldn’t be, given Perriello’s remarkable practice-what-you-preach Catholicism?

“A graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School, Perriello worked to end atrocities in Liberia as well as with child soldiers, amputees, and local pro-democracy groups in Sierra Leone. He became special adviser for the international prosecutor during the showdown that forced Liberian dictator Charles Taylor from power. His work as a security analyst has taken him to Afghanistan and Darfur. Perriello has also been a part of a groundswell of young progressives whose religious faith motivates them to seek social change through public service. One of the most startling aspects of his 2008 campaign was his pledge to tithe 10 percent of his campaign volunteers’ time to local charities. Time they could have spent stuffing mailers and phone-banking went to building houses for the poor.”

Yes, but…he favors efforts to reduce abortion rather than criminalizing it, and he is a co-founder of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good. So that has made him an enemy of the Church, according to several bishops and conservative Catholic groups. Virginia seems to have produced a few interesting Catholic pols, like Tim Kaine. Could this be the future of Catholic politics?

Soon enough we’ll have to stop basking in the afterglow of racial transcendence and go back to all the work we have left to do, on that and other more mundane fronts. But while we’re still focused on the meaning of This Historic Occasion, I’d like to call your attention to this article by Wil Haygood from yesterday’s Washington Post. It’s a human-interest story with a surprising amount of resonance — one more way to express, in simple, human terms, a sense of what happened this week. It starts out cloying, but the historical information that anchors it is valuable, and the ending packs a punch. If you’re like me, you’ll be better for reading. And you’ll want to have some tissues handy when you get to the end.

…At least officially. Dan Burke at Religion News Service has the scoop, that the USCCB has decided to remove from the agenda a discussion about Catholics and politics. They put the item on the agenda in September, and even this week archbishops Chaput of Denver and Myers of Newark (and likely others) were saying the debate was very much needed, as this RNS report shows.

“I think this is something that has evolved since September,” Sister Mary Ann Walsh, the USCCB spokesperson, told RNS. “Many bishops have already addressed the issue (of pro-abortion rights politicians) through pastoral letters, so there’s not the same need they saw in September.”

I don’t know of any other rationales at work, but the decision is probably a good one. Firstly, they can, and most certainly will, have unofficial discussions and sound each other out, which is what they need to do. An “official” discussion could have led to lots of speechifying and no conclusions, or revealed even more disagreements. The election is over, they can afford to think this through, talk it out. As the thread below on Catholics and politics indicates, the church is not of one mind, or may not even know its mind. (Or is out of its mind?!) Secondly, they may want to see what the Obama administration does, what their approach is, what their relationship might be, before issuing declarations.

Point of discussion: I think in all of this, there are three discrete issues that are often conflated but shouldn’t be. One is a response to Catholic pols (or others, I suppose) who start explaining theology on national TV. That would be Biden and Pelosi, now 2 and 3 respectively in the national power structure. Their theologizing really upset many bishops. But correcting them on theology is one thing. A separate issue is whether Catholic politicians should be barred from communion for certain positions, or if and when “ordinary” Catholics should be barred. The final issue concerns their approach to influencing policies and politics. These are interconnected issues but involve different areas and (may) require different answers.

PS: CNS has a story on a letter from Pensacola Bishop John Ricard to Joe Biden regarding news that Biden had attended mass in the diocese. Seems like a constructive approach. Reactions? Letter (PDF) is here…Via Rocco.

A Washington Post profile of Rahm Emanuel today describes him as a kind of classic Washington insider with experience both in the White House and on Capitol Hill, with friends, and enemies, in both places. The last part of the article draws attention to some things that make one wonder how much change we should expect from the new administration. When Emanuel left the Clinton administration in 1998 he was “a guy of relatively average means,” but after four years working for a global investment and merchant banking firm he had become rich, and in 2003, now in Congress, he declared that he had made $9,678,775 from the firm, “enough to force a footnote that specified he had earned the money before his election.” The article goes on:

His stock listings on the same form are filled with the all-too-familiar companies from the economic collapse: Lehman Brothers, Freddie Mac, J.P. Morgan.

Emanuel’s political and financial connections, built during his time on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, have made him a darling of Wall Street when the New York financial hub has lost its luster.

One of Clinton’s going-away presents to Emanuel was an appointment to the Freddie Mac board of directors, a year-long service for which he was reportedly compensated to the tune of $292,774.

Obama has clearly calculated that Emanuel’s connections to the financial scandal are fleeting and not disqualifying. But they may yet be a vulnerability. In his career, Emanuel is among the top 25 members of the House or Senate when it comes to receiving campaign contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — a total of $51,750.

And his prowess on Wall Street has translated into campaign cash for himself and others. He raises more money from the financial industry than from any other

Before the election I heard an economist say that the Obama campaign had received so much money from Wall Street that Obama would be “Citigroup’s man in the White House.”

John Allen has just posted an unsolicited letter to President-elect Obama. Here’s an excerpt:

You are a hero to much of Africa, giving you a degree of political capital on the continent that no other Western leader could rival. At the same time, 2009 is shaping up as a “Year of Africa” in global Catholicism. Over the next 12 months, Pope Benedict XVI will visit Cameroon and Angola; the African bishops will hold their plenary assembly in Rome; and bishops from all over the world will converge on Rome for a “Synod for Africa.” All this suggests the possibility of synergy between the world’s most important political and spiritual leaders — i.e., you and the pope — to promote peace and development for Africa, where the world’s most impoverished and abandoned people are today found.

If you’re interested in forging such a partnership, the first important choice to make is who to send to the Vatican as your ambassador. Ideally, you will turn to someone known to have your ear, who will have real political influence in your administration, and who also knows the Catholic world. What you’re looking for, in other words, is a Democratic equivalent of James Nicholson, President Bush’s first Vatican ambassador. Nicholson had served as the chair of the Republican National Committee, and helped to steer the party’s outreach to Catholic voters. Bush sent a clear signal with that nomination that he was interested in the Vatican, and this is one case where it would behoove you to follow his lead.

And here is the rest.

Judging by the headlines this campaign, you might have thought the shepherds were headed one way and the flock in another direction. That’s not quite the case, as reports of 50 or 60 or even 100 bishops promoting a “McCain-or-be-damned” approach to abortion and the civil sacrament of voting don’t hold up under scrutiny. Still, there’s no doubt many more bishops than usual want a more forceful approach to political activity, and that will be an interesting (closed-door) discussion next week when they gather in Baltimore.

The “flock”–some 65 million or so of us lay folk and ordinary religious–also didn’t go en masse over the cliff for Obama, though it’s pretty clear the bishops didn’t have much sway, or if they did, it may have been to push Catholics the other direction. Catholics as a whole went for Obama 54-45, a major swing from 2004, when they went for Bush over (Catholic) John Kerry. But break it down by ethnicity and white Catholics went for McCain 52-47–although, as Mark Silk points out in an excellent analysis (complete with regional breakdowns), Obama did better than Kerry with white Catholics by 8 points. White Catholics also tend to be marginally more Democratic than whites as a whole. (I’d also highly recommend the Mark Silk-Andrew Walsh piece in the Nov. 3 edition of America, on the past and future of the Catholic vote.)

On the other hand, Latinos, who are the future of the church in many respects, went strong for Obama. That’s an internal fault line as critical as that within the hierarchy. But, lay people are united in not factoring the abortion issue into their vote very much, as against the advice of the bishops. The economy, war, health care, energy, etc all rated high while “life” issues barely appeared on the radar. That is consistent with past elections. What is also consistent–and what is reflected in the ballot results–is that the bishops get more traction with Catholics (and the public) on gay marriage than on overturning Roe v. Wade. Ballot proposal to limit abortion were defeated in three states, while proposals barring gay marriage and adoption by gay parents passed.

Another warning sign: Young Catholics clearly do not support the political positions of the bishops and others on abortion and gay marriage. It’s tough to have a political strategy without voters behind you.

So what now? How does the Catholic Church recover a voice and presence and, to dream, influence, in the public square? Phil Lawler of Catholic World News says, as usual, the problem is dissent, and he vows a “crusade” that he hopes will be joined by outspoken bishops. Tom Reese has a comprehensive analysis at The Washington Post, ending with this:

“A closer look at the exit polls should be as discouraging for left-wing Catholics as for right-wing Catholics. Catholic voters did not embrace either the conservative non-negotiables or the church’s preferential option for the poor. They were concerned about themselves and their families. Will the abortion debate rise up again in four years at the next presidential election? A lot depends on President Obama and the Democratic Congress. If they push through the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), then they will have betrayed their pro-life Catholic supporters. This will make it nearly impossible for these people to support them again. On the other hand, if they make a priority the enactment of an abortion reduction bill, then it will be more difficult for the bishops and the Republicans to portray the Democrats as the pro-abortion party.”

Another danger for the bishops, however, was pointed out by Al Mohler, a leading voice of Southern Baptists and the “religious right”:

“Will the Republican Party decide that conservative Christians are just too troublesome for the party and see the pro-life movement as a liability?  There is the real danger that the Republicans, stung by this defeat, will adopt a libertarian approach to divisive moral issues and show conservative Christians the door.”

That seems to me to be the true risk inherent in the pro-lifers’ strategy, in that it is so tied to the GOP that if the party moves toward a more moderate position–that debate is underway–the Catholic leadership could be left without a prayer (not to mention the unborn). “Put not your trust in princes,” the Psalmist says. But if you are going to get involved in politics, he might have added, hedge your bets by keeping ties to both parties.

There is much to be said for the thesis that Catholics are “politically homeless.” No party will ever represent Catholic teaching completely, of course. But that can also be something of a cop-out. Catholics are in many respects just living in separate houses (or chanceries, as the case may be). Besides, people make politics. So what now?

PS: I would also note this CNS story about Catholic divisions, “Reconciliation after election possible, but expected to take time.”

At the conclusion of the historic “Catholic-Muslim Forum” held these past two days at the Vatican, Pope Benedict addressed the participants.

I am well aware that Muslims and Christians have different approaches in matters regarding God. Yet we can and must be worshipers of the one God who created us and is concerned about each person in every corner of the world. Together we must show, by our mutual respect and solidarity, that we consider ourselves members of one family: the family that God has loved and gathered together from the creation of the world to the end of human history.

I was pleased to learn that you were able at this meeting to adopt a common position on the need to worship God totally and to love our fellow men and women disinterestedly, especially those in distress and need. God calls us to work together on behalf of the victims of disease, hunger, poverty, injustice and violence. For Christians, the love of God is inseparably bound to the love of our brothers and sisters, of all men and women, without distinction of race and culture. As Saint John writes: “Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate their brothers or sisters are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen” (1 Jn 4:20).

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I pray that the “Catholic-Muslim Forum”, now confidently taking its first steps, can become ever more a space for dialogue, and assist us in treading together the path to an ever fuller knowledge of Truth. The present meeting is also a privileged occasion for committing ourselves to a more heartfelt quest for love of God and love of neighbour, the indispensable condition for offering the men and women of our time an authentic service of reconciliation and peace.

Dear friends, let us unite our efforts, animated by good will, in order to overcome all misunderstanding and disagreements. Let us resolve to overcome past prejudices and to correct the often distorted images of the other which even today can create difficulties in our relations; let us work with one another to educate all people, especially the young, to build a common future. May God sustain us in our good intentions, and enable our communities to live consistently the truth of love, which constitutes the heart of the religious man, and is the basis of respect for the dignity of each person. May God, the merciful and compassionate One, assist us in this challenging mission, protect us, bless us and enlighten us always with the power of his love.

Update: 

At the conclusion of the Forum a joint statement was released, containing fifteen points. Tomorrow’s L’Osservatore Romano will publish an unofficial Italian translation. I have not yet been able to locate the original text (presumably in English), but if past practice is a guide, it may appear first on the Vatican Radio Website.

Here is one of the propositions as given by L’Osservatore Romano:

11. Professiamo che cattolici e musulmani sono chiamati a essere strumenti di amore e di armonia tra i credenti e per tutta l’umanità, rinunciando a qualsiasi oppressione, violenza aggressiva e atti terroristici, in particolare quelli perpetrati in nome della religione, e a sostenere il principio di giustizia per tutti.

We hold that Catholics and Muslims are called to be instruments of love and harmony between believers and all humanity, renouncing all oppression, aggressive violence and terrorist acts, in particular those perfomed in the name of religion, and to uphold the principle of justice for all.

In Italy Walter Veltroni’s “Partito Democratico” has put up posters, celebrating the Obama Victory. “Il Mondo Cambia — the World Is Changing.” Though I contend that a special puddle in Dante’s “Purgatorio” should be reserved for graffiti “artists,” were I still in Italy, I would be tempted to scrawl on the poster: “Speriam!”

In the midst of the post-election inundation of commentary (none more thoughtful than Peter Nixon’s post below) two other pieces caught my attention. Others who may not have occasion to see them might be interested.

The first is from today’s Wall Street Journal, written by former Clinton aide, Lanny Davis, who sets the election in historical perspective. “The Obama Realignment” concludes:

[Obama] appears to mean what he says and he says what he means: It is time to take a “time out” from the hyperpartisanship of the last generation, and to begin a new experiment in bipartisan government, getting government back into the solutions business. His is a fact-driven approach to politics that isolates the strident, purist voices of the left and right who demonize those they differ with rather than disagree and debate them.

For these reasons, it would be a mistake to assume that the Obama landslide victory and the appearance of this new majority coalition in Tuesday’s election results was a fluke — a result of a “perfect storm” of the Iraq war, the economic crisis, and George Bush’s unpopularity that made John McCain’s task of winning in 2008 almost impossible.

Rather, years from now we will probably look back at Nov. 4, 2008, the way we look back at the five previous realigning elections. Something fundamental has changed. In this case, not only has a unique majority coalition of liberals, conservatives, moderates and independents come to power, but a unique style of governance as well, as exemplified by Barack Obama’s speech Tuesday night.

If the future President Obama makes progress on solving the huge economic and social problems facing this country, and on securing the country from future terrorist attacks, he may well be viewed as the Democrat who created a long-term new political majority not seen since FDR.

The second from today’s Boston Globe is by Andrew Bacevich who invokes the theology of Reinhold Niebuhr to issue some cautionary advice:

Here lies the statesman’s dilemma: You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. To refrain from resisting evil for fear of violating God’s laws is irresponsible. Yet for the powerful to pretend to interpret God’s will qualifies as presumptuous. To avert evil, action is imperative; so too is self-restraint. Even worthy causes pursued blindly yield morally problematic results.

Niebuhr specialized in precise distinctions. He supported US intervention in World War II – and condemned the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended that war. After 1945, Niebuhr believed it just and necessary to contain the Soviet Union. Yet he forcefully opposed US intervention in Vietnam.

The vast claims of Bush’s second inaugural – with the president discerning history’s “visible direction, set by liberty and the Author of Liberty” – would have appalled Niebuhr, precisely because Bush meant exactly what he said. In international politics, true believers are more dangerous than cynics.

Grandiose undertakings produce monstrous byproducts. In the eyes of critics, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo show that all of Bush’s freedom talk is simply a lie. Viewed from a Niebuhrean perspective, they become the predictable if illegitimate offspring of Bush’s convictions. Better to forget utopia, leaving it to God to determine history’s trajectory.

On the stump, Obama did not sound much like a follower of Niebuhr. Campaigns reward not introspection, but simplistic reassurance: “Yes, we can!” Yet as the dust now settles, we might hope that the victor will sober up and rediscover his Niebuhrean inclinations. Sobriety in this case begins with abrogating what Niebuhr called “our dreams of managing history,” triggered by the end of the Cold War and reinforced by Sept. 11. “The course of history,” he emphasized, “cannot be coerced.”

We’ve tried having a born-again president intent on eliminating evil. It didn’t work. May our next president acknowledge the possibility that, as Niebuhr put it, “the evils against which we contend are frequently the fruits of illusions which are similar to our own.” Facing our present predicament requires that we shed illusions about America that would have offended Jesus himself.

Obama has written that he took from reading Niebuhr “the compelling idea that there’s serious evil in the world” along with the conviction that evil’s persistence should not be “an excuse for cynicism and inaction.” Yet Niebuhr also taught him that “we should be humble and modest in our belief we can eliminate those things.” As a point of departure for reformulating US foreign policy, we could do a lot worse.