Georgetown/On Faith

JUST LAW AND RELIGION

Michael Kessler

A friend's Facebook link took me to a CNN article that I thought would infuriate me. The headline was "McDonnell won't disavow Robertson's Islam remarks." What CNN failed to articulate was, to my surprise, that Virginia Governor-elect McDonnell sounded more Madisonian than Robertsonian.

Unorthodoxy

By Patrick J. Deneen

This past weekend I had the pleasure and privilege of attending a conference at the University of Notre Dame entitled "The Summons of Freedom." The conference was sponsored by The Center for Ethics and Culture, an interdisciplinary program founded and directed by Professor David Solomon of Notre Dame's Department of Philosophy. It was the 10th annual conference held by the Center, though the first I attended. Based on what I saw, heard, and experienced, it will not be my last. If there is to be not only a defense of he full dimension of Catholicism in America, but a revival of it, I believe it will emanate from the work being done by this Center.

FAITH IN ACTION

By Katherine Marshall

We're seeing many calls to conscience these days. Nibbling breakfast, I clicked on a video where Jacques Diouf, head of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, calls on people everywhere to sign an appeal to the World Food Summit that begins November 16 in Rome. He counts aloud to six, then reminds us that in that time a child has died. Karen Armstrong launched a Charter of Compassion on November 12 in Washington. Its aim is a groundswell of citizen action to live the golden rule - to treat others as you would have them treat you.

But translating noble principles and even the passion and energy of millions of "Yes we can"-inspired supporters into action isn't easy, particularly where agriculture is concerned. The path from a $20 billion promise for new resources to bolster agricultural development, made by the G8 in Italy last June, to successful change on tens of millions of African farms is long and bumpy.

This Catholic's View

By Thomas J. Reese, S.J.

If you believed what you read on blogs and in newspapers, you would conclude that the archdiocese of Washington is threatening to withdraw money for food and shelter from the poor in the District of Columbia in order to get its way on gay marriage.

What are the facts?

For decades, Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington has received money from the District of Columbia to operate programs helping the poor. This is common throughout the country where the Catholic Church is the second largest provider of services to the poor, second only to the government. Catholic Charities competes with private and nonprofit agencies for these contracts with the government deciding which organization will provide the best services for the money. This is a good deal for state and local governments because these Catholic Charities programs are efficiently and effectively run with both professionals and volunteers.

ISLAM AND THE WEST

By Daniel Brumberg

Egypt, a country of some 82 million people, once was the intellectual, strategic and political hub of the Arab world. But today, Egypt is adrift. Cairo seems more crowded, more polluted and more chaotic than ever. The country is suffocating under a cloud of political ineptitude, apathy and cynicism, the likes of which I have never seen in Egypt.

I wish I could say that the problem has a clear source or one obvious remedy. Unfortunately, Egypt's malady has many causes and many symptoms. This illness is far from terminal, but left untreated, the patient will only grow more infirm.

Let's start with the government--or the lack thereof. As I mentioned to a long-time Egyptian colleague, the only thing worse than the absence of democratic or accountable government is the absence of governance itself. President Hosni Mubarak has been ruling since the assassination of Anwar Sadat in October 1981. After 28 years, during which he was "re-elected" by a parliament stacked with his allies in the National Democratic Party, (a body that is neither a coherent party much less an instrument of democracy), Mubarak is viewed by many Egyptians as a kind of absentee leader.

Unorthodoxy

By Patrick J. Deneen

On many of today's contemporary college campuses, there are sponsored programs and organizations that seek to advance "social justice." While contemporary universities constantly invoke "critical thinking" as a central activity of campus life, rarely is the term "social justice" examined. At the dawn of the western tradition, Plato devoted an entire dialogue - the Republic - to the question of "what is justice?", at the end of which the question - if anything - was more unsettled than answered. Yet if the activities on college campuses today indicate anything, it is that we know what justice is.

Still, if today's universities are in many ways officially devoted to advancing "social justice," critical reflection upon the very structural activities of today's universities call that apparent commitment into question. For it could be argued that, in the very act of scouring the world for the best and brightest and putting them on the path to upward mobility, our best universities may be accelerating downward mobility for a great many of our countrymen, and in fact increasing and deepening structural forms of social injustice.

By Ariel Glucklich
professor of theology, Georgetown University

The recent tragic events at Fort Hood made me think of the 2004 presidential elections, when President George W. Bush berated Sen. John Kerry for describing the fight against terrorism as a police matter. For Bush and many others, it was a war, a war against terror and more than that, a great conflict between two cultures and worldviews: freedom and democracy on the one side and world-destroying fanaticism on the other. Clearly the difference between war and police operation is more than tactical; for war you must recruit not just military force but your best ideals and values against their worst.

In the near-frantic search by the media for the "real" motives that drove Maj. Nidal M. Hasan to open fire on unarmed soldiers and civilians one sees something of the Bush vs. Kerry thinking. We need to know whether this was a crime or an act of war perpetrated from within--a chilling prospect indeed. Did Hasan just snap as so many in the United States seem to (and do so fully armed) or was he motivated by religion? Was it perhaps some combination that prevailed--his religion was ready to assist him like the weapons when he did snap?

This Catholic's View

By Thomas J. Reese, S.J.

With the adoption of a House floor amendment banning the use of Federal money for abortion, the U.S. bishops are no longer opposing the Democrats' health care reform plan; in fact, they are supporting expansion of it.

With the abortion issue dealt with, the bishops can now speak strongly in support of universal health care. "We believe universal coverage should be truly universal, not denying health care to those in need because of their condition, age, where they come from or when they arrive here," they wrote the house on November 6. "[W]e reiterate our Catholic tradition that teaches that health care is a basic human right, essential to protecting human life and dignity."

The bishops, unlike many politicians, want health care coverage for immigrants, both legal and undocumented. In the letter to members of the House, they supported "access for immigrants to the health-insurance exchange, regardless of legal status," and supported "removal of the five-year ban on legal immigrants accessing Medicaid and other federal health-care programs."

FAITH IN ACTION

By Katherine Marshall

Aicha Ech Channa, a gutsy Moroccan woman, has worked for five decades with young unmarried mothers, who stand at the very bottom of the social heap in her country. Even if their pregnancy resulted from rape, they are condemned as prostitutes and thrown out by their families, and their babies are stigmatized as bastards.

For her work Mrs. Ech Channa just received the world's largest faith-based prize for social entrepreneurship. That's the Opus Prize and it's for one million dollars.

Ms. Ech Channa began as a social worker in Morocco, mostly in the booming port city of Casablanca, a place of sharp contrasts between rich and poor. For years she struggled in her work, seeing only an occasional victory as her protégées threw off their pasts and built new lives. More often, she saw the vicious cycle that is poverty catch the children of unmarried mothers in its vortex and repeat the story of trouble and misery.

JUST LAW AND RELIGION

Michael Kessler

This week, Keith Bardwell quit his post as Justice of the Peace for the Eighth Ward of Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana. This would hardly be noteworthy except that Bardwell refused to marry couples from different races. Outrageous. But did Maine just sanction discrimination of a different sort?

Unorthodoxy

By Patrick J. Deneen

In a recent edition of Georgetown's student newspaper, the Hoya, a graduate student in my department voiced her shock and consternation that the university health plan does not cover birth control prescriptions. The online version of the article has generated heated commentary, with people on the respective sides - for or against Georgetown's policy, one that reflects respect toward the Catholic position on artificial birth control - largely (and typically) speaking past each other.

I want to express some sympathy with the article's author, although not for the expected reasons. She is right to be surprised, and perhaps even upset. But this is not because Georgetown is too Catholic, but because it is insufficiently Catholic, particularly inasmuch as it offers no public and ongoing justification of this policy. The policy is allowed to stand on its own, without explanation or justification in the daily life and activities of the university. Her complaint is not cause for revision of the policy, but for more effort on behalf of the university to advance the reasons for the policy as a part of its educational mission.