Tuesday, April 28th, 2009...3:50 pm
I [heart] Mary Ann Glendon
By Renee Gerber
Yesterday morning, Professor Mary Ann Glendon sent this letter to Notre Dame, declining to accept the institution’s prestigious Laetare Medal. By inviting President Obama to speak and to receive an honorary degree from the university, Notre Dame is acting contrary to a 2004 U.S. Conference of Bishops’ declaration that “Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles,” specifically the Church’s position on abortion and the right to life. That means Catholic schools like Notre Dame should not give to such people “awards, honors, or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.” [Note: I’m not sure if “declaration” is a term of art in the Catholic Church. When I use it in the previous paragraph, I mean it in the common usage sense: a declaratory statement.]
Today, the interns and judges at my clinical office had an hour-long debate over Professor’s Glendon’s refusal of the Medal, Notre Dame’s defiance of the Bishops, and of the Catholic church doctrine underpinning the whole issue. (This, folks, should be reason enough to encourage clinical participation. Seriously, 1Ls and 2Ls, you should do a clinical.) Personally, I think greatly admire Professor Glendon for her decision, and eventually I was able to get most of the office to agree with me. After all, if you’re Catholic, you’re supposed to obey Catholic doctrine and the statements of bishops, right? I think that as a devout Catholic,she’s right not to accept an honor from a Catholic school that’s thwarting Catholic bishops.
However, that leaves open the question: Is the Church right in telling schools and other Catholic institutions not to honor those who disagree with them, no matter what other honorable things they have done? My office was pretty well split. Some noted that this was the Church behaving politically, not religiously, and shouldn’t that be something that Notre Dame should ignore. (Indeed, the original statement from the Bishops has a heading of “Catholics in Political Life,” signalling that they are indeed trying to influence Catholic politicians and politics in general.) Our resident non-practicing Catholic stated that he disagreed with the Church, but had no problem with it, and thought that as long as Notre Dame is Catholic, they should obey Catholic dictates. Others decried the Church’s intolerance in general, comparing this requirement to terrorists’ beliefs and forced conversions during the Inquisition. I (a non-Catholic, by the way) was the only person who full out defended the Catholic Church, saying that, given its position on abortion, it is fully right in telling its own institutions that they should not honor those who fundamentally work against the Church’s position. And I don’t mean “right” as in it is allowed to, I mean right in that it should.
I worry that, in the guise of saying “Intolerance is bad” and comparing the Bishops’ statement to statements asking people to blow themselves up, we risk telling the Church that she shouldn’t stand up for what she believes, even in a completely compassionate and rational way. If principled adherence to religious belief is all that constitutes “intolerance,” then I have a hard time condemning intolerance. In this case, the Church isn’t inciting bigotry, or violence, or intolerance that results in personal animosity. The Church is not even saying that President Obama shouldn’t be invited to speak at Notre Dame; it’s just saying that Notre Dame shouldn’t appear to condone the President’s political positions when some of those positions are antithetical to the Church’s.
What do you think? Who’s right here: Professor Glendon, the Catholic Church, Notre Dame, or some combination of the above?
9 Comments
April 28th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
First of all, Notre Dame is affiliated with the congregation of the holy cross which derives it’s authority from the pope and not from the conference of American bishops. This means that the declaration of the US conference of bishops does not bind nor constrain the University (a jurisdictional issue:).
Second, even if the declaration was binding this is an issue for the superiors (in the hierarchy sense:) to deal with. It is not incumbent upon individuals acting in their private capacity to do so (a standing issue).
Thirdly, the president should not be within the scope of any such declaration inasmuch as he represents the temporal power (‘give into Caesar’ – head of state immunity).
Finally, even if it was within the scope of individuals to sanction the institution I doubt that this is the proper way to do so. This smacks of a non-local response which is meant to cause a political response rather than a private religious statement (which need not be publicized) – proportionality doctrine.
While nobody should be forced to accept an award, I think that the politicization by the conference of bishops is counterproductive.
Elan
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“An atheist is a man who watches a Notre Dame – Southern Methodist University game and doesn’t care who wins.”
– Dwight D. Eisenhower
April 28th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
I have a quick question. Given the eclectic nature of the Catholic Church’s teaching, is it possible for any politician to be honored by Catholic institutions? I might be misguided but isn’t the Church fairly left-leaning on most other political issues, such as criminal justice and social welfare? Wouldn’t that take away any chance that the Church might honor a pro-lifer who’s conservative on those other issues? Not that it matters – more power to a church that refuses to allow itself to be stereotyped – but I can’t help but wonder if some of us is going to take a double standard here. Or perhaps the (perceived) enormity of abortion absolutely trumps every other teaching? I think we need an expert on Catholicism here.
April 28th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
As Elan says, I think it’s important to remember that the U.S. Conference of Bishops sets the policy of the Church in the same sense that a majority vote of brigadier generals would set the policy of the U.S. Army, i.e. in no sense whatsoever.
Aside from that, I would say in general that religious groups issue such directives to their universities only at the peril of those universities. Were Notre Dame not perceived as being de facto independent of the Church in most respects, its credibility among academics at other institutions would (over time) be weakened. Of course, giving Barack Obama an honorary degree is a minor issue, and this mess has certainly only been a minor embarrassment for Notre Dame.
Regarding James’s question, I definitely read at one point that some Notre Dame students had raised the double standard issue — specifically, that the university had issued honorary degrees to politicians who support the death penalty without any outcry whatsoever. While Catholic doctrinal support for left wing-brand social justice is a complex question, the Church is as clearly opposed to the death penalty as it is to abortion.
April 28th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
Well. First off, I don’t think I would characterize Glendon’s declining the honor in quite the same way. While she clearly feels that Notre Dame was pushing the bounds before, her letter makes it sound as though the deciding factor was the suggestion that she would somehow legitimize the act by being there.
Secondly, the Church’s position on abortion is a moral one, not (necessarily) a political one. Obama has indicated moral disapproval of the action, even if he believes it is inappropriate to prohibit it by law (Cf. Clinton’s entreaty that abortion be “safe, legal, and rare”). I think the argument that Obama “fundamentally work[s] against the Church’s position” would be stronger if he actually endorsed abortion — rather he suggests that women affected should decide “in conjunction with their doctors, their families, and their clergy.” As far as I know, while the Church teaches that abortion is wrong (a teaching I agree with), there is no doctrine holding that a woman or a doctor who has one should be imprisoned.
Third, the Bishops’ statement comes under fire from a lot of the Church because of Catholicism’s history with politics and with intellectual life. For a lot of American Catholics, the long history of separation of church and state — which, by the way, protects Catholics, who make up a minority of Christian Americans — makes political meddling by the Church unpalatable. The Church’s speckled past with regards to scientists, and the need for an independent and rigorous Catholic education system in the early days of Catholic academic exclusion (see, e.g., Kathleen A. Mahoney, Catholic Higher Education in Protestant America (2003)), also form the backdrop of a strong culture of independence among Catholic colleges. For many of us, seeing the Bishops interfere with Catholic education for political ends is the height of hubris.
April 28th, 2009 at 9:35 pm
I enjoyed reading this Renee and the comments and would just like to respond to James. Just as there is a religious right, there is a religious left, smaller perhaps, and less vocal (or well funded) but still holding a set of values outside of the standard issue political divide. I can think of a number, both Catholic and non-Catholic, including many non-Christians.
April 28th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
While I definitely feel there is room for boycotts informed by religious values, I think Glendon is leaving herself open to charges of hypocrisy here.
Notre Dame is inviting her to share a platform with an educated public figure whose views on government power over the family she (and, perhaps, the Catholic church) disagrees with. But of course, one of the main roles for academic institutions in our society, religious or otherwise, is to offer a platform for multiple points of view — how else can one sharpen one’s own beliefs and understanding of important ethical and political questions, without testing them against the reasoned arguments of adversaries? In no way, by having her share honors with Obama, is Notre Dame compelling her to accept or even legitimate Obama’s beliefs about government power.
By contrast, Glendon willingly accepted a prestigious diplomatic appointment from an administration that itself violated teachings and morals of the Catholic church (e.g. torture; waging a war that only the willfully blind would call “Just”). She refused to resign in protest of such policies, even though, as a political appointee of the government enforcing them, she was far more complicit in such actions and the beliefs motivating them than an award at ND would tie her to Obama’s beliefs.
Furthermore, despite being a visible and powerful member of the American diplomatic core, and an expert in international law, as far as I can tell she did not use her special position to forcefully speak out for the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocents in Darfur, or children with AIDS in Africa, etc. etc, and what the U.S. ought to be doing about it. I.e., she did not encourage a controversial expansion of U.S. government power with a view to saving hundreds of thousands of innocent lives. Sound familiar?
OK, so maybe the last argument was a bit facetious. But I still think it’s easier to paint Glendon’s stance on the ND award as petty and political rather than strictly principled.
April 30th, 2009 at 11:04 am
One interesting issue is that while churches disagree on issues such as abortion and gay marriage, I am hard pressed to find any church that includes support for waterboarding and preemptive war as part of its essential teachings.
But perhaps churches are just being prudish about tortures and invasions. Perhaps abortion is more fundamentally wrong than preemptorily invading another country and locking people up for torture without any semblance of legal proceeding, and that it is worthwhile for churches to accept tortures, etc. as part of the deal for legal bans on abortion. If that’s what some religious folks believe in, they ought to announce to the world their utilitarian convictions, and announce it loud.
April 30th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
James, to be fair, I’d much rather be waterboarded than to have my skull crushed by those who are supposed to protect me. I have a hard time imagining anyone who would choose differently.
May 1st, 2009 at 9:03 am
I do think there is a difference in degree of moral wrongfulness between (a) not banning private abortion and (b) actively using the power of government to kill people (e.g. war, capital punishment, arguably government-funded abortion). There are many policies which I believe the government could adopt to stop non-government taking of life (e.g. gun control, intervention in Darfur, stricter regulation of abortion, greater support for single or poor mothers) and in fact I support all these things. But, call me naive, I find government’s affirmative action at taking life even more offensive than its failure to regulate effectively private murder — as a putative democracy, we as citizens share moral culpability for these actions. If 600 000 more civilians have died in Iraq because we invaded than would have otherwise (a broad definition of causation, admittedly, but the U.S. is allegedly a moral force for good in this world so we can take a high standard), we as citizens (and taxpayers) ought to feel a deep sense of guilt and shame, and anger at the moral callousness of our representatives and their minions of destruction and disorder. Where was Glendon’s outrage then?