In May of last year, Joseph Bottum gave account in “At the Gates of Notre Dame” of the perfect storm set in motion by the University of Notre Dame’s public veneration of President Obama, which brought preexisting tensions between public Catholicism and university life to a head. Notre Dame’s heavily symbolic gesture to the pro-abortion president was the embodiment of scandal, and, as Bottum argued, Notre Dame president Fr. John Jenkins presumed to play American Catholics with his agnosticism towards the right to life as the “signpost at the intersection of Catholicism and American public life.”
In a story broken by Catholic Culture.org, it appears that in the case of John H. Garvey, Catholic University of America’s new president-elect, there remain a few stones that will soon need overturning, with the memory of the Notre Dame scandal a mere year old. In 2007, as dean of Boston College Law School, Garvey presided over the awarding of an honorary doctorate to Rep. Edward J. Markey, whose strongly pro-abortion views were a matter of public record. Garvey praised him as a model politician and friend of the Law School, even in the face of Markey’s open dissent from Catholic teaching.
After a bit of digging, a few more items of concern come to light. According to the Washington Post, Garvey authored a law review essay in 2003 arguing the Church has “no credibility” in its policies aimed at eliminating sexual abuse. Another more egregious moment demonstrated what appears to be a lukewarm angle on the culture war. Last September, when B.C. Law professor Scott Fitzgibbon’s appearance in a pro-marriage television spot caused anger amongst some B.C. Law students, Garvey penned a decidedly cool response, defending Fitzgibbon on free-speech grounds, but failing to mention that Fitzgibbons’ view was in line with B.C.’s (neglected) foundation in Catholic tradition.
Time will eventually test Garvey’s intellectual fortitude—perhaps with a ‘Notre Dame moment’—but it would be of great benefit to Catholic University to administer a Jenkins-proof litmus test with a view to avoiding another scandal.
June 17th, 2010 | 10:06 am
First, as a Catholic lawyer, while Garvey’s actions (if they are as stark and problematic as you suggest) are indefensible, it is also the case that his book, What Are Freedoms For, is one of the finest, if not the finest, exploration of the intersection between law, liberty, and faith that has been written.
Second, Bottum’s piece that you cite is easily the worst piece that First Things published since I began subscribing 7 years ago. By entirely reducing public catholicism to a position on abortion, Bottum essentially forgot that a Catholic’s first responsibility is always and everywhere to propose Christ and to call for conversion. That is, while claiming that he wasn’t, he reduced all public engagement to political engagement, in which public discourse is reduced to arguing about governmental policies and our relationship to them.
I should mention that abortion is the most important issue facing our country to day, hands down. But by essentially equating public with political, Bottum’s essay badly reduced the level of discourse on the subject. And I wonder if the criticisms of Garvey don’t make the same mistake.
June 17th, 2010 | 11:06 am
Chris,
I suspect you may be overstating the level of emphasis in the quotation from Bottum’s essay. It’s Catholic culture, not political engagement, that’s in greater peril. Here’s the line in context:
“Opposition to abortion doesn’t belong at the absolute center of Catholic theology. It doesn’t belong at the perfect center of Catholic faith. It exists, however, at the center of Catholic culture in this country (albeit a much thinner culture than Catholics knew before). Opposition to abortion is the signpost at the intersection of Catholicism and American public life.”
June 17th, 2010 | 12:44 pm
Kevin,
Unfortunately, the line you are mentioning is precisely the one that led me to conclude, when I read the article, that Mr. Bottum, when writing the article, apparently briefly forgot what culture is.
Culture is not and cannot be defined by public opposition to or favor for policies of the state; to believe that is to reduce culture to a creature of the modern state and ultimately to make culture nothing but the servant of politics. Culture is and must be more organic than that; moreover, culture precedes the state, and authentic culture should not be reduced to its positions on state action.
Catholic culture is a wellspring of literature, art, music. More than that, it is a group of people committed to living a certain way because they have encountered something that has changed them. The center of Catholic culture in this country and all countries is (and has to be) to propose that thing that changes everything: Christ. If the center for Catholic “culture” is opposition to abortion, (a) we have no idea what culture actually is and (b) we are insufficiently changed by Christ’s presence. Again, opposition to abortion is the most importantly political act a Catholic can do in today’s world. But to call that culture is a gross misunderstanding of the import of that world and a great concession to the secularizing forces that would have us filter all things, not through our cultural or religious lenses, but through the lens of the state.
June 17th, 2010 | 1:13 pm
“Culture is not and cannot be defined by public opposition to or favor for policies of the state”
Why not? Why should we accept this rule? You seem to answer:
“to believe that is to reduce culture to a creature of the modern state and ultimately to make culture nothing but the servant of politics.”
But to allow politics to determine the scope of the human community, as it does in abortion, is to reduce the human being to a mere product of the modern state. Thus, oddly enough, to acquiesce on abortion is to reduce human dignity to a political question. It is not. It is logically prior to it.
“Culture is and must be more organic than that; moreover, culture precedes the state, and authentic culture should not be reduced to its positions on state action.”
Human dignity precedes culture, and thus to suggest that culture precedes the state as a reason to set aside the issue of abortion as a trivial political question is in fact to reduce the question of human dignity to a proper object of state action.
“Culture” requires people. The question of abortion–whether or not the unborn are members of the human community–is logically prior to culture. Thus, to conscript “culture” to marginalize the question puts the state in the driver’s seat.
When all is said and done, we are, after all, talking about killing innocent persons for mostly trivial reasons. All the “organic culture” talk sounds like pseudo-sophisticate cocktail party chatter when you look at it that way.
June 17th, 2010 | 3:13 pm
chris:
You wrote:
The center of Catholic culture in this country and all countries is (and has to be) to propose that thing that changes everything: Christ.
Does it not follow, then, that the center of the Catholic culture of a Catholic university should be “to propose that thing that changes everything: Christ”?
I would say it should. In regards to Notre Dame: as much as I love Notre Dame, and as much as I feel blessed to be an alum of it, it was (during my attendance) and is (judging from recent grads) my experience that the center of the Catholic culture at Notre Dame is not Christ, but rather “social justice” as generally defined by those of a rather left-of-center bent. While ND students and graduates – even more so now than when I attended – can wax eloquent about social justice causes and concerns, and perform a disproportionate amount of service in comparison to those who attend similar universities, they are for the most part rather fuzzy when it comes to mature and informed thought about the Person of Christ and the need for His centrality in one’s life and work. As such, the Catholic culture at ND resembles (as Chesterton might say) the carving of one’s own little “Christ” out of the whole of Him, which is certainly less than what they could have, and certainly less than a Catholic culture of a Catholic university is called to.
Respectfully,
GR
June 17th, 2010 | 3:16 pm
I dunno chris. Maybe because I’m not a lawyer and went to an actual art school, made my living (long ago) in the creative world and am married to a actual poet I don’t approach Jody’s writing with such a legalistic view. Nor would I undertake to tell Jody as in J.Bottum what culture is, Catholic not. The man has to be one of the best as well as most prolific writers on the subject.
But forget that and let’s look at your criticisms :
“Unfortunately, the line you are mentioning is precisely the one that led me to conclude, when I read the article, that Mr. Bottum, when writing the article, apparently briefly forgot what culture is.”
“If the center for Catholic “culture” is opposition to abortion, (a) we have no idea what culture actually is and (b) we are insufficiently changed by Christ’s presence.”
Here’s the sentence that led you to your conclusions:
“It [abortion] exists, however, at the center of Catholic culture in this country (albeit a much thinner culture than Catholics knew before). Opposition to abortion is the signpost at the intersection of Catholicism and American public life.”
Nowhere in that does Jody say the center for Catholic “culture” is opposition to abortion. His wonderful use of words like “it exists” and “is the signpost” clear him of the charges beyond a reasonable doubt.
John H. Garvey, however doesn’t get off so easily. Or so lightly, pun intended. On the basis of his writings he’s placed himself in a grave situation. If I were his lawyer, I advise coming clean and pleading for mercy. Then, do a damn fine job running a Catholic University the way it was meant to be run.
June 17th, 2010 | 6:47 pm
[...] Notre Dame All Over Again? » First Thoughts | A First Things Blog [...]
June 18th, 2010 | 8:52 am
Perhaps what we need at the moment is a little firmer mooring to actual Catholic culture. I would endorse along these lines Charlie Rice’ book 50 Questions on the Natural Law. There is no doubt that that is what Catholic Universities should be teaching.
The Sycamore Trust put on a breakfast at the start of this month, during Reunion Weekend. As a rank outsider (a Hoya), I was grateful for the invitation. One point made in the discussion however stands out as a very major alarum. The assembled multitude put the question of what they — loyal alumni — could do and specifically how they could use their promise or denial of financial support to move the university administration. At that pregnant moment, some cooler head noted that in the last year the university had taken in $100,000,000 in federal research grants, including $10,000,000 in “stimulus” money.
Short of defrocking Fr. Jenkins, we are fresh out of ammunition to force anyone to do anything. But no one can stop us from creating more Catholic culture. If we create it, they will come to feast on it. While we are waiting for that to happen, we could all be reading Charlie’s book.
June 18th, 2010 | 11:05 am
Enough nitpicking! Catholic Universities are supposed to be just what the term implies; CATHOLIC.
When Presidents of the Catholic Universities invite pro abortion, pro euthanasia and actual heretics to be their speakers we are surrendering the CULTURE WARS.
We have bishops and University heads in opposition to Church teachings. No wonder our young Catholics are not really pro life or observant of the Canons of the Church. The scandal of these people is the real affront to Catholic culture.
We pray to God for the return of Orthodoxy and the Church Militant!
June 18th, 2010 | 4:17 pm
Why don’t we discuss Fr. Charles Curran and Catholic U. I lived at the time when he was actively promoting primarily contraception, as well as an agenda controverting Catholic teaching. Catholic U. is the only U.S. University controlled by the American bishops and they were unable (they did not try very hard) to remove him in a battle which lasted for years. Finally, as Cath. U. is a pontifical university, the Vatican intervened. Due to strong pressure from some powerful Catholic laity, Fr. Charles was sent to Southern Methodist University where he is to this day.
At the risk of sounding simplistic, the Church abandoned teaching for opinion and that is what holds sway. Fifty years ago contraception was a mortal sin and Catholics had large families as a result. Now Catholics are no different that any other members of American society and it shows. Pope Benedict speaks of a very small Church and he is absolutely correct.
June 21st, 2010 | 10:40 am
I’m happy to learn that Mr. Gibbons was at our Sycamore Trust June 5th meeting at Notre Dame, and I quite agree that Notre Dame is a money machine unlikely to be influenced by the amount of money unhappy alumni may withhold. I assume most, if not all, other major Catholic universities are similarly situated. But the percentage of alumni contributing is a different matter. It is a measure of alumni loyalty and hence institutional reputation and in addition counts for 5% in the US News & World Report rating system. Much more important, though, is the importance the institution attaches to its reputation as a Catholic university. It is Notre Dame’s principal asset, and to the extent that it is affected by the spotlight that Sycamore and others put on those factors that disclose the severe attenuation of Notre Dame’s Catholic identity, the University may be moved to act. For example, since Sycamore was established The Vagina Monologues and the Queer Film Festival have quietly disappeared, Father Jenkins has withdrawn from the board of an organization that supports abortion, and, most importantly, the downward trajectory of Catholic faculty representation has temporarily, at least, been arrested, though not reversed. This is not close to enough, but neither is it to be dismissed. A fundamental reconsideration of the approach of the bishops to Catholic higher education is what is most needed, but a replication of Sycamore at other institutions and the growth of such a network of concerned alumni and others into a formidable network might do much good.
William H. Dempsey
President, Sycamore Trust
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact