Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Aquinas: An Imagined Encounter

An interesting piece over at First Things by Archbishiop Augustine Di Noia, O.P., that is of particular significance to me as a graduate of the University of Virginia who was received into the Church at St. Thomas Aquinas Parish (a Dominican parish adjacent to the UVA grounds).

Notre Shame Fails the "Catholic" Test Yet Again

Preeminent Catholic legal scholar, Prof. Charles Rice, who writes a regular column that appears in the Notre Dame student newspaper, submits a column on the Church's teaching regarding homosexuality, and the editor of the student newspaper rejects it because it isn't in a "point-counterpoint format" that offers "an opposing or differing viewpoint":

That way, each “side,” [so] to speak, would have the opportunity to present relevant facts, evidence and analysis to define its position.

So, at America's flagship "Catholic" university, the Church's timeless Magisterial teachings represent merely one viewpoint that needs to be "balanced" by what? The secularist viewpoint? As The Curt Jester points out:

America Magazine tried that both sides format until their editor supposedly got sacked for it... This is just not an area where Catholics can have differing viewpoints and still be faithful to the Church.

But is anyone REALLY surprised by the fact that the Notre Dame student newspaper is taking such an approach? I mean, when the Church's timeless Magisterial teachings regarding abortion are treated by the University administration as something open for "dialogue", and the advocates of abortion on demand are honored with prominent speaking positions and honorary law degrees all in the name of "the exchange of ideas", it is no wonder that the students under their charge are left with the impression that the teachings of the Catholic Church are up for debate.

Do read The Curt Jester's entire piece on the exchange of letters between the still-wet-behind-the-ears editor-in-chief of a frickin' student newspaper and one of the world's preeminent scholars of the Natural Law and the Catholic legal tradition (to whom the clueless upstart refers as "Mr. Rice", as opposed to "Dr. Rice" or "Prof. Rice").

Also, be sure to read Prof. Rice's column, which The Curt Jester has reprinted in full, to see if you can spot the "certain language" with which the editor "was a bit concerned" and feared did not "len[d] itself to creating a productive discussion".


Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
An Open Letter from Prof. Rice to Fr. Jenkins

Prof. Freddoso's Introduction to What Happened to Notre Dame? - Part 2: Why the Catholic Faithful WERE Scandalized

Prof. Freddoso's Introduction to What Happened to Notre Dame? - Part 1: "Why I Was Not Scandalized"

What Happened to Notre Dame?

Catholics and the Law

Michael P. Foley writes at InsideCatholic:

Catholics in America have more reasons than ever to worry about the future of the law. The legal practice of the Catholic faith in the United States is already becoming difficult because of funding abortions via our taxes, scuttling our philanthropic organizations rather than supporting same-sex marriage, or paying for the artificial contraception of Catholic institutions' employees. The international scene is no better: Several years ago, the EU tried to deny Europe's Christian roots in its constitution, and two months ago the European Court of Human Rights fined the Italian government for having crucifixes in schoolrooms.

From all this it would be easy to conclude, like Thomas More's excitable son-in-law Roper in A Man for All Seasons, that the law is a cloak for the devil to do his mischief, and that every law in the land should be cut down in the service of God. But such a view overlooks a remarkable fact: Despite some legislators' hostility to Catholic morality, the legal tradition as we know it owes its existence in large part to the Catholic Church.

[More]

Archbishop Burke at Red Mass: Invokes Thomas More; Decries Society that Masks "Totalitarianism" with "Hope"

From Catholic News Agency:

Phoenix, Ariz., Jan 13, 2010 / 12:11 am (CNA).- Using the example of St. Thomas More, Archbishop Raymond Burke exhorted legal professionals present at Tuesday's Red Mass in St. Mary’s Cathedral to keep God before their eyes as they strive to administer justice amidst a “society which is abandoning its Judeo-Christian foundations.”

Archbishop Burke flew in from the Vatican to celebrate the Mass at the invitation of his long-time friend, Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix. The Red Mass is the only event on the archbishop's short itinerary.

“As a Catholic lawyer, it is an incredible honor to be graced with the presence of Archbishop Burke at the Red Mass,” John Kelly, general counsel for the Diocese of Phoenix, told The Catholic Sun. “This is also a man who has publicly and unabashedly defended the teachings of the Church on the sanctity of life. An opportunity to celebrate Mass with someone like this does not come along very often.”

The archbishop began his homily by explaining the origins of the Red Mass, a tradition dating to the Middle Ages. Noting that there was a stronger understanding of the “essential unity” of faith and reason in that time period, he said that celebrating Mass “at the beginning of the new judicial year pointed to the irreplaceable foundation of the service of pronouncing the just and the right on behalf of one’s brothers and sisters.”

He also explained that red vestments are worn during the Mass for two reasons: judges in the Middle Ages wore red robes and because they remind “us of the perfect obedience of our Lord Jesus Christ” in obeying the call of the Holy Spirit to lay down our own lives.

Archbishop Burke then presented the story of St. Thomas More, a lawyer who was martyred for choosing to serve God instead of the king. The patron saint of lawyers, the archbishop reminded, is known for exclaiming, “I die the king’s good servant, and God’s first.” “Saint Thomas More understood that there could be no contradiction between his service of his nation and his service of God, and that, in fact, he could only serve his nation truly and faithfully by his true and faithful service of God,” Archbishop Burke declared.

[...]

In our culture, “the law more and more dares to force those with the sacred trust of caring for the health of their brothers and sisters to violate the most sacred tenets of their consciences, and to force individuals and institutions to cooperate in egregious violations of the natural moral law,” he said. “In such a society, the administration of justice is no longer a participation in the justice of God, an obedient response to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, but a façade cloaking our own selfishness and refusal to give our lives for the sake of the good of all our brothers and sisters.”

“It is a society which is abandoning its Judeo-Christian foundations, the fundamental obedience to God’s law which safeguards the common good, and is embracing a totalitarianism which masks itself as the 'hope,' the 'future,' of our nation. Reason and faith teaches us that such a society can only produce violence and death and in the end destroy itself,” Archbishop Burke warned.

[More]

(emphasis added)

(Hat tip: Opinionated Catholic)

Boston College Law School in Disarray Over Prof’s Defense of Marriage

The Cardinal Newman Society reports:

On September 15, 2009, StandForMarriageMaine.com released a television ad which featured Scott Fitzgibbon, a professor at Boston College Law School, arguing in defense of marriage between one man and one woman. He encouraged Maine voters to vote “yes” on an upcoming ballot referendum which aims to overturn state legislation which legalized homosexual “marriage” last May.

Complaints from fellow faculty members at Boston College soon began piling up. Merely one day after the ad aired, Boston College Law Dean John Garvey issued a letter to the BC law community, writing, “Several of you have contacted my office to express your anger at Scott’s actions, and it is hard for me to see any of our students, faculty, or staff offended or hurt by the words of others.”

Rather than praising Fitzgibbon’s public defense of a Catholic teaching, Dean Garvey wrote that Fitzgibbon’s “public statements represent his own opinions. . . and do not state any official position of Boston College Law School.” [ED.: Huh? These are NOT merely Prof. Fitzgibbon's "own opinions", but ARE, in fact, the "official position" of the Catholic Church of which Boston College purports to be a part.] Garvey defended Fitzgibbons’ participation in the advertisement but also seemed to welcome faculty opposition to Catholic teaching.”

We also have faculty members who hold a contrary view, which they too are free to express publicly,” he wrote. “Many have done so while referring to themselves as BC Law professors. One of them has publicly led the fight to oppose the Solomon Amendment on the grounds that it is an affront to gay and lesbian students and prospective members of the U.S. military. Others have taken controversial positions on such subjects as abortion, euthanasia, and the treatment of detainees.”

Three days after Fitzgibbon’s pro-traditional marriage ad aired, a group of 76 “Individual Faculty and Administrators at Boston College Law School”, including Dean Garvey, issued the following statement: “The undersigned members of the faculty and administration at Boston College Law School feel that it is important to reaffirm our belief in the equality of all of our students. We are proud of the fact that Boston College Law School was one of the first law schools in the country to include sexual orientation in its non-discrimination pledge, and we reaffirm our commitment to making our institution a welcome and safe place for all students, including LGBT students.”

(emphasis and editorial commentary)

Prof. Freddoso's Introduction to What Happened to Notre Dame? - Part 2: Why the Catholic Faithful WERE Scandalized

In the previous installment of my review of Prof. Charles Rice's new book What Happened to Notre Dame?, I covered the first portion of Prof. Alfred Freddoso's Introduction to the book, in which Prof. Freddoso discussed the reasons he was NOT scandalized by the university's decision to honor the pro-abortion President Obama.

In this installment, I will discuss Prof. Freddoso's explanation of why the Catholic faithful - at least those who were unfamiliar with the troubling trends at Our Lady's University that Prof. Freddoso so ably summarized - WERE scandalized by the honors Notre Dame bestowed upon one so out of step with the Church's teaching on the sanctity of life.

And part of what so scandalized the faithful is what the university's action announced to the world:

... what the action said is that while abortion and the mentality it cultivates are bad, they are not really all that bad - not bad enough, at least, to prevent one of the most reliable political promoters of abortion in the history of American politics from being honored by Our Lady's university... no one doubts that if the President's beliefs and actions had violated some important tenet of the left-wing political orthodoxy adhered to by most of the faculty members of the university, he would never have been invited or honored.

(emphasis in original)

Prof. Freddoso notes another key aspect that the controversy brought to the fore:

If you are an American Catholic, then the more central Catholic belief and practice are to your life, the more likely you were to be upset by Notre Dame's decision to honor President Obama... the more centered your life in on Jesus Christ and what Vatican II calls your "baptismal call to holiness," the more likely you were to disapprove of the university's decision . You would also be more likely to think of yourself as 'countercultural' in many ways or, to put a more positive slant on it, as part of what Pope John Paul II dubbed the "culture of life" ...

Notre Dame's "thinking Catholic" vision, however, is clearly at odds with this way of thinking:

The problem was that the university, still stuck in a "pre-JP2" mindset, was wholly out of touch with the new wave of serious Catholics, including a bunch of surprisingly outspoken bishops.

The roots of Notre Dame's "pre-JP2" mindset stem from what Prof. Freddoso refers to as "the four I's": impatience, infidelity, ingratiation, and impenitence.

But the really crucial factor was the infidelity, which effectively took the form of a gamble - made in the early 1970s in the wake of Vatican II and in the aftermath of the dissenting reaction to Pope Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae - that some form of 'liberal' or 'progressive' Catholicism, freed from (or, to put it more neutrally, disengaged from) the philosophical and theological underpinnings of the past, would emerge as the 'serious' Catholicism of the future... the attitude of dissent from and disdain for the Vatican played a significant foundational role in shaping hiring policies, tenure decisions, key administrative appointments, curricular reform, and admissions strategies for the next thirty years.

Also crucial among "the four I's" in explaining Notre Dame's falling away has been the university's efforts

... to keep up with the Joneses amid what might fairly be called a culture of ingratiation. Policies were sometimes adopted for no other reason than that "this is the way they do it at Princeton (or Duke or Stanford or Vanderbilt, etc.)... The thought seems to have been that if only we imitate the others, they will accept us as a peer - and the hidden rider was always "despite our Catholicism"...

And while all this was going on, the trends within the Church itself were moving in the opposite direction ... John Paul II's "new springtime" had the true "serious" Catholics moving back toward fidelity to the Church's teaching authority and away from ingratiation with the culture, embracing, instead, a more countercultural mentality. As between the two competing visions, Prof. Freddoso notes which is bearing more fruit:

... as I looked around on May 17 at the crowd of mostly young students and young families who were in attendance at the alternative commencement rally on the south quad, I wondered aloud just who "yesterday's Catholics" were in 2009. Whose vision of the Church is leading to a dead end? And whose vision was instead inspiring young people to dedicate their lives to the Kingdom of God in opposition to the surrounding culture? Whose vision was turning out to be sterile and bourgeois? And whose vision was instead turning out to be fruitful? ... These are the young Catholics that the university has lost touch with...

Coming up next:
Prof. Freddoso's Introduction to What Happened to Notre Dame? - Part 3: What Now?


Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
Prof. Freddoso's Introduction to What Happened to Notre Dame? - Part 1: "Why I Was Not Scandalized"

What Happened to Notre Dame?

Just Another Hack

At The American Spectator, Mark Judge passes judgment on The Washington Post's lefty columnist E.J. Dionne:

What happened to E.J. Dionne? Dionne, a liberal columnist for the Washington Post and Catholic intellectual, has become a representative of arguably the most serious problem with the left: the refusal to engage arguments from the other side. This leads to arguments that are repetitive, propagandistic, and frequently unmoored from reason and common sense. And in Dionne's case, it didn't have to be this way. He was once one of America's most interesting journalists.

***
In the journey from journalist to dogmatist, Dionne has become a shrill and predictable writer. He has traded the integrity of the investigative journalist and intellectual for the frisson of the propagandist. This is especially dispiriting because Dionne is a Catholic. What has made writing by Catholics from G.K. Chesterton to Anne Rice so compelling is the tension between reason and political correctness, between the natural law and modernism. The natural law, Catholics believe, is the law that the conscience dictates -- the law that tells everyone, regardless of who they are or where they live, that rape and murder are intrinsically evil. According to St. Ambrose, who is quoted in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the conscience is "God's herald and messenger," guiding human beings about right and wrong. And while the conscience is a proper guide, Catholics also believe that it also needs to be developed; this is done by adhering to the Gospels and the teachings of the Church. Catholics further believe that God has revealed himself through human reason. In Dionne's early writing this tension was evident, and made for compelling reading. A good liberal, he was willing to call America on racism, excessive capitalism, and anti-government zealotry. A reasonable man and faithful Catholic, he was equally able to challenge the left on reverse racism, condescension towards working class whites, and abortion fanaticism. Now he's just another hack.

[Read the whole thing]

(Hat tip: Brian Saint-Paul at Inside Catholic)

Prof. Freddoso's Introduction to What Happened to Notre Dame? - Part 1: "Why I Was Not Scandalized"

In my preview the other day of Prof. Charles Rice's new book, What Happened to Notre Dame, the synopsis that I excerpted mentioned a Preface by Prof. Ralph McInerny and an Introduction by Prof. Alfred Freddoso. Either Prof. McInerny's Preface didn't make the final edits, or it is excluded for some reason from the review copies that were sent out, because it does not appear in the copy that I received. [UPDATE: Special thanks to Prof. Freddoso who emails to inform me that Prof. McInerny has been ill most of the summer and, therefore, was not up to writing the Preface. Prof. McInerny now appears to be well on his way to recovery.]

So, I'll start my review of What Happened to Notre Dame? with Prof. Freddoso's Introduction, which I will cover in 3 parts. The first of the 3 parts will deal with the reasons that Prof. Freddoso claims not to have been "scandalized" by Notre Dame's decision to award Pres. Obama an honorary law degree despite the President's abortion advocacy.

Freddoso asserts that he was not scandalized because, essentially, this is the sort of thing he has come to expect from Our Lady's University:

The reason I was not scandalized was that I had ... lived through the last thirty years of those historical trends that Charlie Rice ably identifies in this book: the university's steadily intensifying and often frustrated aspiration to be regarded as a major player on the American educational scene; the concomitant segregation of faith from reason; the deterioration of the core curriculum for undergraduates into a series of disjointed 'course distribution requirements' guided by no comprehensive conception of what an educated Catholic should know; the easy transition from a faculty dominated by 'progressive' Catholics to a faculty more and more dominated by people ignorant of the intellectual ramifications of the Catholic faith; the concomitant marginalization of faculty who professed allegiance to, or even admiration for, the present-day successors of the Apostles; and a succession of high-level administrators lacking in a philosophical vision of Catholic higher education and intent on diffusing throughout the university a pragmatic mentality at once both bureaucratic and corporate.

Freddoso argues that these trends have

put more and more strain on the relationship between the university and the Church it claimed to be serving and even to be 'doing the thinking for', to cite one astonishingly presumptuous catchphrase used by the university to promote itself.

Which brings Freddoso to conclude that, indeed, Notre Dame is NOT a Catholic university ... "i.e. an institution of higher learning where the Catholic faith pervades and enriches, and is itself enriched by, the intellectual life on campus."

A Public School in a Catholic Neighborhood
Rather, Freddoso uses the model of a public school in a Catholic neighborhood to describe the environment at Notre Dame, noting that when those associated with the university mistakenly proclaim it to be a Catholic university,

they assume without much thought that the Catholic character of the university is borne almost entirely by the 'neighborhood', i.e. by the university's sacramental life ... and by the sheer number of 'outdoor' and 'indoor' manifestations of Catholicism such as the statue of Our Lady atop the Golden Dome, Sacred Heart Basilica, the Grotto, the "Touchdown Jesus" mural, and scores of statues found all over the 'neighborhood'.

Freddoso contrasts the "neighborhood" part of the university with the "public school" part of Notre Dame:

The classroom or laboratory, by contrast, is a wholly different venue, despite the presence of crucifixes... This is where 'reason' resides on campus and where 'the mind is educated'; and it has little or nothing to do with Catholicism. (It is no accident that the newest science building on campus contains no noteworthy religious symbols in general, and no noteworhty Catholic symbols in particular. That's the way the science faculty wanted it.)

The professor laments that the

conviction that a Catholic student's intellectual life should be fully integrated with his or her Catholic beliefs and practices is very much a minority view.

Which brings us back to the reason for Prof. Freddoso's contention that he was not scandalized by the university's decision to honor the most pro-abortion President in history:

I have come to expect that the teachers and administrators of the public school will periodically decide to tweak the noses of the 'unenlightened' among their Catholic neighbors. That's just the way it often is with public schools in Catholic neighborhoods.

Coming up next:
Prof. Freddoso's Introduction to What Happended to Notre Dame? - Part 2: Why the Catholic Faithful WERE Scandalized.


Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
What Happened to Notre Dame?

Torture ... Excuse Me ... the Use of "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" Works! And We Should STILL Oppose It

The torture apologists are crowing over the release of the CIA Inspector General's 2004 report, which suggests that torture has indeed proven effective - at least in the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed - in turning the previously uncooperative mastermind of 9/11 into a fount of important information. (Needless to say, I draw completely different conclusions from that fact than does the torture-happy author of the linked piece.)

About one matter, however, the torture proponents do have something of a point:

The Post report, together with CIA documents released during the past week, demolishes a key argument of opponents of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques — that “‘torture’ never works.”

This contention always betrayed an insecurity. For all their thundering about the criminal immorality of coercive interrogations, opponents never dared admit that they could have elicited important, perhaps lifesaving, information. They treated it as a kind of metaphysical impossibility.

In so doing, they left a hostage to fortune. They had to hope that Cheney was wrong when he said that classified documents proved the effectiveness of the interrogations, and failing that, had to hope the documents would never be declassified. On this front, the release of the 2004 Central Intelligence Agency inspector general report — declassified thanks to an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit — has been a disaster for them. In the intelligence business, it’s called blowback.

I've said before that Catholics (and others) opposed to torture should not resort to arguments against its effectiveness since: (a) when something is intrinsically evil, whether it works or not is completely irrelevant; and (b) those making the argument that torture is ineffective may turn out to be wrong, and then our ethical and moral arguments against torture are thereby undermined. See my comments here, here (agreeing with my friend Paul Zummo), and here for more details.

And, yet, the meme that "torture doesn't work" has nevertheless been widely adopted by a number of Catholics in St. Blog's - including the blogger who has achieved the highest profile in the torture debates on the Catholic blogosphere - as a means of bolstering their argument against the practice.

The question I have always had is: "Why go there?", when, again, whether torture is effective or not is completely irrelevant from a Catholic and Natural Law standpoint, given the intrinsically evil nature of the practice. The argument that Catholics should be honing in on and never departing from is this: "Torture is immoral because it violates the dignity of the human person, EVEN IF it is useful for obtaining information from the detainee, and EVEN IF such information is potentially life saving."

The risk for those making the argument against torture's efficacy was always that there were bound to be examples - even if isolated - where potentially life-saving intelligence was gathered through the use of so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques". And the problem is compounded when those making the argument continue to insist that torture is ineffective in the face of at least some evidence to the contrary, because the anti-torture movement risks forfeiting its credibility.

So what's going on? My guess is that the fear among those making the ineffectiveness argument appears to be that the consequentialist times in which we live will lead the populace, upon learning that torture "works" in at least some circumstances, to reject all moral arguments against its practice and embrace torture whole hog. Those putting forth the argument don't appear to be prepared to do the heavy lifting of making the argument to the general public on behalf of the Church's "hard teaching", which mandates that torture should NEVER be utilized EVEN IF it means foregoing critical intelligence that might save lives.

It's one thing when you can browbeat foot-dragging-on-torture-but-otherwise-faithful Catholics into submission (and, in my view, the browbeating was necessary, if a little hyperbolic at times) by continually hammering on the words of papal encyclicals; it's quite another form of persuasion that is necessary to convince a consequentialist public that embracing the evil of torture, even where some good may result, is giving evil mastery over us all.

What Happened to Notre Dame?

That's the question a whole lot of people have been asking lately about the Fighting Irish football team. But this post isn't about college football (that post will come in the next day or two in preparation for that most glorious time of year, which begins this weekend).

Rather, this post is about a book authored by one of my heroes, Charles E. Rice, professor emeritus of Law at the University of Notre Dame Law School, titled What Happened to Notre Dame?

(St. Augustine's Press, 224 pages, paperbound, $15.00; ISBN-13: 978-1-58731-920-4; ISBN-10: 1-58731-920-9; publication date: September 2009).

I just received a review copy of the book in the mail today. I hope to read the book this week and post a review shortly thereafter. In the meantime, here is an excerpt from the publisher's synopsis:

... What Happened to Notre Dame? by Charles E. Rice, with a Preface by Ralph McInerny and Introduction by Alfred Freddoso – three of Notre Dame’s most distinguished scholars, who together have served the University 124 years – first recounts the details of Notre Dame’s honoring of President Obama. It then examines the succession of fall-back excuses offered by the Notre Dame President Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., and University publicists to justify Notre Dame’s defiance of the nation’s bishops and of Catholic teaching.

But Rice is not content with mere reportage. What Happened to Notre Dame? diagnoses the problem’s roots by first providing an overview of the Land O’Lakes Declaration, its inception and its aftermath, including the ways in which its false autonomy from the Church has led to an erosion of the Catholic identity of Notre Dame and other Catholic universities.

Then, it offers a cure. Christ, who is God, is the author of the divine law and the natural law. The book presents reasons why an acknowledged interpreter of these laws is necessary, and why that interpreter has to be the Pope exercising the
Magisterium, or teaching authority of the Church. And it shows why it is so important that we have such a moral interpreter for all citizens and not just for Catholics. The alternative is what Pope Benedict XVI calls the “dictatorship of relativism,” which the book analyzes. Even for those who do not share the Catholic faith, our reason leads us to conclude that the natural law is the only moral code that makes entire sense and points to the conclusion that the Vicar of Christ is uniquely suited to give authoritative interpretation to that law.

In the final chapter Rice shows why great good can come out of Notre Dame’s blunder in rendering its highest honors to such an implacable foe. Notre Dame got itself into such a mess because it attempted to be Catholic without the Church and
ended up defying the Church and disgracing itself. But good can result from the lesson here that roll-your-own morality is no more tenable than roll-your-own Catholicism.

Rice shows why what happened to Notre Dame is symptomatic of what’s happening in other Catholic colleges, indeed in colleges with non-Catholic religious affiliations. He shows how the abandonment of principle at the college level spills over tothe general culture, with devastating effect, as religious standards get pushed out of the public square. And, finally, he shows why people who have never seen the Golden Dome, never rooted for the Fighting Irish, and never graced a Catholic Church, also have a stake in what happened to Notre Dame...

I look forward to reading and reviewing What Happened to Notre Dame?


UPDATE
I note that my old friend Advocatus Militaris has a similar post from last Friday at Fumare.

Created Equal

Another excellent post by Matthew Archbold at Creative Minority Report:

... The opening of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, states as follows:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Created?

A thought about that. If the Declaration is one of the foundational document on which this country stands, it would seem to me this country, if it is to be based on principles rather than fads and whims of elitists in matching robes, there could not be legal abortion.

If all men are created equal that tells us that when we are created we are equal to all others and assume the same rights as others - even those fortunate enough to make it outside the womb.

It doesn't say that when we are born we assume those rights. It says that we are created equal.

I don't think anyone could argue that creation itself occurs anytime other than the moment of conception...

[More]

Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
"Separate But Equal" Redux - Pro-Life Edition

Obama: "We are God's Partners in Matters of Life and Death" [UPDATED]

Is that the royal "We"?

Matthew Archbold has the details at Creative Minority Report.


UPDATE (24 August)
"... during the campaign, questions of life were above his paygrade!"

Front Porch Republic

I encourage you to check out a relatively new blog that I've been reading quite a bit lately: Front Porch Republic. Here is a description of FPR and its purpose from the blog's "About" page:

The economic crisis that emerged in late 2008 and the predictable responses it elicited from those in power has served to highlight the extent to which concepts such as human scale, the distribution of power, and our responsibility to the future have been eliminated from the public conversation. It also threatens to worsen the political and economic centralization and atomization that have accompanied the century-long unholy marriage between consumer capitalism and the modern bureaucratic state. We live in a world characterized by a flattened culture and increasingly meaningless freedoms. Little regard is paid to the necessity for those overlapping local and regional groups, communities, and associations that provide a matrix for human flourishing. We’re in a bad way, and the spokesmen and spokeswomen of both our Left and our Right are, for the most part, seriously misguided in their attempts to provide diagnoses, let alone solutions.

Though there is plenty we disagree about, and each contributor can be expected to stand by the words of only his or her own posts, the folks gathered here more or less agree with the above assertions. We come from different backgrounds, live in different places, and have divergent interests, but we’re convinced that scale, place, self-government, sustainability, limits, and variety are key terms with which any fruitful debate about our corporate future must contend. We invite you to read along, and perhaps join the discussion.

—-

For an introduction to the front porch, see these two articles:

A Republic of Front Porches by Patrick Deneen
What Our Hands Have Wrought by Mark T. Mitchell

Currently, the writers at FPR are engaged in a symposium on the book Shop Class as Soul Craft by Matthew Crawford. For Joe Carter's take on Crawford's book at First Thoughts, see his post, "Shop Class Ain’t for Nerds". See also this insightful response to Joe's post by FPR's Caleb Stegall.

Caritas in Veritate [UPDATED]

So, I go on vacation for a week and, while I'm gone, the Pope decides to finally release the most significant social encyclical in years.

Fortunately, my friend Chris Blosser has a comprehensive round-up on Caritas in Veritate at First Thoughts.


UPDATE
After I've had the opportunity to read (and digest) the Holy Father's latest encyclical, I'll contribute a post here with my own thoughts.


UPDATE #2
GOP House leaders speak on Caritas in Veritate.

Deacon Keith Fournier: "What Truths Do We Still Hold?"

Deacon Keith Fournier writes at Catholic Online:

... Those courageous men were influenced by the great treasury brought to Western Civilization by the Christian Church. They believed there actually were truths to be held and that those truths are self evident. Those truths include the existence of unalienable rights which are given to all men and women by a Creator. They believed that those truths and those rights can be discerned by all men and women because they are revealed by the Natural Law which is written on all human hearts and is a participation in God’s law.

The question which we need to ask ourselves in the United States of America as we come to the celebration of our Independence is a sobering one, What Truths do we Still Hold?

***
Tuesday, June 30, 2009 I will join with leaders from throughout the United States who represent broad sectors of the Christian community. We will gather in Washington, D.C. Together we share a common belief in what the late CS Lewis called “Mere Christianity.” The term is sometimes misunderstood to mean a kind of lowest common denominator approach to Christian cooperation. Lewis actually meant the basic “kerygma” of the Gospel message which all orthodox Christians should hold in common. That is what I mean as well.

***
On Tuesday we will come together as a “Freedom Federation” not to form any new organization but to stand together as Christians who are Americans and pledge, as did the founders of this Nation, our life our liberty and our sacred honor. At the top of our list of common areas wherein we will try to work together are these commitments to common action:

“To secure the sanctity of human life by affirming the dignity of and right to life for the disabled, the ill, the aged, the poor, the disadvantaged, and for the unborn from the moment of conception. Every person is made in the image of God, and it is the responsibility and duty of all individuals and communities of faith to extend the hand of loving compassion to care for those in poverty and distress;

"To secure our national interest in the institution of marriage and family by embracing the union of one man and one woman as the sole form of legitimate marriage and the proper basis of family; to secure the fundamental rights of parents to the care, custody, and control of their children regarding their upbringing and education.; To secure the free exercise of religion for all people, including the freedom to acknowledge God through our public institutions and other modes of public expression and the freedom of religious conscience without coercion by penalty or force of law.”

[More]

Supreme Court Justices, Religion, & Anti-Catholicism

See John Henry's post at The American Catholic: "Supreme Court Justices and Religion":

To ask some questions is to answer them, and via Commonweal, I see that UCLA history professor emeritus Joyce Appleby has penned a lovely exercise in anti-Catholicism entitled, Should Catholic Justices Recuse Selves On Certain Cases?

***
In response, David Gibson at Commonweal notes that he, as well as all of the Catholic Justices on the Court, would argue that the teachings of the Church have no bearing on their rulings. Nevertheless, Ms. Appleby apparently believes the Justices cannot be taken at their word on this matter. Catholic justices, it seems, can’t be trusted.

What interests me about this line of argument is that both Mr. Gibson and Ms. Appleby implicitly assume there is something wrong with religious beliefs influencing Justices. And I am curious about what that something is. For instance, Judge Sotomayor is famously on the record for saying that a judge’s background (i.e. gender, ethnicity, life experience) influences their decision-making, as is Justice Ginsberg if I am not mistaken. Yet there have been no calls for the recusal of female (or male) judges from gender discrimination cases.

[More]

Kmiec Brushes Aside Another Non-Negotiable by Coming Out Against Prop 8

Before we get to the erstwhile Prof. Kmiec, let us first recall the words of Pope Benedict to the European People's Party on 30 March 2006:

As far as the Catholic Church is concerned, the principal focus of her interventions in the public arena is the protection and promotion of the dignity of the person, and she is thereby consciously drawing particular attention to principles which are not negotiable. Among these the following emerge clearly today:

- protection of life in all its stages, from the first moment of conception until natural death;

- recognition and promotion of the natural structure of the family - as a union between a man and a woman based on marriage - and its defence from attempts to make it juridically equivalent to radically different forms of union which in reality harm it and contribute to its destabilization, obscuring its particular character and its irreplaceable social role;

- the protection of the right of parents to educate their children.

(emphasis added)

But don't mind the Holy Father. Prof. Kmiec says that whether the state chooses to recognize same-sex unions and hold out these "radically different forms of union" to be "juridically equivalent" to marriage is none of the Church's business. Here's the news of Prof. Kmiec's latest antics from The Cranky Conservative:

Doug Kmiec continues to mystify. Now he has come out in opposition to Proposition 8 in California. As has been the case with abortion, Kmiec couches his position in supposedly religious reasoning, but all he does is show a continued “lawyerly” bent to twist words beyond all sense.

[Read the whole thing]

The Passion of the Kmiec - A Pro Ecclesia Timeline:

February 2009
Kmiec Brushes Aside Another Non-Negotiable by Coming Out Against Prop 8

Kmiec Calls Pope's Comments "Intrusive"

Catholic World Report: "Douglas Kmiec and His Misinformation Offensive for Barack Obama"


January 2009
Kmiec Claims He's In the Loop for Vatican Post

American Papist's Open Letter to Prof. Kmiec

Kmiec the Martyr

Prof. Kmiec Eulogizes Fr. Neuhaus in a Manner That is All About Prof. Kmiec and Justifying his Obama Vote [UPDATED]


December 2008
Prof. Bainbridge on Doug Kmiec and U.S. Diplomatic Relations with the Holy See


November 2008
Vatican Official Says Kmiec Will Not Become New Vatican Ambassador

The Kmiec Catholic Re-Education Camp

Former Student of Prof. Kmiec Calls Him Out on "Revealing His True Colors"

A Modern-Day "Vicar of Bray"

Douthat Smacks Kmiec

Amy's "Wrap-Up" of Pre-Election Abortion Coverage

Pathetic


October 2008
George Weigel on Kmiec's "Flawed Thinking"

Archbishop Chaput: Kmiec Doing a "Disservice to the Church"

Mainstream Media Compliant in Obama's "Faith Outreach" Pitch

Bill Donohue: "I'm Catholic, Staunchly Anti-Racist, and Support David Duke" [UPDATED]

Debate Over at Amy's: Should Catholics Work for Legal Restrictions on Abortion?

Deacon Fournier Puts Smack Down on Prof. Kmiec

Kmiec's Payoff? [UPDATED]


September 2008
The Obama-Kmiec Magical Mystery "Faith Tour"

Deacon Fournier: "Doug Kmiec’s ‘Can a Catholic Support Him?’ Asks the Wrong Question"

Ponnuru Raps Kmiec for Defending Obama's Born-Alive Vote

"Separate But Equal" Redux - Pro-Life Edition

Mark Stricherz: "Why the Democratic Abortion Strategy is Worse"

Whither the "Catholic Vote"? Some Interesting Posts at the Fidelis Blog


August 2008
Darwin Catholic: "Douglas Kmiec, Master of Dissembling" [UPDATED]

Prof. Rick Garnett on Kmiec's "Missing the Point"

A Former Student of Prof. Kmiec Speaks Out ...

Prof. Kmiec Shifts the Goalposts

Kmiec's "Bridge Too Far"? Obama's Attacks on Justice Thomas

Without Further Ado: Doug Kmiec on McCain v. Obama at Saddleback [UPDATED]

Paging Prof. Kmiec ...

Doug Kmiec Claims Democrats Making "Steps Toward Honoring Life" in Platform

Prof. Garnett Takes on Prof. Kmiec ... Again

Casey Jr. to Get Prime-Time Slot in Denver to Appease Catholics [UPDATED]


July 2008
Fr. Neuhaus Responds to Doug Kmiec

Deal Hudson's Open Letter to Doug Kmiec

National Catholic Register on Catholics, Kmiec, and Obama

Prof. Hadley Arkes: "Political Distraction Among the Catholics"


June 2008
Doug Kmiec - What He Said Then vs. What He Says Now Re: Constitutional Jurisprudence

What is the "Pro-Life Position" Regarding Abortion?

Traumatized

Unrequited Love

Doug Kmiec: "After Meeting with Barack" [UPDATED]

Cranky Conservative: "But At Least He Says It with a Smile"

Doug Kmiec Again Places Platitudes Above Policy [UPDATED]

Prof. Bainbridge on "Obama, Abortion, & Catholics"

Prof. Rick Garnett on Kmiec's Latest Nonsense

Deacon Keith Fournier: "Why I Disagree with Doug Kmiec, Once Again"

Give It a Rest Already, Prof. Kmiec!

Doug Kmiec's Newfound Celebrity Status Among Those on the Left

Doug Kmiec Soon To Be Sorely Disappointed

E.J. Dionne on Kmiec Being Denied Communion [UPDATED]


May 2008
Deal Hudson on Prof. Kmiec and Blurring the Lines Between "Pro-Choice" and Pro-Abortion

Did Doug Kmiec Just Now Catch On That Obama and NARAL Are Politically Conjoined? [UPDATED]

Deal Hudson on "How Obama's Catholics Will Dodge the Infanticide Question"

Kmiec's Dishonesty [UPDATED]

Catholic Teaching and Political Risk Taking: When Credit Isn't Given Where Credit is Due [UPDATED]


April 2008
Kmiec's Wishful Thinking on Obama and Abortion


March 2008
The Curt Jester: "Shameless Garment" [UPDATED]

So-Called "Catholic Reaganite" Doug Kmiec Endorses Obama [UPDATED]

No'bama for Me, Thanks"

Can a Catholic Vote for Obama?


February 2008
Obama's Pledge to Planned Parenthood: "I Will Not Yield"

"Why American Catholics are Supporting Barack Obama"

How the Catholic Left Will Tackle McCain

Why Does Kmiec Criticize McCain for Positions on Which He Gave Romney a Pass?

Deal Hudson on "Douglas Kmiec and the Lure of Obama"

Douglas W. Kmiec on "The Moral Duty to Inquire"

Professor Bainbridge: "Will Catholic Reaganites Go for Obama?"

Deal Hudson: "Preacher Man: Barack Obama and the the Gospel of Liberalism"

"Sorry, Doug Kmiec, But This Catholic Isn't Buying Obama"

Ramesh Ponnuru on Douglas Kmiec and "Catholic Reaganites for Obama" [UPDATED]

Romney Advisor Says Obama "a Natural for the Catholic Vote"

Kmiec Calls Pope's Comments "Intrusive" [UPDATED]

(Hat tip: Catholics in the Public Square)

From the man who once said he'd change his effusive views on Obama if the Pope called him to admonish him on the subject:

Obama backer Pepperdine Professor Douglas Kmiec has described Pope Benedict's comments to Nancy Pelosi as "intrusive" because they put the whole judicial system in an impossible moral dilemma.

Catholic News Agency reports that in his piece in Time magzine Prof. Kmiec implied that the Pope exaggerated or at least did not measure the consequences of his words when he told Nancy Pelosi that "jurists," in addition to legislators, must work "in cooperation with all men and women of good will in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development."

According to Kmiec, such a statement "has the potential, at least theoretically, to empty the U.S. Supreme Court of all five of its Catholic jurists, and perhaps all other Catholics who sit on the bench in the lower federal and state courts.

The Pepperdine professor suggests the Pope, instead, could take "a different, less intrusive course," by "continuing to observe the difference between a jurist and a legislator."

"Few are pleased with the abortion jurisprudence as it is," argues Kmiec, but by "imposing moral duties on Catholic jurists that are incompatible with their envisioned judicial role in a democracy," Pope Benedict XVI "is hardly likely to make it better."

Edward Whelan, President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and director of its program on The Constitution, the Courts, and the Culture, questioned "whether Kmiec's reading (of the Vatican statement) is actually a careful one."

"For starters, Kmiec assumes that the term 'jurists' is equivalent to 'judges'," Whelan explains, when actually the terms applies to "any person who possesses a degree in law."

The EPPC expert explains that "even if the statement does apply to American judges, all it says is that 'jurists' should 'work in co-operation with all men and women of good will in creating a just system of laws capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development.' Kmiec turns this into an "admonition to 'jurists' to undertake an activist, law-changing role. But the statement doesn't compel that reading."

My Comments:
I think we can kiss that ambassadorship goodbye at this point.

So much for listening to what the Holy Father has to say on the subject of pro-life politics. Prof. Kmiec has tasted the dissident Kool-Aid and seems to have decided he likes it.


UPDATE
(Hat tip: Opinionated Catholic)

Fr. Z makes an important point about Kmiec's comments:

... Kmiec wants the reader to accept the premise that the Pope is imposing a new moral duty imposed on jurists, a duty to "undertake an activist, law-changing role".

The Pope didn’t say that at all. The statement does not say that jurists must be activists. It says that jurists should "work for a system of law capable of protecting human life at all stages of its development".

Kmiec says that there is now a "new directive" from Rome. There isn’t.

Here is the slight of hand: Kmiec says the Pope says that judges must use judicial activism in order to limit abortion, implying that they should "legislate from the bench" as judges do when they interpret the US Constitution broadly instead of narrowly or strictly). Kmiec reasons that the Pope is saying that if judges don’t oppose abortion by employing this kind of activism, then they are guilty in the same way as Catholic legislators are when they promote abortion rights.

Again, that is not what the Holy See’s statement says.

The statement did not, as Kmiec claims, impose "moral duties on Catholic jurists that are incompatible with their envisioned judicial role".

Kmiec wrongly interprets the papal statement as putting jurists and legislators in the same category so that their responsibilities about protecting human life must be exercised in the same way. Kmiec says the pope doesn’t recognize that there are different roles.

Remember that Kmiec is writing for the for TIME/CNN machine, which has its expectations. He is using "activist" as the polar opposite of "originalist". I think he uses "originalist" because it sounds more like "fundamentalist" than "strict constructionist" would. On the surface, Kmiec is trying to make it seem that the Pope came out against originalism embraced by Justice Scalia. In other words, you can no longer hide behind originalism. Kmiec says the Pope says you MUST become a judicial activist.

Rubbish.

All of that said….

My biggest problem with Kmiec’s article is how he seeks to undercut the Pope’s authority. He is suggesting that the Pope is being unreasonable...

[Read the whole thing]

(emphasis in original)


UPDATE #2
See also "Kmiec's epic fail in Time magazine" at American Papist.


The Passion of the Kmiec - A Pro Ecclesia Timeline:

February 2009
Kmiec Calls Pope's Comments "Intrusive"

Catholic World Report: "Douglas Kmiec and His Misinformation Offensive for Barack Obama"


January 2009
Kmiec Claims He's In the Loop for Vatican Post

American Papist's Open Letter to Prof. Kmiec

Kmiec the Martyr

Prof. Kmiec Eulogizes Fr. Neuhaus in a Manner That is All About Prof. Kmiec and Justifying his Obama Vote [UPDATED]


December 2008
Prof. Bainbridge on Doug Kmiec and U.S. Diplomatic Relations with the Holy See


November 2008
Vatican Official Says Kmiec Will Not Become New Vatican Ambassador

The Kmiec Catholic Re-Education Camp

Former Student of Prof. Kmiec Calls Him Out on "Revealing His True Colors"

A Modern-Day "Vicar of Bray"

Douthat Smacks Kmiec

Amy's "Wrap-Up" of Pre-Election Abortion Coverage

Pathetic


October 2008
George Weigel on Kmiec's "Flawed Thinking"

Archbishop Chaput: Kmiec Doing a "Disservice to the Church"

Mainstream Media Compliant in Obama's "Faith Outreach" Pitch

Bill Donohue: "I'm Catholic, Staunchly Anti-Racist, and Support David Duke" [UPDATED]

Debate Over at Amy's: Should Catholics Work for Legal Restrictions on Abortion?

Deacon Fournier Puts Smack Down on Prof. Kmiec

Kmiec's Payoff? [UPDATED]


September 2008
The Obama-Kmiec Magical Mystery "Faith Tour"

Deacon Fournier: "Doug Kmiec’s ‘Can a Catholic Support Him?’ Asks the Wrong Question"

Ponnuru Raps Kmiec for Defending Obama's Born-Alive Vote

"Separate But Equal" Redux - Pro-Life Edition

Mark Stricherz: "Why the Democratic Abortion Strategy is Worse"

Whither the "Catholic Vote"? Some Interesting Posts at the Fidelis Blog


August 2008
Darwin Catholic: "Douglas Kmiec, Master of Dissembling" [UPDATED]

Prof. Rick Garnett on Kmiec's "Missing the Point"

A Former Student of Prof. Kmiec Speaks Out ...

Prof. Kmiec Shifts the Goalposts

Kmiec's "Bridge Too Far"? Obama's Attacks on Justice Thomas

Without Further Ado: Doug Kmiec on McCain v. Obama at Saddleback [UPDATED]

Paging Prof. Kmiec ...

Doug Kmiec Claims Democrats Making "Steps Toward Honoring Life" in Platform

Prof. Garnett Takes on Prof. Kmiec ... Again

Casey Jr. to Get Prime-Time Slot in Denver to Appease Catholics [UPDATED]


July 2008
Fr. Neuhaus Responds to Doug Kmiec

Deal Hudson's Open Letter to Doug Kmiec

National Catholic Register on Catholics, Kmiec, and Obama

Prof. Hadley Arkes: "Political Distraction Among the Catholics"


June 2008
Doug Kmiec - What He Said Then vs. What He Says Now Re: Constitutional Jurisprudence

What is the "Pro-Life Position" Regarding Abortion?

Traumatized

Unrequited Love

Doug Kmiec: "After Meeting with Barack" [UPDATED]

Cranky Conservative: "But At Least He Says It with a Smile"

Doug Kmiec Again Places Platitudes Above Policy [UPDATED]

Prof. Bainbridge on "Obama, Abortion, & Catholics"

Prof. Rick Garnett on Kmiec's Latest Nonsense

Deacon Keith Fournier: "Why I Disagree with Doug Kmiec, Once Again"

Give It a Rest Already, Prof. Kmiec!

Doug Kmiec's Newfound Celebrity Status Among Those on the Left

Doug Kmiec Soon To Be Sorely Disappointed

E.J. Dionne on Kmiec Being Denied Communion [UPDATED]


May 2008
Deal Hudson on Prof. Kmiec and Blurring the Lines Between "Pro-Choice" and Pro-Abortion

Did Doug Kmiec Just Now Catch On That Obama and NARAL Are Politically Conjoined? [UPDATED]

Deal Hudson on "How Obama's Catholics Will Dodge the Infanticide Question"

Kmiec's Dishonesty [UPDATED]

Catholic Teaching and Political Risk Taking: When Credit Isn't Given Where Credit is Due [UPDATED]


April 2008
Kmiec's Wishful Thinking on Obama and Abortion


March 2008
The Curt Jester: "Shameless Garment" [UPDATED]

So-Called "Catholic Reaganite" Doug Kmiec Endorses Obama [UPDATED]

No'bama for Me, Thanks"

Can a Catholic Vote for Obama?


February 2008
Obama's Pledge to Planned Parenthood: "I Will Not Yield"

"Why American Catholics are Supporting Barack Obama"

How the Catholic Left Will Tackle McCain

Why Does Kmiec Criticize McCain for Positions on Which He Gave Romney a Pass?

Deal Hudson on "Douglas Kmiec and the Lure of Obama"

Douglas W. Kmiec on "The Moral Duty to Inquire"

Professor Bainbridge: "Will Catholic Reaganites Go for Obama?"

Deal Hudson: "Preacher Man: Barack Obama and the the Gospel of Liberalism"

"Sorry, Doug Kmiec, But This Catholic Isn't Buying Obama"

Ramesh Ponnuru on Douglas Kmiec and "Catholic Reaganites for Obama" [UPDATED]

Romney Advisor Says Obama "a Natural for the Catholic Vote"

Prof. Beckwith: Why “Reducing the Number of Abortions” is Not Necessarily Prolife

Prof. Francis Beckwith explains why “reducing the number of abortions” is not necessarily "prolife".

I've made this same argument in the past here (citing Prof. Beckwith) and here.

Prof. Hadley Arkes on Joe Biden: "The Rise of an Empty Man"

(Hat tip: Opinionated Catholic)

A must-read by Prof. Hadley Arkes at The Catholic Thing:

... The cars assembled at their post conveyed a message, as inescapable as it was portentous: Here, in a chapel, affecting to be in communion with his Church, is a man who has trumpeted his rejection of the most central moral teachings of the Church. During the presidential campaign he offered, as one of the prime accomplishments in his political life, that he helped to defeat the nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. With that stroke he managed to preserve, unimpaired, the right to kill an unborn child at every stage of its life. We have had a sense of what it means to “give scandal” or to misinstruct the faithful about the teachings of their own Church. But now it is done even more dramatically, with the presence of limousines to convey the point: that you can be a prime defender of the right to abortion at every stage and for any reason – nay, you can even exult in public for your achievements in securing that “right” – and still be a “good Catholic.”

***
Faced then with a positivist among judges, Joe Biden opened the hearings on confirmation by staking out a strong position on natural law:

As a child of God, [he said] I believe my rights are not derived from the Constitution. My rights are not derived from any government. My rights are not derived from any majority. My rights are because I exist. They were given to me and each of my fellow citizens by our creator and they represent the essence of human dignity. [Emphasis added.]

But that summoning statement for the natural law should have struck in the most telling way against Biden’s stance on abortion. James Wilson, one of the premier minds among the American Founders, raised the question of when we acquire those rights that flow to us by nature. And the answer was: As soon as we began to be. By Biden’s own words, the doctrine of natural rights should protect the offspring in the womb as soon as we know it “exists.” He can evade the problem by affecting to be agnostic on the question of when human life begins. He could say, with Barack Obama, that the question is above his pay grade, if he simply neglects to consult the textbooks on embryology.

***
For Biden, incoherence lay on every path. Four years after the hearings on Robert Bork, Biden was faced with hearings over Clarence Thomas. The charge made against Thomas was that he had once done a lecture offering a pitch to take natural law seriously again. Biden then put out the warning, as earnestly as the warnings issued over Bork: that if we have a jurist who takes natural law seriously, there will be less regulation of the economy and more people dying then in industrial accidents. We may take these moments as snapshots of Joe Biden, to be placed in the album, as part of the chronicle of an American story: the rise, ever upward, of an empty man.

[Read the whole thing]

(Cross-posted at Catholics Against Joe Biden)