Thanks to our emailers for all the help with a name for words formed from roots in different languages. “Hybrid word” was a common suggestion, though it seems more a description than a name. Macaronic turns out to be the word I was trying to come up with, though it seems technically to be more commonly used of songs or pieces of literature that mix langauges than of individual words. Yankee Doodle came to town / Riding on a pony. / Stuck a feather in his hat / and called it . . .

Tomorrow morning, on the Catholic Channel’s Seize the Day program with host Gus Lloyd, Sylvester Stallone will be talking about Rambo IV—and perhaps his own faith. His segment is scheduled for 9 a.m.

The Catholic Channel is on Sirius Satellite Radio, channel 159. Even if you don’t have a satellite radio, you can still subscribe to the channel and listen via the Internet. Several members of the First Things crew have been on the program already, talking about everything from current articles in the magazine to extracurricular projects to Martin Luther King Jr. to movies.

In the interest of ecumenical goodwill, also tune in regularly to KFUO—Lutheran Worldwide Radio. As far as I know, Sylvester Stallone will not be appearing on any of its programs, but at least the Lutherans are free.

Although I sympathize with much of what Senator DeMint and Professor Woodard say in their Web article last week, I think some of their arguments go too far.

The main point that Senator DeMint and Professor Woodard make is that “the First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and the practice of religion” are “everywhere under attack” because groups like the ACLU “use[] the legal system to threaten people by ’slapping’ them with lawsuits. . . . The publicity of such litigation results in a vilification of those who take a stand for moral behavior in the hope they will be silent next time.”

The fact that the ACLU has been very active in protecting the free speech rights of perfectly odious groups like the KKK should give one pause here. The ACLU is not against free speech. The truth is that some of the examples that Senator DeMint and Professor Woodard give in the article do not concern anyone’s right to free speech at all.

Take the case of the pregnant cheerleaders. At a certain public high school in Texas, several of the cheerleaders turned up pregnant. The school authorities wanted to remove them from the cheerleading squad but backed down when the ACLU threatened to sue. This, the senator and the professor say, shows that “the community lost its freedom to express and defend traditional values.”

Now, it may be that the Constitution permits public schools to remove pregnant students from leadership positions in student organizations, and perhaps public schools should actually do so (though I have serious doubts about that), but a lawsuit to stop a school from removing students from the cheerleading squad would in no way impair the free speech rights of anyone.

The ACLU did nothing to stop anyone from saying anything whatsoever about the pregnant cheerleaders. The question was whether the government-operated school could change, in a way adverse to the students, the conditions under which they participated in school activities. In other words, could the school, consistent with the Constitution, punish the cheerleaders for getting pregnant? Maybe yes, maybe no, but however that works out, it’s not a question of anyone’s right to free speech. My right to free speech includes a right to say that your child is a low-down, good-for-nothing so-and-so; it does not extend to punishing your child for her behavior.

Compare this case. In the famous mystery passage in Casey, the Supreme Court said that “at the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life”—and thus there is a right to abortion. This, of course, is perfectly ridiculous. Even though people have an undoubted right to believe whatever they want about abortion, a right to hold a belief does not generally imply a right to implement that belief—not in private conduct and certainly not in government conduct. Similarly, the right to think and even to say that teenage girls who get pregnant have behaved badly and ought not be held out by government institutions as role models does not imply that the government may in fact punish female public school students who get pregnant. Again, perhaps the government may do this—but if so, it has nothing to do with the free speech rights of those who want it done. It has to do with the absence of a right to be protected from such government action on the part of the student being punished.

When moral traditionalists cast their arguments, as Senator DeMint and Professor Woodard do, in terms of the speech or religion rights of the majority, they thus misunderstand the situation. The ACLU is perfectly right when it answers such arguments by saying that it doesn’t want to interfere with what those in the majority say or how they practice their religion. The issue concerns the use of government power against members of the minority. The proper limitations on such use is a very difficult question, and it cannot be settled by appeals to the rights of the majority under the First Amendment.

There’s a name that curmudgeonly grammarians give to words derived from more than one language—and for the life of me, I can’t think of it. Television is a famous example, a Greek prefix on a Latin stem. Uber-theocon is another, less-famous example, a epithet someone or other flung at me once, which combines German, Greek, and Latin.

I don’t object strongly to this kind of word, but I know, somewhere in a misspent life, I’ve read people who do. And they call it . . . um, what? A barbarism? A multiradicalism? A pluripotent stem cell?

Email me if you know the name—only you can help end this terrible word deprivation.

Last week, Rusty Reno commented on the protests at Sapienzia University in Rome and Benedict XVI’s gracious bowing out. Well, this weekend over 200,000 students (both young and old) poured into St. Peter’s Square in a sign of support. (More details and pictures here.)

The text of the speech Benedict would have delivered is now available, and it is well worth reading. Building off of themes Ratzinger-Benedict has championed for some time now (garnering most public attention when presented at Regensburg), he again returns to the themes of faith and reason, the proper relation in which they stand, and the true horizons that each can reach:

Theology and philosophy form, because of this, a peculiar pair of twins, neither of which can be totally separated from the other and, nevertheless, each must preserve its proper task and proper identity. It is the historical merit of St. Thomas Aquinas — vis-à-vis the various responses of the Fathers due to their historical context — to have illumined the autonomy of philosophy, and with it the proper right and the responsibility of reason that questions itself on the basis of its powers. …

I would say that St. Thomas’ idea of the relationship between philosophy and theology could be expressed in the Council of Chalcedon’s formula for Christology: Philosophy and theology must relate to each other “without confusion and without separation.” “Without confusion” means that both of them preserve their proper identity. Philosophy must truly remain an undertaking of reason in its proper freedom and proper responsibility; it must recognize its limits, and precisely in this way also its grandeur and vastness. Theology must continue to draw from the treasury of knowledge that it did not invent itself, that always surpasses it and that, never being totally exhaustible through reflection, and precisely because of this, launches thinking.

Together with the “without confusion,” the “without separation” is also in force: Philosophy does not begin again from zero with the subject thinking in isolation, but rather stands in the great dialogue of historical wisdom, that again and again it both critically and docilely receives and develops; but it must not close itself off from that which the religions, and the Christian faith in particular, have received and bequeathed on humanity as an indication of the way. Various things said by theologians in the course of history and also things handed down in the practice of ecclesial authorities, have been shown to be false by history and today they confuse us. But at the same time it is true that the history of the saints, the history of the humanism that grew up on the basis of the Christian faith, demonstrates the truth of this faith in its essential nucleus, thereby making it an example for public reason. Certainly, much of what theology and faith say can only be accepted within faith and therefore it cannot present itself as an exigency to those for whom this faith still remains inaccessible. At the same time it is true, however, that the message of the Christian faith is never only a “comprehensive religious doctrine” in the sense of Rawls, but a purifying force for reason itself, that helps reason to be more itself. The Christian message, on the basis of its origin, must always be an encouragement toward the truth and thus a force against the pressure of power and interests.

What does all of this mean concretely for modern man and the modern university? And what does a pope have to do with any of this? Benedict answers:

Today the danger of the Western world — to speak only of this context — is that man, precisely in the consideration of the grandeur of his knowledge and power, might give up before the question of truth. And that means at the same time that reason, in the end, bows to the pressure of interests and the charm of utility, constrained to recognize it as the ultimate criterion. To put this in terms of the point of view of the structure of the university: The danger exists that philosophy, no longer feeling itself capable of its true task, might degenerate into positivism; that theology, with its message addressed to reason, might become confined to the private sphere of a group more or less sizable. If, however, reason — solicitous of its presumed purity — becomes deaf to the great message that comes from the Christian faith and its wisdom, it will wither like a tree whose roots no longer reach the waters that give it life. It will lose courage for the truth and thus it will not become greater but less. Applied to our European culture this means: If it wants only to construct itself on the basis of the circle of its own arguments and that which convinces it at the moment — worried about its secularity — it will cut itself off from the roots by which it lives; then it will not become more reasonable and more pure, but it will break apart and disintegrate.

With this I return to the point of departure. What does the Pope have to do with, or have to say to the university? Surely he must not attempt to impose the faith on others in an authoritarian way since it can only be bestowed in freedom. Beyond his office as Shepherd of the Church, and on the basis of the intrinsic nature of this pastoral office, there is his duty to keep the sensitivity to truth alive; to continually invite reason to seek out the true, the good, God, and on this path, to urge it to glimpse the helpful lights that shine forth in the history of the Christian faith, and in this way to perceive Jesus Christ as the Light that illuminates history and helps us to find the way to the future.

Give the entire lecture a read.

We’re sending the March issue of FT to the printer today, which means things are busy in the office. So, instead of writing something new about what it’s like to work at FT, here’s what I said last year:

If you’re a young writer or thinker—finishing your undergraduate degree or graduate program, or heading into the professional world—then the First Things junior fellowship is for you. You’ll participate in all of the activities of the journal: from article submission and evaluation, to editing and layout, to proofing and promotion. By the end of the year, you’ll have a solid handle on the world of print journalism.

Looking to develop your writing skills or tackle a research project you’ve never quite had time for? As a First Things junior fellow you’ll be given ample time to work on your own projects and publish your writings on the First Things blog or in the journal. Best of all, you’re in constant conversation with Fr. Neuhaus, Jody Bottum, and the rest of the First Things universe. I know I’ve benefited from the many hours spent in Jody’s office going over my own writing, and how will I ever be able to forget the weekly dinners in Fr. Neuhaus’ apartment, arguing the finer points of moral theology—apparently Father is an Augustinian, not a Thomist (who knew?). If you’re interested—and really, you should be—then apply by clicking here.

. . . is sending refugees to Florida, which no doubt will make that state even more conservative.

Ah the law of unintended consequences . . .

(Those Joseph Kennedy/Citgo commercials—they probably don’t run in Miami, right? I mean, because of the climate and all.)

“Farming cloned livestock should be banned because the animals suffer too much, EU ethics experts said last night.”

Meanwhile, in the USA, there is no restriction–at all–on human cloning, be it for so-called “therapeutic” purposes (i.e. where a human being is cloned and then the clone is dismembered for parts) or for reproductive purposes (that is, in America it’s A-OK to clone-for-babies). But maybe once we see that the animals suffer too much we’ll do something about the humans–we wouldn’t want to be speciesists, after all.

So Planned Parenthood has acquired three clergy persons to bless the abortion wing attached to a hospital in Schenectady, New York.

Now, finding three clerks who would do such a thing couldn’t be that difficult. Think virtually any mainline Protestant denomination, or three part-timers at a local Lowe’s. But what would that blessing sound like? Who or what would they be blessing?

I decided to help them out, in the event they were at a loss for words:

O Ba’al, God of Thunder:
We beseech Ye in the name of science
In the name of self-actualization and personal autonomy
That the procedures and terminations wrought on this choice piece of real estate
Permit no hope
Silence all screams
And leave no child behind
May the technicians utilize their skills to your glory
May their knives, pliers, and drills hit the mark
May the insurance claims flow unimpeded
O Insatiable Lord of Flies,
May no discrimination be found in this place
May the Rubbermaid be open to all—male and female he pulverized them
And may the inevitable blood-soaked residuum
Be disposed of in a biodegradable fashion
O Moloch full of Might,
Unleash your wrath against all who would profane this work
By their vigils, prayers, and protests
Let the earth open beneath their feet
(But not before I have moved my car)
Cover their wretched hides with boils
With no dermatologist available until after the summer months
We beseech Ye in the name of your sons, Thomas Malthus, Vlad the Impaler, and the guy who created the one-child policy in the People’s Republic of China,
Amen.

Thanks to Dawn Eden for the tip.