Sunday, March 19, 2006

No Room in Either Political Inn

If the New York Times can be believed (and once in a while it can be), the latest call for stripping the Catholic Church of its tax exemption comes, not from the ACLU or any other of the usual suspects, but from two "conservative" commentators, Tucker Carlson and Lou Dobbs. This may shock some people who have accepted the notion that political conservatives, and specifically the Republican Party, are the Church's natural allies and most reliable supporters in the public square. Such people have somehow managed to overlook the fact that, going all the way back to the days of "Mater Si, Magistra No" (usually attributed, perhaps incorrectly, to William F. Buckley, Jr.) American political conservatives have found a great deal of the Church's teaching, especially on social and economic matters, but also on the sanctity of life, to be completely unacceptable. Having fixated on the abortion issue as if it were the only one that counts, many faithful Catholics have been willing to overlook the extent to which American political conservatives, while paying lip-service to the Church's opposition to the slaughter of the unborn, have rejected its teachings on a great many other issues, some 0f which, if heeded, might contribute indirectly to a reduction in the number of abortions actually performed by making the future prospects of those unborn less unrelievedly grim.

Obviously, candidates for public office who are openly and enthusiastically in favor of abortion should not enjoy the support of Catholics. But neither should professed anti-abortion candidates who are open and enthusiastic supporters of frequently applied capital punishment, premptive and unjust warfare, legalized violations of human rights (like torture and indefinite detention without trial), and the unjust exploitation of the labor of the desperately poor. If it is indeed true that, in the Church, "the cafeteria is closed," then it also should be clear that the liberals are not the only ones who can no longer enjoy an entirely free choice of entrée. At this point in the discussion it is usually objected that the evil of abortion far outweighs the other evils which some conservatives are willing to tolerate or even to promote. Yet, on the basis of traditional Catholic moral teaching, it is far from clear exactly how this kind of calculus of wickedness can be undertaken.

We believe that the lives of all persons, born and unborn, are equally precious in the sight of God and have an equally inviolable right to exist; that each person is, indeed, of incalculable value and the object of an infinite love; that each is in himself alone worth the whole redemptive sacrifice of Christ; and that, finally, each and every person, from conception forward, must be treated as a subject and not as an object, as an end and not as a means. But if all this is true, then the moral weight of the Church's teaching on war and the various applications of justice must be valued as highly, when it comes to the formation of our political judgments and strategies, as that on abortion. We are perhaps less certain of the precise number of lives needlessly and sinfully sacrificed, directly or indirectly, during the last fifty years due to policies of aggression and greed promoted by the political right than we are of the number of those who have fallen victim to the license to abort so dear the political left. But that does not matter. The value of the human lives for which we are responsible and the evil of policies that permit them to be snuffed out when they get in our way cannot be toted up by means of simple arithmetic.

The fact is that neither American political party has room under its roof for those who adhere to the entire moral teaching of the Catholic Church. The Democrats, in trying to reconstitute themselves as a coalition of downtrodden minorities, especially in the 'seventies and early 'eighties of the last century, managed to alienate from themselves the sympathies of the broad immigrant working-class majority, much of it Catholic, which often regarded these minorities with a mixture of fear and loathing. Then, by accepting the claims of sub-cultural and life-style groupings as being essentially of the same kind and dignity as those earlier asserted by racial minorities, they committed the party to a number of positions to which Catholics and others rooted in the moral and cultural tradition of the West could not subscribe.

In the meantime, however, the Republican party has also transformed itself in ways which put it out of touch with the small-town, middle-class, somewhat isolationist conservatism which had once characterized the bulk of its popular support. Judged on the basis of the policies pursued by the present administration, it is sometimes difficult to see what it is that these self-styled "conservatives" are trying to conserve. The ever larger and more intrusive role of government, the assault on traditional civil liberties and constitutional guarantees, the unprecedented federal deficits, the unilateralism and foreign interventionism -- these do not seem to reflect classic conservative values. Nor do they, in many cases, reflect classic Christian values.

Of course, American politicians who claim to be conservative and who court the support of traditionally Catholic segments of the population have learned to make all the right noises, especially about issues that center around the family. But one is sometimes tempted to think that they can afford to do so precisely because these things have very little to do with what really seems to matter most to them, namely, the unbounded increase of their own wealth. Concerning those things which do really matter to plutocrats, they have shown themselves remarkably capable of moving mountains and getting things done. But, let's face it: the Republicans have been in charge of the executive branch for 26 out of the last 40 years, and all but two of the sitting justices of the Supreme Court are their appointees. Considering this, why has not more real progress been made by them in the fight against the abortion license? Of course, if the precedent of Roe v. Wade actually were to be overturned, the Republicans would thereby lose a valuable political asset.

However uncomfortable the realization, I think American Catholics must come to see that there really is no room for them, as Catholics, in the American political inn, no matter whether the innkeeper at any particular time be a Democrat or a Republican, a political liberal or a political conservative. For the time being, the Republican innkeepers have let us bed down in the equivalent of the manger, and this has let us entertain the illusion that we have found a home. But being allowed to lie down on someone else's straw has its price -- a price of which people like Tucker Carlson and Lou Dobbs are happy to remind us. The revocation of the Church's tax exempt status would put us on a very short route back into the catacombs, shorter even than the cumulative effect of seemingly endless tort judgments. (Just imagine the annual bill arriving at the New York chancery for the taxes on St. Patrick's cathedral!) Indeed, one might even conclude that we have here no lasting dwelling.

Saturday, March 11, 2006

The First Step in a Long Withdrawal

On February 17, I posted the following in response to a comment by Deacon John M. Bresnahan to an item on Bettnet.com about the unwillingness of Massachusetts authorities to grant Catholic Charities an exemption to the Commonwealth's anti-discrimination policies:
Let me put in a word of support for the view of Deacon Bresnahan. The Church should continue both to try to do good and to refuse to do evil, then let the chips fall where they may. This is no less than Catholic moral teaching requires every human being to do and the Church itself must provide a model of such behavior. Demonstratively withdrawing from the “social service” field (i.e., the practice of the corporal and spiritual works of mercy) would be a spiteful step contrary to charity. If, on the other hand, the State forces the Church out of these fields, the Church should accept this development with regret, but also ultimately with equanimity—even while urging good Catholic families to extend themselves in charity to provide adoptive and foster families for children in need. Catholic families, in their private capacity, may well be able to do more good than the Church as an institution can any longer do. The main thing is to regard charity as the ultimate norm in meeting whatever challenges the State throws at us.

As this posting attests, I would have preferred that Catholic Charities just calmly go about its business, quietly neglecting to place children with same-sex couples, until someone else made an issue of this and tried to put them out of business. In that case more of the public odium would have fallen where it belongs -- on those to whom it is more important that the Church not be allowed to act according to its beliefs than that further hundreds of needy children be placed in fine and loving normal families. A week after the posting, it is clear that the Church in Boston has chosen the option of making Catholic Charities withdraw from its long- established work as an adoption agency. In this way it does indeed avoid doing evil, and may still, in some way which is not yet clear, continue doing the good which mediating adoptions has allowed it to do for the last 103 years to children needing homes. As has been pointed out, the reason the Church got into this work in the first place was to see to it that Catholic orphans would be placed with Catholic families and be brought up in the faith. In other words, it was aimed primarily at insuring the spiritual welfare of the children it placed and only secondarily at their material security, which could have been provided for equally well by other agencies. This historical background should certainly be kept in mind in any consideration of the appropriateness of the Archdiocese's decision in the face of a choice imposed upon it by an unyeilding civil regime. This decision is indeed "sad," as people have been saying, but it was also inevitable, as people have not been saying.

An unsentimental analysis of the current official positions of the Catholic Church and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts makes clear that they are irreconcilably opposed to one another on any number of important issues and that the number and intensity of these differences is likely to grow in the coming years. The fact that a large number of elected and appointed office-holders in the governmental structure of the state are thoroughly secularized Catholics, often carrying a considerable baggage of guilt and resentment, is an aggravating rather than a mitigating factor in this clash because it has meant that these people have at times attempted to use public power to coerce the Church into adopting their notions of ecclesiastical reform, almost all of which involve "democratization" of the local church and defiance of Papal teaching and discipline -- in other words, the de-naturing of the Church. So the question has for some time been not whether the Church and the Commonwealth would come into open conflict, but rather only when and how that conflict would be precipitated.

The Massachusetts dioceses' announcement of their unwillingness to continue in their traditional role as adoption agencies enjoying subsidies from the state under the conditions imposed by the state has allowed them to sidestep the blow that was directed at them by the Church's internal and external enemies. This maneuver may buy them a little time. It may also be merely the first of a long series of such strategic withdrawals from direct involvement in quasi-public functions. But even such strategems cannot forever stave off the inevitable conflict over fundamental beliefs and values, one which could cost the Catholic Church in Massachusetts (and also possibly, because no state is a legal island, throughout the United States) its tax-exemption, its material assets, its social respectability, and a good deal of its membership. (On that last point, to gain some idea of the public mood around Boston, take a look at the opinions expressed on this Boston Globe-administered Website.)

The Church is already vulnerable on a number of fronts (as an employer, as the proprietor of healthcare facilities, as an educator, and as a provider of religious "services" -- especially of the sacraments of Baptism, Eucharist, Penance, and Matrimony) to demands by the state that it comply with legally enshrined norms of secularist morality, and it will probably be made more so by laws likely to be enacted in the next few years. We have already seen such laws introduced in various state legislatures across the country, and we should not let their defeat lead us to suppose that we have seen the last of them or that those who sponsored them are going to accept defeat. What we have seen is the beginning, not the end, of a campaign by the enemies of the Church (and of religion in general) to make the Church's open practice of the faith which it preaches ever more difficult. And in every instance, you can be sure, the steps in this campaign will be carried out under the sanctimonious slogans of "equality before the law," "protection of the vulnerable," and "freedom of choice."

Faithful Catholics should therefore brace themselves against these developments and consider now, not when the full-blown crisis has already engulfed them, what their stance will be, what kinds of tactics they will chose, and by what means they will try to maintain the practice of their faith under the conditions of mild persecution they may well be called upon to endure.

Sunday, March 05, 2006

Getting Started

A Prufrockian moment if there ever was one:
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
Having been a regular browser of blogs for a couple years now (those I visit with regularity are listed at right), I have finally succumbed to the temptation -- several times earlier resisted -- to start one myself. Some of my prior hesitancy stemmed from my lack of confidence that I possess the creativity and persistence required to write and publish, even in this form, on a regular basis. I once, during a half year of unemployment, wrote a weekly column for a local newspaper that lasted as long as I had nothing else on my mind. Then I went back to teaching, and when the first batch of sixty term papers arrived to be corrected, the column died. I will try to write at least one blog entry a week. But then ...
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
(There is, after all, a DELETE button on the "Settings" page!)

It seems clear to me that the culture of the West has entered one of those periods of crisis from which it will emerge, although perhaps only after a century or two, much altered. It seems to pass through such a period every five hundred or so years: the crisis of the Roman state around the start of the Christian Era, the disintegration of the Western Empire about five centuries later, the transition from the earlier to the later phase of the "middle ages" around the first millennium, the Renaissance and Reformation in the centuries either side of 1500, and now ... whatever you want to call it.

Within these grand and seismic movements we find our small but never-entirely-insignificant selves caught up (our individual significance being more a matter of faith than of reason, as we are likely to have pointed out to us more and more often, I fear, in the months and years to come). It is only in the context of this great and regularly recurring kind of cultural crisis that we can, I have concluded, begin to understand what is happening to us, to our institutions, to our most cherished beliefs and sense of ourselves, to our entire civilization. But that realization does not make the experience of living through such times any the less distressing.

This blog will be an attempt to reflect upon, to explore, and in some tiny way to respond to the questions and challenges, personal and societal, which the present crisis throws up to us. In a period and in a setting (the so-called "blogosphere") characterized mainly by passionately held but mutually conflicting "certainties," the tone here will perhaps often seem excessively tentative, cautious, and uncommitted. That will be no accident, but rather a part of the intention of the experiment which this blog represents. In the face of so many contradictory and often fanatically promoted beliefs, both in the world at large and among those who lay claim to the name of "Catholic," it seems to me that only the foolhardy or the flippant could choose unhesitatingly to embrace some one of all these mutually incompatible positions, all of which seem to stake an absolute claim to one's assent.

So let us reflect and try our way forward, maintaining an unswerving commitment to the pursuit of truth in the fundamental confidence that this is what our minds are made for and that this very pursuit, in an age of confusion and uncertainty, is what the grace of faith, hope, and charity prompts us to do. Let us (presuming there is at least one single reader of these words) pray for one another and go on.

More, I suppose, presently.