before tomorrow's vote. Details here.

Labels: human life, politics

I received an e-mail yesterday from Brian Burch of CatholicVote.org. A snip:

The Catholic Bishops sprung into action late last week, announcing their strong opposition to the current health care legislation because the bills include taxpayer support for abortion and fail to provide a conscience clause for doctors.

The Bishops have asked all Catholics to petition Congress to remove any support for abortion from the health care bill.

So Planned Parenthood is attacking the Catholic Bishops and calling their actions “dangerous.”

Here’s what Planned Parenthood’s President Cecile Richards said in a message this week to her supporters: “If you’re Catholic and you disagree with the bishops, please let your legislators know when you send your message. Your voice as a pro-choice Catholic needs to be heard NOW.”

Complete letter from Brian Burch is available here (hat tip to Mississippi Catholic), including action steps for those Catholics who share the concerns of their bishops. It is sad that one has to modify the noun "Catholics" with such a clause, but such is the world we live in.

Labels: church, human life, politics

In the August 31 edition of America magazine, Bishop D'Arcy, the bishop of Fort Wayne-South Bend, asks some questions of the University of Notre Dame and other Catholic universities as well. Some highlights:

It is not about President Obama.... It is not about Democrats versus Republicans.... It is not about whether it is appropriate for the president of the United States to speak at Notre Dame or any great Catholic university on the pressing issues of the day.... The response, so intense and widespread, is not about what this journal called “sectarian Catholicism.” Rather, the response of the faithful derives directly from the Gospel....

Another serious question of witness and moral responsibility before the Notre Dame administration concerns its sponsorship over several years of a sad and immoral play, offensive to the dignity of women, which many call pornographic, and which an increasing number of Catholic universities have cancelled, “The Vagina Monologues,” by Eve Ensler.

Although he spoke eloquently about the importance of dialogue with the president of the United States, the president of Notre Dame chose not to dialogue with his bishop on these two matters [ND commencement and The Vagina Monologues], both pastoral and both with serious ramifications for the care of souls, which is the core responsibility of the local bishop....

I firmly believe that the board of trustees must take up its responsibility afresh, with appropriate study and prayer. They also must understand the seriousness of the present moment. This requires spiritual and intellectual formation on the part of the men and women of industry, business and technology who make up the majority of the board. Financial generosity is no longer sufficient for membership on the boards of great universities, if indeed it ever was. The responsibility of university boards is great, and decisions must not be made by a few. Like bishops, they are asked to leave politics and ambition at the door, and make serious decisions before God....

Where will the great Catholic universities search for a guiding light in the years ahead? Will it be the Land O’Lakes Statement or Ex Corde Ecclesiae? The first comes from a frantic time, with finances as the driving force. Its understanding of freedom is defensive, absolutist and narrow. It never mentions Christ and barely mentions the truth. The second text, Ex Corde Ecclesiae, speaks constantly of truth and the pursuit of truth. It speaks of freedom in the broader, Catholic philosophical and theological tradition, as linked to the common good, to the rights of others and always subject to truth. Unlike Land O’Lakes, it is communal, reflective of the developments since Vatican II, and it speaks with a language enlightened by the Holy Spirit.

The whole article from this wise shepherd is worth a read and some reflection.

Labels: bishop, church, communication, communion, dialogue, human life, moral life, politics, pope benedict xvi, USA

What follows are four points about health care reform from Bishop R. Walker Nickless, the bishop of Sioux City, Iowa. Since it's not possible to link directly to the relevant part of his letter, I'm reprinting it here (emphases mine):

The current national debate about health care reform should concern all of us. There is much at stake in this political struggle, and also much confusion and inaccurate information being thrown around. My brother bishops have described some clear “goal-posts” to mark out what is acceptable reform, and what must be rejected. First and most important, the Church will not accept any legislation that mandates coverage, public or private, for abortion, euthanasia, or embryonic stem-cell research. We refuse to be made complicit in these evils, which frankly contradict what “health care” should mean. We refuse to allow our own parish, school, and diocesan health insurance plans to be forced to include these evils. As a corollary of this, we insist equally on adequate protection of individual rights of conscience for patients and health care providers not to be made complicit in these evils. A so-called reform that imposes these evils on us would be far worse than keeping the health care system we now have.

Second, the Catholic Church does not teach that “health care” as such, without distinction, is a natural right. The “natural right” of health care is the divine bounty of food, water, and air without which all of us quickly die. This bounty comes from God directly. None of us own it, and none of us can morally withhold it from others. The remainder of health care is a political, not a natural, right, because it comes from our human efforts, creativity, and compassion. As a political right, health care should be apportioned according to need, not ability to pay or to benefit from the care. We reject the rationing of care. Those who are sickest should get the most care, regardless of age, status, or wealth. But how to do this is not self-evident. The decisions that we must collectively make about how to administer health care therefore fall under “prudential judgment.”

Third, in that category of prudential judgment, the Catholic Church does not teach that government should directly provide health care. Unlike a prudential concern like national defense, for which government monopolization is objectively good – it both limits violence overall and prevents the obvious abuses to which private armies are susceptible – health care should not be subject to federal monopolization. Preserving patient choice (through a flourishing private sector) is the only way to prevent a health care monopoly from denying care arbitrarily, as we learned from HMOs in the recent past. While a government monopoly would not be motivated by profit, it would be motivated by such bureaucratic standards as quotas and defined “best procedures,” which are equally beyond the influence of most citizens. The proper role of the government is to regulate the private sector, in order to foster healthy competition and to curtail abuses. Therefore any legislation that undermines the viability of the private sector is suspect. Private, religious hospitals and nursing homes, in particular, should be protected, because these are the ones most vigorously offering actual health care to the poorest of the poor.

The best way in practice to approach this balance of public and private roles is to spread the risks and costs of health care over the largest number of people. This is the principle underlying Medicaid and Medicare taxes, for example. But this principle assumes that the pool of taxable workers is sufficiently large, compared to those who draw the benefits, to be reasonably inexpensive and just. This assumption is at root a pro-life assumption! Indeed, we were a culture of life when such programs began. Only if we again foster a culture of life can we perpetuate the economic justice of taxing workers to pay health care for the poor. Without a growing population of youth, our growing population of retirees is outstripping our distribution systems. In a culture of death such as we have now, taxation to redistribute costs of medical care becomes both unjust and unsustainable.

Fourth, preventative care is a moral obligation of the individual to God and to his or her family and loved ones, not a right to be demanded from society. The gift of life comes only from God; to spurn that gift by seriously mistreating our own health is morally wrong. The most effective preventative care for most people is essentially free – good diet, moderate exercise, and sufficient sleep. But pre-natal and neo-natal care are examples of preventative care requiring medical expertise, and therefore cost; and this sort of care should be made available to all as far as possible.

Within these limits, the Church has been advocating for decades that health care be made more accessible to all, especially to the poor. Will the current health care reform proposals achieve these goals?

The current House reform bill, HR 3200, does not meet the first or the fourth standard. As Cardinal Justin Rigali has written for the USCCB Secretariat of Pro-life Activities, this bill circumvents the Hyde amendment (which prohibits federal funds from being used to pay for abortions) by drawing funding from new sources not covered by the Hyde amendment, and by creatively manipulating how federal funds covered by the Hyde amendment are accounted. It also provides a “public insurance option” without adequate limits, so that smaller employers especially will have a financial incentive to push all their employees into this public insurance. This will effectively prevent those employees from choosing any private insurance plans. This will saddle the working classes with additional taxes for inefficient and immoral entitlements. The Senate bill, HELP, is better than the House bill, as I understand it. It subsidizes care for the poor, rather than tending to monopolize care. But, it designates the limit of four times federal poverty level for the public insurance option, which still includes more than half of all workers. This would impinge on the vitality of the private sector. It also does not meet the first standard of explicitly excluding mandatory abortion coverage.

I encourage all of you to make you voice heard to our representatives in Congress. Tell them what they need to hear from us: no health care reform is better than the wrong sort of health care reform. Insist that they not permit themselves to be railroaded into the current too-costly and pro-abortion health care proposals. Insist on their support for proposals that respect the life and dignity of every human person, especially the unborn. And above all, pray for them, and for our country. (Please see the website for the Iowa Catholic Conference at www.iowacatholicconference.org and www.usccb.org/healthcare for more information)

Labels: bioethics, human life, moral life, politics

On this Fourth of July, a bracing passage from Archbishop Charles Chaput's book Render Unto Caesar: Serving the Nation by Living Our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life.

About 90 percent of Americans believe in God. About 80 percent describe themselves as Christians. Nearly three-quarters pray at least once a week. Nearly half attend religious services at least once a month. It's a matter of record that Americans are a religious people (Baylor Religion Survey data). It's also true that the Christian faith is the dominant religious influence on the American soul. Many millions of Americans not only claim to be Christian but also actively practice their faith. But what this means for their public witness is less clear and also less reassuring.

Nearly 61 percent of Americans believe a presidential candidate should be a religious person. Clear majorities of both Republican and Democratic voters feel that religion is vital in their own lives. More than half of Americans polled describe themselves as very religious (source). Compared to the figures for Europe, these numbers are astounding. But Americans also have a deeply anti-institutional streak deriving from their Protestant roots, including a distrust of religious institutions. It's also true, according to the researcher George Barna, that American theological views have veered away in recent years from classical scriptural beliefs. Some 66 percent of Americans believe in an omnipotent, all-knowing God who rules creation. But this is the lowest recorded number in more than two decades of studies.

As Barna notes, "Americans are willing to expend some energy in religious activities such as attending church and reading the Bible, and they are willing to throw some money in the offering basket. Because of such activities, they convince themselves that they are a people of genuine faith. But when it comes to truly establishing their priorities and making a tangible commitment to knowing and loving God, and to allowing Him to change their character and lifestyle, most people stop short. We want to be 'spiritual' and we want to have God's favor, but we're not sure we want Him taking control of our lives and messing with the image and outcomes we've worked so hard to produce."

It's hard to see this as anything but a case of split personality. In practice, we've buried ourselves in material pursuits, distractions, and what Neil Postman once described as technological narcotics. Early Christians would have called it something even worse: acedia; a stagnancy or sloth of the soul that shows itself in an unwillingness to "judge" in the name of false compassion; a disregard for moral conviction that hides behind flexibility and openness.

If our nation has changed from the land of opportunity to the land of private appetites over the last few decades, one of the reasons is this: We haven't lived what we say we believe. Homelessness, poverty, abortion, the exploitation of undocumented immigrants, the neglect of the elderly -- these are brazenly real problems in contemporary America. They won't go away by blaming the Religious Right, smearing Christian believers as extremists, or kicking religion out of the public discussion. That's the language of a power grab by people alienated from our country's religious roots.

Our problems can only be solved by people of character who actively and without apology take their beliefs into public debates. That includes Catholics. We need to be stronger in our public witness, not weaker. Whether America is really 80 percent or 50 percent or 10 percent Christian doesn't matter. If we really believe that Jesus Christ is who he says he is, and that the Catholic Church is who she says she is, then we need to live like it. IF we really believe that the Gospel is true, we need to embody it in our private lives and our public choices.

In the end, we can choose to be the small, hollow "men without chests" that C.S. Lewis described in The Abolition of Man: people who have plenty of comforts but no greatness of soul; a contented and conditioned herd without courage, purpose, nobility, or conviction. We can ignore the historian Christopher Dawson when he warned, "This is the greatest misery of modern civilization -- that it has conquered the world by losing its own soul, and when the soul is lost, it must lose the world as well."

Or we can choose to be the people God created us to be.

Labels: church, politics, relativism, USA

Last evening, Catholic University of America (CUA) held a discussion entitled "The Obama Administration and the Sanctity of Human Life: Is There a Common Ground on Life Issues? What is the Right Response by 'Pro-Life' Citizens?" The discussion, featuring Professor Robert George and Professor Doug Kmiec, and moderated by the Honorable Mary Ann Glendon, was held at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. (A complete description of the event may be found here.)


I've transcribed the introduction by Professor William Wagner to give you a sense of the nature and format of the discussion:

Good afternoon.

I'm Professor William Wagner, the director of Catholic University's Center for Law, Philosophy and Culture. It's my pleasure to welcome you here today to a public exchange of views on the topic of The Obama Administration and the Sanctity of Human Life: Is There a Common Ground on Life Issues? What is the Right Response by Pro-Life Citizens? Today's event features presentations and discussions by two leading scholars and political commentators, both Roman Catholics, and both members of the pro-life community, presenting two different perspectives on the current administration's policies regarding such issues as abortion and embryonic stem cell research, and their impact on societal attitudes regarding respect for human life.

The purpose of the event is to advance understanding within the pro-life intellectual community in the United States of the issues, of what potential for common ground exists with the Obama administration on life issues, and what, in any event, is the right response of the pro-life community to the new administration.

The coverage in the press of issues relating to Obama's recent appearance at Notre Dame University indicates that discourse within the Catholic and pro-life communities on this question is of general interest to members of the American public. We are very pleased that members of our audience today represent not just the pro-life community, but other communities of discourse within the United States as well. These members of our audience are most cordially welcome.

We hope that the exchange of views we will hear today will be of value not just to members of the pro-life community, but to all members of the American public, regardless of their view on these issues.

You will note that today's event is billed as a discussion and not a debate. For it is not a debate. It is intended to present for the audience's consideration a fuller presentation of views on both sides of the question to be compared and considered within the largest possible lens. The tenor of our event is much in accord with the challenge posed by the nation's president while he was at Notre Dame. I quote him: "The question, then, is how do we work through these conflicts? Is it possible for us to join hands in common effort as citizens of a vibrant and varied democracy? How do we engage in vigorous debate? How does each of us remain firm in our principles and fight for what we consider right without demonizing those with just as strongly-held convictions on the other side?"

The Catholic University's Center for Law, Philosophy and Culture -- the sponsor of today's event -- exists to promote inquiry into the role of law in relation to culture and culture's orientation to the human good. The scope of its inquiry is both theoretical and practical. In its theoretical aspect, the Center aims to contribute to the academic fields of jurisprudence and the philosophy of law, as well as to Christian political and social ethics. In the practical dimension, it seeks to foster renewal and transformation of culture under contemporary circumstances through law and law reform.

In the President's remarks just mentioned, he concluded by calling for open hearts, open minds, fair-minded words. This is good. In the present setting, under the sponsorship of our Center, we would want, however, to clarify and make explicit what the President certainly meant to leave as implicit: What do we leave our hearts and minds open to, in particular? So as we convene this discussion today, let us leave our minds open to the truth, and our hearts open to love for one another in the light of our Creator's love for all of us.

I will now shortly turn the floor over to our able moderator, the Honorable Mary Ann Glendon, Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and former United States Ambassador to the Holy See. Before I do, allow me to say just a word about our format. Professor Glendon will speak for several minutes, not just to introduce our speakers, but further to introduce our topic. Then she will keep time as each speaker presents in turn. Each speaker will come to the podium to give a twenty minute presentation of his basic viewpoint. Thereafter... the moderator and the two speakers will sit before us and Professor Glendon will pose questions to the speakers. She will then also read questions from the audience for the speakers to consider in turn. Monitors are prepared to pass out note cards to the audience. You're invited to write down questions as they occur to you and pass them to the outside of your aisles, to be assembled to be given to Professor Glendon. And then each speaker will have a brief time for closing comments.

Professor Glendon...

Professor George's opening remarks are now posted on the Public Discourse website here. A snip:

The common ground I am interested in is with pro-life Americans who, like Professor Kmiec, have supported the President politically. The election is over, and the current question is not who anyone thinks will do the best job as President, or even whether one may legitimately support candidates who deny the fundamental dignity and right to life of unborn human beings and who promise to protect and extend the abortion license and expand the funding of embryo-destructive research. The question is: On which issues will we support the President’s direction, and on which will we challenge him because he is heading in the wrong direction? Those pro-life Americans who voted for him and support him should not object when we speak for the most vulnerable and defenseless of our fellow human beings, even when that means severely criticizing the President’s policies. They should stand with us on common ground, and join their voices with ours.

You can watch the streaming video of the entire event on CUA website here.

If you simply want to listen to the audio, I've created an MP3 audio podcast available on my podcast feed, or directly here.

Additional resources:
Dawn Eden was there and files this report about Kmiec's answer to a question she had submitted.

Labels: church, communication, conscience, dialogue, human life, moral life, multimedia, podcasts, politics

An excerpt of the coverage in The Catholic Spirit:

Miguel Diaz, Ph.D., who serves on the graduate faculty of the School of Theology∙Seminary of Saint John’s University and undergraduate faculty of the Department of Theology at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University, has been nominated as the United States Ambassador to the Holy See (Vatican).

President Barack Obama made the announcement on May 27, 2009.

Catholic News Service story here.

The curriculum vitae of Dr. Diaz is available here.

The Associated Press story notes:

One potential point of conflict is Diaz's support for the nomination of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, a Catholic whose abortion rights record angered conservative Catholics. Diaz was among 26 Catholic leaders and scholars who signed a statement hailing Sebelius as "a woman of deep faith" and citing her a record on immigration, education, health care and reducing abortion rates in Kansas....

Diaz was far from the most visible — or controversial — Catholic to campaign for Obama. Douglas Kmiec, a Catholic law professor and former Reagan administration lawyer, was targeted by conservative Catholics and denied Communion by one priest for his support for Obama.

Kmiec, who was mentioned as a possible Vatican envoy, applauded the choice of Diaz on Wednesday, calling him "a gifted theologian and a natural teacher. And his love for the faith is unquestioned"....

The advocacy groups Catholics United and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good issued statements Wednesday night praising the choice of Diaz.

I have never heard of Dr. Diaz before today. But if you can learn something about a man by those who praise him, this nomination looks like more of the same from the Obama administration.

In other news, former US ambassador to the Vatican, Mary Ann Glendon, will be giving a keynote later today for a symposium at Catholic University, as well as moderating a debate between Doug Kmiec and Robert George in the evening. See the American Papist for the details.

Labels: church, politics

So the ND commencement has come and gone; the analysis of the speeches has begun.

The text of President Obama's speech was posted online, but I also audio recorded the speech so I could compare the prepared text with what he actually said. He didn't stray far from the text, but there were some interesting variations. And you could also get a sense of the responses -- shouts, applause, laughter, etc. -- by listening to the audio.

You can download the audio of the speech as an MP3 file here.

What I've done below is post the text of the speech. Any additions made by the President during his delivery are shown in bold. Any deletions are showing in strikethrough.

A significant section of the speech -- the part about the e-mail he received, all the way through the prayer he said at night -- is pretty similar to what he said in his 2006 Call To Renewal Keynote Address, which I've already analyzed in detail here. I did this back in March, figuring that the ND speech would be similar in nature. Very similar indeed.

It is, to a large extent, a sermon on the value of listening to each other and disagreeing in a civil manner. No objections to that whatsoever. But the suggestion that it is okay to disagree about essential matters, and that as long as it is done without rancor, it will not be problematic, is incredibly naive, I think. It's a well-packaged recipe for relativism... and I don't know how you keep a country going without agreeing on matters that are essential to the common good. Not a faith issue at all... no mystical experiences required. No prerequisites in struggling through the dark night of the soul. Is it a child, or isn't it? That's not a question that requires a creed to answer with firmness or certitude.

Thank you, Father Jenkins for that extraordinary generous introduction. You are doing an extraordinary outstanding job as president of this extraordinary fine institution, and your continued and courageous and contagious commitment to honest, thoughtful dialogue is an inspiration to us all.

Good afternoon Father Hesburgh, Notre Dame trustees, faculty, family, friends, and the class of 2009. I am honored to be here today, and grateful to all of you for allowing me to be part of your graduation.

I want to thank you for this honorary degree that I received. I know it has not been without controversy. I don't know if you're aware of this, but these honorary degrees are apparently pretty hard to come by. So far I'm only 1 for 2 as President. (MASSIVE EXTENDED APPLAUSE). Father Hesburgh is 150 for 150. I guess that's better. Father Ted, after the ceremony, maybe you can give me some pointers on how to boost my average.

I also want to congratulate the class of 2009 for all your accomplishments. (SOME IN THE CROWD BEGINS SHOUTING SOMETHING). And since this is Notre Dame, I mean... That's alright... and since... (STUDENTS BEGIN CHANTING SOMETHING -- "WE ARE ND" ?) We're fine, everybody. We're following Brennan's adage that we don't do things easily. We're not going to shy away from things that are uncomfortable sometimes. (APPLAUSE). Since this is Notre Dame, we should talk about your accomplishments not only both in the classroom but also and in the competitive arena. (LAUGHTER) No, don't worry, I'm not goint to talk about... that (LAUGHTER) We all know about this university's proud and storied football team, but I also hear that Notre Dame holds the largest outdoor 5-on-5 basketball tournament in the world (CHEERS) -- Bookstore Basketball.

Now this excites me. I want to congratulate the winners of this year's tournament, a team by the name of "Hallelujah Holla Back." Congratulations. Well done. Though I have to say, I am personally disappointed that the "Barack O'Ballers" didn't pull it out. Next year, if you need a 6'2" forward with a decent jumper, you know where I live.

Every one of you should be proud of what you have achieved at this institution. One hundred and sixty three classes of Notre Dame graduates have sat where you are sit today. Some were here during years that simply rolled into the next without much notice or fanfare -- periods of relative peace and prosperity that required little by way of sacrifice or struggle.

You, however, are not getting off that easy. You have a different deal Your class has come of age at a moment of great consequence for our nation and the world -- a rare inflection point in history where the size and scope of the challenges before us require that we remake our world to renew its promise; that we align our deepest values and commitments to the demands of a new age. It is a privilege and a responsibility afforded to few generations - and a task that you are now called to fulfill.

This is the generation that- your generation - that must find a path back to prosperity and decide how we respond to a global economy that left millions behind even before this crisis hit - an economy where greed and short-term thinking were too often rewarded at the expense of fairness, and diligence, and an honest day's work.

Your generation We must decide how to save God's creation from a changing climate that threatens to destroy it. Your generation (MORE SHOUTING FROM SOMEONE IN THE AUDIENCE. THE PRESIDENT SIMPLY SPOKE MORE LOUDLY, OVER THE NOISE, FOR THE REMAINDER OF THIS PARAGRAPH) We must seek peace at a time when there are those who will stop at nothing to do us harm, and when weapons in the hands of a few can destroy the many. And we must find a way to reconcile our ever-shrinking world with its ever-growing diversity -- diversity of thought, of culture, and of belief.

In short, we must find a way to live together as one human family. (BIG APPLAUSE)

It is this last challenge that I'd like to talk about today. Despite the fact that Father John stole all my best lines. For the major threats we face in the 21st century -- whether it's global recession or violent extremism; the spread of nuclear weapons or pandemic disease - These things do not discriminate. They do not recognize borders. They do not see color. They do not target specific ethnic groups.

Moreover, no one person, or religion, or nation can meet these challenges alone. Our very survival has never required greater cooperation and greater understanding among all people from all places than at this moment in history.

Unfortunately, finding that common ground -- recognizing that our fates are tied up, as Dr. King said, in a "single garment of destiny" - is not easy. Part of the problem, of course, lies in the imperfections of man - our selfishness, our pride, our stubbornness, our acquisitiveness, our insecurities, our egos; all the cruelties large and small that those of us in the Christian tradition understand to be rooted in original sin. We too often seek advantage over others. We cling to outworn prejudice and fear those who are unfamiliar. Too many of us view life only through the lens of immediate self-interest and crass materialism; in which the world is necessarily a zero-sum game. The strong too often dominate the weak, and too many of those with wealth and with power find all manner of justification for their own privilege in the face of poverty and injustice. And so, for all our technology technological and scientific advances, we see around the globe violence and want and strife that would seem sadly familiar to those in ancient times.

We know these things; and hopefully one of the benefits of the wonderful education you have received at Notre Dame is that you have had time to consider these wrongs in the world, perhaps recognized impulses in yourself that you want to leave behind and grown determined, each in your own way, to right them. And yet, one of the vexing things for those of us interested in promoting greater understanding and cooperation among people is the discovery that even bringing together persons of good will, bringing together men and women of principle and purpose, even accomplishing that can be difficult.

The soldier and the lawyer may both love this country with equal passion, and yet reach very different conclusions on the specific steps needed to protect us from harm. The gay activist and the evangelical pastor may both deplore the ravages of HIV/AIDS, but find themselves unable to bridge the cultural divide that might unite their efforts. Those who speak out against stem cell research may be rooted in admirable conviction about the sacredness of life, but so are the parents of a child with juvenile diabetes who are convinced that their son's or daughter's hardships might can be relieved. (BIG APPLAUSE)

The question, then, is how do we work through these conflicts? Is it possible for us to join hands in common effort? As citizens of a vibrant and varied democracy, how do we engage in vigorous debate? How does each of us remain firm in our principles, and fight for what we consider right, without -- as Father John said -- demonizing those with just as strongly held convictions on the other side?

And of course nowhere do these questions come up more powerfully than on the issue of abortion.

As I considered the controversy surrounding my visit here, I was reminded of an encounter I had during my Senate campaign, one that I describe in a book I wrote called The Audacity of Hope. A few days after I won the Democratic nomination, I received an email from a doctor who told me that while he voted for me in the Illinois primary, he had a serious concern that might prevent him from voting for me in the general election. He described himself as a Christian who was strongly pro-life, but that's WAS not what was preventing him potentially from voting for me.

What bothered the doctor was an entry that my campaign staff had posted on my website - an entry that said I would fight "right-wing ideologues who want to take away a woman's right to choose." The doctor said that he had assumed I was a reasonable person, he supported my policy initiatves to help the poor and to life up our educational system but that if I truly believed that every pro-life individual was simply an ideologue who wanted to inflict suffering on women, then I was not very reasonable. He wrote, "I do not ask at this point that you oppose abortion, only that you speak about this issue in fair-minded words."

Fair-minded words.

After I read the doctor's letter, I wrote back to him and I thanked him. I didn't change my position, but I did tell my staff to change the words on my website. And I said a prayer that night that I might extend the same presumption of good faith to others that the doctor had extended to me. Because when we do that - when we open UP our hearts and our minds to those who may not think precisely like we do or believe precisely what we believe do -- that's when we discover at least the possibility of common ground.

That's when we begin to say, "Maybe we won't agree on abortion, but we can still agree that this is a heart-wrenching decision for any woman is not made casually to make, with. It has both moral and spiritual dimensions.

So let us work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions. Let's reduce by reducing unintended pregnancies. Let's make , and making adoption more available. Let's provide , and providing care and support for women who do carry their child to term. Let's honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion, and draft a sensible conscience clause, and make sure that all of our health care policies are grounded not only in sound science but also in clear ethics and sound science, as well as respect for the equality of women." Those are things we can do. (APPLAUSE)

Understand - class of 2009 -- understand I do not suggest that the debate surrounding abortion can or should go away. Because no matter how much we may want to fudge it -- indeed, while we know that the views of most Americans on the subject are complex and even contradictory -- the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable. Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction. But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature.

Open hearts. Open minds. Fair-minded words.

It's a way of life that has always been the Notre Dame tradition. (APPLAUSE) Father Hesburgh has long spoken of this institution as both a lighthouse and a crossroads. A The lighthouse that stands apart, shining with the wisdom of the Catholic tradition, while the crossroads is where "...differences of culture and religion and conviction can co-exist with friendship, civility, hospitality, and especially love." And I want to join him and Father JOHN Jenkins in saying how inspired I am by the maturity and responsibility with which this class has approached the debate surrounding today's ceremony. You are an exemplar of what Notre Dame's about. (BIG APPLAUSE)

This tradition of cooperation and understanding is one that I learned in my own life many years ago - also with the help of the Catholic Church.

You see I was not raised in a particularly religious household, but my mother instilled in me a sense of service and empathy that eventually led me to become a community organizer after I graduated college. And a group of Catholic churches in Chicago helped fund an organization known as the Developing Communities Project, and we worked to lift up South Side neighborhoods that had been devastated when the local steel plant closed.

And it was quite an eclectic crew. Catholic and Protestant churches. Jewish and African-American organizers. Working-class black, and white and Hispanic residents. All of us with different experiences. All of us with different beliefs. But all of us learned to work side by side because all of us saw in these neighborhoods other human beings who needed our help - to find jobs and improve schools. We were bound together in the service of others.

And something else happened during the time I spent in THESE those neighborhoods. Perhaps because the church folks I worked with were so welcoming and understanding; perhaps because they invited me to their services and sang with me from their hymnals; perhaps because I was really broke and they fed me; perhaps because I witnessed all of the good works their faith inspired them to perform, I found myself drawn -- not just to THE work with the church, but to be in the church. It was through this service that I was brought to Christ.

And at the time, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin was the Archbishop of Chicago. (APPLAUSE) For those of you too young to have known him, or know of him, he was a kind and good and wise man. A saintly man. I can still remember him speaking at one of the first organizing meetings I attended on the South Side. He stood as both a lighthouse and a crossroads -- unafraid to speak his mind on moral issues ranging from poverty, and AIDS, and abortion to the death penalty and nuclear war. And yet, he was congenial and gentle in his persuasion, always trying to bring people together; always trying to find common ground. Just before he died, a reporter asked Cardinal Bernardin about this approach to his ministry. And he said, "You can't really get on with preaching the Gospel until you've touched hearts and minds minds and hearts."

My heart and mind were touched by him. They were touched by the words and deeds of the men and women I worked alongside in parishes across with in Chicago. And I'd like to think that we touched the hearts and minds of the neighborhood families whose lives we helped change. For this, I believe, is our highest calling.

Noe you , class of 2009, are about to enter the next phase of your life at a time of great uncertainty. You will be called upon to help restore a free market that is also fair to all who are willing to work; You'll be called to seek new sources of energy that can save our planet; to give future generations the same chance that you had to receive an extraordinary education. And whether as a person drawn to public service, or simply someone who simply insists on being an active citizen, you will be exposed to more opinions and ideas broadcast through more means of communications than have ever existed before. You will hear talking heads scream on cable, and you'll read blogs that claim definitive knowledge, and you will watch politicians pretend to know what they're talking about. (LAUGHTER) Occasionally, you may also have the great fortune of seeing important issues debated by people who do know what they're talking about... by well-intentioned, with brilliant minds and mastery of the facts. In fact, I suspect that many of you will be among those brightest stars.

And in this world of competing claims about what is right and what is true, have confidence in the values with which you've been raised and educated. Be unafraid to speak your mind when those values are at stake. Hold firm to your faith and allow it to guide you on your journey. In other words stand as a lighthouse.

But remember too that you can be a crossroads. Remember too that the ultimate irony of faith is that it necessarily admits doubt. It is the belief in things not seen. It is beyond our capacity as human beings to know with certainty what God has planned for us or what He asks of us, and those of us who believe must trust that His wisdom is greater than our own.

This doubt should not push us away from our faith. But it should humble us. It should temper our passions, and cause us to be wary of too much self-righteousness. It should compel us to remain open, and curious, and eager to continue the moral and spiritual debate that began for so many of you within the walls of Notre Dame. And within our vast democracy, this doubt should remind us even as we cling to our faith to persuade through reason, through an appeal whenever we can to universal rather than parochial principles, and most of all through an abiding example of good works, and charity, and kindness, and service that moves hearts and minds.

For if there is one law that we can be most certain of, it is the law that binds people of all faiths and no faith together. It is no coincidence that it exists in Christianity and Judaism; in Islam and Hinduism; in Buddhism and humanism. It is, of course, the Golden Rule - the call to treat one another as we wish to be treated. The call to love. The call to serve. To do what we can to make a difference in the lives of those with whom we share the same brief moment on this Earth.

So many of you at Notre Dame - by the last count, upwards of 80% -- have lived this law of love through the service you've performed at schools and hospitals; international relief agencies and local charities. Brennan is just one example of what your class has accomplished. That is incredibly impressive, and a powerful testament to this institution. And now (APPLAUSE) ... now you must carry the tradition forward. Make it a way of life. Because when you serve, it doesn't just improve your community, it makes you a part of your community. It breaks down walls. It fosters cooperation. And when that happens -- when people set aside their differences even for a moment to work in common effort toward a common good; when they struggle together, and sacrifice together, and learn from one another -- all things are possible.

After all, I stand here today, as President and as an African-American, on the 55th anniversary of the day that the Supreme Court handed down the decision in Brown v. the Board of Education. Brown was of course the first major step in dismantling the "separate but equal" doctrine, but it would take a number of years and a nationwide movement to fully realize the dream of civil rights for all of God's children. There were freedom rides and lunch counters and Billy clubs, and there was also a Civil Rights Commission appointed by President Eisenhower. It was the twelve resolutions recommended by this commission that would ultimately become law in the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

There were six members of the this commission. It included five whites and one African-American; Democrats and Republicans; two Southern governors, the dean of a Southern law school, a Midwestern university president, and your own Father Ted Hesburgh, President of Notre Dame. (APPLAUSE) They worked for two years, and at times, President Eisenhower had to intervene personally since no hotel or restaurant in the South would serve the black and white members of the commission together. And finally, when they reached an impasse in Louisiana, Father Ted flew them all to Notre Dame's retreat in Land O'Lakes, Wisconsin, where they eventually overcame their differences and hammered out a final deal.

And years later, President Eisenhower asked Father Ted how on Earth he was able to broker an agreement between men of such different backgrounds and beliefs. And Father Ted simply said that during their first dinner in Wisconsin, they discovered that they were all fishermen. And so he quickly readied a boat for a twilight trip out on the lake. They fished, and they talked, and they changed the course of history.

I will not pretend that the challenges we face will be easy, or that the answers will come quickly, or that all our differences and divisions will fade happily away. Because life is not that simple. It never has been.

But as you leave here today, remember the lessons of Cardinal Bernardin, of Father Hesburgh, of movements for change both large and small. Remember that each of us, endowed with the dignity possessed by all children of God, has the grace to recognize ourselves in one another; to understand that we all seek the same love of family and the same fulfillment of a life well-lived. Remember that in the end, in some way, we are all fishermen.

If nothing else, that knowledge should give us faith that through our collective labor, and God's providence, and our willingness to shoulder each other's burdens, America will continue on its precious journey towards that more perfect union. Congratulations class of 2009 on your graduation, may God Bless you, and may God Bless the United States of America.

Labels: communication, human life, moral life, politics, relativism

So there's this Catholic university in Indiana. Maybe you've heard of it. Maybe you've also heard that the President of the United States has been invited to speak at commencement tomorrow, and to receive an honorary law degree. It's been in the news. A little.

I haven't blogged about it at all. There have been plenty of others to do so.

(If you follow me on Twitter, Facebook or Delicious, you've read plenty about it there.)

If you want to follow the coverage of the prayerful demonstration that has been officially sanctioned by the University, you can see the schedule of events here, which begins with all-night adoration tonight.

Tomorrow, John Norton of Our Sunday Visitor will be live-blogging the event.

Pray for everyone at the University, for the President of the United States, for the Catholic Church in America, for our nation as a whole, and for the unborn. Our Lady, intercede for us all. Obtain for us all the mercy of your Son.

O Mary,
bright dawn of the new world,
Mother of the living,
to you do we entrust the cause of life:
Look down, O Mother,
upon the vast numbers
of babies not allowed to be born,
of the poor whose lives are made difficult,
of men and women
who are victims of brutal violence,
of the elderly and the sick killed
by indifference or out of misguided mercy.
Grant that all who believe in your Son
may proclaim the Gospel of life
with honesty and love
to the people of our time.
Obtain for them the grace
to accept that Gospel
as a gift ever new,
the joy of celebrating it with gratitude
throughout their lives
and the courage to bear witness to it
resolutely, in order to build,
together with all people of good will,
the civilization of truth and love,
to the praise and glory of God,
the Creator and lover of life.

Pope John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae

Labels: human life, Mary, mercy, moral life, politics, prayer

The Lazy Disciple has an interesting insight about what gay marriage advocacy actually says about how we view the state's relationship to the family. Read it here.

A short snip:

...Gay marriage proponents have appropriated the vocabulary of a psychically and politically healthy citizenry, while Catholics and others of good will who oppose "gay marriage" often do so on the basis of spurious claims, e.g. that legislators have a "duty" to represent "the values" of their constituents; or that the "gay lobby" is out to "destroy the family." This sounds more like the ranting of a "second shooter on the grassy knoll" conspiracy junkie than a seriously engaged citizen ready to offer frank opinions and presume the good will of his fellows.

The short of it is that people on the right side of an issue are not guaranteed – and indeed often do not employ – better arguments than their interlocutors on the other side of the issue. Very often, all too often, indeed, the people on the right side of an issue are the wrong sort of people – the sort of people who frown at hot fudge sundaes and gripe about the noise the neighbors' children make while playing in the yard on Saturday afternoon. Too often people think that being right gives them a right to be nasty, or a claim to moral superiority.

Labels: marriage and family, politics

Full text here.

This address covers so much territory that I'm tempted to just unpack a paragraph at a time... one post a day. But, then again, that would be a month of blog posts...

I know everyone in the Catholic blogosphere will be quoting this keynote in the coming days. But here's a passage I'm guessing may get overlooked among all the others. Paragraph 15:

If we are serious about our patriotic duty, then we must pray everyday for our leaders, especially our President, and our nation. We should also practice more fervently our fasting and abstinence for the conversion of our lives and the transformation of our society. If we want to act for the common good, the good of all, in our nation, then we will seek to convert our lives each day to Christ, especially through the Sacraments of Penance and the Holy Eucharist. Christ desires to announce the Gospel of Life and bring about its saving effects in our nation by the complete conversion of our lives to Him for the sake of all our brothers and sisters, without boundary, and for the sake of the preservation of the sanctuary of human life, marriage and the family.

Labels: charity, church, conversion, human life, marriage and family, moral life, politics, prayer

During the election campaign last year, the Obama Biden website posted a link to Obama's Call to Renewal Keynote Address, given in Washington, DC, on June 28, 2006. According to the site, the address was hailed as "the most important speech on religion and politics in 40 years." A pull-quote on the site reads:

“(Obama's speech on faith) may be the most important pronouncement by a Democrat on faith and politics since John F. Kennedy's Houston speech in 1960 declaring his independence from the Vatican...Obama offers the first faith testimony I have heard from any politician that speaks honestly about the uncertainties of belief.”
— E.J. Dionne, Op-Ed., Washington Post, June 30, 2006

While such praise sounds a bit ominous to any faithful Catholic, it also suggests that the speech might be worth examining in detail, as a way of attempting to understand our new President's mind as it relates to the interplay of faith and politics.

After spending some time examining the speech, I've decided to reprint it here in full, interspersed with my own commentary, which will appear in-line and [in brackets].

UPDATE (3/26/2009): The Lazy Disciple has done me the honor of providing some further comments, which will appear in-line in bold blue text. Check out his blog here.

In summary, I agree with much of his analysis, but toward the end of the speech he makes some very serious missteps, in my opinion. I'm heartened by the nature of the discussion, but the substance seems to be, in some very important respects, lacking. Still, I think that the ideas expressed here could set a positive course for a dialogue, should any such opportunity actually surface during this administration. I'm not terribly optimistic about the chances that this will come to pass, but I'll pray for it.

Call to Renewal Keynote Address
June 28, 2006

Good morning. I appreciate the opportunity to speak here at the Call to Renewal's Building a Covenant for a New America conference. I've had the opportunity to take a look at your Covenant for a New America. It is filled with outstanding policies and prescriptions for much of what ails this country. So I'd like to congratulate you all on the thoughtful presentations you've given so far about poverty and justice in America, and for putting fire under the feet of the political leadership here in Washington.

But today I'd like to talk about the connection between religion and politics and perhaps offer some thoughts about how we can sort through some of the often bitter arguments that we've been seeing over the last several years.

I do so because, as you all know, we can affirm the importance of poverty in the Bible; and we can raise up and pass out this Covenant for a New America. We can talk to the press, and we can discuss the religious call to address poverty and environmental stewardship all we want, but it won't have an impact unless we tackle head-on the mutual suspicion that sometimes exists between religious America and secular America. [Outstanding. Let's do it.]

I want to give you an example that I think illustrates this fact. As some of you know, during the 2004 U.S. Senate General Election I ran against a gentleman named Alan Keyes. Mr. Keyes is well-versed in the Jerry Falwell-Pat Robertson style of rhetoric that often labels progressives as both immoral and godless.

Indeed, Mr. Keyes announced towards the end of the campaign that, "Jesus Christ would not vote for Barack Obama. Christ would not vote for Barack Obama because Barack Obama has behaved in a way that it is inconceivable for Christ to have behaved."

Jesus Christ would not vote for Barack Obama. [Provocative.]

Now, I was urged by some of my liberal supporters not to take this statement seriously, to essentially ignore it. To them, Mr. Keyes was an extremist, and his arguments not worth entertaining. And since at the time, I was up 40 points in the polls, it probably wasn't a bad piece of strategic advice.

But what they didn't understand, however, was that I had to take Mr. Keyes seriously, for he claimed to speak for my religion, and my God. He claimed knowledge of certain truths.

Mr. Obama says he's a Christian, he was saying, and yet he supports a lifestyle that the Bible calls an abomination.

Mr. Obama says he's a Christian, but supports the destruction of innocent and sacred life. [This reveals a willingness to represent / address the views of some of his opponents. I appreciate this.]

And so what would my supporters have me say? How should I respond? Should I say that a literalist reading of the Bible was folly? Should I say that Mr. Keyes, who is a Roman Catholic, should ignore the teachings of the Pope?

Unwilling to go there, I answered with what has come to be the typically liberal response in such debates - namely, I said that we live in a pluralistic society, that I can't impose my own religious views on another, that I was running to be the U.S. Senator of Illinois and not the Minister of Illinois. [This would be a fair enough response, if opposition to abortion were a simply a matter of creed. More on that later...]

But Mr. Keyes's implicit accusation that I was not a true Christian nagged at me, and I was also aware that my answer did not adequately address the role my faith has in guiding my own values and my own beliefs. [Good. I like hearing that he has an active conscience.]

Now, my dilemma was by no means unique. In a way, it reflected the broader debate we've been having in this country for the last thirty years over the role of religion in politics. [True.]

For some time now, there has been plenty of talk among pundits and pollsters that the political divide in this country has fallen sharply along religious lines. Indeed, the single biggest "gap" in party affiliation among white Americans today is not between men and women, or those who reside in so-called Red States and those who reside in Blue, but between those who attend church regularly and those who don't.

Conservative leaders have been all too happy to exploit this gap, consistently reminding evangelical Christians that Democrats disrespect their values and dislike their Church, while suggesting to the rest of the country that religious Americans care only about issues like abortion and gay marriage; school prayer and intelligent design.

Democrats, for the most part, have taken the bait. At best, we may try to avoid the conversation about religious values altogether, fearful of offending anyone and claiming that - regardless of our personal beliefs - constitutional principles tie our hands. At worst, there are some liberals who dismiss religion in the public square as inherently irrational or intolerant, insisting on a caricature of religious Americans that paints them as fanatical, or thinking that the very word "Christian" describes one's political opponents, not people of faith. [I appreciate his willingness to acknowledge the misrepresentations.]

Now, such strategies of avoidance may work for progressives when our opponent is Alan Keyes. But over the long haul, I think we make a mistake when we fail to acknowledge the power of faith in people's lives -- in the lives of the American people -- and I think it's time that we join a serious debate about how to reconcile faith with our modern, pluralistic democracy. [Bring it on!]

And if we're going to do that then we first need to understand that Americans are a religious people. 90 percent of us believe in God, 70 percent affiliate themselves with an organized religion, 38 percent call themselves committed Christians, and substantially more people in America believe in angels than they do in evolution.

This religious tendency is not simply the result of successful marketing by skilled preachers or the draw of popular mega-churches. In fact, it speaks to a hunger that's deeper than that - a hunger that goes beyond any particular issue or cause.

Each day, it seems, thousands of Americans are going about their daily rounds - dropping off the kids at school, driving to the office, flying to a business meeting, shopping at the mall, trying to stay on their diets - and they're coming to the realization that something is missing. They are deciding that their work, their possessions, their diversions, their sheer busyness, is not enough.

They want a sense of purpose, a narrative arc to their lives. They're looking to relieve a chronic loneliness, a feeling supported by a recent study that shows Americans have fewer close friends and confidants than ever before. And so they need an assurance that somebody out there cares about them, is listening to them - that they are not just destined to travel down that long highway towards nothingness. [Is this a fair way to describe the religious impulse? Is it just a response to personal need, rather than a felt duty?]

And I speak with some experience on this matter. I was not raised in a particularly religious household, as undoubtedly many in the audience were. My father, who returned to Kenya when I was just two, was born Muslim but as an adult became an atheist. My mother, whose parents were non-practicing Baptists and Methodists, was probably one of the most spiritual and kindest people I've ever known, but grew up with a healthy skepticism of organized religion herself. As a consequence, so did I. [An interesting biographical bit.]

It wasn't until after college, when I went to Chicago to work as a community organizer for a group of Christian churches, that I confronted my own spiritual dilemma.

I was working with churches, and the Christians who I worked with recognized themselves in me. They saw that I knew their Book and that I shared their values and sang their songs. But they sensed that a part of me that remained removed, detached, that I was an observer in their midst.

And in time, I came to realize that something was missing as well -- that without a vessel for my beliefs, without a commitment to a particular community of faith, at some level I would always remain apart, and alone. [A good insight, and an ecclesial sensibility.]

And if it weren't for the particular attributes of the historically black church, I may have accepted this fate. But as the months passed in Chicago, I found myself drawn - not just to work with the church, but to be in the church.

For one thing, I believed and still believe in the power of the African-American religious tradition to spur social change, a power made real by some of the leaders here today. Because of its past, the black church understands in an intimate way the Biblical call to feed the hungry and cloth the naked and challenge powers and principalities. And in its historical struggles for freedom and the rights of man, I was able to see faith as more than just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death, but rather as an active, palpable agent in the world. As a source of hope. [OK - so he's moved beyond that depiction of faith as mere source of comfort. But still no mention of a felt duty of the creature to a transcendent Creator. So everything remains on the horizontal plane.]

And perhaps it was out of this intimate knowledge of hardship -- the grounding of faith in struggle -- that the church offered me a second insight, one that I think is important to emphasize today.

Faith doesn't mean that you don't have doubts. [True.]

You need to come to church in the first place precisely because you are first of this world, not apart from it. You need to embrace Christ precisely because you have sins to wash away - because you are human and need an ally in this difficult journey.

It was because of these newfound understandings that I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity United Church of Christ on 95th Street in the Southside of Chicago one day and affirm my Christian faith. It came about as a choice, and not an epiphany. I didn't fall out in church. The questions I had didn't magically disappear. But kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side, I felt that I heard God's spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth. [I appreciate the candor. At the same time, this experience, as articulated, remains largely anchored in the horizontal plane, with the creature as the primary actor in the drama of faith.]

That's a path that has been shared by millions upon millions of Americans - evangelicals, Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Muslims alike; some since birth, others at certain turning points in their lives. It is not something they set apart from the rest of their beliefs and values. In fact, it is often what drives their beliefs and their values.

And that is why that, if we truly hope to speak to people where they're at - to communicate our hopes and values in a way that's relevant to their own - then as progressives, we cannot abandon the field of religious discourse.

Because when we ignore the debate about what it means to be a good Christian or Muslim or Jew; when we discuss religion only in the negative sense of where or how it should not be practiced, rather than in the positive sense of what it tells us about our obligations towards one another; when we shy away from religious venues and religious broadcasts because we assume that we will be unwelcome - others will fill the vacuum, those with the most insular views of faith, or those who cynically use religion to justify partisan ends. [This can indeed happen, and I appreciate the posture of engagement.]

In other words, if we don't reach out to evangelical Christians and other religious Americans and tell them what we stand for, then the Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons and Alan Keyeses will continue to hold sway.

More fundamentally, the discomfort of some progressives with any hint of religion has often prevented us from effectively addressing issues in moral terms. Some of the problem here is rhetorical - if we scrub language of all religious content, we forfeit the imagery and terminology through which millions of Americans understand both their personal morality and social justice. [Pointing out the need for a common language in order to have a discourse.]

Imagine Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address without reference to "the judgments of the Lord." Or King's I Have a Dream speech without references to "all of God's children." Their summoning of a higher truth helped inspire what had seemed impossible, and move the nation to embrace a common destiny.

Our failure as progressives to tap into the moral underpinnings of the nation is not just rhetorical, though. [Agreed.] Our fear of getting "preachy" may also lead us to discount the role that values and culture play in some of our most urgent social problems.

After all, the problems of poverty and racism, the uninsured and the unemployed, are not simply technical problems in search of the perfect ten point plan. They are rooted in both societal indifference and individual callousness - in the imperfections of man. [Good! A recognition of the fact of original sin.]

Solving these problems will require changes in government policy, but it will also require changes in hearts and a change in minds. I believe in keeping guns out of our inner cities, and that our leaders must say so in the face of the gun manufacturers' lobby - but I also believe that when a gang-banger shoots indiscriminately into a crowd because he feels somebody disrespected him, we've got a moral problem. There's a hole in that young man's heart - a hole that the government alone cannot fix. [This is an important point. The foundational need is not a new set of laws, but a new ethos in the hearts of Americans.]

I believe in vigorous enforcement of our non-discrimination laws. But I also believe that a transformation of conscience and a genuine commitment to diversity on the part of the nation's CEOs could bring about quicker results than a battalion of lawyers. They have more lawyers than us anyway.

I think that we should put more of our tax dollars into educating poor girls and boys. [Sounds good.] I think that the work that Marian Wright Edelman has done all her life is absolutely how we should prioritize our resources in the wealthiest nation on earth. [Red flags going up on the Edelman reference: see here.] I also think that we should give them the information about contraception that can prevent unwanted pregnancies, lower abortion rates, and help assure that that every child is loved and cherished.

[Red flags well warranted. Contraception will assure that every child is loved and cherished? A strong argument can be made that the opposite, in fact, is true. I am reminded of this passage from John Paul II's Gospel of Life (#13): But despite their differences of nature and moral gravity, contraception and abortion are often closely connected, as fruits of the same tree. It is true that in many cases contraception and even abortion are practised under the pressure of real- life difficulties, which nonetheless can never exonerate from striving to observe God's law fully. Still, in very many other instances such practices are rooted in a hedonistic mentality unwilling to accept responsibility in matters of sexuality, and they imply a self-centered concept of freedom, which regards procreation as an obstacle to personal fulfilment. The life which could result from a sexual encounter thus becomes an enemy to be avoided at all costs, and abortion becomes the only possible decisive response to failed contraception.]

But, you know, my Bible [my Bible?!] tells me that if we train a child in the way he should go, when he is old he will not turn from it. So I think faith and guidance can help fortify a young woman's sense of self, a young man's sense of responsibility, and a sense of reverence that all young people should have for the act of sexual intimacy. [This seems to me a very different position from that articulated in the prior paragraph. At the very least, nothing said in this paragraph implies the assertions of the prior one.]

I am not suggesting that every progressive suddenly latch on to religious terminology - that can be dangerous. Nothing is more transparent than inauthentic expressions of faith. [This statement is a bit hard for a Catholic to swallow after watching Obama's selections of dissenting Catholics for his administration. It may be transparent, but perhaps it is also politically expedient?] As Jim has mentioned, some politicians come and clap -- off rhythm -- to the choir. We don't need that.

In fact, because I do not believe that religious people have a monopoly on morality, I would rather have someone who is grounded in morality and ethics, and who is also secular, affirm their morality and ethics and values without pretending that they're something they're not. They don't need to do that. None of us need to do that. [I would agree that common moral ground is required, and not a common creed. Of course.]

But what I am suggesting is this - secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. [Amen.] Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, Williams Jennings Bryant, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King - indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history - were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause. So to say that men and women should not inject their "personal morality" into public policy debates is a practical absurdity. Our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition. [Agreed. But then why have you posted opinions from the dictatorship of relativism on your own blog? And why did you choose Joe Biden as a running mate?]

Moreover, if we progressives shed some of these biases, we might recognize some overlapping values that both religious and secular people share when it comes to the moral and material direction of our country. We might recognize that the call to sacrifice on behalf of the next generation, the need to think in terms of "thou" and not just "I," resonates in religious congregations all across the country. [I like the relational insight here.] And we might realize that we have the ability to reach out to the evangelical community and engage millions of religious Americans in the larger project of American renewal.

Some of this is already beginning to happen. Pastors, friends of mine like Rick Warren and T.D. Jakes are wielding their enormous influences to confront AIDS, Third World debt relief, and the genocide in Darfur. Religious thinkers and activists like our good friend Jim Wallis and Tony Campolo are lifting up the Biblical injunction to help the poor as a means of mobilizing Christians against budget cuts to social programs and growing inequality.

And by the way, we need Christians on Capitol Hill, Jews on Capitol Hill and Muslims on Capitol Hill talking about the estate tax. When you've got an estate tax debate that proposes a trillion dollars being taken out of social programs to go to a handful of folks who don't need and weren't even asking for it, you know that we need an injection of morality in our political debate. [Agreed.]

Across the country, individual churches like my own and your own are sponsoring day care programs, building senior centers, helping ex-offenders reclaim their lives, and rebuilding our gulf coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

So the question is, how do we build on these still-tentative partnerships between religious and secular people of good will? It's going to take more work, a lot more work than we've done so far. The tensions and the suspicions on each side of the religious divide will have to be squarely addressed. [Agreed. But this is precisely what you don't seem to be doing, Mr. President. I think, for example, of the lack of any ethical discussion / debate prior to the executive order allowing use of federal funds for embryonic stem cell research. Even the New York Times noticed this.] And each side will need to accept some ground rules for collaboration. [Agreed.]

While I've already laid out some of the work that progressive leaders need to do, I want to talk a little bit about what conservative leaders need to do -- some truths they need to acknowledge.

For one, they need to understand the critical role that the separation of church and state has played in preserving not only our democracy, but the robustness of our religious practice. [Granted.] Folks tend to forget that during our founding, it wasn't the atheists or the civil libertarians who were the most effective champions of the First Amendment. It was the persecuted minorities, it was Baptists like John Leland who didn't want the established churches to impose their views on folks who were getting happy out in the fields and teaching the scripture to slaves. It was the forbearers of the evangelicals who were the most adamant about not mingling government with religious, because they did not want state-sponsored religion hindering their ability to practice their faith as they understood it.

Moreover, given the increasing diversity of America's population, the dangers of sectarianism have never been greater. [This is a legitimate concern.] Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers. I would take issue with the ambiguity of this statement. We are, whatever religion our fellows practice, "[A] new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." Participation in this common conviction, in dedication to which is forged the soul of the nation, does not require a real assent to the data of faith. Nevertheless, the notion that all men are created equal is unthinkable - I mean this in a strict, technical sense - outside the cultural and institutional context that is explicitly Christian. So, the president's discussion actually begs the question. It presumes that what we might call the cultural commitments of a society desirous of securing ordered liberty to itself and its posterity are not necessarily those, which as a matter of historical fact did give rise to the first, and arguably only nation on Earth to be successful in such an experiment.

And even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would we go with James Dobson's, or Al Sharpton's? Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is ok and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount - a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application? So before we get carried away, let's read our bibles. Folks haven't been reading their bibles. [I'm all for good catechesis and well-informed faith, like this.]

This brings me to my second point. Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all. [This is a very good point. Many religious groups in this country could stand to look critically at their initiatives in this light. I remember going to the March for Life a few years ago and seeing "God is Pro-Life" buttons everywhere.] I agree with the President's understanding of the requirements of democracy. I agree therefore with his explicit discussion of abortion, insofar as the negative aspects of it are concerned. I am not entirely convinced that a legislator in, e.g., Mississippi, need explicitly consider the possible objections of, e.g., a Buddhist, in his formulation of his arguments in favor of a legislative ban on abortion. The point is that legislators build consensus among themselves, and enact laws that represent that consensus. In Roe, the Supreme Court said a state legislature is not competent to regulate abortion. If a legislature is not competent to impose its consensus regarding an act that may be directly destructive of a human life, then a fortiori, it is not competent to set speed limits or a legal drinking age. In sum, what appears to be the expression of a desire to see our public discourse conducted reasonably, actually ends up setting the bar too high, as it were. [More of my thoughts on this mentality, as opposed to a disposition to dialogue, here.]

Now this is going to be difficult for some who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, as many evangelicals do. But in a pluralistic democracy, we have no choice. Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality. It involves the compromise, the art of what's possible. At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise. It's the art of the impossible. [Impossible merely on the basis of human resources, perhaps. But not de facto impossible.] If God has spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God's edicts, regardless of the consequences. To base one's life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime, but to base our policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing. [Is this really a solid principle? In particular cases, I agree, it could be convincing. But I don't think it holds up terribly well to closer scrutiny. And, ironically, it could become an uncompromising commitment in itself.] This is a false dichotomy. The art of politics is compromise, but the essence of politics is the common good, and this is knowable. Indeed, at some fundamental level, the continued existence of a given political society requires that efforts at compromise be put aside. We may disagree over where that point lies, or whether it has been reached. We cannot, however, deny that it exists. Ask Neville Chaimberlain. And if you doubt that, let me give you an example. [Just one example? Okay, I ought to hear this out....]

We all know the story of Abraham and Isaac. Abraham is ordered by God to offer up his only son, and without argument, he takes Isaac to the mountaintop, binds him to an altar, and raises his knife, prepared to act as God has commanded.

Of course, in the end God sends down an angel to intercede at the very last minute, and Abraham passes God's test of devotion.

But it's fair to say that if any of us leaving this church saw Abraham on a roof of a building raising his knife, we would, at the very least, call the police and expect the Department of Children and Family Services to take Isaac away from Abraham. We would do so because we do not hear what Abraham hears, do not see what Abraham sees, true as those experiences may be. So the best we can do is act in accordance with those things that we all see, and that we all hear, be it common laws or basic reason. [Okay, I see the point being made. But it does raise the question: Are there not many initiatives, such as the pro-life cause, that are taken up by people of faith, that are, at the same time, based on the dignity of the human person, rather than simply based on creed? And are there not many significant debates that involve this value: the dignity of the human person? And is this value not accessible to believer and non-believer alike? In which case, the larger question needs to be raised why some people recognize the value, and why others do not, and what to do about this fundamental disagreement. It has wide-ranging implications for the common good.... This is a much more delicate question, and one not to be answered neatly in the course of a political speech.]

Finally, any reconciliation between faith and democratic pluralism requires some sense of proportion. [A sense of proportion? Let's see where this is going....]

This goes for both sides.

Even those who claim the Bible's inerrancy make distinctions between Scriptural edicts, sensing that some passages - the Ten Commandments, say, or a belief in Christ's divinity - are central to Christian faith, while others are more culturally specific and may be modified to accommodate modern life. [Granted.]

The American people intuitively understand this, which is why the majority of Catholics practice birth control and some of those opposed to gay marriage nevertheless are opposed to a Constitutional amendment to ban it. Religious leadership need not accept such wisdom in counseling their flocks, but they should recognize this wisdom in their politics.

[The argument has taken several major missteps here. Several points: 1) Democratic pluralism is being confused with pluralistic understandings of human dignity. The latter can spell disaster for the common good. 2) Faith and natural law seem to be equivocated here. The assumption is that the Catholic Church's teachings on artificial contraception and marriage are designated for believers only; that is, that they are merely credal in character, rather than reflecting truths about the human person accessible to human reason. 3) The statement about birth control actually goes one step further, suggesting that widespread dissent from the Church's teaching reflects a principled theological position on the part of those who use contraception, rather than a moral compromise or poor catechesis / poor guidance from pastors. But I thought Obama just got finished making the point that folks haven't been reading their Bibles. Now they are suddenly inchoate experts on matters of Biblical hermeneutics?]

But a sense of proportion should also guide those who police the boundaries between church and state. Not every mention of God in public is a breach to the wall of separation - context matters. It is doubtful that children reciting the Pledge of Allegiance feel oppressed or brainwashed as a consequence of muttering the phrase "under God." I didn't. Having voluntary student prayer groups use school property to meet should not be a threat, any more than its use by the High School Republicans should threaten Democrats. And one can envision certain faith-based programs - targeting ex-offenders or substance abusers - that offer a uniquely powerful way of solving problems. [True enough.]

So we all have some work to do here. But I am hopeful that we can bridge the gaps that exist and overcome the prejudices each of us bring to this debate. And I have faith that millions of believing Americans want that to happen. No matter how religious they may or may not be, people are tired of seeing faith used as a tool of attack. [Okay, but... ] They don't want faith used to belittle or to divide. They're tired of hearing folks deliver more screed than sermon. Because in the end, that's not how they think about faith in their own lives. [Obama seems to be assuming bad motives on the part of many people in public leadership. I think this broad generalization is unfair.]

So let me end with just one other interaction I had during my campaign. A few days after I won the Democratic nomination in my U.S. Senate race, I received an email from a doctor at the University of Chicago Medical School that said the following:

"Congratulations on your overwhelming and inspiring primary win. I was happy to vote for you, and I will tell you that I am seriously considering voting for you in the general election. I write to express my concerns that may, in the end, prevent me from supporting you."

The doctor described himself as a Christian who understood his commitments to be "totalizing." His faith led him to a strong opposition to abortion and gay marriage, although he said that his faith also led him to question the idolatry of the free market and quick resort to militarism that seemed to characterize much of the Republican agenda.

But the reason the doctor was considering not voting for me was not simply my position on abortion. Rather, he had read an entry that my campaign had posted on my website, which suggested that I would fight "right-wing ideologues who want to take away a woman's right to choose." The doctor went on to write:

"I sense that you have a strong sense of justice...and I also sense that you are a fair minded person with a high regard for reason...Whatever your convictions, if you truly believe that those who oppose abortion are all ideologues driven by perverse desires to inflict suffering on women, then you, in my judgment, are not fair-minded....You know that we enter times that are fraught with possibilities for good and for harm, times when we are struggling to make sense of a common polity in the context of plurality, when we are unsure of what grounds we have for making any claims that involve others...I do not ask at this point that you oppose abortion, only that you speak about this issue in fair-minded words." [This, at least, would be a step in the right direction. Still not fully humane, but a start... ]

Fair-minded words.

So I looked at my website and found the offending words. In fairness to them, my staff had written them using standard Democratic boilerplate language to summarize my pro-choice position during the Democratic primary, at a time when some of my opponents were questioning my commitment to protect Roe v. Wade. [This sounds like throwing what has become a key tenet of the Democratic Party platform under the bus. Interesting.]

Re-reading the doctor's letter, though, I felt a pang of shame. It is people like him who are looking for a deeper, fuller conversation about religion in this country. They may not change their positions, but they are willing to listen and learn from those who are willing to speak in fair-minded words. Those who know of the central and awesome place that God holds in the lives of so many, and who refuse to treat faith as simply another political issue with which to score points.

[Mr. President, please show us evidence that you want a fuller conversation. Executive orders that dismiss or ignore ethical concerns as mere political gridlock are not the best evidence. Labeling principled ethical concerns as mere ideology is not good evidence. Appeals only to those who agree with you are not good evidence. The Office of the President appears to be campaigning, rather than representing the entire population of this country.]

So I wrote back to the doctor, and I thanked him for his advice. The next day, I circulated the email to my staff and changed the language on my website to state in clear but simple terms my pro-choice position. And that night, before I went to bed, I said a prayer of my own - a prayer that I might extend the same presumption of good faith to others that the doctor had extended to me. [Keep praying that. It's a good prayer. I'll do the same.]

And that night, before I went to bed I said a prayer of my own. It's a prayer I think I share with a lot of Americans. A hope that we can live with one another in a way that reconciles the beliefs of each with the good of all. It's a prayer worth praying, and a conversation worth having in this country in the months and years to come.

[Indeed it is. How long will we have to wait before the conversation will begin? And when will you begin calling the media to account for its efforts to derail this conversation?]

Thank you.

Labels: church, communication, dialogue, human life, moral life, politics