First Things | On the Square

That They May Be One

ft@firsthings.com (Tim Kelleher ) — Fri, 25 May 2012 01:59:00 -0400

Gathered for their ad limina, Eastern Catholic bishops from the U.S. were addressed last week by Prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, Leonardo Cardinal Sandri. His injunction-made not about abortion, the HHS mandate, war, wealth redistribution, or gay marriage-could have a critical influence on the Christian response to all of the above.

Among the Cardinals remarks was a tersely reiterated expectation of celibacy for priests serving the Eastern Catholic Churches in diaspora-in this case the U.S. The message may not have been carried directly from the hand of Benedict but the effect has been unpleasant to say the least.

Enter Thomas Loya, a Ruthenian Catholic priest of the Parma Ohio Eparchy, writing his eparch in response.

In addition to being chillingly reminiscent of the demeaning attitude of the Latin Rite bishops toward the Eastern Catholic Churches during the beginning of the last century in America, the Cardinal's remarks about celibacy seem to confirm what so many Eastern Catholics in America have suspected for too long: Rome and the Latin Rite see the Eastern Catholic Churches in America as essentially inconsequential, perhaps even in the way of ecumenism between Rome and the Orthodox Churches.

The chilling reminiscence refers, in part, to an exercise in aberrant ecclesiology-more a power play-engineered by Archbishop John Ireland that resulted in an entire body of U.S. Eastern Catholics breaking communion with Rome.

Im not about to jump into the trenches on the issue of celibacy (I would rather the comments box not turn into a Mixed Martial Arts cage). Ill simply repeat the known fact that celibacy it is not a dogma of the Church but a discipline, and that its normative status in the Latin Church is not of ancient provenance. Moreover, Loyas point is not about celibacy per se but ecclesial integrity and mutual respect.

What moves us onto this more sensitive landscape is his suggestion that Rome views the Eastern Catholic churches as in the way" of relations between itself and the Orthodox Churches. I can certainly see why it would occur to him and hes not the first to say it. For centuries, the existence of the so-called Uniate Churches has been a vexed point in those relations.

But I wonder how much help he can realistically expect from the Eastern hierarchs. Too many Eastern Catholic bishops behave as though their mandate actually is to allow their Churches to die a slow, palliated death.

If Loya is correct, its difficult to see how Cardinal Sandris words advance the ecumenical agenda. In fact, it would seem to do the reverse. For, what possible inducement to deepening trust could the Orthodox find in Romes insistence that Eastern Churches compromise their traditions the moment they hit the customs line at JFK?

This is, at best, a very mixed signal. When added to other actions, however, it can begin to seem otherwise.

In terms of impeding the cause of reunion, perhaps the most inexplicable move in recent years was Romes decision suddenly to drop the title Patriarch of the West" from the list of papal honorifics in the 2006 Annuario Pontificio.

As Adam DeVille points out in his superb, Orthodoxy and the Papacy: Ut Unum Sint and the Prospects of East-West Unity, of all the titles claimed for the Pope, it is the office of Patriarch that is most meaningful to the Orthodox. It is the one most serious ecumenists agree holds the greatest potential to serve as a model for the new situation" John Paul II invited all Christians to help him imagine and make real.

The practical stakes of this are high. As Loya goes on to say,

The Eastern Catholic Churches, and in particular the Ruthenian Church, are actually in a position to indeed supply what is lacking in the whole Church in America and to confront secular society with a type of vocabulary and spirituality that we alone can bring to the war on secularism and moral relativism. It seems that Rome understands none of this about us.

Im not sure why he feels the Ruthenian Church is in the particular position he describes. I also wish he hadnt chosen to depict the resistance to secularism as war. But, those are fairly minor points. Fr. Loya is doing something important by addressing the tip that reveals the presence of an iceberg-something I earlier suggested could and should have a critical influence on the Christian response to our myriad problems.

Others have suggested, as have I, that a quantum leap in cooperation between the Roman and Orthodox Catholic Churches is indispensable to the cause of revitalizing a Western culture suffering as a result of its repudiation of or indifference to the treasure of its Judeo-Christian heritage. Given how things have unfolded in the reformed churches over the last fifty or so years, it is imperative that Rome and its sister churches of the East do all within the scope of their human power to rise to this challenge.

Fr Loya is to be commended on his appeal for ecclesial integrity and mutual respect. They are not easy to come by. The historical and political obstacles are formidable, as those laboring in this cause well know. But without them the world will continue to be deprived of the fullness of the Body of Christ. And we will continue struggling in a sea of resentment, instead of rejoicing beside the sea of glass.

Tim Kelleher is the new media editor for First Things.

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Joyful Evangelization

ft@firsthings.com (Daniel J. Heisey ) — Fri, 25 May 2012 00:01:00 -0400

There is an approach to the Christian life that I find particularly tiresome. It is that emphatic cheerfulness in which all must take part, that demand that you will be joyful. But Christian joy is in fact a great part of our faith. In a few years we will mark the fortieth anniversary of a relatively obscure Apostolic Exhortation by Pope Paul VI, Gaudete in Domino, Rejoice in the Lord" (1975). In anticipation of that anniversary, lets look at some of his insights about Christian joy.

First and foremost, the pope underscored that true joy is internal. Like charity, it is not overbearing. He noted the need to teach people how to savor in a simple way the many human joys that the Creator places in our path." He then enumerated several kinds of joy: The elating joy of existence and of life; the joy of chaste and sanctified love; the peaceful joy of nature and silence; the sometimes austere joy of work well done; the joy and satisfaction of duty performed; the transparent joy of purity, service, and sharing; the demanding joy of sacrifice." Its not a list likely to make an extrovert smile.

In this exhortation the pope focused on the spiritual dimension of joy, noting that its manifest absence in the modern world comes from man having desacralized the universe" and then desacralizing humanity." Christians must, he wrote, become sources of authentic joy, and to do so, they must first have listened to and taken within their hearts Gods holy word. It will be the only way to help heal a world in which God seems to him [mankind] abstract and useless," a world where hope, and the value of individuals, are no longer sufficiently ensured." These observations, sadly, are still relevant.

Before the consistory in which he received a cardinal's red hat, Timothy Dolan outlined seven points needed in evangelization, the fifh point being joy, in particular, smiling. Dolan is a Falstaffian figure now confronted with a politically aggressive culture of death. On the spiritual front of that fight, joyful smiling can go only so far.

Here is where monastic spirituality, much admired by Pope Paul VI, can inform the discussion. A charismatic festival of praise, for example, takes a lot of energy and so could not be repeated every day, several times a day. In contrast, the monastic schedule with liturgical prayer punctuating the day can be sustained with much less energy. Rows of Gothic arches may seem monotonous, yet day after day they will support an entire cathedral.

Steadiness is challenging. Pope Paul VI concluded Gaudete in Domino by returning to the theme of joys spiritual source. He wrote of the original and inalienable dimension of the human person," namely, that his vocation to happiness always passes through the channels of knowledge and love, of contemplation and action." Head and heart, prayer and work; a Christian life needs balance. For the pope, it was all summed up in the Paschal Mystery, especially as celebrated in the liturgy of the Mass. Let participation in this celebration," he proclaimed, be at the same time very dignified and festive!" Dignity and festivity: Once again, the challenge of balance.

Jovial men such as Cardinal Dolan enrich the Church, as do reserved men such as Pope Benedict XVI. The Church must maintain room for both temperaments. While we are all called to evangelize, how we express our motivating joy cannot be one-size-fits-all.

Pope Paul VIs wise assessment of the varieties of joy bears renewed consideration. Introverts prefer to live and let live, but in an era when shyness is being described as a pathology, when smiling seems about to be declared ecclesiastically mandatory, we do well to ponder the joy of doing ones duty, whether a gold star is in the offing; the demanding joy of sacrifice, whether anyone notices; or the austere joy of a job well done, simply because anything worth doing is worth doing well. If in the midst of such quiet joy our ordinary courtesies and our daily prayers help bring someone closer to Christ, there will be much rejoicing in Heaven, a place of eternal rest.

Daniel J. Heisey, O. S. B., is a Benedictine monk of Saint Vincent Archabbey, Latrobe, Pennsylvania, where he is known as Brother Bruno.

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As I Remember

ft@firsthings.com (Russell E. Saltzman ) — Thu, 24 May 2012 02:47:00 -0400

Richard John Neuhaus was born seventy-six years ago last week. A friend made note of it at the time, and it sent my mind tumbling again into memories of the friendship we had.

Theres little doubt in my mind that compared to all the people he knew and befriended in life, I was a bit player. Yet he treated me and my children generously. I made sure they met him. I managed to haul five of my seven to New York to meet him and, sure, show them off. My second son, Richard John, is named for him. My Richards photograph hung in Neuhaus bathroom photo gallery alongside the famous.

If the Institute on Religion and Public Life had turned the place into a shrine for tourists, my son would still be there sharing space with Ronald Reagan, John Paul II, diplomas and awards, and photographs of him receiving awards. Richard kept such things in the bathroom; he wanted to show them off but, considering the location, didnt want anyone thinking he was being pretentious.

Most of my travels to New York found me crashing on his sofa. This, I enjoy pointing out, is the same sofa where once sat the likes of Robert Bork, Benedict XVI (as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger), Robert P. George, Chuck Colson, Avery Dulles, George Weigel, and others.

While he once was off to Poland I stayed in his apartment. But for this privilege I was made to share dog-sitting duty for Sammy II. That great ugly beast tried to climb into bed with me. I dont know if that was habit or whether, as Neuhaus suggested, she had found a patsy. The dog drank out of the toilet too. When I complained to Neuhaus, he suggested I look at things from Sammys perspective. She might ask why you are peeing in her water bowl." Richard always examined things from several directions.

For sixteen years, until 1990, Neuhaus edited Forum Letter, a publication of the American Lutheran Publicity Bureau (ALPB). Thats how I became acquainted with him; I found Forum Letter in the seminary library when I was a first year seminarian and we struck up a correspondence. I didnt meet him personally until some seven years later when I brought him to speak at a theological conference in our local synod.

By then he was very controversial in Lutheran circles, progressively shedding his radical credentials and even eschewing the comfortable liberalism into which most Lutheran denominations were sinking. He was speaking sternly on abortion, raising questions on how Lutheran offices were using, if not misusing, funds collected from the faithful for hunger relief and, perhaps most notoriously, he accused the National Council of Churches of Christ on 60 Minutes of consorting" with the enemies of Christ in communist lands.

While a Lutheran, Richard was a singular voice for what is called the evangelical catholic wing of American Lutheranism, those Lutherans who do not regard the Augsburg Confession as a declaration of independence, but as an effort to mend the breach. His was not the only voice, but it was one of the clearest. When he resigned as Forum Letter editor in early 1990, the ALPB board appointed me as his successor.

Since his 1987 The Catholic Moment I had guessed where he was headed. When we discussed the editorial transition three years later, I bluntly asked if he was getting ready to pull a Newman." He insisted otherwise, and at the time, I think, he was sincere. But events among Lutherans that summer convinced him the Lutheran confessional jig was up. So off he went: home, his Catholic friends said. Fulfilling the promise of the Lutheran Reformation, he said. A little of both, I think.

Yet I dont and never did begrudge it. He called me with the news after my first issue of Forum Letter. He was my friend, I told him, and I loved him. I dont remember what I said after that. Maybe I said everything a friend needed to say.

A year after Richard became Catholic we had a long, long conversation. He had found in Catholicism everything he sought as a Lutheran. He wanted me to "come over."

Richard was sometimes whimsical. And naive as well. He advocated my appointment as his successor at Forum Letter. I felt I owed the ALPB some stability and, here's a fine point, I wasn't Richard Neuhaus. I would have to return to seminary, plus I was married, plus I had more kids than I ever thought Id own. I needed work, a job, water-wings for the Tiber. I could not do it, not professionally, not personally.

As late as 2008, I had a letter from him outlining the same arguments. I explained it again. I know he understood; he just didnt like it. It added a dynamic or a tension to our friendship, but that was a small thing. He did say once that in the vastness of Gods mercy we traveled together still."

Circumstances frequently conspire to keep us where we are, not, I think, always for our own purposes but often for God's as well. God "made" me a Lutheran by birth and I have sought to bloom where planted. But it is as a Lutheran I have gained some very catholic convictions, not least due to Richards friendship.

Russell E. Saltzman is a Lutheran pastor, an online homilist for the Christian Leadership Center at the University of Mary, and author of The Pastors Page and Other Small Essays . He was editor of Forum Letter from 1990 until 2007. His previous On the Square articles can be found here.

RESOURCES

American Lutheran Publicity Bureau

The Catholic Moment

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Russian Orthodoxys Unreconciled Dualism

ft@firsthings.com (Nicholas Myers ) — Thu, 24 May 2012 00:01:00 -0400

At the height of the Cold War, political scientists questioned whether the Orthodox Church had become incompatible with the modern state. Although history textbooks highlight how patriarch and emperor were integral offices to the Byzantine Empire, the West has always had a far more tangible division between pope and prince. In Russia in particular, church and state have been in elaborate entanglement for centuries, the result of which has paradoxically been widespread abandonment of the practice of the faith. And contrary to those inclined to see a triumphant tale of Christianity emerging from communism, todays Church remains plagued by the same ills it has borne for centuries.

Today, the Cold War is history and the Russian Orthodox Church again enjoys religious freedom, yet it has little influence on public discourse, especially when compared with the impact of the Catholic Church, which weighs in on arguments even in countries where Catholics do not even comprise a majority (consider, for example, the recent successes prelates have had in setting the terms of the American contraception mandate and British gay marriage debates). Some Russians (and a fair number of Westerners) imagine this is simply the impact of Soviet atheism on the Russian people, but the reality is more complicated.

The role of the Orthodox Church in the Russian Empire diverged significantly from that of any Western Christian denomination after 1648. The Tsars authority over them was derived from the Tsars authority over the Church.

In the 1650s, Patriarch Nikon sought to reform Russian Orthodox services and rituals by making them more true to historical Byzantine ceremonies in line with Moscows claim to be the Third Rome." And in the early 1700s Peter the Great further consolidated control over the Russian Orthodox Church by replacing the Patriarch of Moscow with the Holy Synod, a council of bishops overseen by a civil servant. The church effectively became a government ministry under the Tsars personal authority. Though this restored the Tsars legitimacy through the Church, the core ecclesiastical hierarchy fell into disrepute: by the nineteenth century, Orthodox priests were generally illiterate, sons of previous priests (they were required to marry), and unemployed. Forced to scrounge their subsistence from fees for Church services, Orthodox priests were regarded as social parasites by Russian intellectuals.

As a direct consequence of this muddling of spiritual and temporal power, nineteenth-century Russians turned to Orthodox ascetics, rather than the priests and bishops of the Orthodox Church for spiritual guidance. They became, to use a contemporary phrase, spiritual but not religious." And as the century wore on, Orthodox believers seemed to find confirmation of this view in the arts. They became enraptured, in particular, by Leo Tolstoys vision of Christian anarchism: the only true sovereign was God and God alone, expressed through the story of Christ. In 1894, Tolstoy published The Kingdom of God is Within You, framing the spiritual foundation of the modern Russian soul: the Orthodox institution is key to Russia, but theology and spiritual understanding is profoundly personal. The Tsar unwittingly reinforced this dichotomy by suppressing Tolstoys religious writings, an act which only boosted Tolstoys popularity further.

True, the crucible of the communist years saw much state repression of the Orthodox religion, but in many ways it also restored it as an institution. In 1943, in the midst of the Second World War, Joseph Stalin restored authority to the Patriarch from the Synod, making the Orthodox Church as at least a nominally autocephalous body.

Nevertheless, todays Orthodox Church faces a unique problem. Post-Soviet Russia retains a large number of atheists. 50% of Russians confess themselves Orthodox, but only 7% attend church services once a month; a mere 3% do so every week. These numbers are markedly lower than even the most thoroughly secularized Western European countries, like France (with an 8% rate of weekly Mass attendance among self-proclaimed Catholics) or the Netherlands (12%).

Among the tiny minority of Russians who actively practice their faith, devotion is extremely stringent, to a degree many Westerners might find inconceivable. Whereas tourists visiting a Spanish cathedral, for example, might be politely asked to wear sleeves and some form of footwear, a female who enters a Russian cathedral, especially outside Moscow and St. Petersburg, should prepare for (at a minimum) a hail of loud verbal abuse from the congregation if her head is uncovered. The Churchs current Patriarch (Kirill I) was forced to recant his ecumenism by the faithful due to their fears of reconciliation with the Catholic Church.

Whereas the body of thought and practice in most of the worlds religions today runs the ideological gamut from multicultural reformers to staunch conservatives, the Russian Orthodox Church is polarized in a dualism of non-observant believers-in-name-only and religious reactionaries who have survived the crucible of the Communist era and seem to resent everyone else, classing them as 'outsiders.

The Russian Orthodox Church survived the Communist era and indeed doubled its confessed membership to 60 million in the years since, but the centuries-old divide between earthly authority and spiritual transcendence remains deeply ingrained in the Russian mindset. In February 2012, for example, a Russian feminist punk rock group stormed into the largest Orthodox cathedral in Moscow, performing a vulgar song beseeching, among other things, for the Holy Mother, the Blessed Virgin," to chase Putin out." When the Churchs Patriarch denounced the group, they responded via blog, You cannot believe in an earthly tsar if his deeds contradict those values for which the Heavenly Tsar was crucified."

The Church today has completely vacated the Russian political arena, and its impact on ordinary Russian lives is negligible. The Christian spirit has not departed Russia, but the influence of an established church is long gone. St. Pauls hope of making both one" (Eph.2:16) seems harder than ever, for only reactionaries remain within the institution.

Nicholas Myers is a research fellow at the Center for the National Interest and a 2011 graduate of Georgetown Universitys School of Foreign Service.

RESOURCES

International Rates of Mass Attendance, Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, Georgetown University

Ria Novosti coverage of the punk band incident

The Cambridge History of Russia: To 1689 edited by Maureen Perrie, Vol. 1, Cambridge UP, 2006.

Christianity in a Revolutionary Age: A History of Christianity in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: The Nineteenth Century in Europe: The Protestant and Eastern Churches Vol. 2 by Kenneth Scott LaTourette. Harper & Brothers, 1959.

Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia by Orlando Figes. Macmillan, 2003 (U.S.; 2002, U.K.)

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Critter Prayers and Transhumanism

ft@firsthings.com (George Weigel ) — Wed, 23 May 2012 00:31:00 -0400

Poised as ever on the cutting edge of the politically correct and theologically dubious, the Episcopal ChurchU.S.A. will soon consider adopting a Burial Service for Beloved Animals, in which the following two Collects appear:

At the burial of a farm animal

Most gracious, good Lord, we are the people of your pasture and the sheep of your hand: We thank you for placing among us the beasts of the field and allowing us to care for them, and to receive from them food and clothing to meet our necessities. We grieve this day the death of A., and we return to you a creature of your own making, one who served as an effective sign of the generosity of your love for us; through Jesus Christ our Good Shepherd, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

At the death of a wild animal

Almighty God, who make the beasts of the wild move in beauty and show forth the glory of your Name: We grieve the death of this creature, in whose living and dying the power of your Spirit was made manifest. We reverence the loss of that which was never ours to claim but only to behold with wonder; through Jesus Christ our Redeemer, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

A former Vatican official known for his prowess with a deer rifle commented on the latter: I have my own prayer at the death of a wild animal. It begins, 'Bless, O Lord, and these thy gifts . . ." Another priest, seeing this, said Theres plenty of room for all of Gods creatures . . . next to the mashed potatoes." To which Former Vatican Official replied, Dont forget the gravy."

As all but the most dour of PETA people will agree, some of us have far too much fun online.

On a more serious note, however, this exchange coincided with an email from a Canadian theologian, noting that the New Age transhumanist Barbara Marx Hubbard is the designated keynote speaker at the August general assembly of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which the Vatican has taken into ecclesiastical receivership. My Canadian colleague did some digging and found the following, instructive excerpt from the collected works of Ms. Marx Hubbard:

Although we may never know what really happened, we do know that the story told in the Gospels is that Jesus resurrection was a first demonstration of what I call the post-human universal person. We are told that he did not die. He made his transition, released his animal body, and reappeared in a new body at the next level of physicality to tell all of us that we would do what he did. The new person that he became had continuity of consciousness with his life as Jesus of Nazareth, an earthly life in which he had become fully human and fully divine. Jesus life stands as a model of the transition from Homo sapiens to Homo universalis.

Irrespective of the insight that this remarkable passage gives us into the cast of mind at the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, Marx Hubbards blundering through Scripture and Christology does suggest one path to which the Episcopal critter prayers can lead. When the biblical metaphors used by the Lord (people of your pasture" and sheep of your hand") are taken to imply that there is no substantial difference between human beings and the animal kingdom, then the temptation to transhumanism-the deliberate manipulation of the human condition through biotechnology-intensifies. As we can improve" beef cattle, chickens and turkeys by manipulating breeding, we can make better" human beings: transhumanized human beings, cyberhuman hybrids who are immortal. Prometheus, call your office. Aldous Huxley, how did you see this coming 80 years ago, when you were finishing Brave New World?

Babe was a great movie, but animatronics is not theology. Under todays technological and cultural circumstances, confusing animals with human beings often leads to serious weirdness and deep trouble.

George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.

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Why I Call Myself A Gay Christian

ft@firsthings.com (Joshua Gonnerman ) — Wed, 23 May 2012 00:01:00 -0400

Why would a Christian identify as gay?"

That was the question posed by many who read my previous piece for First Things, Dan Savage Was Right." Of course, there are many gay people who identify as Christian. But commenters were particularly confused because I am a gay man who accepts Christs teaching that sex is to be reserved for marriage, and that marriage is between a man and a woman.

This question has been addressed a few times, most recently by my friend Eve Tushnet. But identity questions are nuanced enough that every answer can only be to the question: Why do I identify as gay? Before I can touch on that, I will address some common objections-or rather, one objection that, on being answered, tends to shift its shape and come again.

You cant identify as gay," many said, because to do so is to say that the label 'gay encompasses you in your totality." I have no taste for identity politics, but the truth is that all of us do, in fact, navigate complex identities. I identify first as a Christian, secondly as an orthodox Roman Catholic. After that, we find a slew of monikers; an Augustinian, a scholar, a theologian, an American, a single person, a theatergoer, a cook, a pedestrian, and-here comes the controversy-a gay or queer person.

The central locus of my identity, which shapes all other aspects of it, is Christ. But no one, upon honest self-reflection, can realistically claim that this entirely does away with all other aspects of ones identity. Christ is the foundation which shows how other aspects of my identity can and cannot be expressed, but other aspects of who I am do say something significant about me.

In response, some say specifically that one should not regard homosexuality as a significant part of who one is; the line of reasoning here seems to be that it is exclusively a matter of temptation, and thus is something one fights against (the same variation, differently framed, says that being gay means engaging in or being open to engaging in homosexual activity). For some, this may be true to their experience, and I would agree in that case. It is not, however, my experience (on which, see the interesting thoughts Melinda Selmys offers on her blog distinguishing ordered desire from concupiscent, or lustful, desire).

A further nuance is to claim that any sexual identity is inappropriate for a Christian. While there are interesting questions about whether it is good that sexual identity exists in our culture, the simple fact is that it does exist; further everyone is assumed to be straight until proven otherwise. Someone who meets me will be more likely to assume that I am struck by a beautiful actress than by a beautiful actor. So if Im going to be classified-and we often classify for a good reason, in an effort to know something or someone-I would rather be classified truthfully.

The strangest form of the argument I have seen is the claim that gay identity simply does not exist. Of course, the fact that people identify as gay not only proves, but actually constitutes, the existence of gay identity. It is a subjective reality, certainly, but no less real for that.

So, then, we are presented with two different sexual identities for the homosexually-inclined. To identify as gay" usually means to experience ones homosexuality, in some way, as valuable. The competing sexual identity (known by many names, but most often same-sex attracted" or struggling with same-sex attraction"), indicates, in general, an experience of ones sexuality as entirely problematic, and thus to be overcome (though, again, overcoming" has a wide range of meanings here).

Yet there are many things I find valuable about my experience of being gay. Any number of studies indicate that there are real trends of difference between gay people and straight people, however difficult to define. Gay Christians are, perhaps, called to otherness" as Elizabeth Scalias suggested on these pages in an article I consider one of the best things written on the subject. Her suggestion is that people with same-sex desire experience a kind of attraction that, when not concupiscent, is a gift to the Church-a sign of contradiction.

My otherness as a gay man is shared with other people, and we in our shared otherness make a community (community in otherness being an experience I learned to value in the churches of my youth, as we sang with gusto of being a peculiar people"). Being a gay Christian does not mean one must be separated from ones gay brothers and sisters or dissent from the teaching of the Church. The more people are willing to stand up and be counted, the more the rift between the church and gay people can be healed, and thats a goal I, at least, feel the obligation to pursue.

Joshua Gonnerman lives in Washington, D. C., where he is a doctoral student in historical theology at the Catholic University of America.

RESOURCES

Dan Savage Was Right

Eve Tushnet

Elizabeth Scalia, Homosexuality: A Call to Otherness?

Sexual Authenticity

Is 'Gaydar Mostly on the Mark?

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Welfare State as Spiritual Temptation

ft@firsthings.com (James R. Rogers ) — Tue, 22 May 2012 01:49:00 -0400

One difference between liberal Christians and conservative Christians is how much weight each places on the violence inherent in government action. While authorized for the good," according to St. Paul in Romans 13, the magistrate nonetheless bears the sword." While God-ordained, Paul paints us a realist picture of the human basis for the magistrates power: It is violence or, more usually, the threat of violence.

As Christians think about social obligations-obligations to others-I think this distinction between the means by which the church operates and the means by which the magistrate operates matters. This doesnt mean that the government should never transfer wealth. But it does mean that the conditions under which the government transfers wealth are different than the conditions under which the church transfers wealth.

I accept the preferential option for the poor (consistent with the biblical admonition not to be partial to a poor man in his dispute"). But I worry about the church inviting a multiplication of state-sanctioned violence against others when it is the churchs failure to live up to her mission that prompts a good part of the need for that violence. Let me explain.

The New Testament instructs Christians to use our resources to take care of our pastors and to take care of the needy. But the average Protestant donates a paltry estimated 2.5 percent of after-tax income, and Catholics less than that.

Of this 2.5 percent for Protestants, Id guess that the largest proportion of those funds go to support services provided to the congregation itself-to the meeting of the congregations own needs rather than the charitable assistance of those outside it. First, there is pastoral support. St. Paul, again always the realist, notes that pastors must make their living from the Gospel. Most pastors are undercompensated relative to the important responsibilities they bear. Then there are mortgages, building upkeep, and the like. (Not that Im opposed to beautiful church buildings.) That leaves a small residual of the 2.5 percent to go to the needy.

In such a case, how could anyone object to churches asking the state to step in and help the poor? What if the numbers of poor are so great that even a generous church could not take care of them all?

The problem is that when church officials petition the government for increased government assistance to the needy, the claim implicit in these petitions is that, because the Christian laity is, on average, so miserly, the government needs to step into to provide for the poor whom the church neglects. Rather than a lecture on social justice from church officials aimed at government officials, Id prefer to hear a humble acknowledgement of sin and failure for the lamentable aggregate level of the churchs charitable work. Were asking the civil government to increase its efforts because the church cannot or will not.

That said, I see few problems with church leaders going to a city council, or state legislature, or even Congress, and testifying that that the needs of the poor are so great that the government needs to do something to help. Yet it is at least an embarrassment for church leaders to petition political power-even in the name of social justice"-when the Christian house is in such dismal shape.

While it is a shame, the move to soliciting political authority is understandable. Church leaders and concerned Christians face time and resource constraints as do the rest of us. Rent seeking" is not limited to corporations seeking to make a profit through government largesse rather than through making a better product. For churches, it is easier and more effective to aid the poor by asking the government to coerce money out of ones congregants (and non-Christians as well) than it is to inspire lay folk to embrace the new humanity that Jesus Christ has created in us.

But consider: Holding current church expenditures constant, increasing contributions from church members to eight percent or even ten percent of income would generate huge sums that could be devoted to the needy.

Ginning up donations, however, is the hard road. Given the imperative that the needy should be fed, how much easier it is to step around the church and the power of the Gospel, and instead to make a friend of violence. Its all in service of a good cause, after all. With the magisterial sword, no need to change hearts and actions. We only need to threaten. What a temptation it is to call on magisterial violence to accomplish Gods work. I am not a pacifist, and therefore do not object to the sword in principle. But as with war, I think that use of the magisterial sword needs justification.

There is also the impact on the church. Once the move is made to the domain of the civil sword, its difficult for the church to go back. If the church has ceded responsibility for the needy to the state, then whats the point of increasing contributions to the church? To be sure, there will always be interstices in government welfare, but filling in the cracks of the welfare state is hardly a stirring call.

There are other ventures-like international missions and other domestic ministries-to which a generous church in a welfare state could attend. But our practices shape our thinking. Once we get used to having civil authority take the lead in responsibility for an issue, then we start to think of it as the natural state of affairs. The cost for the church is that the ease with which civil authority gets results becomes a temptation, and so we look to the states coercion for the answers rather than to the Gospel. And that impoverishes the church, as well as society more generally.

I do not at all suggest no role for the civil authority. In noting that the magistrate carries the sword, Paul does not run away from its role in providing for the good." But understanding the role of the state to be filling in the interstices left by a generous church is quite different than what we have today. Even more so, because the civil authority necessarily uses violence, or its implicit threat, to implement its goals, I would suggest that there is a different threshold for state action relative to ecclesiastical action. In particular, the church needs to be concerned about her witness when she advocates coercing non-Christians to achieve her distinctively Christian vision of the good that can be reasonably obtained in this world.

James R. Rogers is department head and associate professor of political science at Texas A&M University. He leads the New Man" prison ministry at the Hamilton Unit in Bryan, Texas, and serves on the Board of Directors for the Texas District of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

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Sacrifice and Steve Jobs Commencement Speech

ft@firsthings.com (Alma Acevedo ) — Tue, 22 May 2012 00:01:00 -0400

With college commencement season upon us again, it is time to revisit Steve Jobs famous June 12, 2005 Commencement Speech at Stanford University. In spite of Jobs think different" mantra, his banner speech echoes the common inconsistencies and contradictions of popular subjectivism.

Woven throughout the speech is Jobs warning not to be trapped by dogma," and the exhortation to follow your heart and intuition." He describes dogma as living with the results of other peoples thinking." Others opinions" may be the noise" that drowns out your own inner voice." The graduates are also urged to trust in something-your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever." Arent these imperatives themselves dogmatic?"

Jobs discourse goes on to eulogize freedom and possibility. Starting over is called light"; success, heavy." Yet, absent the right sense of the true and the good, trusting the gut" may lead either to gluttony or to starvation. Eve trusted the serpent; Adam trusted Eve. Dropping out of college may lead to riches, but also to destitution. Spinning a failure is not the same as learning from it and responsibly making the appropriate amends. Skill at connecting the dots" and rationalizing past errors may brilliantly poeticize a life but it does not necessarily make one morally virtuous. Oftentimes, some dots must be corrected, repaired, and never drawn again.

Behind every life there is a ledger of social debts. The opinions of others may sometimes be mere noise," in Jobs phrasing, but they may also be crucial life lessons, emergency manuals, and necessary maps. Calligraphy, which he finds fascinating," is the result of other peoples thinking. It closely follows some established and specified standards (or perhaps a kind of dogma?).

According to Jobs, death is the grand motivator, destination, and master sweeper. Remembering that Ill be dead soon is the most important tool Ive ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life." Memento mori may be an antidote for pride, even a neon sign to revise our priorities, but the spur driving lifes major decisions? I have yet to meet someone who has entered marriage, his or her course of studies, or their profession at the urging of remembering death. A higher purpose or a person (human or divine) often does the calling.

Yet, Jobs address continues, Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Lifes change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true." The underlying belief is that the new is necessarily better than the old and that doing is better than being. Personal value is strictly instrumental, contingent on novelty and productivity. Alien to this are the notions of the intrinsic worth and dignity of the human person, and of destination not just as endpoint but as ultimate end.

In Jobs speech, the featured terms are love and heart (individual preferences or feelings), creativity, and intuition (repeated thirteen, four, and two times, respectively). Though aesthetic values such as creativity and ingenuity comprise an important part of being fully human, on their own they are sorely lacking. Aesthetics unconnected to morality cannot tell apart the wicked from the saintly, the villain from the hero. By which criteria ought choices and results to be assessed in such a self-contained universe?

Paradoxically, intuitive" thinking may focus the person on just one track, instead of opening other alternatives. Surely, many Stanford graduates were familiar with Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahnemans work on the strengths and flaws of intuitive thinking, such as overconfidence in spite of inadequate information or evidence. What if our atomized intuition" tends to stifle creativity, or even to rouse our worst instincts? How many marriages have failed following the trust-in-intuition dogma? How many businesses? How many careers?

Above all else, Jobs speech exalts individual preference as the arbiter, the guide of life decisions. However, exalting the heart at the expense of the intellect, or intuition at the expense of wisdom, may spell either human genius or human ruin. The head without the heart may feed psychopathy; its opposite, escapism. Both may converge in narcissistic despair. Some work ought to be done, and some courses undertaken, even if there is little to be loved" or liked about them. Some callings command that particular preferences be set aside. A sacrificial mindset? Thinking differently-and true joy and glory-demand no less.

Alma Acevedo teaches courses in applied ethics.

RESOURCES

Text of Steve Jobs speech at Stanford University commencement, 2005

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Imaginary Saints

ft@firsthings.com (William Doino Jr. ) — Mon, 21 May 2012 01:35:00 -0400

We tend to love saints-provided they are safely dead.

When they are alive, kicking up a storm, challenging us to live out the Gospel, they act like a thorn in our conscience.

The saints inspire awe. There is nothing more holy-or terrifying-than reading what St. Catherine of Siena wrote about wayward clergy in her searing Dialogue; few sermons in Christendom equal the power of St. Alphonsus Liguoris on the enticements of the world; and how many of us would have the courage of a St. Charles Borromeo, who, as he implemented the reforms of the Council of Trent, had his life threatened multiple times?

Saints Joan of Arc and Francis Xavier . . . Teresa of Avila and Ignatius of Loyola . . . Damien of Molokai and Kateri Tekakwitha-they blaze across Christian history like wheels of fire.

Intimidated as we are by these towering figures, we downplay their achievements. The full force of their personalities is hard to accept. So we domesticate them, trying to make them suitable for modern times. We pacify, secularize, and ultimately trivialize them, emptying them of their supernatural power. We create imaginary saints-saints in our own image, and not Gods.

No saint has been more a victim of this revisionism than Saint Francis of Assisi. The poverello, or poor one," as he is known, was a legend even during his life (1181/2-1226). He was canonized a mere two years after dying, and soon stories about his life-often highly romanticized and of dubious historicity-grew.

There was bound to be a reaction, and it came in the form of Paul Sabitiers Life of Saint Francis of Assisi (1894), which depicted Francis as a misunderstood humanitarian, crushed by a hidebound and superstitious Church. The book had a lot in common with turn-of-the-century efforts to rationalize Jesus, but was quickly challenged, notably by Franciscan scholar Paschal Robinson, who wrote of Sabatier:

Finding that the St. Francis of history was the contradiction of all his preconceived theological ideas, there were two courses open to him-to take St. Francis as he stood and to abandon his own ideas, or to repaint the portrait of St. Francis according to those ideas. He chose the latter course, which naturally involves the destruction of St. Francis.

For over a century, scholars have debated the real Saint Francis," and now an outstanding new work by Father Augustine Thompson, Francis of Assisi: A New Biography, sets a new standard in the quest.

Years of research have brought us much closer to the historical St. Francis, and Thompson sifts through the evidence meticulously.

The first thing to know about Saint Francis, Father Thompson told me in an interview, is that he was a devout thirteenth-century Italian Catholic." Any effort to turn him into something else-say, a modern-day pacifist, liberation theologian, feminist or environmentalist-is as anachronistic as it is far-fetched. Further, the spectacle of a young Francis traipsing through the fields without a care in the world-an image immortalized in Franco Zeffirellis film, Brother Sun, Sister Moon-may charm audiences, but has little to do with the man.

The historical Francis was actually quite introspective and conscientious, constantly questioning himself about how best to serve the Lord. Far from being a rebel, he was devoted to the pope, the Catholic hierarchy, and the priesthood. He adored the Holy Eucharist, and insisted that his priests follow the books of the Roman Church, and use clean vestments and vessels for Mass. He constantly called his audiences to repentance. He was a passionate defender of orthodoxy and wanted to evangelize the world, even if that meant suffering martyrdom.

The popular idea that Francis, who renounced wealth, only wanted to communicate a spirit of solidarity with the poor-but never addressed sins of the flesh-wont survive a reading of his writings, which explicitly warn against carnal desires" and what they can lead to.

St. Francis was spiritually humble, but not weak. Johannes Jorgensen, one of the saints early biographers, reminds us that Francis was an unbending moralist. He was not silent about wrongs that he saw, but gave everything its right name. . . . In his writings there is many a Woe to the sinner, whose wages are eternal fire! He was not afraid to threaten with Gods judgment. His words were compared to a sword that pierces through hearts." Fr. Thompson concurs, stressing, however, that Francis never placed himself above anyone," knowing and fearing that God would judge him, too. Francis was not a universalist, and clearly thought some people go to hell," said Father Thompson.

These facts seem to have been lost among some of Franciss contemporary enthusiasts. Andrew Sullivans Easter-week cover story for Newsweek magazine was entitled, Forget the Church, Follow Jesus." It mentions Father Thompsons book and acknowledges the saints orthodoxy, but insists that Francis didnt found an order to control" anyone, but simply wanted to reduce ones life to essentials, to ask merely for bread, forgiveness of others, and denial of self," which represents a form of liberation" for Sullivan. But as Father Thompson writes, true freedom of spirit, indeed true Christian freedom, comes from obedience, not autonomy." And for Francis, that meant, first and foremost, obedience to the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, with all its demanding teachings.

Similarly questionable is the reading Paul Moses gives to the saint in his book, The Saint and the Sultan, about Franciss encounter with Egypts Sultan Malik al-Kamil during the Fifth Crusade. Moses rejects any interpretation of a combative Francis," since his Earlier Rule calls on friars to live peaceably among Muslims and 'be subject to them." But the text to which Moses refers cites the first letter of Peter, chapter two, which talks about submission within the concept of Christian belief and freedom. Further, Francis explicitly advocates baptizing and converting non-Christians open to it, so that they may believe in God the Omnipotent, Father and Son and Holy Spirit."

After Moses book appeared, he was interviewed by Melinda Henneberger, and both fretted about how insensitive" it was to still hold to such notions about Christian conversion. But if the modern takeaway message from Saint Francis is to withhold the Gospel whenever it might seem inconvenient or politically incorrect, we have traveled far away from the great saints teaching.

St. Franciss philosophy was not simply live and let live," but rather, live, love and strive to bring people to Christ."

By all means, let us be inspired by the lives of the saints, but let us remember who they actually were, and why they became saints in the first place.

William Doino Jr. is a contributor to Inside the Vatican magazine, among many other publications, and writes often about religion, history and politics. He contributed an extensive bibliography of works on Pius XII to The Pius War: Responses to the Critics of Pius XII.

RESOURCES

Frances of Assisi: A New Biography by Fr. Augustine Thompson, O.P. (Cornell University Press, 2012)

A Fresh Look at a Familiar Saint by Woodene Koenig-Bricker, Our Sunday Visitor, May 20, 2012

The Writings of St. Francis of Assisi , translated by Fr. Kajetan Esser, O.F.M (The Franciscan Archive, 1999)

Forget the Church, Follow Jesus by Andrew Sullivan, Newsweek, April 2, 2012

Mission Improbable: St. Francis and the Sultan by Paul Moses, Commonweal, September 21, 2009

What Christians and Muslims Can Learn From The Saint and the Sultan" by Melinda Henneberger, Politics Daily, October 2, 2009

Saint Francis and the Sultan: The Curious History of a Christian-Muslim Encounter by John V. Tolan (Oxford University Press, 2009)

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A Lament for Georgetown

ft@firsthings.com (Matthew Cantirino ) — Mon, 21 May 2012 00:01:00 -0400

News broke two weeks ago that Georgetown University, my alma mater, had invited Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, as a guest of honor for the Public Policy Institutes commencement weekend festivities. Its a headline that could have appeared in the The Onion, were it not in the Washington Post. A firestorm of course ensued, and to little avail. The ceremony took place on Friday and Sebelius presence became reality.

For years, before, during, and after my undergraduate time at that remarkable university, Ive had to swat away outsiders objections about the place. And I became quite adept at it, because the script was more or less the same every time. An interlocutor would raise an eyebrow when I mentioned my alma mater, reel off some glib remark (doesnt everyone who goes there lose their faith?") and then chortle a bit at their imagined cleverness. Well, actually, no," Id more or less obliged to reply, and then begin a litany of counterfactuals which buried their unserious half-concern.

Were they aware of the excellence of some Jesuit and lay professors who still taught life-changing courses on Dante, Milton, Plato, Church history, and other pillars of the Western canon theyd assumed had evaporated? Had they any idea of the vibrancy of campus ministry; of the quiet leadership of individuals working within and without the system; the sheer history and beauty of the campus? Did they understand that not every student wasted their time there?

These defenses are accurate, and Id gladly stand by them to the fiercest critics. But what I (and many friends) failed to realize is that they were, to an almost absolute extent, relative. They do not reflect a majority or 'mainstream experience at the school, much less some sort of coherent outlook on the part of the administrators and deputies who makes up its managerial class.

There is not much 'center holding at Georgetown; precious little common frame of reference, shared culture and experience, or underlying first principles to which parties can defer debates about ultimate ends. In the absence of that, of course, rush the watery slogans: dialogue" (nothing is said about with whom, on what terms, or to what goal this ought to be pursued); vague intimations of humanitarianism and globalism; and pluralism" (a noble word drained of its essential basis in intractable difference).

Still, if critics are right to point out that Georgetowns animating Catholicity is endangered, they are dangerously mistaken in calling it dead. The difference between life, even embattled life, and death is not a distinction to be casually or sloppily made. And, as valuable and incisive as outsider critics and watchdog organizations can be, their formulaic denunciations of the place will forever ring hollower to me than perhaps they ought to.

But the Sebelius invitation was absurd, and it doesnt take an expert or a local mind to see that. There was no way of papering over the cognitive dissonance; of possibly passing this off as some sort of grand conversation" or anything other than contempt for the Church and her ordained servants. There was an attempt: On Wednesday, the president of the university put out a dithering statement explaining that the invitation was issued before the mandate was promulgated, and Sebelius would not technically be a speaker" at the ceremony, only a guest of honor. It completely dodged the question at hand (why was she still being invited, knowing what they knew now?) and earned a swift call-out from the Archdiocese of Washington.

To their great credit, a few (nine, to be specific) faculty members signed a letter of protest written by departing government professor Patrick Deneen. Only one of the signers, a venerable professor of philosophy, was both a co-signer of both this and the Paul Ryan protest letter, about whose presence on campus more than ninety faculty members happily found the time and will to register moral objection.

For me, as a recent graduate, the situation is absolutely heartbreaking, and it has already fomented bitterness in people far too young for such sentiments. As a close friend put it: I expected to become a dyspeptic old alum, but I didnt expect it to happen this quickly."

But it is worse than a mere disappointment. It is, in the words of legendary 20th century Georgetown history professor Carroll Quigley, a contemporary trahison des clercs." To accord a place of honor to an official responsible for initiating what amounts to a present-day persecution of the Church is not just sloppy; not merely obnoxious. It amounts to a kind of betrayal.

To make a few distinctions which other critics perhaps have not been as adept at: This invitation was not something cooked up by the student body, and apart from maybe a few hardcore activist-types, I dont think theyd have ever collectively dreamt it up. It certainly was not an initiative of the Jesuits (though we could do with some boldness on their part right now). The reactions of those groups (or lack thereof) do indicate something about the climate of the school, but they did not initiate this battle. No, blame for this particular event lies largely in the hands of the career administrators who now mostly have the run of the place.

When a common culture fragments, its the easiest solution: find some 'neutral professionals to sand down the shards, especially when putting them back together would require so much exertion. Never mind that the hired experts may, in fact, harbor their own agenda. Its a peculiarly sad decline because its so lame-the oldest Catholic university in the United States is being suffocated by a thousand qualifications.

Matthew Cantirino is a junior fellow at First Things.

RESOURCES

Patrick J. Deneen, For the Salvation of Souls": A Farewell to Georgetown

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What is the Bible For?

ft@firsthings.com (Peter J. Leithart ) — Fri, 18 May 2012 02:37:00 -0400

Evangelicals like to quote Pauls letter to Timothy: All Scripture is God-breathed, and profitable for teaching, correction, training in righteousness, that the man of God may be equipped for every good work." Paul affirms that God is the author of the written text, a sine qua non of Evangelicalism. Paul also stresses the usefulness of Scripture, an equally favored Evangelical theme.

When we look closely at the Bible though, things get dicey. The Bible rarely lives up to our ordinary standards of practicality. Page after page is given over to genealogical lists of obscure people whose only role is to be a human bridge between famous ancestors and notorious descendants. A third of Exodus is nothing but verbal blueprints for building the tabernacle and the first quarter of Leviticus contains detailed regulations concerning sacrifice. Two lengthy chapters of Leviticus diagnose the varieties of skin disease that cause impurity. It seems so tedious, and even when the Bible holds our interest, it doesnt seem very useful. Stories of plagues, exodus, and wars of utter destruction make for juicy reading, but how do they help one become virtuous? Why cant the Bible be more relevant?

While one can mine nuggets of moral instruction from the depths of the text, the Bibles apparent lessons are difficult, and not infrequently troubling. Abraham goes to Egypt, deceives Pharaoh about his relationship to Sarah, and leaves Egypt richer than ever. Whats the lesson-that lying pays? What moral do we draw from Moses killing of the Egyptian, or Joshuas slaughter of everything that breathed at Jericho? The more we read the Bible, the clearer it becomes that the book isnt a Hebraic Aesops fables.

Treating Scripture as a directory of moral lessons or compendium of moral rules assumes a constricted view of moral practice and reasoning. We dont pursue virtue simply by applying general principles to particular situations, and true morality is never simply obedience to commandments. Practical morality requires the ability to assess situations accurately, memory of our own past patterns of action and of others inspiring examples, and enough moral imagination to see how a potential tragedy might become the birthplace of unforeseen comedy.

Scripture is ethical paedeia, not an ethics manual. All Scripture is practical because God breathed all of it to form people, both individuals and community. God tells stories to stock our memory with a common moral past that projects his people into the future. Gods word expands our imagination to grasp more of whats really there and to envision what might be there in the future. The Bible is useful because it opens our eyes, and because its highly impractical to walk through life with our eyes closed.

Not all the morally relevant truth about the world is self-evident. We have to be told, and the Bible is there to tell us. The letter to the Hebrews tells us that life is a race run before a great cloud of witnesses, which means that those tedious genealogies are designed to inspire patience and temperance. Jesus promises that the Father gives angels charge over us lest we dash our foot against a stone, which means that the Bibles ancient history of sudden deliverance and unexpected protection should arouse courage. Purity rules tell us that the unclean are cast out, so when the proud and cruel rise, we anticipate that they will eventually descend. Scripture thus cultivates a taste for justice.

Prudence requires a sense of timing. With its cycles and types, its first and last Adams, its first and second exodus, Scripture scans the rhythms and rhymes of history. Trained by Scripture, we can sniff the air of an epoch and think, Weve been here before."

Above all, Scripture makes visible the invisible God of infinite power, compassion, generosity, and justice. In a wonderful passage in his Gods Companions: Reimagining Christian Ethics (Wiley-Blackwell, 2006), Sam Wells lists the gifts God gives for moral formation: witness, catechesis, baptism, prayer, friendship, hospitality, admonition, penance, confession, praise, reading scripture, preaching, sharing peace, sharing food, washing feet. These are boundless gifts of God." If we could see the world accurately, we would recognize that ours is never a scarcity of moral resources but a boundless, overwhelming excess: Gods inexhaustible creation, limitless grace, relentless mercy, enduring purpose, fathomless love: it is just too much to contemplate, assimilate, understand." The Bible unveils a God who gives enough and more than enough, if we will only see and receive it.

Most days, we dont catch even the slightest glimpse of this tidal wave of glory." We are like the servant of Elisha who trembled at the horses of Aram until Elisha prayed that his eyes would be opened. Then, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha." We need an Elisha prayer to see reality as it is, and Scripture is Gods answer to that prayer.

Peter J. Leithart is on the pastoral staff of Trinity Reformed Church in Moscow, Idaho, and Senior Fellow of Theology and Literature at New St. Andrews College. His most recent book is Athanasius (Baker Academic).

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For the Salvation of Souls: A Farewell to Georgetown

ft@firsthings.com (Patrick J. Deneen ) — Fri, 18 May 2012 00:30:00 -0400

In yesterdays Washington Post, in anticipation of todays address by Health and Human Secretary Kathleen Sebelius at Georgetown University as part of its graduation exercises, the editorial staff pronounced that Georgetown Gets it Right." Like many defenders of the invitation to Secretary Sebelius, the editorial at once denied that the invitation constituted an honor-since the event is not officially a commencement" and an honorary degree is not being conferred-and asserted that the invitation constituted an opportunity for the legitimate exchange of ideas." The editorial archly stated that Cardinal Wuerl of the Archdiocese of Washington-who, in an extraordinary step, publicly criticized the invitation-fails to recognize" the critical academic function" of open-minded debate."

These two reasons-that the invitation did not constitute an honor for Secretary Sebelius, and that her presence on campus is an opportunity for open-minded debate"-have been the main responses of defenders of the invitation amid the intense controversy that has arisen in the wake of last Fridays public announcement of the invitation. They have been invoked by spokespersons of the university, and even suggested by Georgetowns President John J. DeGioia in an open letter published on May 14, and cited in the Washington Post editorial.

What the first defense appears to concede is that, were an honor in fact being conferred, there might indeed be something untoward about the invitation (however, this concession was not on display when President Obama was awarded an Honorary Degree in 2009 by the University of Notre Dame). This defense implies that, in particular, the bestowal of an honor upon Secretary Sebelius at this time would in fact be inappropriate. After all, Secretary Sebelius is the architect of the HHS mandate that would require Catholic institutions such as Georgetown to provide abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception to its students and employees, and which in turn has provoked strong and unanimous opposition from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. This justification seems to concede that if an honor were being conferred, that those who have opposed the invitation might in fact be justified in their belief that this invitation constitutes an offense to the Bishops and a scandal for the Church.

The second justification depends on the first: if the invitation does not constitute an honor, then it ought legitimately be understood to be nothing more than a regular university event, the opportunity to exchange ideas and debate views. This second justification thus depends upon the legitimacy and correctness of the first claim. If, however, the event does in fact constitute an honor to Secretary Sebelius because of the inherent honorific nature of an invitation to appear as a commencement event speaker, then this raises significant doubts about the legitimacy of the second claim that such an appearance can be understood as part of a Universitys ordinary activity of debate and exchange.

In fact, neither of these conditions apply- and the editorial writers at the Post, other defenders of this decision, and even the official explanation of the leadership at Georgetown gets it wrong" to suggest otherwise. For this reason, I was one of ten faculty of Georgetown to publicly state opposition to the invitation and, in a public letter, asked for Georgetown President DeGioia to withdraw the invitation.

Each spring, members of the Georgetown faculty receive a letter from the universitys Provost and from their Dean and Chairman reminding them that they are contractually obligated, and strongly encouraged, to attend two of the universitys Commencement exercises. These include the university-wide Convocation, presided over by the President and Provost; the conferral of diplomas, presided over by the Deans of the various schools; and each schools Tropaia" (Greek for trophy"), also presided over by the schools Dean (The event to which Secretary Sebelius has been invited combines these latter two events). At each event, faculty and administrators are to don their academic regalia and march in procession at the beginning and conclusion of the ceremony. For the duration of the event itself, they are to sit in array upon a raised podium or stage during the ceremony and addresses, a highly visible presence, separate from and facing the students and the audience.

The presence and display of faculty in this manner at these events-with all attendant academic pomp and circumstance"-is intended to send a strong signal of approval, blessing, and witness upon such events. We pay honor and respect to our students who have successfully completed their course of education, conferring upon them our collective blessing and congratulation by our presence. Our presence denotes the universitys blessing (indeed, on these occasions we take out the colored robes that reflect that once we were actually professors"-of the faith). In seven years teaching at Georgetown, it has never been suggested that any one of these Commencement events is any less deserving of our serious regard or constitutes less of an honor to our students or invited guests than any other-at least until several days ago, when the GPPIs Tropaia was suddenly portrayed as less than a full commencement event. In fact, after the announcement of Secretary Sebelius as one of the many Commencement speakers, the universitys website was changed to reflect a kind of demotion of Secretary Sebelius to one of Commencement weekends Other Speakers."

The fact that the Universitys first, and correct, impulse was to acknowledge that the event was centrally part of the Commencement exercises belies the notion that the appearance of Secretary Sebelius should be understood to be part of the regular exchange of ideas" and open-minded debate" that takes place on a university campus. Every week during Georgetowns regular 28-week academic year, a newsletter of invited speakers, guests and events is circulated to all members of the Georgetown community. Each week there are dozens of planned events of every possible kind. Attendance at these events is wholly voluntary-they are not part of the facultys contractual obligation"-and faculty show up in their regular garb, not in the full Technicolor array of academic regalia. They do not sit on a raised dais or stage at the front of the room, but-if they attend any of these events at all-they join and are part of the audience. At most of these events, an opportunity is given to attendees to pose questions and challenges to the invited speaker, thereby permitting the opportunity to engage in the exchange of ideas." At any point during these 28-weeks, Secretary Sebelius would have been an appropriate invitee, and-speaking for myself, a view I think that would be shared by those few other faculty who protested the decision of Commencement invitation-there would have been no protest by faculty and no request for withdrawal in such a circumstance. Assuredly there would have been a vigorous exchange of ideas" at such a regular university event-something that will not take place this morning during Secretary Sebeliuss address during Commencement Exercises, when the arrayed faculty and administration of Georgetown will sit largely in silent approval and endorsement of the proceedings. There will be no question and answer period, no exchange of ideas-only the most magnificent, colorful, and stately display of approval, honor, endorsement and beneficence that a University is capable of mustering.

The claims of the Post, and those who have defended this decision, are altogether specious and disingenuous. They also finally confuse and mistake the purpose of a Catholic university.

The Posts editorial states that it is the essence of a university to be a place where students can hear from an array of thinkers-and doers." While it is assuredly the case that the editorial staff of the Post, no less than the administration of a university, would in fact regard some speakers and topics as out-of-bounds (and assuredly there are some people or views even the Post would regard as inappropriate as the recipient of an invitation to speak at a Commencement event, with or without the conferral of an honorary degree), it is nevertheless certainly the case that the life-blood of any university is the exchange of ideas. However, the Post rests content to posit that the open-minded" exchange of ideas is the sole end or purpose of a university. However, a Catholic university in particular engages (or ought to engage) in the exchange of ideas" with a specific and constant goal in view-attainment of knowledge of the truth in the service and worship of God with an ultimate aspiration to join him, his Son, his Mother and the Communion of Saints in Heaven.

Perhaps the most magnificent room at Georgetown University-where many events of Commencement will take place-is Gaston Hall, named for William Gaston, one of Georgetowns first students, who successfully lobbied Congress to grant to Georgetown the right to confer degrees. At the front of that room, amid many frescoes, paintings, insignia, and symbols, is a single phrase that stretches from one side of the Hall to the other in ornate gilded letters: Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam Inque Hominum Salutem: For the Greater Glory of God and the Salvation of Humanity." The phrase is the motto of the Society of Jesus and is attributed to its founder, Ignatius of Loyola. In founding the myriad of schools and universities-many of the seals of which are on display high above Gaston Hall-the Society of Jesus sought not merely to ensure the exchange of ideas," but to promote the dogged search for truth in the service of the Church for the salvation of souls. Georgetown is thus not merely" a modern university, aimed at producing research (although it does that, and proclaims this activity widely and loudly); rather, it is most fundamentally a part of the Churchs ministry-no less so than its churches, as well as its schools, hospitals, and charities-aimed above all at the salvation of humanity."

The scandal of the invitation to Secretary Sebelius lies in her central role in attacking that ministry-indeed, in her words, of being at war" with those who disagree with her positions. The HHS mandate as currently promulgated will force institutions like Georgetown-as an entity of the Church-into an impossible position. In requiring the Church (in this case, its schools, hospitals and other institutions) to act against its own conscience and faith commitments, it requires the Church to cease to be itself.

Georgetown can elect to provide services that Georgetowns own President recently declared it does not provide based upon its adherence to the Churchs teachings. It can elect to cease providing service altogether, as in the case of Franciscan University, or to cease admitting and hiring non-Catholics in order to meet the narrow qualification for an exemption. Or, in extremis, it can elect either to secularize or to shut down, given that these other options all constitute a betrayal of faith. While many dismiss this latter option, no less a figure than Francis Cardinal George of Chicago has stated that the HHS mandate, if left unchanged, within two years will result in the shuttering of the schools, hospitals and universities in his Diocese and perhaps beyond. What Cardinal George has concluded is that left the option to be the Church as established by Jesus Christ, or to cease to be the Church on terms set by a mandate by Caesar, the Church will not act against itself; yet, in ceasing to provide ministry to Catholic and non-Catholic alike, it will in fact be forced to do just that.

What is so scandalous about Georgetowns invitation to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is that it incontrovertibly honors the architect of a Mandate that demands that the Church cease to be itself. Georgetown is under an obligation to invite the exchange of ideas to promote an understanding of Gods Creation with an aim of the salvation of mankind"; it is under no obligation to honor its persecutor or to engage in self-immolation. Indeed, as an institution of the Church-the oldest Catholic university in the United States-it ought to be in the forefront with the Bishops, the successors of St. Peter and the apostles, in standing against this latest persecution of the Church by the State. I think I again can speak for my nine faculty colleagues who publicly opposed this decision in stating that my reaction was less anger and outrage-of which I felt some-than sadness and hurt.

Since learning of this decision by the University I have served for seven years, and which I leave with sadness and pain to join the University of Notre Dame in the belief that it has the possibility of retaining its Catholic identity-I have mostly felt sharp pain over an institution of the Church honoring one whose policy would force-in some form-the Church to cease to be itself. Of course, if Georgetown were truly and irrefutably acting as the Church, categorically and by definition it could not act in this manner. It is only in its own internal confusion about itself and its mission, a confusion that it sows among Catholics and non-Catholics alike-not, finally, the open-minded exchange of ideas," but Ad majorem Dei gloriam inque hominum salute-that it could have issued and followed through on this invitation. I leave the Hilltop with even greater sadness than I felt making the decision to depart earlier in the year-apparently at the very time the decision was made to issue this invitation to Kathleen Sebelius-and will pray for Georgetown and for the Church to be true to itself, and not to be snared by the temptations of Caesar and the world.

Patrick J. Deneen is, until May 30, 2012, the Tsakopoulos-Kounalakis Chair of Hellenic Studies and Associate Professor of Government at Georgetown University. In 2006 he founded the Tocqueville Forum on the Roots of American Democracy. On July 1, 2012, he will begin an appointment as Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame.

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The Gift and Grace of Doubt

ft@firsthings.com (Matt Emerson ) — Fri, 18 May 2012 00:01:00 -0400

I am plagued by doubts. What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet. If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss bank." - Woody Allen, Without Feathers

It would be nice, wouldnt it, if we all had so clear a sign, and gazing at our carpet never hurled us into existential grief? Alas, such things dont seem to happen, and my version of the Swiss bank deposit-the resurrection of Notre Dame football-is probably hoped for in vain.

But though doubt will remain, our attitude toward doubt is another matter. Doubt, one might say, is underappreciated. Allen satirizes doubt as a disease, and believers often treat it similarly. A threat," an abyss of nothingness," and a void that seethes": These are the descriptions used by Pope Benedict XVI in his Introduction to Christianity.

Regardless of position or age, doubt in Gods existence or in a related article of faith usually greets us like a grave diagnosis: something to prevent, resist, or bravely abide. However, without denying that doubt can ravage our interior life, it need not always mortify. Doubt can also be a source of grace, a reflection of Gods love and mercy.

When we doubt, we are reminded that we are the creatures and not the creator. While this sounds like a truism, the consequences are huge.

To have the certainty we crave, to truly know everything about the mysteries that leave us on edge, this would impose a burden and responsibility that would crush our psyche. Its a fair assumption that doubt often arises because we dont have answers to certain hard questions, questions like Does God exist?"; How did the universe come about?"; How can a loving God allow evil?"

But once we demand those answers, it becomes arbitrary and selfish to try to limit the responses to only the information that would satisfy our specific, narrow inquiries. We cannot act as if we are students who, when reviewing gaps in our notes, want to know only what will be on the exam. In other words, if we are going to seek peace of mind from answers to really hard questions, we have to be willing, both logically and morally, to accept the implications of those answers and the hard truths they convey.

This means that we cant desire to know merely the good things, the things that confirm the optimistic narratives about our lives and fortunes that we unthinkingly craft. I cant seek to reconcile evil with a loving God and expect a response that is communicable on Facebook and Twitter. Instead, I have to be willing to know what evil truly is. I have to be willing not merely to be watched by the abyss, but to awaken it. As allegorized by Dante in The Divine Comedy, I have to be willing to be led into hell.

What this entire experience, this seeing, might look like may be indicated by Pope Benedict in his haunting homily from Holy Thursday of this year. Speaking of Jesus prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, the pope said that, in Jesus,

something more is at work. His gaze peers deeper, into the nights of evil. He sees the filthy flood of all the lies and all the disgrace which he will encounter in that chalice from which he must drink. His is the dread of one who is completely pure and holy as he sees the entire flood of this worlds evil bursting upon him.

We now ask ourselves: Are we prepared for this? Are we prepared to enter into the filthy flood of lies and disgrace that awaits us at the depths of evil? Are we willing to undergo this encounter to win the knowledge we think would eliminate our doubts?

And perhaps more importantly, would it?

I think not. Were we to see in its fullness the horror that Christ carried to the cross, I cant see how wed be anything other than destroyed-not because of the knowledge itself, but because we would be unable to resist being transformed by it, like a child too soon thrust into adult concerns. Mercifully, God has spared us the long night of Christ. So long as we are the kind of beings who can doubt, we are the kind of beings who do not have to take upon, know, and absorb the full flood of this worlds evil.

Holy week, with its return to a garden, recalls creation week and reminds us that our role as humans is to be really good at being the kind of thing that comes from dust. In Genesis, we are given the relatively simple tasks of marrying, making babies, and overseeing plants and wildlife. Moreover, commentators have noted that in placing man in a garden, the sacred authors allegorically affirm the freedom to be at leisure-the freedom to be the kind of creatures that watch Woody Allen movies and philosophize; creatures with the freedom to say, There are things I cannot, and do not, have to know."

And therein may lie the supreme trait of reason: its power not to expunge mystery, but to enlarge it; to bring us to value, with its every achievement, the unforeseen delights that rush upon us with the thrill of falling in love.

Matt Emerson is the director of admissions and instructor of theology at Xavier College Preparatory in Palm Desert, California, and can be reached at memerson@xavierprep.org.

RESOURCES

Matt Emerson, Easter Season and Mysterium Tremendum

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The White Houses Contraceptive Kulturkampf

ft@firsthings.com (Leroy Huizenga ) — Thu, 17 May 2012 03:21:00 -0400

Franciscan University of Steubenville just dropped health insurance for its undergraduates, thus becoming one of the most prominent early victims of the Department of Health and Human Services mandate requiring all health plans to cover contraception, sterilization, and abortifacient drugs. Today the Catholic Church has found itself engaged in a new Kulturkampf, a cultural struggle initiated by State aggression against the libertas ecclesiae, the freedom of the Church to manage her own affairs so that her members might flourish in virtue and serve their fellow citizens freely.

Unlike the war waged against Catholics in the nineteenth century by Germanys Iron Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, a devout pietist Christian, our battle has been joined not only by many of our Evangelical brothers and sisters but also by many Mormons, Jews, and others of good will. Polls show the politics of the mandate are not playing out as the administration had hoped, however, as women voters support of Obama did not spike, and the broader healthcare bill did not seem to fare well in oral argumentation before the Supreme Court.

Whether Catholic, Evangelical, or otherwise, the resistance has tried to frame the narrative along the lines of religious liberty. On one level, this makes sense. The HHS mandate is a threat to the religious freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment, as even the editorial pages of the Washington Post and USA Today have recognized. Framing it as a constitutional issue seems to make it a public matter of reason, not a private matter of revelation, which invites its marginalization.

The appeal to religious liberty is important, but it must be one prong of a two-pronged strategy. We must also explain why Christians historically have held contraception to be an intrinsic evil. Otherwise, well be regarded at best as irrational eccentrics the state merely tolerates. In the long run, those simply tolerated tend not to fare well.

It is not important, I think, that we actually convince people that Catholics are right on contraception, as amply demonstrated by the support for Catholic rights shown by many Protestants who accept contraception. I do think it is important that people see that we have substantive and well-thought-out reasons for why Catholics reject contraception (as did all major Christian bodies until 1930). We need to show that what is now the Catholic position isnt simply the fruit of a papal diktat but rather that our position is beautiful, issuing forth from the most profound reflection on Nature and the human person, that our position is a matter of reason and not only revelation, that its not really a matter of a mere religious exemption" at all.

We have before us a real opportunity not merely to defend our right to associate and serve freely in accord with our conscience but also to educate and thereby evangelize the wider public while also catechizing the many poorly-formed Catholics who have little problem with contraception. We should go on offense. While many have been using social media in the struggle for religious freedom, we should also defend the Churchs teaching itself. We should be taking out ads in the New York Times. We should be running television commercials. We should be holding fora on marriage, sex, and family issues not only in our parishes but also in literal public squares like Theology on Tap events in pubs.

We ought to show how our thinking flows from our reasoned and realist conviction that grace completes nature, while the modern biotechnological nightmare were facing is a secularized version of the old voluntarist and nominalist idea that grace destroys it. Modern wills use technology to shape their bodies apart from any concern for our natures as embodied men and women. We might make the point that contraception isnt healthcare because pregnancy isnt a disease, even though our Gnostic culture considers children a cancer. We ought to argue that Humanae Vitae has proven prophetic. In the face of the Wests demographic decline, we ought to ask progressives what the ultimate ideal future towards which theyre progressing actually is-a sterile secular simulacrum of Eden bereft of the messiness of children?

I have found that most people actually attempt to be people of good will and want to get along with others. And so I have always had a lot of friends who are things Im not-gay, politically or theologically liberal, agnostic, whatever-who listen to what I say when I say it well. Indeed, some of my best friends and students with whom Ive been closest are those with whom I disagree most vigorously. They may ultimately disagree with me on serious issues, but they respect me and I them, when weve been able to have substantive discussion of issues, and give each other space. Isnt that American? Isnt that Catholic?

The HHS mandate is an existential issue for Catholics, a clear and present danger, which is why Catholics of various theological and political positions have pulled together. As the Church Somnolent rouses herself, however, remembering were the Church Militant aided by the Church Triumphant, I would suggest that preserving the libertas ecclesiae requires moving beyond the scope of the limited conscience protections most are arguing for, as if were happy to beg the almighty savior State for the table scraps of an exemption. To do so would be to concede the States ultimate power over us. While respecting the legitimate domain of the State, we must present the wider public with the beauty, goodness, and truth of our coherent conception of marriage, sex, and family.

Leroy Huizenga is Director of the Christian Leadership Center at the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota.

RESOURCES

Mary Eberstadt, The Vindication of Humanae Vitae

Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission president Richard Land: Christians Will Go to Jail

Mere Comments, HHS: Cynical Ploy Failing

Franciscan University Drops Undergraduate Health Insurance

Timothy George and Chuck Colson, An Open Letter to Evangelical Christians

USA Today, Contraception Mandate Violates Religious Freedom

Washington Post, Respecting Religious Exemptions

GetReligion.org, Religious Liberty Loses Appeal

GetReligion.org: Frame Game, Birth Control vs. Religious Liberty, Again

Christopher O. Tollefson, Natural Causes, Divine Commands, and Human Wellbeing

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Dan Savage Was Right

ft@firsthings.com (Joshua Gonnerman ) — Thu, 17 May 2012 00:01:00 -0400

Dan Savage spoke, and the Internet exploded.

He rejected the Bible as bullshit" in a keynote address to high-school journalists, and then described students who chose to walk away as pansy-assed." Since being uploaded to YouTube on April 27, the video of his speech has received over 600,000 views. In describing those who had the courage to take a stand as pansies, Savage flouted his prominent It Gets Better" anti-bullying campaign (started in the wake of the suicides of Tyler Clementi and other gay or gay-seeming youth), as well as his less well-known stance against effeminophobia within the gay community. His hypocrisy is painfully evident.

And yet, in the rush to (rightly) condemn, conservative responses have often overlooked the fact that Savage was on to something. In the past year, commentators including Elizabeth Scalia, Melinda Selmys, and Mark Shea have written articles to present the gay community as something other than simply an enemy. Each made clear their adherence to orthodox sexual ethics, but each nonetheless received a venomous response from many of their Christian readers.

Before we can say that Savage was right, we must point out that he also was grossly wrong. Savage is of course wrong to refer to the Bible as bullshit. It is the prime document of the Christian faith, inspired by the Holy Spirit, and treasured by the churches throughout the ages. Only in Scripture can we encounter Christ and through him reach towards divinization, and the Scripture in which I was raised continues to provide the backbone to my own life of faith.

He is no less wrong to dismiss traditional sexual morality. On this point, Scripture and tradition always have spoken with one voice, and the churches cannot, in good conscience, reject that voice. The traditional sexual ethic is the only possible antidote to the rampant commodification of human persons in contemporary culture. As a Christian who is committed to chastity and who is also gay, I acknowledge and I accept the high claims that ethic makes on my life.

But recall Savages original point. It was not the Bible is wrong;" his incendiary remarks were meant to build up the over-arching concern of Christian non-response to the gay community. He recounts a hypothetical Christian who claims, Im sorry, we cant do anything about bullying, because it says right there in Leviticus, in Timothy, in Romans that being gay is wrong." Christians have appealed far too quickly to their traditional moral views to avoid offering support to gay people. Here, if nowhere else, Dan Savage has a point.

In my own Roman Catholic Church, the teaching is clear that homosexual acts are immoral, but the presence of homosexual inclinations is not. Most (though not all) Christians of other traditions would agree. But if we make the distinction in theory, its practical application is far too rare. The all-encompassing rhetorical tool of the lifestyle" is used to reduce the entire identity of gay people to sexual activity, and thus our response to all concerns of gay people becomes an automatic no."

Thus, the first line of response conservative Christians offer to the pastoral problem of homosexuality is to try to get rid of the problem through ex-gay ministries or reparative therapy; thus, Christian protest to the Uganda bill was half-hearted at best; thus, the concern for Christians over gay bullying has been minimal, and some Christians have even organized opposition to the opposition of gay bullying. The guiding principle is not the distinction between sexual activity and orientation, but their conflation into lifestyle or identity, and so those who are targeted for being or seeming to be gay are given only the most abstract support for their profoundly concrete humiliation.

Being or seeming to be gay." This phrase itself demonstrates that our approach to these questions cannot be conditioned by assumptions of sexual immorality, since some of the youth who are bullied are not even gay. Growing up, my brother experienced nearly as much gay-bullying" as I did, even though he is straight. The fundamental category of this issue is not one of sexual ethics, but of encountering difference. Surely, the Christian (embraced by a God who is so radically different that he must become one of us to enable relationship) should approve? Surely, the Christian should view the encounter of the Other-as-Other to be deeply significant, and one of our basic ethical dilemmas? Why, then, do we fail to live out that call?

Last year, Biola professor Matt Jenson addressed students in chapel (like Savages address, also available on YouTube). After calling Christians to accountability for failing to make a real space for single people, he turns to the question of homosexuality. The church is right to tell gay people the good news and call them to a life of discipleship, if and only if it is willing to live as their family." If Christians have any interest in reaching out to the gay community, if we have any hope to speak a message which can touch their hearts as well, we absolutely must be willing to live as their family. Behind his blundering obscenity, behind his facile attempts to explain Scripture away, behind the blatant hypocrisy of his behavior toward those who disagree with him, what Dan Savage means to tell us is, The church has far too often, and for the most wrong-headed reasons, failed to be family to gay people."

And hes right.

Joshua Gonnerman lives in Washington, D. C., where he is a doctoral student in historical theology at the Catholic University of America.

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Charles W. Colson, R.I.P.

ft@firsthings.com (George Weigel ) — Wed, 16 May 2012 02:04:00 -0400

Back in the days when Chuck Colson was willing to run over his grandmother for Richard Nixon, I would have happily done the same to Mr. Colson. Well, that was then, and this is now. And over the past 20 years, I never met a more thoroughly converted Christian, a more ecumenically serious Christian, or a more tenacious Christian than Chuck Colson, who died on April 21. He was a man whom I came, not just to respect, but to love.

Our friendship and collaboration began in the early 1990s, when Herb Schlossberg, the evangelical author, buttonholed me at a Washington reception and expressed concern about the ongoing fracture between Catholics and evangelical Protestants, two communities that Herb thought should be working together to shore up Americas public culture. I mentioned Herbs concern to Richard John Neuhaus; Neuhaus called Colson; and within a matter of months Evangelicals and Catholics Together" was born.

What began as co-belligerency in the American culture-war soon evolved in ways none of us had anticipated. Led by Neuhaus and Colson, and prodded by such towering intellects as Avery Dulles, S.J., and J. I. Packer, ECT," as we called it, developed into what was arguably the most important theological encounter ever between evangelical Protestant and Catholics. Issues that we had once imagined completely off-the-table-Mary; the communion of saints; justification-were not only broached but examined, pondered and prayed over. And the result was not only a deepening of fellowship but a refinement of thought. That a leading evangelical theologian should today be working on a book on Mary-for-evangelicals says something about the miles traveled, and the centuries of misunderstanding bridged, in those conversations.

ECT returned to the culture-wars in 2010, this time in defense of religious freedom. And just before Chuck Colson died, the U.S. bishops Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty commended and cited the ECT statement, In Defense of Religious Freedom," that Chuck had helped push to completion.

Life with Chuck Colson also involved adventures. My favorite took place in Rome, about 10 years ago. At a conference held in the old Synod Hall of the Apostolic Palace I ran into Colson, who asked if I might do him a favor. Obviously, I replied. Well, Chuck said, he had met John Paul II on several occasions, but his wife, Patty, a Catholic, had never met the Pope and would be ecstatic if that could be arranged. Nothing easier, I said-at which point Chuck asked if he could bring along another Major Evangelical Figure (as I shall discreetly style him) and his wife. No problem, said I.

So Patty Colson, Chuck, Major Evangelical Figure, and Mrs. Major Evangelical Figure met John Paul II, and Chuck called me the night of the general audience to express his thanks. I then asked if he thought a picture of the encounter in the English edition of LOsservatore Romano would serve our common ecumenical purposes. Chuck, initially enthusiastic, then got cautious: Wait; Id better check with [Major Evangelical Figure]." The next day I got another phone call from Chuck: Dont do anything. The Pope was sitting when he received us, and [Major Evangelical Figure]s picture was taken when he was down on one knee in front of the Pope. Hes afraid his fundraising will collapse if that picture gets out!" I laughed, assured him that I would abandon any idea of having the photo run in the Vatican newspaper-and reflected on the still-supple political instincts of a man who found his true vocation only after being driven out of politics.

Chuck knew the threat Major Evangelical Figure feared: at the beginning of our common work, Colsons leadership in ECT cost Prison Fellowship, the marvelous ministry he founded, millions of dollars in lost donations. Chuck took the hit and soldiered on because he believed that the truth of Christ would prevail, eventually, over hardened hearts. It was a conviction he came to him from hard personal experience. And it made him one of the great Christian witnesses of our time.

George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.

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A Strong Note of Caution on Reproductive Health and Family Planning

ft@firsthings.com (Austin Ruse and Stefano Gennarini J.D. ) — Wed, 16 May 2012 00:30:00 -0400

In two recent papers, Meghan Grizzle argues that the phrases reproductive health" and family planning" are perfectly acceptable and that pro-lifers should fight for them. She argues that abortion is not a part of reproductive health in international law and contraceptives are not a part of family planning.

Grizzle is right, in part. There is no hard law international treaty defining reproductive health as including abortion. In fact, abortion is not mentioned in any treaties at all. Reproductive health is mentioned in one, the treaty on disabilities, and when it was adopted 15 nations insisted it did not include abortion. And it is true that while family planning is mentioned in three hard law treaties, it is not defined as including contraception.

Does it follow that we have nothing to fear from these phrases and that we should in fact embrace them? We suggest Grizzle is too sanguine about these terms and their threat. She is wrong in one important definition and she is overly optimistic to think these phrases can be captured for good uses.

International law is made though hard law treaties and through the recognition of customary international law, which comes about through universal state practice with the understanding of legal obligation.

Hard law treaties are silent on abortion. Even when reproductive health was mentioned in the disability treaty, it was only defined as a category of non-discrimination. But there is more to fear from treaties than plain words. Each treaty comes with a treaty monitoring body. In recent years these bodies have taken on quasi-judicial functions and essentially rewritten the treaties.

The committee that monitors the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) now interprets the treaty as including reproductive health and a right to abortion. To date they have directed more than 90 counties to change their laws on abortion. Some national courts have started to listen, most recently Argentina, which liberalized their abortion laws based on this reinterpretation. Grizzle is right to point out these committees are acting beyond their mandate. But they do, and with obvious effect.

The other way international law is made is through custom. Pro-abortion lawyers falsely assert that the repetitious use of the phrase reproductive health in non-treaty UN documents has created a customary right to abortion. They point most often to the Program for Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (Cairo, 1994).

Grizzle insists that the Cairo document cannot be used in this way because while it uses the phrase reproductive health, abortion is not included. Grizzle is simply wrong. The document says, Reproductive health care in the context of primary health care includes . . . abortion as specified in paragraph 8.25." Paragraph 8.25 says abortion may not be promoted as a method of family planning. It says changes in abortion law can only be decided at the national, state, or local level, and that where abortion is legal it should also be safe. Abortion, however, is very much in the document.

There are further problems with accepting these phrases. They are dangerously vague. The Cairo document, which Grizzle calls uncontroversial, defines reproductive health as a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing, in all matters relating to the reproductive system and to its function and processes. Reproductive health therefore implies [emphasis added] that people are able to have a satisfying and safe sex life, and that they have the capability to reproduce and the freedom to decide if, when and how often to do so." Grizzle says such legal gobbledygook is acceptable and even laudable.

There is no escaping the fact that these terms are controversial. Every time they appear in a UN draft document they cause a stir among delegations. At this years session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women some delegations were so forceful in pushing reproductive health and family planning that other delegations rejected the final document. And if these terms were harmless, then the Holy See would not try constantly to block them or, failing that, define them in an acceptable way in document reservations.

We would do well to look beyond the text of international instruments, whether binding or not, to understand the peril presented by the terms. Abortion and contraception are the staple of the diet promoted by UN agencies. Quite simply, powerful UN actors-agencies, NGOs, foundations, governments-continue to include abortion and contraception precisely under the name of reproductive health and family planning.

While Grizzles papers are a welcome departure from the commonly held views of the international community on reproductive health and family planning, trying to change the meaning of those terms is at best a quixotic struggle. No one really believes that the acceptance of these terms by Grizzles admittedly small NGO will convince the U.S., the UN, the EU, the donor countries of Scandinavia, billion-dollar foundations, and powerful NGOs to decide these terms no longer mean abortion and contraception.

The reality is that in recent decades, the culture of death" has successfully transformed western social norms, especially those touching sexuality. The conjugal act is seen as a recreational activity detached from the natural and fundamental unit of society, the family. As a result, human life itself, which is the fruit of the conjugal act, is treated as a disposable commodity.

The very notion of reproductive health and family planning are based on the assumption that sex is a recreational activity, or an uncontrollable urge. If we really want to defeat the culture of death, we cannot compromise at all on the subjects of sexuality and the family. The terms reproductive health and family planning are a not so Trojan horse for anyone who would adopt them as a component of their social policy.

Austin Ruse is President of C-FAM (Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute). Stefano Gennarini is Director of the Center for Legal Studies at C-FAM.

RESOURCES

Meghan Grizzle,�World Youth Alliance White Paper on Reproductive Health

Meghan Grizzle,�World Youth Alliance White Paper on Family Planning

Meghan Grizzle, Reproductive Health, Reasserted

Meghan Grizzle,� True Reproductive Health

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�

Reproductive Health, Reasserted

ft@firsthings.com (Meghan Grizzle ) — Wed, 16 May 2012 00:01:00 -0400

Reproductive health" and family planning" are not poisonous terms. As the World Youth Alliances white paper on reproductive health demonstrates, international law is clear. No international human rights treaty includes abortion as a component of reproductive health. The first and primary international consensus document to define reproductive health, the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), does not include abortion in the definition. As a document of political will, rather than a legally binding treaty, it reflects the commitments of States to addressing population opportunities and challenges.

Although the ICPD Programme of Action includes abortion as a component of reproductive health care (Paragraph 7.6) and reproductive health services (Paragraph 13.14(b)), in each of these instances, abortion is only included as specified in Paragraph 8.25. That paragraph limits the inclusion of abortion only where it is legal, and thus does not require abortion where it is not already legal. It emphasizes that each States abortion laws are its own prerogative, not the international communitys. It also states that abortion should not be promoted as a means of family planning, a point on which every United Nations Member State agrees. Further references to abortion throughout the Programme of Action cast it as undesirable.

It is important to make distinctions in language and terminology when attempting to understand or participate in UN negotiations. Reproductive health," the topic of the World Youth Alliance white paper, is different from the terms reproductive health care," reproductive health services," and reproductive rights." These terms should be understood separately, as they have different meanings. Reproductive health should not be rejected altogether because of conflation with the other terms.

During the negotiations for the 45th Session of the Commission on Population and Development, held this April, at least 24 consistently pro-life Member States clearly articulated that they accept the term reproductive health services," as long as it is accompanied by a specific reference to the ICPD Programme of Action. At no point in the negotiations did any of these pro-life Member States object to the terms reproductive health" and family planning."

The failure to produce an outcome document at the 56th Commission on the Status of Women in March was due to opposition to sexual and reproductive rights language, in addition to ambiguous ideas such as comprehensive sexuality education. The repeated inclusion of contraception-in the place of family planning-also contributed to the lack of consensus. The delegates did not battle over the concept of reproductive health, as it is an accepted term.

The consequences of an improper understanding of reproductive health are serious. Treaty-monitoring bodies (TMBs), which monitor the implementation of treaties, such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), have pressured countries to legalize abortion or loosen abortion restrictions under the reproductive health framework. The answer to this pressure is to educate States Parties to treaties that abortion is not a component of any treaty and to empower them to reject the non-binding recommendations of TMBs, not to run away from the concept of reproductive health. NGOs that relentlessly assert abortion as part of reproductive health-powerhouses such as International Planned Parenthood Federation and Ipas among them-do not have lawmaking capacities.

The response to these NGOs is to assert the true definition, which has the support of law. Even better, programs and policies that emphasize real reproductive health-empowerment of women through knowledge-based education about their bodies-need to be available to countries so that they do not reluctantly accept the slim pickings that IPPF has on offer. And in response to pressure from the EU, the United States, Scandinavian countries, and other proponents of the false understanding of reproductive health, it is clear that small and developing countries are able to defend their position on reproductive health. This was made evident at this Marchs Commission on the Status of the Women, when they refused to succumb to dirty political tactics and prevented those governments from asserting their false understanding of reproductive health.

The term reproductive health" is here to stay in the global health policy arena. By using the term, States can influence what happens at the United Nations. States cannot afford to be irrelevant in negotiations.

Meghan Grizzle is Research and Policy Specialist at the World Youth Alliance. She graduated from Harvard College in 2007 with a Bachelors and a Masters in Linguistics and from Harvard Law School in 2011.

RESOURCES

Austin Ruse and Stefano Gennarini J.D., A Strong Note of Caution on Reproductive Health and Family Planning

Meghan Grizzle,�World Youth Alliance White Paper on Reproductive Health

Meghan Grizzle,�World Youth Alliance White Paper on Family Planning

Meghan Grizzle,� True Reproductive Health

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The June/July Issue Has Arrived

ft@firsthings.com (The Editors ) — Tue, 15 May 2012 02:35:00 -0400

The 2012 June/July issue is now available online. What does this beige issue contain?

R. R. Reno opens the magazine by reflecting on psychologist Jonathan Haidts new book The Righteous Mind and what it tells us about the limitations of contemporary liberalism:

Liberalism is blind in one eye-yet it insists on the superiority of its vision and its supreme right to rule. It cannot see half of the things a governing philosophy must see, and claims that those who see both halves are thereby unqualified to govern.

It is conservatives, he points out, who see both halves. He also notes the shocking argument in the Journal of Medical Ethics for the legitimacy of infanticide and remembers the co-founder of Evangelicals and Catholics Together and great friend of First Things, Chuck Colson.

In the Opinion section, youll find a professors provocative reflection on her friendship with both a devout Catholic mother of six and the CEO of the local Planned Parenthood facility, an art historians call for reviving true religious art, and a prospective medical students surprise at the contrast (and the similarities) between the religious concerns of Georgetown University Medical School and Yeshiva Universitys Albert Einstein School of Medicine.

The Lutheran theologian David S. Yeago argues that a confident Christian faith can absorb and sustain the achievements of modernity in his paper for the After Liberalism conference, Modern But Not Liberal":

Modernity considered in the context of divine providence will not be seen as a unitary phenomenon produced by one cause, be it capitalism, the printing press, or even Scotist metaphysics . . . The recognition of complexity and contingency called for by a providential understanding of history opens up a field of discernment . . . so that theological reflection can...learn to make distinctions between good and evil that respond to the subtlety and unpredictability of Gods governance, even if such reflection can never do them justice.

Yeshiva Universitys Shalom Carmy and Dominican theologian Thomas Joseph White respond.

Daniel Philpott suggests that reconciliation, not the international communitys pseudo-theology of prosecution, is the remedy for the worlds war-torn societies and Ephraim Radner argues that Brad Gegorys new book, The Unintended Reformation, neglects the deeper failures of love that better explain Christian history after the Reformation.

In the review section, Lawrence M. Krauss A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing disappoints Edward Feser, who points out that it doesnt explain why there is something rather than nothing, while Jeremy Beer of the Front Porch Republic finds that even conservatives have lost a sense of place in his review of Craig G. Bartholomews Where Mortals Dwell: A Christian View of Place for Today. Notre Dames Ann W. Astell praises Paul J. Griffiths commentary on the Song of Songs, Neuhaus biographer Randy Boyagoda examines Geoffrey Kabaservices provocative Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, and John L. Allen recommends Brendan Leahys Ecclesial Movements and Communities to Catholics still unaware of the contemporary ecclesial movements that John Paul II was so enthusiastic about.

In While Were At it," David Mills draws our attention to the Village Voices capitalist commitments, Karl Barths cheerful No!," and the keynote speaker for this years LCWR conference, whose website invites everyone to realize their very own evolutionary now."

David Bentley Hart closes out the issue with a reflection on our perennial discomfort with death, reminding that we mortals can never forge a true friendship with the eternal stranger."

Marriage: Not a Right, but an Office

ft@firsthings.com (Elizabeth Scalia ) — Tue, 15 May 2012 00:01:00 -0400

Speaking as they do to equal access to a sacrament, last Sundays verses from Acts 10 might have seemed, to those fixating on the question of same-sex marriage, like something of a rebuke to the Catholic church and her bishops:

Then Peter proceeded to speak and said,
In truth, I see that God shows no partiality.
Rather, in every nation whoever fears him and acts uprightly
is acceptable to him. . . Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people,
who have received the Holy Spirit even as we have?"

Here we see Peter endorsing inclusivity; following the example of the Christ who interacted with all, the church-through the authority of Christ and the workings of the Holy Spirit-offers Life-in-Christ to all. If all proclaiming Christ are accepted to baptism, one might wonder, then why not all to marriage?

I think it comes down to offices, and the equality to be found therein. We talk about vocations and ones state in life," but I wonder if we would not better serve both clarity and charity by considering that beyond baptism we are called to an Office. Since all Offices are callings, then all servants are equal within them and each office is lived within the fundamental calling of all baptized people, which is to chastity, first and foremost.

This brings home the barely-recognized fact that, except for those called to the Office of Marriage-who are themselves meant to be chaste within that Office-the rest of the world, the majority of humanity walking about, gay or straight, are meant to resist sexual concupiscence, whether within the Office of Singleness or Religious Consecration.

From a Western perspective, that sounds severe, but Eastern religions teach similarly, that all are called to sexual continence. Buddhists and Taoists understand that sexual energy has a right" and wrong" use. I know a Taoist couple who have sexual relations only for procreative purposes and during rare seasonal" occasions. As the church calls homosexual activity disordered", Taoist understanding of Yin (feminine) and Yang (masculine) energies calls same sex activity unbalanced." In his book Beyond Dogma, the current Dalai Lama clarifies the Buddhist view: A sexual act is deemed proper when the couples use the organs intended for sexual intercourse and nothing else . . . homosexuality, whether it is between men or between women, is not improper in itself. What is improper is the use of organs already defined as inappropriate for sexual contact."

Despite differences in origin of understanding, the Dalai Lamas pronouncements are remarkably similar to Catholic teaching, and next to the Taoist couple, Catholic sexual teaching-particularly Blessed John Pauls teaching on the Theology of the Body-seems quite free. And yet gay activist Dan Savage is not attacking the Dalai Lama to cackling, appreciative crowds; no one is calling the Taoists�haters"�or�homophobes."

From a religious perspective, therefore, it does seem that in our nation of 300 million people, only a distinct minority of about 120 million (even less, discounting non-sacramental unions) are meant to be gifted with the duty of delight that is the sexual expression of love, within marriage.

Why does this Office get all the fun? Because, while all offices are equal, the Office of Marriage-far from being�for everyone"�or a simple expression of a mood subject to change-is one of especial humility and sacrifice. The essentials of procreation residing within us are so powerful that unless one ardently works to prevent it, new life will come (a recent study found that 54% of abortions stem from contraception failure"). The little bang of sperm and ova are the microcosmic reflection of the macrocosmic big bang of Creation; co-operating with God in the continuance of that creation means humbly accepting-for the rest of ones life-involvement and responsibility for specific human beings of varied gifts and challenges. There are no days off; if you dont like your job, you cant just move away; you cant re-staff. Parenthood contains moments of surreal bliss countered by a lifetime of work, self-abnegation, stress, and anxiety. Besides procreation, sexual tenderness in marriage brings a depth of consolation meant to balance out the fullness of that burden or-for a childless couple-the pain of longings unfulfilled.

For the rest of the world-the majority who are called to chastity-what are they meant to do within their Offices? Serve God and others by helping the helpless and companioning the lonely; feeding the hungry; comforting the frightened; really listening to another, even when wed rather not. In other words, precisely the same things the married folks do, but without the extra gifts, responsibilities, and stresses of children, and without the consolation (and life-creating complications) of sexual intimacy.

Can this idea of Office and Calling exist in a secular society that promotes an earth-bound worldview informed less by transcendent dogmatic principles than by transient democratic ones? Perhaps it can. Making a secularist argument against gay marriage, economist Adam Kolasinski writes: Homosexual activists protest that they only want all couples treated equally . . . [but if] sexual love becomes the primary purpose [of marriage, as opposed to procreation], the restriction of marriage to couples loses its logical basis, leading to marital chaos."

I once heard a young nun say that being in a monastery was like being married to 25 people"; by that she meant that her particular Office-as a consecrated religious-called her to pray for the world, but also to put others before herself, in service to the whole monastic organism. It is, once again, precisely what the Married and Single Offices are called to.

In terms of service, then, we are each married to 300 million others.

The Human Offices, then, are Offices of true equality.

Elizabeth Scalia is the Managing Editor of the Catholic Portal at Patheos and blogs as The Anchoress. Her previous articles for "On the Square" can be found here.

RESOURCES

Readings for Sunday May 13, 2012

Theology of the Body

54% of abortions due to contraception failure

Dan Savage attacks Pope Benedict XVI

Kolasinski's Secular Case against Gay Marriage

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