A (slightly) longer exposition
Having been chided to address Notre Dame’s invitation to Obama on the merits I will do so. My instinct is that this will be a massive waste of my time, but we shall see. A common current of the opposition is the claim that the offer is honoring President Obama. Stated in various ways is the belief that offering this platform is an affirmation of everything Obama has ever said and done, most significantly his recent actions with regard to abortion and ESCR. Complimentary to this, is the belief that his views are so beyond the pale so as to not merit recognition in civilized society.
Recognizing this, we choose our measure. Some will argue intrinsic evil (a concept many people mistakenly think means really bad grave evil) should be used as an absolute measure. As MM has pointed out, if that is the measure, then torture is on the table as well as other issues. Some proponents would argue that this is fine. The practical effect of making inelligible most men we call leaders seems to be feature and not a defect. There is another measure that one could use and it is relativistic, specifically popular support. In this case context is important. As someone will no doubt be prone to remind, Pope Benedict has often warned about the dangers of relativism. He is however speaking of philosophical relativism, not political relativism. Politics, by definition, is the weighing of relative goods to produce some goal like justice or the commonweal. While it is tempting to believe that the scourge of abortion will be ended by exposition of the truth - a Platonic hope so to speak that men do evil because they do not know truth – we moderns recognize our knowledge of right and wrong and our choice to choose it. Think the penitential rite, “I have sinned throught my own fault…”
So what is the relativistic standard I propose? It is to meet people where they are at. It is to recognize that regardless of one’s opinions, the President of the United States, whoever he or she is, is not a minority or fringe figure. As I stated in various ways prior to the election, if you believe that the choices placed before you (the two candidates with any chance of being elected) are routinely so evil so as to not offer you a choice, then your obligation is greater than mere protest. No one holds the Amish responsible for abortion in this country or the war in Iraq. If you desire the peace of not being a part of the world then monastic solicitude may be for you. I don’t offer it as an insult. Monastics provide a valuable witness, a witness I wish were more present in this country. We also need evangelists in the culture at large. The goal is conversion of a people. That movement of wills is not merely exposition, although exposition does have real value. That movement of wills is also the conditioning of society to recognize and choose good. Rome was not built in a day. Even the monastics haven’t achieved heaven on earth. And no progress can be made until we start looking to advance the good.
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I’m closing comments for the evening. I’ll reopen them when I have time to monitor them. Yes, this thread will be heavily moderated.
M.Z.,
I for one am entirely comfortable with the idea of critical, challenging, and informative dialogue as part of a process to peacefully and effectively deal with leaders in opposition to Church teaching and Natural Law.
But the presupposition here seems to be that opposing the invitation to Obama as a matter of prudence amounts to (perhaps is an instance of) a very unrealistic and unhelpful form of monastic withdrawal.
I could affirm that if in fact opponents were advocating that citizens boycott everything Obama says, protest even his most minute policy proposals, refuse to speak his name like Voldemort, plug one’s ears and chant “lalala” when he tries to speak, etc.
The problem is Obama is not being invited to a conference on discussing the rights and wrongs of abortion policy, and those who oppose the move are not setting up barriers to fruitful dialogue. That strikes me as a category mistake.
The reality is he is being honored, and the reality is opponents (at least the sane ones) are opposing this as a matter of prudence.
In my opinion to act as if there is no distinction there is rather naive. To act as if this honoring is 1) BEST judged as a platform for “dealing with” or “constructively dialoging” with a leader one disagrees with and therefore opponents are foolishly opposing a helpful route to REALLY get some work done on changing hearts and minds; and 2) that this is NOT BEST judged as confusing, mixing signals, and at worst scandalizing…
….is to judge imprudently.
Pax Christi,
“Some will argue intrinsic evil (a concept many people mistakenly think means really bad grave evil) should be used as an absolute measure.”
Your right, intrinsic evil does not necessarily mean grave evil. But abortion is not merely an intrinsic evil. The Church also teaches that it is a grave evil. In fact, to my knowledge, it’s the only sin that leads to automatic excommunication. Pretty grave stuff. So let’s not play games. According to the Church, at least, abortion is a grave and intrinsic evil.
Julian:
It’s not the only sin that leads to automatic excommunication. Off the top of my head, I know that a priest revealing what was said in the confessional qualifies as automatic excommunication.
But you’re right; abortion is a grave and intrinsic evil.
What sin leads to automatic excommunication?? Abortion? It would only lead to automatic excommunication if the woman knew that it was an offense that led to excommunication.
M.Z.,
If the president was putting to death a whole race of people, would the same sentiments as expressed in the above entry still apply? That the president should be honored regardless?
I believe that the difficulty folks are having here (and I’m not speaking strictly regarding you) is that the innocent unborn children have become so abstract in the minds of even Catholics that, in all actuality, killing the unborn no longer applies since such a notion that these are actually people has become vague and even risible.
In order, roughly.
X-Cathedra:
But the presupposition here seems to be that opposing the invitation to Obama as a matter of prudence amounts to (perhaps is an instance of) a very unrealistic and unhelpful form of monastic withdrawal.
I can see this, but my criticism was more to the treatment of the view as fringe. As will be stated later, a view can be repugnant and mainstream at the same time.
More generally the question is whether he is being honored because of who he is or is he being honored because of what he is. Were Obama not President, I don’t believe the invitation would have been offered. Should presidents be given such platforms? Some such as Amy Welborn have argued that the answer is probably no. Are they routinely given such platforms? Yes.
Julian,
Certainly abortion is serious stuff. So are some other issues. The American public happens to share these views though. Certainly there is a continuum, but many of the folks outraged over this were demanding Nicholas Cafardi be pushed out the door at Franciscan University for merely endorsing Obama. I wouldn’t have lost any sleep if Notre Dame hadn’t invited Obama. And I can certainly understand the need for standards, but despite the strident rhetoric of many, Obama hasn’t done anything that is remotely surprising on the issues of life. He was elected with wide support and still enjoys wide support. At some point we have to recognize the issue is not so much Obama but the culture that elected him. He is a representative of that culture.
ari,
Is that not what happens whenever we choose to go to war Ari? This seems to be a common rhettorical romanticism among Americans. You can look at the treatment of Chinese under California law. You can look at the blind eyes during the draft riots in Detroit, New York, and other places during the Civil War where blacks were strung up and hung in the streets. History is replete with examples of popular fervor leading to harms and even deaths of minority cultures. The more common thread of history is for leaders to be a check against the more blood thirsty elements of the populace.
I do not believe Notre Dame is obligated to honor Obama. Having the president grace their graduation should not be a cause of scandal though, no more than existance itself is a scandal.
M.Z.,
How come whenever confronted with the mass murder of the unborn children, there is often the retort concerning victims of unjust wars and such?
Are you then saying that the actions of the former administration which, to your mind, has unjustly allowed the deaths of the latter somehow automatically excuses the present administration’s global agenda of infanticide?
You invoked racial genocide. I applied it to actual instances.
To answer your second question, No. Your then implies a logical association with my own comment that I don’t see.
M.Z.,
By the way, all those injustices you cite should actually amount to a list of reasons why you yourself should be fighting against the injustices being done to these unborn children who daily are being slaughtered immensely and, with Obama’s global agenda, will maximize the effects of such evil worldwide.
As far as your remarks concerning “leaders to be a check against the more blood thirsty elements of the populace”, there is nothing more blood thirsty than the mass murdering of children!
“And no progress can be made until we start looking to advance the good.”
I think our whole problem is that we try to force what we think is the good on other people through our political institutions.
We forget that, if we want to “advance the good”, we better start with ourselves. A saint has much more influence over the culture than any health care plan ever could.
“Complimentary to this, is the belief that his views are so beyond the pale so as to not merit recognition in civilized society.”
His views are not so beyond the pale that they do not merit recognition, it’s that his views are so beyond the pale that they deserve condemnation and explicit and loud signs of disapproval.
It’s also not that people are concerned about honoring Obama. Rather, they are concerned that Catholic truth is being flouted and generally seen as irrelevant.
If a president stood idly by while an entire class of persons – make them poor people – were being killed at will by other persons – make them rich people – I think your argument would be different. You wouldn’t be so tolerant of a man who you understood to be indifferent to the wanton slaughter of people who were so obviously suffering a great, heinous injustice.
The Church is not supposed to accomodate the culture; we ought to be a prophetic witness to the sanctity and dignity of all human life, especially the least visible among us.
I’m not particularly bothered that people would choose an absolute standard, whatever it may be. I just hope they recognize the implications. As someone wrote a few days ago on another topic and in another context, we have a real divorce mentality in this country: the idea that it is easier to start anew and rebuild rather than work with what we have.
If the president was putting to death a whole race of people, would the same sentiments as expressed in the above entry still apply? That the president should be honored regardless?
Except it is not the President who putting to death the unborn. It is the female moral trash who actually abort their own young. And until weak kneed “pro-lifers” get over their aversion about using the same language they apply to people in public life to these debauched and morally depraved women, rather than mollycodling them as “co-victims”.
Kurt:
“Except it is not the President who putting to death the unborn. It is the femail moral trash who actually abort their own young.”
It’s so easy for some to ignore the very fact that the viscious Pro-abortionist agenda of Obama promotes this very act to the greatest extent.
By the same token, it wasn’t actually Hitler who was killing off the Jews, it’s those moral trash Nazis who were actually doing the killing and, therefore, Hitler was but an innocent angel in all that.
Really Ari?
Did Obama order mothers to the abortuaries? Has he instituted a one child policy? My goodness. Examine your arguments outside a bubble before posting them.
M.Z.,
Are you then saying that regardless of how complicit Obama is in the matter and how he actually is promoting pro-abortionist policies (which he seeks to extend globally through monetary means), unless the man is pointing an actual gun on the heads of mothers themselves, he’ll remain a saint to you regardless?
What do you think? Perhaps that is a dangerous question to ask but my goodness. It isn’t like I haven’t written over 10,000 words on the topic of Obama and abortion. I ain’t no caricature. I’m a real human being. My goodness.
Are you then saying that regardless of how complicit Obama is in the matter and how he actually is promoting pro-abortionist policies (which he seeks to extend globally through monetary means), unless the man is pointing an actual gun on the heads of mothers themselves, he’ll remain a saint to you regardless?
I think the question is why the rhetorical soft-peddling by you and others towards these women. Is it a political tactic to not tell women who have had abortions that they will be hauled before Nuremberg-like trials once the pro-life movement is successfull?
“I think the question is why the rhetorical soft-peddling by you and others towards these women.”
No, I think the question is why the rhetorical soft-peddling by you and yours towards Obama, who presently occupies the highest office in the land.
You and your cohorts would make it seem that if I were, as leader of the nation, permit by manner of policy & law the mass murdering of specific minorities, so long as I do not order/force people to commit such acts, I would be in the clear and only those who were to do so (even though such acts were acceptably permitted given said policies & laws virtually established by such a leader) are the only ones who should be deemed guilty.
St. Pontius Pilate, Pray for Us!