JOHN ALLEN: The National Catholic Reporter's John Allen offers some wonderful insights this week on the Vatican's response to the U.S. Bishops' clerical sexual abuse policy and the Pope's decison to add the "luminous mysteries" to the Rosary. With regard to the former issue, Allen emphasizes that the Vatican response was by no means a wholesale rejection of the policy. He also makes what I think is a good point:
It was probably a miscalculation to announce the composition of this mixed commission – four clerics from the Vatican, four bishops from the United States – without any reference to participation by lay people, especially victims. It contributes to the impression that the Vatican intervention is about the preservation of clerical power. It also feeds the fear that recent commitments from the U.S. bishops about empowering the laity were insincere. Granted, the matters to be discussed are technical points of canon law that require special expertise. Granted, too, the clerical members of this commission will undoubtedly be deeply pastoral men with a real commitment to the common good. Still, at the level of symbolism and public relations, the idea of eight men in Roman collars closing a door and making a deal is not helpful.
WOMEN DESERVE BETTER: Interesting piece in Our Sunday Visitor about the efforts of Feminists for Life to do outreach on college campuses. According to the article, one in five abortions in the United States is performed on a college student. Most of the article is based on an interview with FFL President, Serrin Foster. FFL's approach to the abortion issue focuses heavily on trying to support women:
Women have abortions not because they want to, Foster told Our Sunday Visitor, but for a variety of other reasons — because they are coerced by their families, boyfriends, husbands or friends; because the school or workplace does not accommodate their needs; because they feel there’s no alternative.
A more woman-centered approach — such as what the "Women Deserve Better" campaign calls for — is more palatable to younger people than the traditional pro-life message that stresses the baby, according to Foster.
PRAYERS FOR RETROUVAILLE: Fr. Jeff at The New Gasparian has made a request for prayers for the very first Retrouvaille weekend to be held in Italy, which will be held this weekend, October 25-27 in Rome. Retrouvaille is a program designed to heal and renew troubled marriages. For those of you familiar with Marriage Encounter, the weekend is similar in format. I have seen the healing power of Retrouvaille through a couple I know from our parish. Please consider sending your prayers for the couples to to Father Jeff, who will ensure that they are forwarded (and translated). He needs to receive the prayers today so that they can be forwarded to Italy tomorrow.
If we combine the plausible estimates for the numbers of American Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Sikhs, and Hindus, we are speaking at most of about four or five percent of the total population. According to the World Christian Encyclopedia, the combined strength of the non-Christian religions will have reached only about seven percent by 2025. This makes the U.S. about as religiously diverse as most West European nations. Adherents of non-Christian religions presently make up ten percent of the population of France, five percent for Germany and the Netherlands, four percent for Great Britain. And America is not nearly as diverse as many lands in the Middle East or Far East, where religious minorities commonly make up 10 or 20 percent of the population, or even more. Why, then, do we so often read about the wonders of American diversity, the spiritual melting pot?
In fact, Jenkins argues, the United States is probably going to become progressively less religiously diverse than Europe over the next half-century or so. The overwhelming majority of immigrants coming to the United States are Christian, while old colonial ties have led to a large influx of Muslims into Europe.
First of all, I agree with Amy that the letter presents a distorted view of the Church’s teaching on abortion. It is true that some prominent Catholic theologians—such as Aquinas—believed that abortion could not be considered homicide until the fetus was ensouled, and that this did not occur until a certain period after conception. But one can also find theologians taking a stricter position. In any case, none of this theological speculation affected the teaching of the Church that abortion was a grave sin against life.
Now I suppose one might argue that it was a mistake for the Church to embrace the doctrine of “immediate hominization,” which it did definitively in 1869. But with our modern knowledge of embryology and fetal development, it is very difficult to go back and defend Aquinas’ position, which is entirely dependent on Aristotelian biology. If we took this approach with other issues, Catholics would still be required to believe that the sun revolves around the earth.
Another point the authors make is that there is some theological debate about whether conception is really a “moment,” or rather a process that begins with fertilization and ends with secure implantation and the emergence of the first strands of nerve tissue around Day 14. I think this is an interesting debate and I find the arguments for the latter position quite strong. But it is somewhat irrelevant to the abortion debate, because the vast majority of abortions in the United States are performed after Day 14.
Now all this theological discussion is interesting, but it is almost completely beside the point because Jennifer Granholm has stated that she does not dispute the teaching of the Church. You read that right. Jennifer Granholm does not—as far as I am aware—dispute the doctrine of “immediate hominization.” She has said that she personally accepts the teaching of the Church. What is at issue is whether she, as a Catholic public official, is bound to support legal restrictions on abortion.
The authors of the letter hold that it is permissible for Granholm to dissent from the Church’s position that abortion should be re-criminalized if she, after forming her conscience, truly believes that the Church is in error. I think that this is true, but the way the authors state the argument tends to minimize the gravity of what is at stake. Where is the evidence that Ms. Granholm has adequately formed her conscience on this issue?
“But surely formation of conscience is a private matter,” one might respond. In most cases that would be true. But when one is a public official, the situation changes. For such a prominent member of the Catholic community to dissent on an issue of such gravity places the community in a very difficult position. I think Ms. Granholm owes the community of which she claims to be a part a better explanation of how she reconciles the faith she professes with the position she holds.
Other public officials have tried to do this. Some years ago, in a memorable speech at Notre Dame, Mario Cuomo argued that while what the Church teaches was binding on him, he could not, as a public official, seek to impose that teaching on others. Similarly, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has published a few essays that attempt to explain how he reconciles his Catholic faith with his support for the death penalty. You can agree or disagree with these arguments. But what they show is that both Cuomo and Scalia feel a sense of accountability to the Catholic community.
Granholm has yet to offer the Catholic community any account of her beliefs on abortion. To be fair, the way that some Catholics have engaged her is hardly conducive to productive dialogue. But while the demonstrators showing up at her parish every Sunday may well represent an extreme element, Ms. Granholm should realize that many Catholics are increasingly finding the position of the Democratic Party on abortion to be equally extreme.
ABORTION AND PUBLIC POLICY: I have thus far avoided wading into the controversy over Michigan Democratic Gubernatorial candidate Jennifer Granholm. For those of you who do not spend every waking moment reading Catholic weblogs (good for you!), Granholm is a practicing Catholic who describes herself as “100% pro-choice.” While it looks like Granholm is probably going to win, her candidacy has badly divided Michigan Catholics. Granholm’s position was initially defended by her parish priest. Cardinal Adam Maida of Detroit then offered some remarks that were taken as criticism of Granholm. This past weekend, four priests wrote a letter to the Detroit Free Press defending Granholm’s position as consistent with the Catholic tradition. Not surprisingly, there are many who disagree with that assertion. Amy Welborn offers a point-by-point refutation of the letter here.
Can you be Catholic and pro-choice? Well there are certainly a large number of Catholics—even regular mass-going Catholics—who do not think abortion should be re-criminalized. The reasons they hold this position vary widely. Some, like Mario Cuomo, believe that while the Church’s teaching is personally binding on them, Catholics who hold public office cannot impose the Church’s teaching on others. Others, like the priests who wrote the letter to the Free Press, seem to have problems with the teaching itself, and believe that an abortion early in a pregnancy is not an act of homicide.
Granholm seems to fall into this first category. She has said that she personally accepts the Church’s teaching, but does not think that she has the right to impose this view on others. But we’re not talking about the dogma of the Immaculate Conception here. If you really believe—as Granholm says she does— that every day in the state of Michigan hundreds of human lives are being lost, isn’t that something the Governor ought to be concerned about?
I put the question that way because I actually don’t believe that a Catholic must embrace, as a matter of faith, the position that abortion must be illegal. One does not have to be an abortion-rights militant to have some grave concerns about the prospect of turning more than one million American women a year (and their physicians) into criminals. In any case, even if such a course were desirable, I cannot imagine that we will see any significant legal restrictions placed on abortion in the foreseeable future.
Could we find another way? If we can’t, as a society, agree that abortion should be made illegal, could we at least agree that we would like to see fewer abortions? I’m not talking about the generic “when we have a social utopia there will be fewer abortions” rhetoric but rather a real campaign aimed at reducing the number of abortions in the United States over the next 5 to 10 years.
I’ve always been intrigued by the idea of taking a public health approach to abortion. We know, for example, that close to 40 percent of abortions are repeat abortions. What are the risk factors for multiple abortions? What might we do about them? Could we apply the lessons we’ve learned about discouraging sexual behavior among teens to unmarried people in their early 20s? What if crisis pregnancy centers could apply for federal family planning funds? What supports need to be in place for a woman to choose to bring her pregnancy to term? How can we ensure that more women have access to those supports?
I admit that there is probably no political constituency for this approach. Militants on both sides of the issue would probably see it as a betrayal, albeit for different reasons. For years, the advice that political consultants have given candidates on the abortion issue is to “pick a side.” The votes you lose from one side are generally offset by the support you get from the other side. The result, of course, is the political stalemate that we now face, a stalemate serves the interest of just about everyone except the unborn.
The sigh surprised me. Then I realized it was not a lament over mandatory celibacy, even if it did reveal my desire for romance. True, my memories of romance make me wistful, but last night, I came to view my wistfulness, that tinge of sorrow in my sigh, as a grace to help shepherd me toward deeper and more Christ-like love.
We know that all human and earthly loves, even the purest, are incomplete. We love, yet always with a wistful desire for more. We long for ultimate completeness, for consummation of all we are and hope to be.
Last night, my sigh showed me that all my desires this side of heaven will be tinged with sorrow. Just so, all our sighs signal an incompleteness, and whisper to us that we were made for more. They are gifts. They remind us of Paschal promises of a fuller future.
NEW EVIDENCE THAT JESUS LIVED?Christianity Today has a story on the discovery of a limestone ossuary (a container for human remains) that dates from the first century and has the inscription "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus," written in Aramaic.
For those of us who were already convinced that he lived (and indeed, that he still does!), I'm not sure this find offers any additional confirmation. I'm also not sure it allows us to resolve the debate over whether Mary had additional children after Jesus. But it is interesting.
SAINT GASPAR: Given that my fellow blogger Fr. Jeff Keyes is a Precious Blood Father, I would be remiss if I did not mark today as the feast day of Saint Gaspar. Fr. Jeff has a number of items posted today about Saint Gaspar, with links to many more.
REST IN PEACE: Joan Coffell, mother of Relapsed Catholic's Kathy Shaidle passed away this morning. Please remember Joan, Kathy and the rest of their family in your prayers. Kathy will be out-of-pocket for several days and may be unable to blog or return e-mail for a while.
