Diocese Employee Says Judge In Abortion Case Should Be Denied Communion
From PalmBeachPost.com:
WEST PALM BEACH - An employee of the Diocese of Palm Beach said Thursday that Palm Beach County Juvenile Court Judge Ronald Alvarez, a Catholic, should be denied communion for allowing a 13-year-old foster child to have an abortion.My Comments:
Don Kazimir, who works for the diocese's Respect Life Office, which opposes abortion and the death penalty, called Alvarez's office Wednesday to ask which church the judge attends. Kazimir said he wanted to speak with Alvarez's priest, who he said might have a problem with a Catholic judge agreeing to an abortion.
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Kazimir was disappointed by Alvarez's decision in the case of L.G., the 13-year-old who became pregnant after running away while under state care. Although officials from the Florida Department of Children and Families objected to an abortion, Alvarez ruled this week that the girl had a right to choose.
L.G. subsequently ended her pregnancy.
The original message relayed to Alvarez by his assistant said Kazimir was investigating the issue for the diocese. But Kazimir said Thursday he was speaking only for himself and did not talk to supervisors before calling the judge.
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Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Jorge Labarga, a Catholic, said he asked for the death penalty many times as a prosecutor.
"I don't think any of us here let our religions get in the way of our thinking," he said.
[More]
I'm not sure what to think here. Well, I know what to think about Circuit Judge Jorge Labarga's statement that he doesn't "let his religion get in the way of his thinking". Your faith doesn't "get in the way" of your thinking - rather, it should inform your thinking. And where you have discretion of action [like Judge Greer did with respect to Terri Schiavo], you should choose the course that is in conformity with your faith.
That being said, when a judge is faced with the choice of following the law or following his faith, it's not as cut-and-dried as one might wish to make it out. After all, a judge has taken an oath to uphold the law. A lower-court judge, unlike a legislator, or even a Supreme Court justice, is not involved in formulating public policy. The lower-court judge is charged with enforcing the law as it exists. Those who make public policy should rightly be held accountable for making public policy that is not in conformity with Church teaching; but how should this be applied to a judge who must apply existing law to a particular set of facts in a given case?
I am reminded of this scene from "A Man For All Seasons" (I know it's overused in the blogosphere - in fact, I've already used it more than once on this blog site) regarding the vagaries of determining whether to do what is "right" vs. what is "lawful":
More: There is no law against that.(emphasis added)
Roper: There is! God's law!
More: Then God can arrest him.
Roper: Sophistication upon sophistication.
More: No, sheer simplicity. The law, Roper, the law. I know what's legal not what's right. And I'll stick to what's legal.
Roper: Then you set man's law above God's!
More: No, far below; but let me draw your attention to a fact - I'm not God. The currents and eddies of right and wrong, which you find such plain sailing, I can't navigate. I'm no voyager. But in the thickets of the law, oh, there I'm a forrester. I doubt if there's a man alive who could follow me there, thank God....
Alice: While you talk, he's gone!
More: And go he should, if he was the Devil himself, until he broke the law!
Roper: So now you'd give the Devil benefit of law!
More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper: I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you - where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast - man's laws, not God's - and if you cut them down - and you're just the man to do it - d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.
Again, I don't know the answer. I'm certainly troubled by the facts of this case. I'm very upset that an abortion took place - taking the life of an unborn child. The person seeking the abortion was also a child. The child's legal guardian objected to the abortion.
Did the judge have any discretion? Was a decision to not allow the abortion likely to be reversed on appeal? And St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that an immoral law is no law at all. When faced with upholding his oath to enforce a law that is immoral, what should a judge do?
posted by Pro Ecclesia 7:56 AM
6 comments
6 Comments:
Sorry about that e-mail, Jay. I sent it before I had seen that you posted the same thing.
Do you really think that whether the judge's decision would be likely overturned or not is relevant to morality of his action?
I could be wrong (duh), but I'm thinking that it is irrelevant to the moral decision that the judge had to make. Though, I would like to know from a Catholic lawyer's perspective why it might be relevant.
Sorry about that e-mail, Jay. I sent it before I had seen that you posted the same thing.
Do you really think that whether the judge's decision would be likely overturned or not is relevant to morality of his action?
I could be wrong (duh), but I'm thinking that it is irrelevant to the moral decision that the judge had to make. Though, I would like to know from a Catholic lawyer's perspective why it might be relevant.
I think the keys are (1) the amount of discretion the judge had, and (2) if no discretion, whether we really want judges just making up the law - that's how we got in this predicament in the first place.
I'm not all that familiar with the facts of the case, but if the judge had ruled that the girl had no right to have an abortion and that the state was justified in stopping her, he would have been morally right, but legally wrong.
He would have been legislating his personal morality from the bench. If it's not okay for liberal judges to do that, we should also object if Catholic or conservative judges do that.
Catholic legislators, on the other hand, have the ability to formulate public policy. And we can and should hold them accountable if they fail to do so in accordance with the dictates of their faith.
On the other hand, if, as you have suggested over at Amy's, this judge had the discretion to determine whether an otherwise incompetent person had the competence to make this decision, then that involves discretion on the judge's part. He can be held accountable, in my judgment, for exercising discretion without informing his decision by his faith.
Jay,
You mention the oath to uphold the laws (it was mentioned at Amy's too). There is definitely a point where that goes out the window. The oath is sworn before God and with the implicit understanding that you are taking the oath with the mind of not countering God. I would argue that if there was added to the constitution an amendment that said that the US Constitution no longer recognizes the personhood of [fill in ethnic or religious group of your choice], so they have no protection under the law. So when the genocide begins, do the judges still have to honor that oath? Of course not.
I think that there is a better case for a judge going along with the law in that stupid example I gave than our current situation with abortion. Because in the former, there is no doubt to the existence of the law and there isn't any wiggle room aroung the intention.
Maybe I'm just going off the deep end here. I just think it is important to view these dillemas from God's perspective of justice.
Rick,
I don't know the answer. As I said, I'm torn.
I do know that I am deeply skeptical of judges who substitute their judgment for what the law says or is. That's how we got Roe v. Wade in the first place.
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