Fellowship of Catholic Scholars Quarterly

THE PRESIDENT’S LETTER Reasonable Rules...... Koterski, S.J. homily Advent Sermon in the Cathedral of Trier, 34 December 4, 2003...... Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger Number 4 ARTICLES winter 2011 The Study of Rhetoric as a Stepping Stone to Wisdom...... Anne Carson Daly Chesterton and the Pickpocket: A Fresh Look at Distributionism...... Karl Schmude Cameron: The Liberal Society and Its Defense...... Jude P. Dougherty The Loss of Maritain’s America...... Jude P. Dougherty Anarchists Among Us...... Jude P. Dougherty Prenatal Adoption: Did the CDF Close the Door on Debate?...... Arland K. Nichols “Natural and Necessary”: Catholics and the State...... Steven Millies Maintaining Equilibrium at The Catholic Law School...... P. Orsi Further Reflections on ‘Brain Death’...... William White BOOK REVIEWS The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism by Edward Feser...... D.Q. McInerny The Logic of Desire: Aquinas on Emotion by Nicholas E. Lombardo, O.P...... D.Q. McInerny Treatise on Human Nature, Summa Theologiae I, Questions 75-102 by St. , translated by Alfred J. Freddoso...... D.Q. McInerny Medieval Essays by Etienne Gilson, translated by James Colbert...... Jude P. Dougherty Lectures on the of World History: Volume I: Manuscripts and Lectures 1822-3, by G.F. W. Hegel, ed. and translated by Robert F. Brown and Peter C. Hodgson...... Jude P. Dougherty Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Philosophy, ed. James Hankins...... Jude P. Dougherty Michael Polanyi and His Generation: Origins of the Social Construction of Science by Mary Jo Nye...... Jude P. Dougherty The Relevance of a Neglected Volume: Maritain on The Church of Christ...... Jude P. Dougherty The Constitution of Liberty: The Definitive Edition by F. A. Hayek...... Jude P. Dougherty ISSN 1084-3035 Christ and the Catholic Priesthood: Ecclesial Hierarchy and the Pattern of the Trinity by Matthew Levering...... John Gavin, S.J. Fellowship of Catholic Scholars The Appalling Strangeness of the Mercy of God: P.O. Box 495 The Story of Ruth Pakaluk, ed. by Michael Pakaluk...... John Gavin, S.J. Notre Dame, IN 46556 My Correct Views on Everything by Leszek Kolakowski, (574) 631-5825 ed. by Zbigniew Jankowski...... Kevin Walker catholicscholars.org Toward the Gleam by T. M. Doran...... Stephen Mirarchi J. Brian Benestad, Editor [email protected] BOOKS RECEIVED APPLYING FOR MEMBERSHIP OFFICERS AND DIRECTORS NOTICE EX CATHEDRA Fr. James Schall’s New Book, The Modern Age...... J. Brian Benestad FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 1 The President’s Letter Reasonable Rules

by Joseph W. Koterski, S.J. Fellowship of President, Fellowship of Catholic Scholars Catholic Scholars Jesuit friend of mind was recently given an Scholarship Inspired by the Holy Spirit, assignment to the Silicon Valley. A well-published in Service to the Church scientist himself, he was sent to do a kind of missionary work among the “techies.” Their Abiggest problem with organized religion, he quickly realized, Contents was resentment at rules that made no sense to them. The president’s letter...... 2 The problem was not the existence of rules. Rules, after all, are precisely their livelihood. What they do all day long homily Advent Sermon, Cathedral of Trier ...... 5 in writing computer programs is to operate according to various rules and to generate new rules as needed. Their ARTICLES The Study of Rhetoric ...... 7 frustration with religion arose from a sense that the rules Chesterton and the Pickpocket ...... 12 were arbitrary. Computer programs involve long strings of Cameron: The Liberal Society and Its Defense ...... 22 rules. But the techies can see how these rules make sense. The Loss of Maritain’s America ...... 23 The rules they work by might well be algorithms whose Anarchists Among Use ...... 25 complexity and obscurity will long befuddle the rest of us. Prenatal Adoption ...... 26 But rules that make their computers do what they want “Natural and Necessary”...... 31 them to do are, in their eyes, just fine. Maintaining Equilibrium at Like Paul in Greece, or Patrick in Ireland, or Boniface The Catholic Law School...... 35 in Germany, or Xavier in India, my friend spent his time in Further Reflections on ‘Brain Death’ ...... 39 Silicon Valley as a missionary. The missionary needs to know BOOK REVIEWS the lay of the land. To preach the saving truths of Christ ef- The Last Superstition ...... 42 The Logic of Desire ...... 44 fectively, one has to learn how to navigate the local terrain Treatise on Human Nature, Summa Theologiae I ...... 47 and how to avoid certain obstacles that can risk obscuring Medieval Essays ...... 49 people’s access to understanding the truths of the faith. Lectures on the Philosophy of World History ...... 50 What my friend learned to do was to be ready to Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Philosophy...... 51 explain why the Church holds what she does and why she Michael Polanyi and His Generation ...... 52 teaches what she teaches. Most of the Faith, of course, does The Relevance of a Neglected Volume...... 53 not consist in rules, but in his case rules were generally The Constitution of Liberty ...... 54 the problem. So, in those cases where something with the Christ and the Catholic Priesthood:...... 55 character of a rule was at issue, whether a moral norm or a The Appalling Strangeness of the Mercy of God ...... 57 My Correct Views on Everything ...... 58 disciplinary practice, he found that the best thing he could Toward the Gleam ...... 61 do was to explain why “the rule” was “the rule.” Without needing to explain all of , or to be at all defensive BOOKS RECEIVED ...... 62 about a given rule, let alone embarrassed about it, what he APPLYING FOR MEMBERSHIP ...... 62 would do, with grace and good humor, and with knowledge OFFICERS AND DIRECTORS ...... 63 of the faith, would be to explain how some rule that was in question actually made some sense. NOTICE...... 64 To his delighted surprise, resentment generally fell away. EX CATHEDRA ...... 65 For computer nerds (“like himself”), it proved quite enough to show that what they had perceived as an “arbitrary rule” Reminder: Membership dues will be was somehow reasonable. Doing simple things like this for mailed out the first of the year and are them made the Church as a whole seem reasonable. Would based on a calendar (not academic) year. that it were always quite this easy!

2 FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 But there is a lesson here, and especially a lesson 3. Catholics are free in accordance with Catholic moral for Catholic scholars. Knowing the Faith, and knowing teaching to make health care decisions forgoing the why the Church holds what it does, and finding good use of extraordinary means that prolong a life in a clear ways to explain things may be just what it takes to terminal illness. help someone with difficulties about the Faith. It will 4. Suffering is a mystery. The role of medicine is to re- be helpful in defending the positions of the Church by lieve the suffering of the sick by diligent research and showing them to be reasonable rather than arbitrary— compassionate treatment. Suffering that cannot be and thereby opening a space for God’s grace to work alleviated can become redemptive when united with the rest. the suffering love of Christ. 5. Persons are obligated to take reasonable care of their • • • own health by preserving and nurturing it with ap- propriate and ordinary (proportionate) means. But, In the past six months I’ve been asked to speak on vari- no one is obligated to use extraordinary (dispropor- ous end-of-life topics, including the use of brain death tionate) measures to prolong life in this world; that is, as a criterion for determining the permissibility of or- measures offering no reasonable hope of benefit or gan transplantation. The above lesson played a crucial measures involving excessive hardship. role in thinking out my strategy. One part of the goal, 6. Nutrition and hydration should always be provided of course, when speaking on these topics, is to address when they are capable of sustaining human life, as a preliminary matter: defending the very right of the long as this is of sufficient benefit to outweigh the Church to form the conscience of people. In as rational- burdens to the patient.1 ist an age as our own, the notion that the Church has a 7. Because this life has inherent dignity, regardless of its duty—and therefore a right—to form consciences cuts visible “quality,” it calls out to us for the normal care deeply against the grain. Because of a sometimes unspo- owed to all helpless patients. In principle, food and ken assumption that what the Church teaches is a set fluids (even if medically assisted, as in tube feeding), of arbitrary rules, the objections made to the Church’s are part of that normal care. Such feeding, [ John teaching authority is one of the greatest obstacles to Paul II] said, is “a natural means of preserving life, not be overcome in many areas of discussion. It is certainly a medical act.” This means, among other things, that prominent in end-of-life discussions. the key question here is simply whether food and flu- As in the situations faced by my Jesuit friend in Sili- ids effectively provide nourishment and preserve life, con Valley, I found that the objections to the Church’s not whether they can reverse the patient’s illness. Even right to teach on controversial matters like these were in incurable patients have a right to basic care.2 part laid to rest by being ready to show forth the rea- soning that the Church can offer. That is, people really On the specific question of the legitimacy of using do recognize in their heart of hearts that an organiza- brain death as a criterion for determining the death tion like the Church does have a duty and thus a right of the person, there are additional complexities. At the to instruct her members. But when no reasons are pro- heart of the issue, in my view, is the history of the ef- vided in explanation, it is all too easy to raise the objec- forts to re-define death in such terms as “irreversible tion that the Church has no right to impose arbitrary cessation of total brain-function” as a replacement for rules on her members. traditional definitions of death using cardio-pulmonary Admittedly, there are many aspects to the complex criteria that rendered the desired organs less useful, or questions that occur in regard to end-of-life issues. even altogether useless, for transplantation. This new When I have the opportunity to lay out a set of prin- definition was constructed in 1968 in response to a ciples, I generally work at developing the following desire to obtain new sources of usable organs for pur- points: poses of transplantation, following the news about heart transplants in 1967.3 1. All human life is sacred, from the first moment of Happily, there is an ever increasing scholarly litera- conception to the time of natural death. ture available to help make the case about the moral 2. All human beings, regardless of physical or mental impropriety of using the brain-death criteria that have abilities, share an equal human dignity meriting both become so prevalent today.4 In addition to becoming respect and protection. familiar with the technical aspects of the medical and

FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 3 The President’s Letter scientific questions, there are matters of basic ethics doctrine, as when St. Paul reminds us that our bodies and of fundamental moral theology that one needs are temples of the Holy Spirit and that we are not our to bring into the discussion. It will be important, for own (1 Cor. 6:19). While making this point does not instance, to show that in making a proper analysis of by itself win the argument about the moral impropri- the morality of an action, using the guidance provided ety of using brain death criteria as a rationalization for by the , a benevolent intention does removing unpaired vital organs from a person who is not make acceptable an intrinsically immoral activity still living, it begins to show why it is reasonable for the like killing an innocent person who is already dying, Church to be concerned in the matter. Doing so can however much “good” doing so might come of it on a clear up certain roadblocks to discussion, for it helps to utilitarian calculus. show that the Church has a reasonable interest here. But in my experience, one of the points that often We do well to remember: our lives are not our own. goes unmentioned in the discussion proved to have far We belong to God. ✠ importance than I would have initially thought to as- sign it. To win a hearing for the effort to show that the Church’s right to teach in these matters is reasonable Endnotes and not an arbitrary imposition of its authority, it has 1 Introduction and numbers 1-6 excerpted directly from “Appointing a proven crucial now in several venues to make sure that Health Care Agent in Massachusetts: A Catholic Guide from the Mas- I address a question of a profoundly anthropological sachusetts Catholic Conference” (1999). See, macatholic.org/sites/ sort: do any of us own our bodies? macatholic.org/files/assets/MCC%20Proxy%20FINAL%20AP- It may see odd to ask the question in this way, I ad- PROVED%201.18.2012.pdf. 2 Excerpted directly from “Human Dignity in the ‘Vegetative’ State” by mit. But I would urge that it is crucial to ask the ques- Richard M. Doerflinger. © 2004, United States Conference of Catholic tion in this manner in order to uncover an assumption Bishops, Washington, D.C. All rights reserved. See old.usccb.org/pro- that makes it hard for many people even to hear the rest life/programs/rlp/04doerflinger.shtml 3 It included in the recommendations for new diagnostic criteria for of the discussion. Do we own our own bodies? Are they determining death that were devised in 1968 by the Ad Hoc Committee to our property, that we may do with what we like? Or Study the Problems of the Hopelessly Unconscious Patient at Harvard Medi- are these bodies, and our very lives, something given to cal School. Their report was published in Journal of the American Medical Association as “A Definition of Irreversible Coma,” 337-40. us as a trust? Something to be used and cherished and 4 E.g., Paul A. Byrne, Sean O’Reilly, and Paul M. Quay, S.J., “Brain Death: honored as part that trust, but ultimately not something An Opposing Viewpoint,” Journal of the American Medical Association 242 that we may dispose of at will? (1979): 1985-90; Roberto de Mattei, ed., Paul A. Byrne M.D., update ed., Interestingly, Plato shows Socrates already alert Finis Vitae: Is ‘Brain Death’ True Death? [conference papers from the con- ference “The Signs of Death” at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, held to this theme in the Phaedo, for it is at the basis of his in Vatican City, 2005] (Oregon City OH: Life Guardian Foundation, 2009 argument against suicide. Bringing out that point has [2006]); Scott Henderson, Death and Donation: Rethinking Brain Death as a Means for Procuring Transplantable Organs. Eugene OR: Pickwick Publica- disarmed more than one critic ready to chafe at the far tions, 2011; Steven J. Jensen, ed. The Ethics of Organ Transplantation. (Wash- more telling claim that the Church makes by teaching ington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2011); D. Alan that it is God who gives us life by creating a rational Shewmon, “The ‘Critical Organ’ for the Organism as a Whole: Lessons from the Lowly Spinal Cord” in Brain Death and Disorders of Consciousness, soul for each of us at the moment of our conception. ed. Calixto Machado and D. Alan Shewmon (New York: Kluwer, 2004, In fact, the Scriptures make numerous references to the pp. 23-41).pp. 23-41). •

4 FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 Homily “Stir Up Thy Might and Come”

Advent sermon in the Cathedral of Trier, preached by Cardinal not simply saying to God: “Wake up,” as if we would Joseph Ratzinger on December 4, 2003, based on the following assume that he is sleeping. We say: “Stir up thy might.” texts of Scripture: Is. 26:1-6; Ps. 118 and Mt. 7:11-27 Therefore, the question is: What is that really, this might of God that seems to be asleep and must be awakened? ear brothers in the episcopal, priestly and St. Paul gives us the answer in 1 Corinthians when diaconal ministry! Dear sisters and brothers he says: Christ, the crucified One who is foolishness in the Lord! and weakness to men, is the wisdom and the power “Stir up thy might, O Lord, and come.” of God. Therefore, when we ask for this real power of DIn this way the Church prays today in her Collect with God, then we are not asking for more money for the the summons that she has taken from Psalm 80: “Stir up Church, for more buildings, for more structures, for thy might!” more political influence. We are asking for this special, This was the cry of Israel in exile, in an hour in very different power of God. We are praying with the which God seemed to have withdrawn from history conviction that he comes in the way of a power that to and his promises were apparently no longer valid, an the world seems to be weakness and foolishness. hour in which God seemed to be sleeping and Israel So it was—if we briefly wander through history was left alone: “Stir up thy might and come, show us again—already in Israel that, even in defeat and appar- also that you are here today.” ently extinguished as a political entity, for the first time This was the cry of the disciples on the Sea of faith in the one God obtained its pure form and for the Galilee in the boat that was tossed here and there as first time the tremendous vision of salvation was awak- the water poured in, while the Lord was sleeping in the ened, that actually the song of praise of the living God same boat: “Wake up, O Lord, and help us!” came out of the fiery oven of affliction. And so it was This was the advent cry of the Church in the time again in the old Church that, in the midst of external of the persecution in which the whole might of the weakness, God’s might was the witness of the power of Roman Empire stood against the small flock of the the faith given by the martyrs, the witness of love for faithful who were handed over and crushed by the one another and for all the weak and oppressed, the political authority and the military might: “Stir up thy witness that came out of the heart of the Church; this is might and come!” the way in which he comes with his might, with cruci- And throughout all history the little boat of the fied might—and so it is throughout history. Church travels in stormy waters and is in danger of He does not come with military divisions, but he sinking, at least that is how it seems. Again—in the comes with a wounded heart that apparently has noth- times of the migration of peoples—she could only ing more to say and that then manifests itself as the true, cry out: “Stir up thy might and come,” but then even wholly other might, the might of God. But if we now in the period when the Church was a political force, see how God has awakened his might in the suffering she was even more in danger of losing her way and and believing men in Israel, in the martyrs and in the had to cry out more insistently: “Stir up thy might great witnesses of love and truth in the old Church, and and come!” And today, when the faith silently trickles again in and in Dominic and through- away, when the Church seems to be a concern of the out the centuries, then this cry affects us physically, then past and without a future, when God seems to have it concerns us personally, for then it becomes visible abandoned her, we must cry out with new urgency: that God has conferred his holy might on us abundant- “Stir up thy might and come, O Lord! It is about time. ly through the holy sacraments of Baptism, of Confir- Come, and do not be a God of the past, but a coming mation and through his word and that this might sleeps God who opens up the future and leads us into the in us. So this prayer concerns us: Lord, wake us up from coming centuries.” our sleepiness in which we are not able to pay attention “Stir up thy might and come!” But if we take a to you, in which we conceal and prevent the arrival of closer look at this prayer, it must occur to us: We are your holy might which is here for us.

FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 5 Homily

Christianity is not a moral system according to fourth cup of wine—the psalm that Jesus sang with his which we would like to roll up our sleeves and change disciples before he went to the Mount of Olives and to the world. We see how wrong that is in those move- suffer; it was his way to open up the gates of the world. ments that have promised us a better world. But just as “Open the gates of this city so he can enter in and God constructed the world and man, so also Christian- so we can meet him.” At the same time in these verses ity is not stamped by an exclusive effectiveness of God is indicated what liturgy is. Liturgy is opening the gates in which we would be only observers and would have of this world so that God can enter in, so that believing to wait; but he includes us; he desires to be effective men can enter in and can meet God. Both movements in us and through us—through us to give value in the belong together: the breaking open of the people, the world to his holy and new might, the might of truth breaking open of men, the procession of history in or- and love. And so in this prayer we ask him for ourselves der to meet the Lord in his own city—and the coming and allow ourselves to be touched in the heart: Your of the Lord who meets us; and thus there is the meet- might is in us, stir it up and help us that we may not be ing in the mystery of the Eucharist in which we are on an obstacle to it, but witnesses and living power. the move to follow him and in which he comes to us Now let us take a quick look at the Reading, the and gives himself to us so that we can go farther with Responsorial Psalm and the Gospel for today. The him and can open wide the gates of the world for his Reading begins with a word full of confidence: “We entrance and for our going to him. have a strong city; he sets up salvation as walls and bul- In conclusion, let us return one again to the warks”. It is the same thing that the Lord says when Church’s prayer: “Stir up thy might and come.” In the he sends us the words: “The power of the Evil One, second part of this prayer we are told more exactly the power of death will never overwhelm you—my what kind of “coming” we are asking for. In Ger- Church, my living house, my holy city”. And it is the man, the text says: “Send help that thy salvation, that same thing he says to us also today in the Gospel: The we resist, may come more quickly.”1 The Latin text is house that is built on my word is built on rock and the still more discreet and does not at all say exactly what storms and floods of this world will not be able to wash should come; it leaves it up to God and says only “quod it away. The Advent Liturgy gives us this holy confi- nostra peccata praepediunt”.2 We say to him: Let that dence in the midst of all confusions, in the midst of all come which you will to come and in what and how affliction, in the midst of all human wretchedness and you will to come. We leave up to God the way of his sin that is found in the Church—she remains his house. coming—that is what is right for us. She stands on rock and we can be confidently certain: The Church’s prayer does not ask simply for the This house will not be destroyed. The Church will pass Parousia, for the final coming of Christ. That would be through these storms too and prove herself once again a prayer, it seems to me, that would be too lofty for all to be God’s living city in the world. of us, that we would not really dare to utter seriously. But then there is the next sentence that, according No, we simply ask God to come in such a way that is to our usual reckoning, seems to be a contradiction of right for us and we leave it up to him how this com- the first one. For next it is stated: The Church, the house ing should be. Thus it becomes clear in this prayer that of God, the city of God has strong walls, ramparts and there are many ways of God’s coming in history, not towers and is unconquerable. And then follows imme- just the first arrival in Bethlehem, not just the second diately as the next sentence: “Open the gates that the arrival at the end of the world. righteous nation that keeps faith may enter in”. The St. explained very explicitly feasts, the trustworthy Church, the house of God is in- what before him had already been thought out more deed an open house and an open city—open so that the or less clearly. Between the first and the last, definitive Lord can enter in and so that we can meet the Lord. advent of Christ, so he says, there is a “medius adven- Closely related to this verse from the book of the tus”, a “middle advent of God”. He comes continually, prophets is then today’s Responsorial Psalm 118 which he comes into souls, but he also comes into history in is an Entrance Psalm and speaks again about enter- new ways. He entered into it in a new way in the 12th ing into the holy city. It was the psalm for the Feast of century through Francis and the new movement of Tabernacles, for the solemn entrance to the light festi- the Orders of Mendicant Friars who wanted to bring val of God. But it was also the psalm that belonged to the Church again close to the Lord, to be a simple and the Paschal Liturgy and as a psalm was prayed after the humble people. He entered into it in a new way in the

6 FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 Articles

great mystics of the 16th century. He entered into it in a may open the gates to you, that we may go with you new way in the midst of the enlightened world of the when you enter. Amen. ✠ 19th century by the great movements of the religious orders which were now concentrating on social ques- Endnotes tions and education. We ask him: “Come today, Lord, 1 Hilf, dass dein Heil schneller kommt, das wir aufhalten. come to each one of us, and also come thus: visibly, 2 “That which our sins hinder”. historically, in a new way, as this time requires and in a way suitable to it. Yes, Lord, come and help us—that we Translated by Kenneth Baker, S.J. July 2010. The Study of Rhetoric as a Stepping Stone to Wisdom

by Anne Carson Daly its are crucial to the flourishing of the human person, Vice President for Academic Affairs and to success in business and education, to the health of a Dean of the Faculty, Belmont Abbey College democracy, and to spreading the Gospel. Finally, I will touch on how rhetoric’s relationship to wisdom was n the face of it, rhetoric and wisdom radically transformed when Christ was identified in the might seem to be polar opposites. After Gospel of John as the Logos or Word Incarnate. all, is not wisdom the pearl of great price, Before embarking on this ambitious agenda, let the gift God gave King , and the me define the terms “rhetoric” and “wisdom.” For the Otreasure the Queen of Sheba came from the ends of the purposes of this talk, rhetoric is simply the study of earth to find? On the other hand, isn’t rhetoric widely how to communicate effectively—whether in speech recognized as the refuge of scoundrels, and the preserve or writing. For our purposes, “wisdom” means living of shady politicians, opportunistic used-car salesmen, in full recognition of reality and responding to it with and unscrupulous marketers? Don’t we dismiss much agape—or altruistic love. I derive this definition from of what we hear as “mere rhetoric”? And by “mere the exchange between Christ and the young man in rhetoric,” don’t we mean drivel, lies, and even malicious the tenth chapter of Luke, when the young man asks attempts to defraud and mislead? Christ, “Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Since wisdom is greatly to be revered, and rheto- Jesus replies, “What is written in the Law? What do you ric—as commonly understood—is to be both execrated read there?” The man answers, “You must love the Lord and avoided, how can anyone suggest that the study of your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, rhetoric can be a stepping stone to wisdom? In making with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your such a suggestion I am not attempting to perpetrate a neighbor as yourself.” “You have answered right,” Jesus fraud. In fact, at Belmont Abbey College, we have actu- says, “Do this and you will have life” (Luke 10:25-28). ally replaced Composition and Argumentative Prose with What could be wiser than the kind of behavior that Rhetoric, Logic, Grammar, and Writing I and II. Yes, that’s leads to the fullness of eternal life? right. We’ve gone back to the Trivium—to Rhetoric, Why is the study of rhetoric more likely to lead Logic, and Grammar—the three subjects that any medi- to wisdom than that of composition? Well, to begin eval student getting a B. A. was required to study. with, composition is usually taught as Rhetoric Lite—a In my talk this afternoon, I’d like to do four things. dumbed-down version of its more illustrious ancestor. First, share with you why the study of rhetoric is more Composition is less comprehensive because it deals only likely to lead students to wisdom than that of composi- with writing rather than with both writing and speak- tion. Second, explain why the habits of heart, mind, and ing. Whereas classical rhetoric focused on five elements: soul that rhetoric can inculcate are conducive to the invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery, cultivation of wisdom. Third, elucidate why such hab- composition typically focuses only on invention and

FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 7 Articles arrangement, usually neglecting style and totally ignor- or pick up their pens without first thinking of their ing memory and delivery. A further limitation is that audience or readers, they are already on their way to college composition classes typically try to teach stu- greater wisdom. Why? Because being less self-absorbed dents how to write only academic essays. This means and more focused on others helps one to get a clearer that style gets short shrift and other genres are frequent- grasp of reality, and to grow in emotional intelligence— ly not even mentioned. To make matters worse, students the sine qua non of wisdom. are often taught to write academic essays in a very In a particularly felicitous spiritual calculus, students limiting format—often featuring an introductory para- of rhetoric learn that their own success as speakers and graph, three paragraphs developing the argument, and a writers is directly proportional to how well they un- concluding paragraph that attempts to deliver a verbal derstand—physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiri- knock-out punch that will vanquish all doubt in the tually—those to whom they are speaking or writing. beleaguered reader’s mind. Although the five-paragraph Whereas in composition, students can succeed by mere- template can serve as useful training wheels, unfortu- ly expressing themselves, in rhetoric, they can succeed nately, many student-writers never cast them aside so only by taking others into account. In composition, that they can graduate to verbal all-terrain vehicles. self-expression is often the aim, whereas in rhetoric it Some of you may be thinking that you’d be grate- is always communication with others. This is intellectu- ful if only students would master this form, and I can ally and spiritually where rhetoric beats the daylights certainly sympathize with those sentiments. But I am out of composition. In composition classes, writers can convinced that if we teach students how to write only pen a creditable essay about Hamlet, hockey, or Hun- academic essays, we are shortchanging them in ways gary without consulting anything other than their own that may stunt their ability to think and write, as well as thoughts—without ever leaving “the wonderful world their capacity to understand others, to empathize with of me.” Too often composition classes concentrate on them, and to develop emotional intelligence—essential what students think or feel rather than on analyzing a qualities for those who would be wise. Not teaching subject dispassionately. This can encourage students to students to speak and write in other genres also puts think themselves the measure of all things—resulting them at a distinct disadvantage in what is euphemisti- in writing that is reflexively self-referential, and enclos- cally referred to as “the real world.” ing students in the fun house of narcissism—where After leaving school, students will rarely commu- everything they write or say is a solipsistic reflection of nicate via academic essays. The young man penning a themselves. thank-you note to his prospective in-laws will do him- Happily, rhetoric offers a way out of this narcissistic self no good by writing in academic prose. The young fun-house and an escape from such solipsism. Properly lady applying for a in the business world would be taught, rhetoric provides a passport out of “the wonder- ill advised to wrap herself in the stiff mantle of scholas- ful world of me” and into the infinitely greater universe tic diction. The young person asked to give the eulogy of others and of objective reality. Whereas composition at a grandparent’s funeral or the toast at a friend’s wed- often closes one in on oneself, rhetoric immediately ding will need to know more than how to cite sources demands that its practitioner enter into an “I-Thou” re- according to the MLA. Whether speaking to fellow lationship. Hence, the practice of rhetoric requires both members of a home owner’s association, addressing the greater intellectual breadth and emotional imagination PTA, giving a political speech, writing a sales report, than does that of composition. composing an employee newsletter, or drafting talking Happily, the “golden triangle” of rhetoric—consist- points for the boss, our students will need training in ing of the speaker or writer, the speech or text, and the something other than how to write academic essays, audience or reader—turns out to be an important stop and that something is rhetoric. on the way to the Golden Rule. After all, isn’t it hard to Studying rhetoric will teach them how to com- do unto others as you would have them do unto you municate effectively—a skill they will need every day if you aren’t even aware they exist, can’t imagine how of their lives. Properly taught, rhetoric will teach them they think or feel, and haven’t been taught to care? Part that communicating effectively depends always and of the genius of rhetoric is that it helps its practitioners everywhere on thinking not only of themselves but also relate to others and care about them, and the penalty of those to whom they are speaking or writing. Once for not doing so is abject rhetorical failure. This fact students learn that they should not open their mouths has terrifically important ramifications not only for

8 FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 our students’ intellectual development but also for their I can see you’re out of aces, emotional growth—in other words, for their habits of For a taste of your whiskey I’ll give you some advice. heart, mind, and soul. The study of rhetoric stretches students both intel- Like the gambler, successful rhetoricians quickly lectually and emotionally by teaching them to analyze learn to analyze context and determine the appropriate their audience, to imagine how its members think and genre. Context dictates genre, and each genre carries feel, and to empathize with them. Since rhetoric is a with it certain expectations—what rhetoricians call practical as well as theoretical art, students learn that decorum. Decorum requires not only saying or writing they cannot simply speak or write in their own comfort what is appropriate for the audience and occasion, but zone, compose in their preferred style, and cite argu- also for the genre one is using. A graduation speech, for ments that they personally find reasonable, emotionally example, is no time for a dirge. A funeral oration should satisfying, and ethical. On the contrary, they must speak not be delivered in a limerick—even for a drink- or write in a manner that resonates with the reasoning, ing buddy. It would be incongruous to include risqué the emotions, and the spiritual principles of their audi- double entendres in a sermon. Virtually everyone knows tors or readers. that Valley-Girl speak has no place in a business report. Aristotle—who defines rhetoric as the ability “in It’s true that the person asking for a raise might want each particular case, to see the available means of per- to start with a panegyric—either about himself or his suasion”—points out, rhetoricians must choose the boss—but everyone knows that he would be ill advised means of persuasion that will convince their audience. to begin with an apostrophe to the gods or an address He identifies these three means as appeals to logos or to the muses. reason; pathos or emotions, and ethos or morals. Ex- In some cases, selecting the wrong genre and vio- ecuting appeals to the audience’s reason, emotions, or lating decorum can land one in jail or even endanger morals further deepens and intensifies students’ ability one’s life. Think, for example, what might happen to a to understand and identify with others—intellectually, modern-day Oscar Wilde who, in a post-9/11 world, emotionally, and spiritually. announced to custom officers, “I have nothing to de- Students get a further tutorial in these abilities clare but my genius!” What of a woman who sent a love when they make decisions concerning context, deco- letter to the IRS along with her tax return? And what rum, genre, style, tone, voice, and mood. In rhetoric, as would happen to the poetry-loving bank teller who in life, it is almost impossible to overestimate the im- responded to a stick-up note with “O my Luve’s like portance of context or occasion—kairos—in classical a red, red rose/That’s newly sprung in June”? And yes, rhetoric. For example, in poker, four aces is usually a that is a rhetorical question because we all know the winning hand. But as the saying, “A Smith and Wesson answer! beats four aces,” reminds us, there can be a meta-con- No matter where our students go or what they do, text that we ignore at our peril. In Don Schlitz’s song, they will benefit from being astute analysts of context, “The Gambler,” memorably sung by Kenny Rogers, the competent selectors of genre, and assiduous practitio- old card-sharping codger emphasizes the importance of ners of decorum. They will also profit—intellectually, being able to read and respond to context appropriately. emotionally, and spiritually—from the other kinds of As you remember, he says, “You got to know when to distinctions that rhetoric requires them to make. Will hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk the student of rhetoric use the low, the middle, or the away and know when to run.” Significantly, the gam- grand style? Which tropes and figures of speech will the bler not only gives the younger man advice on reading speaker or writer employ? Will he employ parallelism? context, but models it himself. The gambler successfully Will she use antithesis? Will he or she employ hyper- “reads” his interlocutor by persuading the younger man bole or understatement? Will simile come to the fore, to give him a drink in exchange for some advice. “Son,” or will chiasmus—à la “Ask not what you can do to the gambler says: rhetoric but what rhetoric can do to you”? Style grows out of the choices the rhetorician …I’ve made my life out of readin’ peoples’ faces, makes concerning tone, voice, and mood. Will the tone And knowin’ what their cards were by the way be elegant, imperious, dictatorial, aggressive, cavalier, they held their eyes, seductive, respectful, sincere, or genial? Will the voice So, if you don’t mind my sayin’, of the speaker be passive or active? Grammatically,

FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 9 Articles which of the three moods—indicative, subjunctive, or apostles in Matthew, 28:19, when He tells them, “Go ye imperative—will dominate? Imagine, for example, how therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the unsettling it would be if MapQuest were to give direc- name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy tions in the subjunctive: “If you were to go to Boston, Ghost,” if they cannot connect—logically, emotion- pray that you be on the right road.” If instructions were ally, and morally—with those to whom they speak and given exclusively in the subjunctive, they literally could write. St. Paul endorses this approach when he says in never say, “Turn right” or “Take a left.” Students of rhet- Romans 12:15, “Rejoice with those who rejoice and oric learn that the choices they make concerning tone, be sad with those in sorrow.” One of St. Paul’s most voice, and grammatical mood determine whether the outstanding examples of connecting with his audi- speech or text seems melancholic, phlegmatic, choleric, ence rhetorically—based on what they already thought sanguine, pathetic, flighty, flippant, energetic, dynamic, and believed—is his speech to the Athenians in the stolid, serious, elegant, or truthful. Aeropagus when he says, “Men of Athens, I have seen Making decisions about context, genre, decorum, for myself how extremely scrupulous you are in all style, voice, tone, and mood, as well as about the meth- religious matters, because I noticed, as I strolled round od of appeal, the student of rhetoric learns to examine admiring your sacred monuments, that you had an altar and to discriminate among myriad possibilities. Ideally, inscribed: To An Unknown God. Well, the God, whom these powers of discrimination eventually yield a dis- I proclaim is in fact the one whom you already wor- cerning mind and spirit that give its possessor an en- ship without knowing it” (Acts 17:23). hanced ability to think, feel, and express him- or herself And now, in my closing remarks, I would like to in diverse ways. This understanding promotes the ability touch on how rhetoric’s relationship to wisdom was to read people and situations, as well as to have empa- radically transformed when Christ was identified in the thy and compassion for them. Cultivating these facul- Gospel of John (1:14) as the Logos or Incarnate Word. ties gives students of rhetoric a passport to other times, As you know, the study of rhetoric is much more often places, and cultures, and bestows on them one of life’s linked to corruption than to wisdom. Many notable greatest gifts—the possibility of relating to others by thinkers have catalogued the ways in which each ele- imaginatively transcending themselves and their own ment of the golden triangle is subject to rust—whether personal circumstances. through the malign agency of an unscrupulous speaker, Cultivating these habits of heart, mind, and soul a fundamentally immoral speech, or a flawed audience. is conducive to wisdom because they help one to see The coming of Christ did not automatically make all reality as it is, to judge various contexts accurately, to speakers angels, all speeches gospel, and all audiences react to them appropriately, and to analyze and respond members of the heavenly host. However, Christ’s iden- to one’s audience with empathy and compassion. This, tity as the Incarnate Word does offer a solution to some in turn, makes it more likely that students will be able, of these moral problems. at least on some occasions, to be self-forgetful and to Christ provides such a remedy by being—per- be open to the possibility of self-sacrifice. Being able fectly—in a sense—each of the elements of the golden to communicate with others effectively, imaginatively, triangle. As the incarnation of the Father’s promise to empathetically, and compassionately is also crucial to send a Savior to mankind, Christ is Himself the Father’s success in business and education. One of the first max- speech or gospel—literally “good news” to man. Since, ims in business is “Know your customer.” Likewise, in as Jesus tells us, He and the Father are one (John 10:30), teaching, one of the first requirements is to “Know your Christ is also Himself the speaker of that word. Since, students.” Masters of rhetoric automatically tailor their in Christian thought, man is made in God’s image and communications to their audience—obviously a distinct likeness, Christ is also, in some manner, present in the advantage in both business and education. Rhetori- souls of his audience members. In addition, Christ as the cal training is also critical to the health of a democracy Incarnate Word provides the “cure” for the other two since a democracy depends on discerning citizens’ be- great scandals that have beset rhetoric from the begin- ing able to convince others to vote for good candidates ning. The first has to do with the corrupt speaker who and policies. either deliberately or inadvertently, through his lack of If rhetoric is important to democracy, it is abso- knowledge and virtue, corrupts his audience. The sec- lutely crucial to evangelism. Clearly, Christians can- ond has to do with the “space”—between the word and not fulfill the “Great Commission” Christ gives the what it represents and the word’s inability either to be

10 FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 what it names or to effect what it symbolizes. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, As the Incarnate Word, Christ offers an antidote and the Word was God. to both situations. He is the absolute antithesis of the He was in the beginning with God. speaker who leads his listeners astray or manipulates All things were made through Him; them for his own good. Infinitely more than “the good and without Him was made nothing that has been made. man” Aristotle, Quintilian, and Cicero found to be the In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. most compelling speaker, Christ can neither deceive And the light shone in the darkness nor be deceived. Moreover, Christ’s discourses epito- and the darkness grasped it not. mize what Socrates in the Phaedrus identifies as the There was a man, one sent from God, whose name was John. highest form of rhetoric—that in which the speaker This man came as a witness to bear witness to the light leads souls for their own benefit. Christ’s identity as the so that all might believe through him. Incarnate Word also enables Him to heal the ordinary He was not himself the light, breech between the word and what it represents and but was to bear witness to the light. to remedy the fact that words do not ordinarily cause This was the true light that enlightens every man what they mean to happen. In fact, when they do, we who comes into this world. call it magic! He was in the world and the world was made by Him, As the Incarnate Word, Christ incarnates what He but the world knew Him not. symbolizes. Just as a pilot pilots or a writer writes, the He came unto His own and His own received Him not. Incarnate Word incarnates. In Jesus’ ministry to the But to as many as received Him, He gave the power of sick, when He says to the paralytic, “Get up and walk” becoming sons of God, to those who believe in His name; (Matthew 9:5), the man gets up and walks. When Jesus Who are born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, says to the demons, “Come out of him,” they come out nor of the will of man, but of God. (Luke 4:35). When Jesus tells the centurion that his ser- And the Word was made Flesh and dwelt among us: vant will be healed, the centurion subsequently learns and we saw His glory, the glory of the only begotten that it was at that very moment his servant was healed of the Father, full of grace and full of truth. (Matthew 8:13). Christ’s identity as the very incarna- tion of the healing Word is made even clearer in the According to this passage, the wise are those who case of the woman with a hemorrhage. Just by touching become sons of God, who believe in Christ’s name. the hem of Jesus’ garment with faith, she is physically healed (Mathew 9:20-22). Likewise, in the sacraments, But since Christ is the Incarnate Word, believing in His Christ’s words continue to have this incarnational ef- name requires also incarnating His word and imitating fect. When the minister or priest baptizes a believer His deeds (John 14:15). The goal of all Christ’s words is saying, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of to lead His followers to wisdom and, through that wis- the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” those words—Christ’s dom, to eternal life. As Jesus explicitly says in John 6:63, words—not only symbolically release the baptized per- “The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life.” son from Original Sin, but actually, through the power Christ makes very clear that those who seek the of God’s Incarnate Word, effect what they signify. wisdom that leads to eternal life must become students, God’s word demonstrates this same incarnational lovers, and practitioners of the Word. There are many power in Genesis when He literally speaks creation into paths to achieve that end, but one of the finest is the existence. As Genesis 1:3 records, when God says, “Let study of rhetoric—which properly approached—should there be light,” “there was light.” Later, Christ reveals always involve the study of the Incarnate Word. As himself as the embodiment of Light itself when he says, Thomas Aquinas reminds us in his commentary on the “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12), and of Truth Gospel of John, after the coming of Christ, all words itself when He says, “I am the way, the truth, and the are, in a sense, connected to and potentially transformed life” (John 14:6). As true man and true God, Christ is by His identity as the Word Incarnate. It is in this sense perfection itself, hence Wisdom Incarnate. that the study of all words can serve as a stepping stone The verses of John 1:1-14, in which Christ is re- to wisdom. What could be a more fitting prelude to vealed as the Logos, the Word made Flesh, illuminate becoming one who incarnates the Word with a capital the path that we must follow if we are to become “sons “W”—an alter Christus—than wisely studying the word of God” and to embody divine wisdom ourselves: with a small “w”? ✠

FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 11 Articles Chesterton and the Pickpocket: A Fresh Look at

A paper delivered at the Australian Chesterton Society the instrument of the state, for he saw this as part of the Conference, Faith in the Marketplace: organized injustice of his society. If people were unjust G. K. Chesterton’s Social Catholicism Revisited and cruel when they had the advantage of economic Campion College Australia, 10 September 2011 power, as they did under capitalism, how much more unjust and cruel could they be under socialism, when by Karl Schmude they had the additional advantage conferred by political and legal power? In his pithy way, Chesterton said that, n 1927, G.K. Chesterton was especially active in under both systems, the ordinary person is not minding the promotion of distributism. In that year he pub- his own business—he is minding someone else’s! lished his principal book on the subject, The Out- In his debate on distributism with Shaw in 1927, line of Sanity, and engaged in a major public debate which took place in with Hilaire Belloc in the Iwith George Bernard Shaw entitled Do We Agree?. Chair, Chesterton argued that property ownership was In The Outline of Sanity, Chesterton acknowledged the basis of economic and social freedom. This perspec- that distributism was an “awkward but accurate name” tive was strongly articulated by Pope Leo XIII in Rerum for “a policy of small distributed property.”1 He in- Novarum in 1891, the Church’s first social encyclical of voked the image of the pickpocket as a way of captur- the modern era. By contrast, Bernard Shaw argued that ing the truth about present-day economic only state ownership would bring about the widespread and practices. He pointed out that the pickpocket “is distribution of wealth. Chesterton pinpointed a crucial obviously a champion of private enterprise.” But he difference. Shaw, he said, proposed to distribute wealth. admitted that it would perhaps be an exaggeration to But distributists, said Chesterton, proposed to distrib- think of the pickpocket as “a champion of private prop- ute power.3 Unlike the socialists, Chesterton did not erty”! Thus he highlighted what he believed was the patronize the poor by advocating the distribution of essential focus of the capitalist system, which is on mak- money among them. He advocated the distribution of ing money rather than making goods—what he called power—power in the form of property, as wide as pos- “the extension of business rather than the preservation sible a spread of ownership, with the laws designed to of belongings.” In doing this, said Chesterton, capitalism check any growth toward monopolization. Thus, private disguises the pickpocket with some of the virtues of ownership, as Andrew Greeley once put succinctly, is the pirate—in particular, the enterprise of taking other the means by which the poor can be helped without people’s goods and creating a monopoly of control on making them dependent.4 the high seas. Chesterton and Belloc and others promoted dis- By contrast, the aim of socialism—what Chesterton tributism tirelessly in the first decades of the last cen- specifically referred to in The Outline of Sanity as Com- tury—and yet today it would seem to have become munism—is to solve the problems of private enterprise almost entirely forgotten. Chesterton’s influence in by abolishing private property. “It only reforms the other areas has continued to be felt—for example, his pickpocket,” he wrote, “by forbidding pockets.”2 religious apologetics (books like Orthodoxy and The Ev- In essence, Chesterton saw capitalism and social- erlasting Man have endured and are often reprinted), and ism—the Big Business of capitalism and the Big Gov- also his literary criticism (perhaps especially The Victo- ernment of socialism—as highly similar. Both involved rian Age in Literature and his biography of Charles Dick- the concentration of wealth and power—its lying in the ens, still hailed as one of the best books ever written on hands of the few, whether they were capitalists or bu- Dickens). However, his has fallen reaucrats. Chesterton was a lifelong Liberal, in the nine- into an abyss of neglect. Yet this was an area of writing teenth-century sense of the term, and he harboured a and public advocacy to which he gave substantial atten- deep distrust of the state and of bureaucracy which was tion—and a great deal of his financial resources as well.

12 FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 Many have lamented this about Chesterton, believing organizations that Chesterton (and Belloc) predicted a that it absorbed too much of his time and creative en- century ago. In his 1912 book, The Servile State, a work ergy and distracted him from other, more lasting works. which George Orwell judged as prophetic,6 Belloc Chesterton himself did not share that view. He felt that argued that the growth of capitalism went hand-in- his writing on distributism was of supreme impor- hand with the growth of government—in fact, one was tance, and I think it can be argued that time may prove a natural transition to the other, and they were mutually him right. Distributism has assumed new and pressing interdependent. Chesterton, for his part, in The Outline importance in the early years of the twenty-first cen- of Sanity (1927), made a powerfully prophetic remark, tury, as we struggle with global financial and political I think—as if he could foresee, eighty years later (in woes, notably in Europe and the United States but also 2008), following the bankruptcy of the investment bank in Australia (though ours is somewhat disguised, and Lehman Brothers, that many financial institutions—not distorted, by a boom in one area of our economy, the to mention other huge companies such as the big car resources sector, and a sluggishness in other areas). makers—would only avert collapse by government In the words of one modern writer, John Médaille, bailouts or guarantees. In 1927, Chesterton described this is “the distributist moment.” 5 Why is this “the dis- the paradox in these words: tributist moment”? What has happened in recent de- Apparently Big Business must be accepted because it is cades to make distributism more sharply relevant than invulnerable, and spared because it is vulnerable.7 before? As John Médaille has noted more than eighty years In brief, the past twenty years or so have brought later, we have a cult of bigness in both the political and two critical developments in the economic and politi- the commercial realms. Big Business is apparently “too cal order. The first was the collapse of Communism big to fail.” Or is it that it is “too big to succeed”—that in Europe, so that socialism as a political ideology and is, without public bailouts?8 totalitarian system is no longer, in large measure, cred- I would like to suggest that the transformed cir- ible. More recently, the so-called Arab Spring, the wide- cumstances of our time are prompting a fresh look at spread protests against centralized, dictatorial regimes distributism—and raise new opportunities for its ap- now sweeping across the Arab world, is a sign of the plication. Let me look briefly at its philosophical and continuing demise of state-controlled systems. Even political roots. I will do this through the personal intel- where a totalitarian regime remains entrenched, as in lectual history of Chesterton, for I think this will help China, the economic and to some extent social system us to understand more fully the nature of distributism, has been liberalized in the direction of a market-based and assess more clearly how relevant it is to today’s eco- culture. nomic and social conditions. Yet at the same time—and this is the second major A key background factor in Chesterton’s convic- development in recent years—capitalism as a system of tion about widespread ownership was his historical so-called free enterprise has faltered, if not failed. The sense. As the American writer Russell Sparkes has Global Financial Crisis (GFC) in 2008 triggered a col- pointed out, Chesterton had a vital interest in the lapse in the housing and stock markets, and provoked English past—especially its political, social, and eco- governments in America and Europe to bail out, or nomic history.9 He felt acutely for the ordinary people underwrite, giant financial institutions and other private of England (the “secret people,” as he said in a famous companies. The burden of debt in various countries poem of that name, who “have not spoken yet”), and he has now reached unimaginable levels, and there is a resented deeply the dispossession which they suffered mounting tide of concern that countries such as Greece from the time of the sixteenth-century Reformation. or Italy or Portugal—and most recently, of course, the There was a different historical experience in other United States—are about to default on even the interest countries in which Chesterton’s ideas attracted popular payments due on their massive loans. attention, such as Australia and America, where private Possibly the most striking development is a deeply property—particularly home ownership—received ironic one—that of Big Government bailing out Big greater social recognition and financial support. In both Business: of one form of concentrated power and countries, we can observe a living alliance between what wealth supporting and salvaging another, as though Andrew Greeley called the “high” and the “low” tradi- they were in collusion rather than competition. This is tions of social Catholicism—that is, between the theo- reminiscent of the “conspiracy” of apparently dissimilar retical tradition of papal encyclicals which was explored

FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 13 Articles

at length by social philosophers such as Jacques Marit- was the cultural climate of Edwardian England. The ain, and the practical experience and example of Cath- Edwardian age was quite short (extending from Queen olic social leaders, such as trade unionists, in families Victoria’s death in 1901 to the First World War), but it and neighborhoods shaped by the social ethic of their coincided with Chesterton’s rise to public prominence religious faith. They may not have read Rerum Novarum, as a writer and Chesterton himself became a leading but they lived it—in their communities. The “high” figure in the popular debates of the time. The cultural tradition of social principle expressed and validated the climate of the Edwardian Age was marked by an ex- “low” tradition, reflecting the bond between a spiritual traordinary intellectual energy, a vigorous contest of and intellectual vision and its organic expression at the ideas. It is important to emphasise that this contest of grassroots.10 ideas, the debates of this time, were popular. They were An important part of Chesterton’s intellectual his- not confined to academic circles or a cloistered intel- tory is the extent to which his social philosophy was lectual elite. John Coates, in his impressive study of this influenced by both literary and political writers—by the era, Chesterton and the Edwardian Cultural Crisis (1984), vein of social commentary in Charles Dickens, almost all suggests that we would have to go back to the pamphlet of whose great characters were found among the poor; wars of the 1640s in England to find “a comparable and by the campaigns for the poor of England by the engagement of the popular mind in disputes about rival nineteenth-century journalist William Cobbett, who views of life, images of society or possible futures.”13 was really an early distributist. Chesterton wrote appre- The Edwardian era was a time of mass-circulation jour- ciative biographies of both these figures. In their differ- nalism—in London’s Fleet Street and elsewhere—when ent ways, Dickens and Cobbett were his political heroes. life-changing ideas were being popularized among a In addition to these intellectual models, Chesterton vast public of eager and inquisitive readers. Chesterton was also inspired by a practical example of distributism; himself wrote at first for a newspaper, the Daily News, namely, that of Ireland where a land reform program whose readers did not share most of his views. The took place, peacefully and successfully, as a result of the paper was Nonconformist Protestant in general reli- Wyndham Act of 1903—this Act being put through gious outlook, and it favored certain attitudes like tem- by the Conservative Minister George Wyndham, who perance and appeasement toward Imperial Germany, became a great friend of Belloc’s. which Chesterton was far from endorsing. As Cecil A final factor in the formulation of a distributist Chesterton, G. K.’s journalist-brother, noted: philosophy, which Russell Sparkes reminds us of, is the Thousands of peaceful semi-Tolstoian Nonconformists have inspiration which Chesterton and Belloc, as Catholic for six years been compelled to listen every Saturday morning laymen, received from the formidable figure of Cardinal to a fiery apostle preaching …War, Drink and Catholicism.14 Manning. Manning’s influence was both personal and intellectual. He combined a sturdy doctrinal orthodoxy But in writing for such a disparate audience, Ches- and fidelity to the Church with a bold social radicalism. terton saw that it had unrecognized needs which he He was instrumental in the Catholic conversion of Bel- could address effectively by his distinctive style of play- loc’s mother, Elizabeth, and his thinking on social issues ful paradoxes and sharp-edged aphorisms.15 The Daily decisively shaped Belloc’s thinking—and through Bel- News, in fact, proved a crucial testing ground for Ches- loc, Chesterton. Chesterton kept a portrait of Manning terton’s lifetime of intellectual controversy, including his in his home study at Beaconsfield.11 great struggles in the cause of distributism. Manning was closely linked with Pope Leo XIII The Edwardian Age was also a period of substantial and played a key part in the preparation of Rerum social reform, when the foundations of the modern Novarum (1891). He was, as a present-day Chesterton welfare state were being laid. How did all this affect scholar, Dermot Quinn, has put it, a friend of the Pope Chesterton—and contribute to his advocacy of dis- and a friend of the poor.12 His funeral through the tributism? I think that it provided him with two great streets of London was the largest in Victorian England, challenges. One was what he saw as a new embodiment testifying to the great love which the poor of London of social dependency and servitude—the welfare state, had for a Catholic Cardinal, especially after his settling against which he reacted. The other was the atmosphere of the London Dock Strike of 1889. of cultural upheaval and crisis which helped to enliven There was another factor of significance in shap- and sharpen his own ideas, and also to shape his style ing Chesterton’s social and political thought, and that of rhetoric. Chesterton was, in John Coates’s argument,

14 FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 “above all an author of cultural crisis”16—and his analy- in direct allowances of one kind or another, but in in- sis of this crisis was both original and penetrating. direct costs, especially the salaries of an expanding army Margaret Canovan argues, in her study of Chester- of experts—counsellors, special needs teachers, medical ton as a “radical populist,” that he conceived of human and legal functionaries—who are enlisted as substitutes need in an intensely personal way. He did not fall into for the family. The precarious condition of the present- abstractions like “humanity,” or harbor feelings of elitist day family, I think, is a basic issue—a huge challenge, in superiority which tended to characterize his contem- fact—in contemplating the feasibility of distributism in poraries like Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells. He op- our society. posed the new welfare state legislation, which involved There is a final dimension of the debates of this various compulsory measures affecting education, period which I would like to highlight—and that is the health, and insurance, because he thought it was pater- remarkably good-humored nature of them, particularly nalistic and repressive. It was an affront to the liberty of on Chesterton’s part. Hilaire Belloc, in one of his po- the poor, who were being treated by a new system of ems, wrote: “There’s nothing worth the wear of win- organized compassion as though they were a problem ning, but laughter and the love of friends”; and this was demanding a solution, a social problem, rather than a an encouraging feature of the intellectual exchanges of society of people in need—in need of freedom and the Edwardian era. When we think of how polarized independence, just as the rich enjoyed. The reformers, and embittered debates now tend to be, how easily ar- as Canovan succinctly puts it, added the insult of regi- guing descends to quarrelling, it is heartening to engage mentation to the injury of exploitation.17 Thus, Ches- in a contest of ideas about supremely important matters terton found himself—and I think this continues to be without its being engulfed by rancor. a relevant issue for all of us, 100 years later—opposed The atmosphere of cultural crisis during the Ed- to both the oppressors and the reformers: that is, on the wardian era appealed to Chesterton’s debating skill and one hand, the entrenched upper class rich, who toler- power of repartee, as well as his ready wit. For example, ated a society in which one-third of the population was in the “great debate” in 1927, which was attended by perpetually on the verge of starvation; and on the other a huge crowd with many people having to be turned hand, the humanitarian idealists, whether they were away, Shaw tried to show the audience that the legal Liberals (who introduced the welfare state) or Socialists right attached to private property was limited, and he (who believed the solution was to abolish private prop- demonstrated this by referring to the umbrella he had erty rather than distribute it). with him. This umbrella, he admitted, he had borrowed Over the years, especially since World War II, we that evening from his wife. Shaw said, in a jocular way, have become used to the pervasiveness of the welfare that he was goaded by some of Chesterton’s speech, state in the form in which it has now developed; but and that he was tempted to get up and smite him over a reaction has set in. There is the testimony of social the head with his umbrella. When Chesterton rose thinkers such as the Aboriginal leader Noel Pearson, to his feet, he responded that Shaw had fallen into a who has consistently lamented the damaging grip of simple fallacy. The reason he refrained from hitting him dependency which the welfare state has imposed on over the head, Chesterton said, was not because Shaw Australia’s indigenous people.18 And most recently, of did not own his umbrella but because he did not own course, we have witnessed the mob riots in the U.K. Chesterton’s head!19 These have been dubbed, with rather bitter humor, “the While the lively intellectual climate of Edward- first bludger uprising”; enacted, not by the poor and ian England played a key part in the cut and thrust of those in extreme material need, but by the welfare-de- debate and the presentation of ideas, there was some- pendent and the unemployed, which represents a savage thing of significance about Chesterton’s own mind that verdict on a society that, often with the best of inten- gave his philosophy of distributism a special quality tions, has produced a culture of powerlessness—and also and rhetorical edge—and that was the highly integrated purposelessness. nature of his thought. Chesterton’s social and political At a deeper level, the cause of the U.K. riots—and philosophy formed an integral part of his total philoso- they are but a dramatic instance of a broader social and phy, his overall view of life. His economic philosophy spiritual malaise—is the fragmentation of the family. was intrinsically related to his political philosophy, and This process of disintegration continues apace, and it his social thinking was an essential part of his spiritual imposes a growing burden on the welfare state, not only outlook.

FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 15 Articles

The integration of Chesterton’s thought is reflected There is almost a Eucharistic hint as Chesterton writes: most plainly, and revealingly, in the titles of his books of “In the most exalted phrase, we need a real presence.”23 applied philosophy. His definitive statement of sociol- In a later chapter of The Outline of Sanity, he speaks ogy is called What’s Wrong with the World, and his key of the recovery of a balanced social order being depen- book on distributism carries the title of The Outline of dent on a spiritual vision, which will give new meaning Sanity. Thus they are not simply about his social and to the old phrase, “the sacredness of private property.”24 political thought, but rather about the extent to which Thus Chesterton’s social vision had spiritual roots. human nature is itself integrated, and conditions in the He saw a deep connection between the institution of economy are linked to the condition of the society and property and the Incarnation of Christ. He believed of the soul. As Dermot Quinn, has pointed out, Ches- that, in creating man, the greatest gift which God had terton’s social philosophy is not distinct from his wider given him was freedom—and property, he thought, was sacramental vision. He did not have a separate category “the essential insignia of freedom.”25 of thought marked “economics” or “social science.” He In his linking of social reform with a moral im- had a reverence for the material universe and could pulse, Chesterton is reflecting the tradition of the social see ordinary things as carrying the sacramental qual- encyclicals of the past century and more—beginning ity of a divine gift—the world of matter being blessed with Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum in 1891, and extend- and uplifted by a divine incarnation—by what Christ ing right through to Benedict’s first encyclical in 2009, had done to elevate and redeem his human creation. In Caritas in Veritate (“Charity in Truth”). The social en- Chesterton, we are always conscious of the moral, not cyclicals are not just social. They take full account of the just the material, economy he is addressing. spiritual as well as the material nature of human beings and place the Church’s social teaching at the service of Distributism [writes Dermot Quinn] chimed with the rest human dignity. For example, Benedict’s Caritas in Veri- of Chesterton’s thought…. The point and pith of Chesterto- tate affirms, in the introduction, that “charity is at the nian economics is integration. Ask a Distributist the purpose heart of the Church’s social doctrine.” The social encyc- of work. He will reply with unconscious wisdom that it is to licals need to be linked with the total corpus of papal keep body and soul together. Chesterton explored that in- teaching. There is a long-standing integration in Catho- sight, made it a motto.20 lic thought, which reveals the communitarian vision of the , the ideal of an integrated human community, In The Outline of Sanity, he argued that real social so sharply at odds with the secularist notion of self- reform—by which he meant the recovery of a dis- interested autonomy. This integrated vision emphasises tributist or ownership society—would have a moral the key principles of Catholic sociology—namely, the effect, not just a social one. It would bring about a more crucial importance of, firstly, human solidarity in society normal society, giving rise to conditions more in harmo- and, secondly, of subsidiarity; that is, the principle of ny with human nature, and therefore more conducive power being exercised, and of services being provided, to human goodness and happiness.21 at the lowest practical level—beginning with the fam- Chesterton thought that social reform would not ily, and only extending to larger and higher social units only have a moral effect, but that it could only spring when necessary. from moral motives. There must be, he argued, “a moral The Catholic vision combines economic think- movement,” and it must be inspired by “the spirit of a ing with spiritual and social understanding—and what religion.”22 One of the chapters of The Outline of Sanity God has joined in the human person should not be is called “The Religion of Small Property,” in which he put asunder. A salient example, highly relevant to the connects the land with spiritual life, urging a respect for development of Campion College Australia, in fact, is the “soil” as well as for the “soul.” He even advocates a the public witness of the Chairman of the Board of “reverence” for the soil, not in any pantheistic way, but Trustees, Joe de Bruyn. Joe is a well-known trade union as holding an association with “holy things”—“carrying leader who devotes the bulk of his time to improving holy things with us and taking them home with us.” the conditions of ordinary working people, but he is an There is here a powerful sense of consecrated matter—of industrial leader who has publicly opposed proposals for the ramifications of the Incarnation of Christ; that God’s same-sex marriage and, at an earlier time, IVF facilities assumption of human nature had a profound and per- for lesbians. These have not been an irrelevant inser- vasive impact throughout the world of created things. tion of moral views into the industrial arena, but rather

16 FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 a recognition of how deeply connected economic and from ever greater concentrations of property ownership social welfare are—that the economic condition of a soci- to a spreading of such ownership to ever larger num- ety finally rests on a solid family-based social foundation. bers of people. The gain would be twofold. The psycho- Again, the recent mob riots in the U.K., arising from logical benefit would be a return to a scale of life that destroyed family life, have graphically demonstrated this the individual could see and comprehend; the social gain under-appreciated truth. would be a rebalancing of powers among numerous Thus, when we examine Chesterton’s social people. Chesterton always emphasised the psychologi- thought, we find a mirror of papal teaching, both in the cal basis of distributism—that it was a “human” system, content of Chesterton’s and the Church’s philosophy, while other economic programs were dehumanised and and in the fact that his social thought can be found “abstract.” 27 in any and all of his writings, not just in those works Having explored the intellectual and psychologi- expressly devoted to social and political themes. This cal roots of Chesterton’s social thought, that is, the is reflected, if I might emphasise it again, in the titles origins of distributism, I would now like to return to of Chesterton’s main books on distributism—What’s the issue of how applicable it is to our own time and Wrong with the World (1910) and The Outline of Sanity consider what it has to say of value to us living in the (1927). These are not specialist-sounding titles but ones early part of the twenty-first century. To do this, I will of general philosophy which have a social application. focus on two authors who have written extensively on (Incidentally, this is what, in my experience, makes distributism in the context of our present-day history so difficult the tracing of a Chesterton quotation. He and society. One is the American author John Médaille, could have said what he said virtually anywhere—and whom I’ve already mentioned, the other is an English so often did!) writer Phillip Blond. There is one final observation I would like to offer John Médaille is the editor-in-chief of an Ameri- about Chesterton’s espousal of distributism—and that can journal, the Distributist Review. He is a businessman is, the psychological motives and memories from which it and an academic at the University of Dallas. His recent flowed. From his earliest childhood, Chesterton cher- book, Toward a Truly Free Market (2010), is something of ished a love of smallness. From his earliest years, he was, a primer on distributist philosophy. It offers a practical as he relates in his Autobiography, much more attracted perspective on present-day economies, particularly the by the microscope than the telescope. He wanted to United States, providing suggestions on such areas as understand reality in all its teeming tangibility, all the taxation, employment, and health care. life he could touch and feel, rather than as part of a Médaille’s principal achievement, I think, is to pres- contrived intimacy. He wanted to study it through the ent the economic case for distributism, as distinct from microscope rather than the telescope. Thus his psycho- the moral case. He does not question the importance logical experience of family life in his youth prepared of a moral underpinning for a just social order—in fact, him intellectually in adult life for his political imagining he wants economics to be seen again as a humane sci- of distributism. ence, which is embedded in human institutions and In the face of what Chesterton saw, nearly a cen- concerned with human dignity and social justice, not tury ago, as the trend toward totalitarian conformity, he a physical science uninfluenced by human intentions proposed the solution of small and elementary units as and needs or devoid of social meaning and impact. But the basis of human freedom and happiness. As Margaret he believes that the moral principles have already been Canovan pointed out, Chesterton wanted to cut down elucidated. What is now needed is a presentation of dis- political units to a size compatible with democracy.26 tributism in economic terms. Is it economically feasible— His later philosophy was grounded in childhood and beneficial? experiences and insights. And this psychological prepa- For example, an important chapter in Médaille’s ration enabled him to recognize that capitalism and book is his distributist proposals on health care. Health socialism were not only damaging in a social sense, but care is an extremely vexatious area, especially in Amer- that they were psychological failures as well. As Law- ica, but Médaille believes that distributism can provide rence Clipper has noted, they failed psychologically be- some useful answers to practical problems. The U.S.A. cause “the human mind cannot comprehend, criticize, spends vast amounts on health care—proportionally or love human organizations on such a vast scale.” The more than any other country—and yet a significant trend of the times, he believed, should be reversed— percentage of the American people (nearly 50 million)

FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 17 Articles lack medical insurance and, by the usual measures (life The real crisis in Britain [Blond says] is the destruction of expectancy, infant mortality, preventable diseases, etc.), human relationships, [which is] the foundation of society… the U.S.A. falls behind most other developed countries. [The] poorer you are, the lonelier you are, the more costs you There is not time here to go into the details of Médai- incur for the state, because human sociability is linked with lle’s proposals, but they are focused on the underlying wealth, health and all sorts of indicators from mental illness causes of dissatisfaction with the health care system—in to obesity.30 particular, the need to curb the monopolistic nature of Thus, Blond believes that economics needs to be medical patents and the monopolistic power of pro- reunited with ethics—as it once was. He reminds us fessional treatment—especially where this is unduly, that Smith, the eighteenth-century author of The Médaille believes, reserved for doctors when it could Wealth of Nations and often regarded as the father of be spread across a range of health professionals as a new modern economics, was a professor of moral philosophy. approach to “first-line care.”28 While Blond draws on these earlier insights about To turn now to Phillip Blond. He is an English the importance of private ownership and the interde- philosopher and theologian who is increasingly recog- pendence of the economy and society, I think he has nized as an international social and political thinker. He developed this tradition of social thought in impor- is quite young—in his 40s. After studying politics and tant new ways. Moreover, he has achieved a distinctive philosophy he did his doctorate at Cambridge where rhetoric, a defining language, for expressing this tradi- he met , the founder of the theologi- tion to a new generation. He generally avoids the term cal school known as (an Anglo- “distributism,” for example, sharing Chesterton’s view Catholic movement which is highly critical of modern that it is “awkward” and inelegant. He uses the term secularism), who became a friend and mentor of Blond. “ownership” rather than “property,” as denoting more In a short time, he has attracted enormous public fully the condition which forms the basis of economic attention as a distinctive intellectual, starting with a and social freedom. series of articles in the British press and culminating in In developing this tradition of social thought, a book called (2010). “Red Tory” is “Red” in Blond reveals sharp insight into the connections be- the sense of wanting economic justice, especially for tween the market and the state, and the ways in which the poor, and it is “To r y” in its belief in “virtue, tradi- they tend to conspire, now on a global scale, to pervert tion, and the priority of the good.”29 Red Toryism is, the functioning of a truly free market. Blond believes in Blond’s understanding, a revival of an old and radical that the emblems of today’s “free market” are monopoly tradition of political and social conservatism applied to finance, big business, and a deregulated system of global the twenty-first century. It combines social and eco- capitalism. The benefits have mainly accrued to the top, nomic strands—the social vision of a communal and co- the middle class has experienced a rise in income but operative culture with a political economy of widespread it is offset by huge debt, and the poor have sunk lower. ownership of property. “This type of free market,” says Blond, “has effectively Blond has won particular favour with Cam- stripped the poor of capital, converted them into a new eron, who before his ascension to Prime Minister in the serfdom and gradually increased the number of that U.K. launched the think tank which Blond founded in class by debt and low wages.” 31 2009, ResPublica. Blond is a key intellectual architect of Blond has, of course, as we also have, the great ad- Cameron’s reform movement known as “”— vantage of experiencing fully what Chesterton could which, despite its name, favors small ownership and local only foresee—the unfolding of economic trends with action as the means of reinvigorating civic society. huge social and even spiritual consequences. He has Blond strikes at least two important connections been able to see, in the hundred years since Chesterton with the Chestertonian heritage of social thought. began writing, the impending collapse of two states— One is the fundamental insight that true freedom and the old welfare state (born in the time of Chesterton) responsibility rest decisively on broadly based owner- and the new market state (which developed after Ches- ship—on a breaking up of concentrated wealth and terton died, and is an extraordinary alliance of political power, in the economy and in the state. The second is and financial power). Both of these states are proving that the economy is intrinsically connected with society, unsustainable. The welfare state cannot survive in its and that it is impossible to separate economic decline present form because the demographic decline of the and social breakdown. West means that the recipients of the welfare state are

18 FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 growing at a faster rate than the taxpayers who support intention. He recalls ’s famous statement them. The market state can only continue, weighed on the importance of the little platoons of family and down as it is by massive and growing debt, by being civic association, which are, Burke said, “the first princi- bailed out by governments. Private debt becomes pub- ple of public affections.”34 So Blond sees the need for a lic debt, with taxpayers’ money propping up failed pri- self-organizing citizenry—networks of self-help which vate enterprises of concentrated wealth—what Blond can transform a community. (In Australia, we think of calls “a massive public underwriting of private risk.”32 the manifestations of this after the Brisbane floods last The private risk, of course, was finally not accepted by January, when huge numbers of volunteers emerged to those who lost money, as they did not hesitate to seek help communities clean up their houses and streets.) government handouts—and thereby become dependent Blond sees emerging, as a successor to the welfare state on the state. Thus, in both cases, the welfare state and and the market state, a new social entity, which he calls the market state, the essentially monopolistic condition the “civic state.” Such a state challenges the passive de- of the economy has not changed. pendency of state welfarism, on the one hand, and the Blond recognizes the fundamental affinities be- entrenched imbalances in access to capital, on the other tween Big Business and Big Government which hand, which have characterised the neo-liberal market Chesterton and Belloc perceived, but he has seen new philosophy. He believes that the civic state will begin manifestations of their essential likeness. He believes to rebuild a spirit of social cohesion and an approach to that the ruling ideological orthodoxies of recent de- decision-making which takes account of social as well cades, whether based on government control or mar- as economic factors. ket license, have failed. Both the Right and the Left, Blond proposes specific solutions, mainly aimed as traditionally defined, have run out of steam. These at freeing the poor from welfare dependence through conventional divides—of the Right and the Left—are the generation of asset independence—of ownership of increasingly obsolete and irrelevant. The subtitle of property. He recommends recapitalizing the poor, and Blond’s book, in fact, is “How the Left and Right Have helping ordinary people gain new assets; relocalizing Broken Britain and How We Can Fix It”; and the the banking system, and breaking up big business mo- motto of his think tank, ResPublica, is “Changing the nopolies and developing local capital so as to open the Terms of Debate,” a clear indication of the radical na- pathways to asset ownership. All of these initiatives are ture of its purpose. The Right is essentially pro-market designed to foster a spirit of local participation, lead- and the Left tends to oppose everything except the ing to new and vibrant local communities and creating state. In practice, as Chesterton argued, they both ul- what Blond calls “a myriad of reciprocal and mutual timately fail because they share a common flaw—the duties and responsibilities.”35 The ultimate purpose is to market-driven Right and the statist Left have both con- create multiple centres of wealth, innovation, and own- spired in concentrating wealth.33 They have both caused ership. ordinary people to be disempowered and disenfran- How is the breaking up of large entities, whether chised. The social effect of this succession of mistakes— public or private, to take place in practice? The chal- of an unrestrained market, on the one hand, and an un- lenges are unmistakable—in particular, the extent to limited state, on the other—is profound. Blond believes which the ideal of distributed ownership can be recon- that we have become “a bipolar nation,” which involves ciled with present-day commercial and political reali- the state and the citizenry in a perverse relationship—a ties. On the one hand, the broadening of ownership state that is centralized and bureaucratic, presiding over and the spur to active citizenship at the local level, such a citizenry which is fragmented and disempowered, and as the “Big Society” in Britain is promoting, has to al- increasingly made up of isolated people and groups that low for the economic aspirations of the most ambitious no longer constitute a community. The result is a highly and hard-working, and not act as a brake on entrepre- dysfunctional society. neurship. On the other hand, the political need for large How to combat these conditions which now seem public entities, providing vital services such as electric- so entrenched? As an alternative to this combination of ity, and the community value of large private companies an unrestrained market and an unlimited state, Blond offering economies of scale, such as car manufacturers, proposes what he calls “a new political settlement.” He are clear and difficult to deny. advocates a “conservative radicalism,” a social philoso- Chesterton himself recognised these commercial phy which is largely distributist in its inspiration and and political realities. In The Outline of Sanity, he noted

FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 19 Articles the importance of “a sense of proportion” in any social it, which can envelop large numbers of people. Bel- and economic order, and in his debate with Bernard loc, in The Servile State (1912), argued that the people at Shaw, he accepted the need for balance between indi- large retain what he called “the instinct of ownership,” vidual ownership on a wide scale and public ownership but that our society had now reached a point where its in certain areas of corporate enterprise and service.36 modes of thought and habit were permeated by collec- In contemplating a future in which distributism tivist assumptions and expectations which did not read- could be applied effectively, John Médaille and Phillip ily lend themselves to a distributist solution. The shift Blond focus on the economic and social factors. This from a capitalist to a collectivist arrangement—with the emphasis is entirely appropriate—and making the eco- state taking over private entities—is easily understood. nomic case (as distinct from the moral one), showing But to go from a concentration of property to a broad how distributism could work in a modern economy, has distribution of ownership is, in Belloc’s words, “working probably been underplayed in the 120 years since Rerum against the grain.” Will men want to own?, Belloc asks Novarum appeared. The social factors, too, are obviously dramatically, almost as if it were a question he is afraid crucial, and as Chesterton himself did, and Phillip Blond to answer—though is nonetheless brave enough to is now strengthening, the connections between society ask.38 Ordinary people must desire economic freedom and the economy need to be more clearly and fully laid sufficiently to undertake its burdens. out. However, apart from the economic and social reali- What burdens are those? Essentially, I think, they ties, there is another factor of importance—and that is are the burdens of personal responsibility and risk-tak- the psychological aspects of distributism. How open to ing. For private property implies the acceptance—and such change—the wide distribution of property—is the even the enforcement—of personal responsibility. It is community at large? At first this may seem a ridiculous not necessarily an easy path to happiness, for freedom is rhetorical question. The focus on private property and a fraught condition—and a perpetually endangered gift. on the wide distribution of ownership is plainly appeal- Both Chesterton and Belloc nursed the fear that the ing. Yet, at a deeper level, it may find huge psychological psychology of a society conditioned by capitalism and resistance. Both Chesterton and Belloc addressed this socialism might induce people to yield on liberty—to psychological obstacle in their writings on distributism. trade liberty, as it were, for security and sufficiency. We They felt that a servile attitude had gained hold in the can become so used to passing on responsibility (and minds and hearts of their people, after several centuries especially blame) to others, especially the state, that it of Big Business, with its relentless advertising that pro- could require a radical reawakening of the appetite for motes the conversion of wants into needs, and then the freedom to prepare us to exercise it once again. foreseeable triumph of Big Government, with its perva- Are there signs of hope today as we ponder the sive provision of services and support systems. The force possible future of Chesterton’s—and the Church’s—so- of Big Business had stimulated a culture of high—and cial philosophy? Apart from the practical examples of rising—expectations that would be formidably hard to “distributism in action” which are presented in John dampen, and the emerging culture of Big Government Médaille’s book, it is possible to see, in the changes that would heighten these expectations, creating a culture of have taken place in recent decades, signs of power being entitlement, so that the availability of pensions and pay- redistributed. The signs, of course, are mixed, but let me ments from the state would become an unquestioned briefly mention two—one in the political sphere, the right, expected and guaranteed, and not just a powerful other in the area of technology. aspiration, applied and paid for. In politics, we see in many countries the growing In the early writings of distributists, especially phenomenon of centralized power under challenge, Chesterton and Belloc, there is a lurking fear that many whether in the Western democracies or the nations of people may have become so inured to the experi- the Middle East. The Canadian political scientist Don- ence of security, of the sanctuary of dependence, that ald J. Savrie has argued that the age of the mass party they would resolve the tension between security and has ended and splinter groups of various kinds are aris- liberty by surrendering liberty—and finding a certain ing which enter into temporary alliances in order to satisfaction in being servile. Chesterton, in The Outline exercise power.39 Where party government continues, of Sanity, noted the existence of a “servile disposition,” leadership is becoming more personalized—even to the and he invoked a memorable phrase to describe this point of celebrity-like status in societies saturated by condition—“a catastrophe of contentment,”37 as he put 24-hour news and entertainment media.

20 FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 Yet there are countervailing forces to this breakup intriguing question as to whether or not they represent of traditional power, forces which do not favor arrange- a new and more subtle version of the “servile state.” ments along distributist lines. We can cite the huge This is also a topic for further exploration and dis- influence now exercised by financial markets, so that cussion, but the pervasiveness of social media is clearly power in the traditional political arena is diminishing relevant to future possibilities for distributism as a social and temporary alliances are emerging. There is an in- philosophy. termingling of government and commercial companies So, what is to become of the pickpocket? Do we in public-private partnerships and other mechanisms— continue to accept him as a private operator in the shared arrangements between two sectors, the public marketplace (the capitalist approach), or do we legiti- and the private, whose values are different and perhaps mize him—and enlist him as an agent of the state (the incompatible, but which have arisen as a result of gov- socialist solution), perhaps working as fresh recruits for ernment sclerosis, of the growing inability of govern- the Tax Office or Social Security? Or do we free all ment and its bureaucratic instruments to deliver public pickpockets from their practical addiction and make services and produce policy results. them distributists, so that they own their own pockets We can note the force of globalization, which is and can start making their own trousers? ✠ transforming the nature of politics—and of political decision-making, now international in its scope rather Karl Schmude is President of the Australian Chesterton Soci- than simply national or local. At times these new con- ety and a frequent speaker and writer on religious and cultural figurations of power and interdependency find expres- subjects. He presented a paper on “Campion and Newman: sion in new structures, such as the European Union and The Peter and Paul of Catholic Higher Education” to the a common currency (the Euro), or they are relatively Fellowship of Catholic Scholars Conference in September unregulated, as in the case of Australia’s relationship 2007. He is a co-founder of Australia’s first Catholic Liberal with China. Arts college, Campion College, in Sydney. A great deal more could be said on this topic, the changing nature of politics and power, but let me turn to the area of technology, especially personal technol- Endnotes ogy and social media, and consider what developments there may be favoring a distributist approach to con- 1 G. K. Chesterton, The Outline of Sanity (Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, temporary society. 1927), 16. In recent decades, we have seen, of course, an ex- 2 Ibid., 9. 3 Do We Agree? A Debate Between G. K.Chesterton and Bernard Shaw with plosion of communications media and a certain break- Hilaire Belloc In the Chair (London: Cecil Palmer, 1927), 26. ing up of concentrated power. From the advent of 4 Andrew M. Greeley, Neighbourhood (New York: Seabury Press, 1977), 42. television more than half a century ago, when only a 5 John C. Médaille, Toward a Truly Free Market: A Distributist Perspective on few networks were dominant, there has grown a mul- the Role of Government, Taxes, Health Care, Deficits, and More (Wilmington, tiplicity of channels through pay television—the phe- Del.: ISI Books, 2010), 253. nomenon of narrowcasting as well as broadcasting. But 6 George Orwell, “Second Thoughts on James Burnham,” in Collected Essays (London: Mercury Books, 1961), 371. the newer media are even more striking—the Internet, 7 Chesterton, The Outline of Sanity, 104. the spread of laptops and iPads, and the use of social 8 Médaille, Toward a Truly Free Market, 157. media like Facebook and Twitter. These personal and 9 distributistreview.com/mag/2010/11/the-distributive-alternative/ social technologies, it seems to me, are double-edged in 10 Andrew M. Greeley, No Bigger Than Necessary: An Alternative to Socialism, relation to a distributist philosophy. On the one hand, Capitalism, and Anarchism (New York: New American Library, 1977), 7-12; “Catholicism in America: Two Hundred Years and Counting: A Personal they are private and personal, giving individuals free- Interpretation,” The Critic 34 (1976): 38-39. dom to access and store what information they wish 11 G. K. Chesterton, Autobiography (London: Hutchinson, 1936), 84. and communicate with whomever they like. But on the 12 Dermot Quinn, “Manning, Chesterton and Social Catholicism,” 18 other hand, they are public instruments, dependent on (1992), 502. vast networks and global vendors (such as Google) and 13 John Coates, Chesterton and the Edwardian Cultural Crisis (Hull, England: extremely vulnerable to commercial manipulation and Hull University Press, 1984), 47. 14 Margaret Canovan, G. K. Chesterton: Radical Populist (New York: Harcourt social mischief. This ambiguity is reflected in the old Brace Jovanovich, 1977), 14. saying that technological devices have the countenance 15 John Coates, “The Fleet Street Context and the Development of of a servant, but the heart of a slave master. It is an Chesterton’s Prose Style,” Prose Studies 6 (1983): 62.

FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 21 Articles

16 Coates, Chesterton and the Edwardian Cultural Crisis, 214. 29 Phillip Blond, Red Tory: How the Left and Right Have Broken Britain and 17 Canovan, G. K. Chesterton: Radical Populist, 46. How We Can Fix It (London: Faber, 2010), 35. 18 Noel Pearson, “Social Policy Begets Social Misery As the Western World 30 Ed West, “We Have Killed History in Our Country,” [interview with Fails the Poor,” The Weekend Australian (July 30-31, 2011), 14. Phillip Blond], Catholic Herald (15 October 2010), 7. 19 Do We Agree?, 33. 31 Ibid., 7. 20 Dermot Quinn, “The Historical Foundations of Modern Distributism,” 32 Phillip Blond, “The Question: What Economic System Would Really The Chesterton Review 21 (1995): 452-53. Benefit Humanity?” (30 January 2009). 21 Chesterton, The Outline of Sanity, 51. 33 Phillip Blond, “The Austerity Drive Must Not Derail the Winning ‘Big 22 Ibid., 256-57. Society’,” The Guardian (3 October 2010). 23 Ibid., 240-41. 34 Phillip Blond, “Rise of the Red Tories,” Prospect (28 February 2009). 24 Ibid., 265. “…I confess I know only one thing that will thus give to 35 Phillip Blond, “Medieval Thinking,” The Guardian (30 September 2008). a new soil the sanctity of something already old and full of mystical 36 Chesterton, The Outline of Sanity, 71, and “Do We Agree?,” 36. affections. And that thing is a shrine—the real presence of a sacramental 37 Chesterton, The Outline of Sanity, 206, 253. religion.” 38 Hilaire Belloc, The Servile State (London: T.N. Foulis, 1912), 108, 111. In 25 Ian Boyd CSB, “The Fiction of Chesterton,” Conference on “Chesterton The Crisis of Our Civilization (1937), 205, Belloc made the point even and the Evangelisation of Culture,” Buenos Aires, (21-24 September more tellingly: “The task [of restoring private property as a general 2005), 2. institution in society is impossible unless there be still left in the mass 26 Canovan, G.K. Chesterton: Radical Populist, 146. of men a sufficient desire for economic independence to urge them 27 Lawrence J. Clipper, G. K. Chesterton (New York: Twayne, 1974), 66; G. K. towards its attainment. You can give political independence by a stroke Chesterton, G.K.C. As M.C.: being a collection of thirty-seven introductions. of the pen; you can declare slaves to be free or give the vote to men Selected and edited by J. P. de Fonseka (1929; Freeport, N.Y.: Books for who have hitherto had no vote; but you cannot give property to men or Libraries Press, 1967), 267. Cf. Chesterton’s comment to Bernard Shaw families as a permanent possession unless they desire economic freedom and other socialists: “You have left certain human needs out of your sufficiently to be willing to undertake its burdens.” See also Ward, Return books; you may leave them out of your republic.” Maisie Ward, Return to to Chesterton, 228, 230. Chesterton (London: Sheed and Ward, 1952), 58. 39 Donald J. Savoie, Power: Where Is It? (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s 28 Médaille, Toward a Truly Free Market, 207-222. University Press, 2011). Cameron: The Liberal Society and Its Defense by Jude P. Dougherty to be clear,” he insists, “Islamist extremism and Islam The Catholic University of America are not the same thing.” Of course any honest student of the Qur’an, the n a speech delivered at the 47th Munich Security Hadiths, the Sunna, and the history of Islamic conquest, Conference early this year, British Prime Minister who knows as well the present treatment of Christians addressed the threat of terrorism within Islamic lands, knows that the distinction is false. in Western Europe. “Europe.” he said, “needs to It is difficult to believe that Cameron could be ignorant Iwake up to what is happening in our own countries. of the many studies that attest to Islamic aggression and We won’t defeat terrorism by the actions we take out- its subjugation of conquered peoples. Should Cameron side our own borders.” be accused of ignorance, duplicity, or mere cowardli- He goes on to discuss the motivation of those ness? Rightly he calls on Europeans to recognize the who commit acts of violence. He recognizes that the domestic threat, yet political considerations prevent him motivation is ideological and identifies it as “Islamic from speaking the whole truth. So it is then: a misin- extremism,” which he is quick to distinguish from terpretation of Islam is the problem, not Islam itself. Islam itself. “Islam,” he says, “is observed peacefully Defined as such, how then to confront the problem? and devoutly by over a billon people.” True enough, Cameron, of course, is living with the result of past im- but then Cameron goes on to tell his listeners that migration policy. In the year ending September 2010, Islam, as a religion, and the political ideology that for example, 586,000 immigrants came to live in Brit- motivates terrorists are two different things. “We need ain, most from Islamic countries. One source estimates

22 FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 that Britain has experienced an increase of 2.8 million freedom of worship, democracy, rule of law, equal rights, Muslims since 2001. regardless of race, sex, or sexuality. This defines us as a Cameron acknowledges that Muslim immigrants society. Immigrants must not only learn the language of find it difficult to identify with British culture. The their new home but become educated in the elements fault is ours, he argues: “Under the doctrine of state of our common culture. “At stake are not just lives, it is multiculturalism, we have encouraged different cultures our way of life.” Here Cameron may have abandoned to live separate lives, apart from each other and the the moral high ground. It is one thing to insist that im- mainstream. We have failed to provide a vision of soci- migrants learn the language of their adopted country, ety to which they feel they belong.” By leaving young another thing to insist that they embrace the common Muslims rootless, bereft of something they can believe culture. The culture which Cameron invites the immi- in, we render them vulnerable to a process of Islamic grant to adopt is largely a liberal, secular, anti-Christian, radicalization. Cameron notes that in some mosques and materialistic culture. preachers of hate build upon this sense of alienation It is by no means certain that European culture can among the youth. “Dynamic leaders promote separatism withstand even a peaceful Islamic threat. Absent Chris- by encouraging Muslims to define themselves solely in tianity what is there to defend? The battle for the soul terms of their religion.” of Europe may have already been decided on the de- What can be done? We must, Cameron continues, mographic plain. Europe’s Muslim population is rising confront and undermine extremist ideology. “We must ten times faster than the rest of society. At present rates, ban preachers of hate from coming to our countries. some predict an Islamic majority by mid-century. We must proscribe organizations that incite terror- Cameron is rightly worried that the culture of ism…. Governments must also be shrewder in deal- what was once called “Christendom” may be lost. ing with those that, while not violent, are certainly, in Obeisant to the liberal left, he can’t defend Europe’s some cases, part of the problem…. Let us give voice to Christian roots; subservient to political correctness, he those followers of Islam in our own countries—the vast cannot identify Islam as a threat. The enemy is identi- unheard of majority—who despise the extremists and fied as Islamic extremism. Some future historian may their world view.” find that terrorism was but a minor threat on the way Cameron then recommends the building of to Islamic dominance at the polls. The fragility of de- “stronger societies and identities at home” through the mocracy in Britain is ever more evident with each pass- promulgation of liberal values, i.e., freedom of speech, ing census. ✠

The Loss of Maritain’s America

Jude P. Dougherty in North America when World War II broke out, and The Catholic University of America he remained in the United States throughout the war. His Reflections may be read as a love letter to America, s Prime Minister Nicholas Sarkozy grapples as an expression of gratitude to his host country and to with the issue of French identity, one is the people he came to appreciate. Sadly, the America drawn to the work of another Frenchman, described by Maritain in his 1958 assessment no longer Jacques Maritain, who attempted to take exists. Some may say that, given Maritain’s romantic ac- Athe measure, not of France but of American society count, it never existed.1 in a similarly troubled time. In his 1958 work, Reflec- Maritain characterizes the American spirit as “one tions on America, Maritain, in the spirit of Tocqueville, grounded in a sense of community, not in a set of ab- attempted to capture the American temperament as stract slogans or lofty ideals.” He viewed the country distinct from that of his native France, indeed, as distinct as “a swarming multiplicity of particular communities, from that of Europe as a whole. Maritain was lecturing self-organized groups, associations, unions, sodalities,

FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 23 What are the Doctrinal Impediments to the Reunion of the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches?

Articles

vocational and religious brotherhoods in which men public has instantiated an anti-Christian, socialist regime join forces with one another at the elementary level at the federal level. A number of states now prevent the of their everyday concerns and interests.”2 In that light display of the Ten Commandments in classrooms and he could praise Martin Luther King for his Southern in the halls of the judiciary. Saul Alinsky’s community leadership and Saul Alinsky as a community organizer. initiative, perhaps never fully understood by Maritain, With the principle of subsidiarity in mind, he saw in has been used to achieve ends Maritain never envisaged. the “organic multiplicity” of these self-generated inde- Martin Luther King’s laudable movement inspired Lyn- pendent communities not only efficiency but a check don Johnson’s affirmative action legislation with disas- on the power of the federal state. trous effects that are now frequently acknowledged. The Maritain found America to be a classless society in American character which Maritain lauded has been spite of an obvious disparity of income between rich subverted by a flawed immigration policy and by the and poor. The common man, in his experience, was intellectual elite’s embrace of what we know as “multi- neither servile nor arrogant. Maritain praised the ability culturalism” and “globalization.” The public influence of of the country to integrate newcomers into the larger Christianity has been muted. The once strong Catholic society, immigrants who entered the country by virtue institutions of higher education are barely distinguish- of their own free choice. Recognizing that the country able from their state-supported counterparts. Religion was comprised of men of different spiritual lineages, he has become so identified with almsgiving that Sunday nevertheless spoke of the United States as a religious worship seems at times merely a backdrop for yet an- commonwealth. He was appreciative of the insight of other charitable appeal. Will Herberg, a Jewish sociologist who was writing at The picture would indeed be bleak were it not for the time.3 Herberg is remembered for his dictum, “To the leadership of Benedict XVI, who in multiple ad- be an American is to be religious, and to be religious dresses has called attention to the time-transcendent is to be religious in one of three ways, as a Protestant, teaching of the Church and to her intellectual and Catholic or Jew.” Maritain, himself, singled out the Jews moral role in the shaping of Western culture. His is for playing an essential and indispensable role in the a call for an intellectual revival that recognizes the dynamic ferment of American life. Church’s past role and its continuing necessity as a Maritain acknowledged a growing trend toward unifying element.5 Indeed, it is the Church which has secularism but hoped for an intelligent cooperation carried the intellectual mainstream through the ages, between church and state. He feared a “temporalized against which the bogus canons of the contemporary religious inspiration” that could over time become academy are to be measured. From a historical per- institutionalized in the civic structures themselves, so spective, the moral and social teaching associated with much so that it would lose its essential supernatural Christianity not only provided the unifying principle of character. With his friend, Barbara Ward, he believed Western nations in their founding but also, to the ex- that a recovery of faith in God is a necessary condition tent observed, guaranteed family stability, the backbone of Western freedom.4 “There is,” he wrote, “a possibility of any nation. ✠ that in the course of centuries, America may become embourgeoisée—a nation interested only in its own ma- Endnotes terial welfare and power.” Having said that he adds, 1 Jacques Maritain. Reflections on America (New York: Charles Scribner’s “The realization of such a possibility is, to my mind, Sons, 1958). improbable.” He concludes his tribute with, “The great 2 Ibid., 162. and admirable strength of America consists in this, that 3 Will Herberg, Protestant, Catholic, Jew (New York: Doubleday, 1955). America is truly the American people.” 4 Cf. Barbara Ward. Faith and Freedom. (New York: W.W. Norton, 1954). Today, more than 50 years later, any reflective per- 5 A recent example is Benedict’s reflection on the role which the Church played in the unification of Italy. Cf. “Pope Reminds Italy of Its Catholic son is apt to notice the difference between Maritain’s Identity: Reflections on the 150 Anniversary of Il Risorgimento,”As re- America and that of the present. A largely uneducated ported by Zenit.org, 3/16/11).

24 FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 Anarchists among Us

by Jude P. Dougherty and Maclure find that a broad consensus exists to the The Catholic University of America effect that “secularism is an essential component of any liberal democracy comprised of citizens who adhere o we dare call them “anarchists”—envi- to a plurality of conceptions of the world and of the ronmentalists, federal regulators, whimsi- good, whether these conceptions be religious, spiritual, cal judges, and other officials who seem or secular.”4 Secularism they define as “a political and to have abandoned the rule of law, if not legal system whose function is to establish a certain Dreason itself? Without doubt the most serious form of distance between the state and religion.”5 But as con- anarchy is that perpetrated by the intellectuals. By defi- ceived by Taylor and Maclure, it is more than that. The nition an anarchist is one who disregards law and order, state in their view must be neutral toward the multiple challenges inherited and cherished traditions, or in the values, beliefs, and life plans of citizens within modern case of the intellectual, one who embraces a political or societies. The state must be the state of all citizens and social ideology at the expense of reasoned and unbiased not identify itself with one particular religion or world examination of cultural phenomena. That a state of cul- view. And yet, “[a] liberal and democratic society can- tural and political disorder exists within both the Euro- not remain indifferent to certain core principles such pean Union and the United States is widely acknowl- as human dignity, basic human rights, and popular sov- edged and hardly needs illustration. Western nations ereignty.”6 Several questions are clearly begged. Is the on both sides of the Atlantic are confronted by massive human intellect so impoverished that it cannot discern immigrations of alien peoples who refuse assimilation what leads to personal freedom and social equanim- within their adopted country and demand accommo- ity? How can there be a society unless there is a certain dation for the customs they bring. The host countries cultural unity among the people who presumably form themselves find it difficult to agree with respect to it? The core principles alluded to are not universal or what may be demanded of the newcomer. Confu- found in the culture of all who seek asylum in the sion abounds even with respect to what constitutes the West. Still, Taylor and Maclure maintain: “In showing national identity that the newcomer is encouraged to itself to be agnostic on questions of the aims of human adopt. No one has asserted this more clearly than Pierre existence, the secular state recognizes the sovereignty Manent in his book, Democracy without Nations?: The of the person in his or her choice of conscience.”7 This Fate of Self- Government in Europe.1 Manent is convinced amounts to an invitation to civil war, as like-minded in- that Europe is on the verge of self-destruction. The dividuals group for ascendancy. Even within a Muslim democratic nation, he fears, has been lost in Europe, the country, where Islam is proclaimed in common, Sunni very first place it appeared. “The European Union’s po- and Shi’a vie for control. litical contrivances,” he writes, “have become more and A compelling response to Taylor and Maclure is to more artificial. With each day they recede further from be found in a recent work by Marcello Pera, former the natural desires and movements of their citizens’ president of the Italian Senate, now professor of po- souls.”2 A nation, he holds, is the same people living in litical philosophy at the Pontifical Lateran University, the same place, observing the same customs, abiding Rome.8 Pera takes the title of his book, Why We Should by the same moral principles. In Manent’s judgment, Call Ourselves Christians from an essay by Benedetto Europe’s governing classes, without explicitly saying so, Croce, a professed atheist who nevertheless said of aspire to create a homogeneous and limitless human we Europeans, “Why We Cannot but Call Ourselves world. In fact, given its intellectual climate, what distin- Christian.” Croce, in spite of his materialism, was con- guishes Europeans from one another and others cannot vinced that the objective and transcendent formula- be evaluated or even publicly discussed. tion of man’s dignity and freedom was to be found in Jocelyn Maclure and Charles Taylor, both Cana- Christianity. Pera is specific: “We should call ourselves dians, in a recent work claim that “[o]ne of the most Christian if we want to maintain our liberties and pre- important challenges facing contemporary societies is serve our civilization…. If, as Thomas Jefferson claimed, how to manage moral and religious diversity.”3 Taylor our liberties must have, or must be felt as if they had,

FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 25 Articles

a religious foundation in order to bind the union to- handed over to powerful interest groups and bureau- gether, then today’s secularized Europe, which rejects cracies. Good and evil, he maintains, in the absence of that foundation, can never be politically united.”9 Pera an authoritative moral tradition tend to be determined continues, “Unlike Americans, Europeans cannot adopt by parliamentary vote. a constitution beginning with the words We the people Pera lauds Benedict XVI for his effort to awaken because ‘the people’ must exist as a moral and spiritual European intellectuals to the Christian roots of the or- community before such a constitution could be con- der and freedoms they take for granted. The Holy Father ceived and asked for.”10 The version of the European himself has provided a foreword to this volume. ✠ Constitution that was finally adopted after being re- jected in popular referendums by the French and the Endnotes Dutch made no reference to God or to Christianity and amounted to no more than a treaty among nations. 1 Pierre Manent, Democracy without Nations?: The Fate of Self-Government in In addressing the moral decline which he finds on Europe, translated from the French with an introduction by Paul Seaton (Wilmington, Del.: ISI Books, 2007). both sides of the Atlantic, Pera writes: “Liberal civiliza- 2 Ibid., 33. tion was born in defense of the negative liberties of 3 Jocelyn Maclure and Charles Taylor, Secularism and Freedom of Conscience, man. When the positive liberties of citizens burgeoned translated by Jane Marie Todd (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University forth, everything started changing. The liberal state Press, 2011). first became democratic, next paternalistic, and finally 4 Ibid., 2. entered the totalitarian phase of the dictatorship of 5 Ibid., 3. the majority and the tyranny of absolute authorities. 6 Ibid., 11. 7 Ibid., 21 No aspect of life today, from cradle to the grave, has 8 Marcello Pera, Why We Should Call Ourselves Christians been left untouched by legislation, and most of all by (New York: Encounter Books, 2011). the verdicts of judges or supreme courts, or by the 9 Ibid., 8-9. decisions of supranational institutions.”11 He fears that 10 Ibid., 9. within democracies decisional authority is today being 11 Ibid. Prenatal Adoption: Did the CDF Close the Door on Debate?

by Arland K. Nichols with theologians and students alike. Indeed, the topic National Director, HLI America, Front Royal Virginia has been debated at length in a spirit of collegiality— and with a shared understanding that we were free to remember vividly my excitement three years ago do so because there existed, to our understanding, no the day Dignitas personae was made public. I had definitive Magisterial teaching that had closed the issue. recently written a position paper on the question In recent months, a number of people have articu- of “embryo adoption,” and I rushed to the docu- lated a different opinion. They argue that not only is Iment hoping to find the definitive answer I had long prenatal adoption immoral, but that the CDF deliber- been looking for. I was immediately disappointed to ately and explicitly closed the issue. This assertion gen- find a lacuna—the Congregation for the Doctrine of erally flows from the following line of thought: “The the Faith (CDF) had left the question open! Thinking norms established by Dignitas personae n. 19 were issued surely I had misread, I found source after source that by the CDF in order to end the long debate amongst confirmed my understanding that theologians were ethicists concerning the matter of prenatal adoption. still free to debate the morality of “prenatal adoption.” This document,” they claim, “put an end to the discus- So, for the last few years, I have discussed this question sions that were legitimate prior to its release, because

26 FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 in it the CDF definitively stated that embryo adoption this document.3 Similarly, I wish to express my own should not be allowed.” Furthermore, Catholics, so the willingness to abandon my position if the CDF or the argument goes, must assent to this teaching at the peril Holy Father were to state that the issue of “prenatal of their union with the Magisterium of Pope Bene- adoption” is no longer up for discussion. For that mat- dict XVI. Interestingly, I have found that this position ter, I remain open to abandoning my position if com- is defended with great vigor by many of those who are pelling arguments were to prove it to be inadequate or actively involved in the pro-life movement and who are contrary to Magisterial teaching. deeply passionate about the defense of human life. I will attempt here to bring some clarity to this matter. It is important first of all to distinguish between The Question Remains Open: the two separate questions at hand: first, whether “pre- An Argument from Consensus and natal adoption” itself is objectively good or evil, and Authority second, whether the question of “prenatal adoption” was definitively answered in the negative by Dignitas rom the beginning, the understanding of the personae, such that to support the practice is to dissent academic community was that this debate was from Magisterial teaching. These are related but distinct not yet closed. As a matter of fact, among the questions. The former is the primary issue that so many official statements made by the four experts Fduring the December 12, 2008 press conference that have vigorously debated prior to and following the publication of Dignitas personae. This article, however, introduced Dignitas personae, there was not one speaker will focus exclusively on the latter. I will argue that who claimed that the issue was closed. Maria Luisa absent a deliberate, explicit, or implicit condemnation di Pietro, who addressed the relevant section (n. 19) of the object of “prenatal adoption,” it remains, without in her statement, simply quoted the document itself, a doubt, an open question. I arrive at this position based and added no personal interpretation, observation, or on the shared understanding of Catholic theologians clarification of the matter. It was for this reason that, who are faithful to the Magisterium, and by means of during a question and answer period following the of- an examination of the internal structure and argumen- ficial statements, Monsignor Fisichella was asked if the tation of Dignitas personae itself. matter was still open. Monsignor (then President of the Pontifical Academy for Life, the primary advisory body to the CDF on this issue) stated very plainly that “the The Doctrinal Weight and discussion is still open.”4 The United States Conference Authority of Dignitas Personae of Catholic Bishops articulated the same understanding: n response to the manifold technological ad- Proposals for “adoption” of abandoned or unwanted vances since Donum vitae was published in 1987, frozen embryos are also found to pose problems, the CDF recognized the need to respond to the because the Church opposes use of the gametes or new bioethical questions that had emerged, and bodies of others who are outside the marital cov- Iso in late 2008 issued Dignitas personae. This document enant for reproduction. The document raises cau- affirmed the dignity of every person, and provided tions or problems about these new issues but the instruction necessary for the proper formation of does not formally make a definitive judgment 5 consciences. “Addressed to the Catholic faithful and to against them. all who seek the truth,” Dignitas personae is a doctrinal That there was no objections made to the state- work which participates in the ordinary Magisterium ments made by Monsignor Fisichella or the USCCB of Pope Benedict.1 As such, the faithful are to respond lends credence to the claim that the Congregation, to “the contents of this Instruction with the religious as a matter of fact, left the issue open. This is the un- assent of their spirit.”2 “Prior to the publication of a derstanding of an overwhelming number of members definitive statement such as Dignitas personae (as well of the academic community who are demonstrably as in the midst of any debate), the mark of faithful faithful to Magisterial teaching.6 For this reason, the Catholic theologians is a readiness and a willingness question of the morality of the issue continues to be to amend an erroneous opinion. This was the very debated in the most prestigious and faithful bioethics attitude of the theologians who debated the ques- journals. For example, The Linacre Quarterly and tion of prenatal adoption prior to the publication of National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly both continue to

FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 27 Articles

receive submissions from and publish authors who offer such a condemnation with this issue. 2) Dignitas wish to weigh in on the morality of the act. If it were a personae only criticizes problems with prenatal adoption settled question this would not be the case since these which are circumstantial, but not the object of the act journals are “committed to publishing material that itself. 3) In addressing solutions to the problem of fro- is consonant with the magisterium of the Church.”7 zen embryos, the document does not offer a substantive Consider, for example, the work of Luke Gormally, new development in definitive teaching concerning the who believes “it would be quite inappropriate for moral quality of the object of the act. anyone to recommend, approve, or engage in embryo Dignitas personae offers a moral evaluation of a host adoption.”8 Nonetheless, Gormally states, “Dignitas of human acts. It addresses all three elements of the hu- personae can hardly be construed as offering well-de- man act—object, intention, and circumstances—but it fined teaching.” Consider also, the recent statement by tends to do so unevenly, as it is often unnecessary to ad- William E. May: dress all three elements at a given point. The document, I have discussed this issue with many colleagues—in however, is very clear when it declares that an act is evil particular, colleagues who think that it is not morally and not an open matter. When the object is evil, the justifiable to “adopt” frozen and abandoned embryos. language allows for no equivocation. A sampling of the Even though they hold this view, they agree that phrases used to offer a clear negative evaluation of the DP’s teaching on the matter is not at all clear, that the object of an act include “truly deplorable,” “intrinsically question is not closed, and that one can adopt such illicit,” “not ethically acceptable,” “shameful and utterly embryos so long as there is no complicity with those reprehensible,” “an absolutely clear prohibition.” The who “produced” them in vitro.9 CDF does not use such negative language to condemn the object of prenatal adoption. Conversely (though This understanding is so widely held that the Na- more rarely), when the Church offers a positive evalua- tional Catholic Bioethics Center has even staged a de- tion of the moral object of an act it uses such phrases as bate in a non-academic web forum in order to illustrate “in principle morally licit” and “no moral objections.” to the common person in the pew how some ques- Dignitas personae does not use such language to describe tions remain open with faithful theologians disagreeing the object of prenatal adoption. As a matter of fact, the 10 on the issues. In the debate, John Haas argued that document seems to give no explicit moral evaluation of “prenatal adoption” is immoral while Stephen Napier, the object whatsoever. As John Grabowski has pointed his employee, argued that it is not. Would John Haas, out, “it does not mention the moral status of the object a member of the governing council of the Pontifical in embryo adoption at all.”11 Academy of Life and President of the National Catho- It is noteworthy, however, that the Congregation lic Bioethics Center, permit such public positions by his introduces, for the first time in a Magisterial docu- employees if said position was contrary to the expressed ment, a new phrase: “prenatal adoption.” This choice of Magisterium of Pope Benedict? At best, one might ar- words is not unimportant since it implies that this act gue that a small minority of theologians believe Dignitas is not considered to be an act of surrogacy. If the CDF personae deliberately ended discussion of the issue, but had used the word “surrogacy” it would have indicated the indisputable conclusion of the vast majority is clear: a clear prohibition of the act chosen because of the the CDF “does not formally make a definitive judg- Church’s clear teaching against surrogacy.12 Further- ment against” prenatal adoption itself. more, the Congregation’s choice of wording serves to distinguish this act from three other human acts dis- Three Arguments from the cussed in n. 19, “use of embryos for research,” “use of embry- os…for the treatment of disease,” and use of these embryos Document Itself “as a treatment for infertility.” The CDF gives a very clear espite the almost unanimous agreement negative evaluation of each of these three acts saying among faithful ethicists, it is important to they are “obviously unacceptable,” “not ethically accept- examine evidence within Dignitas personae able,” and “illicit.” As to the use of embryos as a means itself. I would like to offer three distinct to treat infertility, the CDF says this object is “not ethi- Dbut related arguments derived from the text: 1) When cally acceptable” because it is “illicit” for the same rea- Dignitas personae condemns human acts it does so sons in vitro fertilization and surrogacy are intrinsically clearly and unequivocally. The Congregation does not evil.13 No such explicit language is used in describing

28 FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 prenatal adoption. The CDF had the opportunity to a good intention, prenatal adoption, like in vitro fer- clearly condemn the object of prenatal adoption and tilization and the freezing of embryos, is an unjust act it chose not to do so. Surely this cannot be considered which offends the dignity of the person”—we would accidental?14 have a clear indication that prenatal adoption is intrinsi- cally immoral. But no such language is used, indicating that while the circumstances are problematic, the object The CDF Criticizes Circumstances, of prenatal adoption itself may not be. Not the Object onetheless, it would be disingenuous to Lack of Negative Development in suggest that the Congregation is com- pletely neutral toward prenatal adoption. Church Teaching Regarding the They write, “This proposal, praiseworthy Moral Object Nwith regard to the intention of respecting and defend- t has been claimed that the final paragraph of ing human life, presents however various problems not no.19 was inserted into Dignitas personae so as to dissimilar to those mentioned above.” The problems close the question. If it was not for this end, it is “mentioned above” represent a reference to the congre- argued, the paragraph would be without purpose. gation’s final critique of the use of embryos as a treat- IThe final paragraph contains two sentences. The first ment for infertility, “problems of a medical, psychologi- sentence, as I have argued in the previous section, does cal and legal nature.”15 It is important to note that these not condemn embryo adoption itself; its purpose is to problems are of a circumstantial nature, and are not per condemn the circumstances surrounding this choice— se ordered to the object itself—they are contingent to the situation of injustice. As such, it does not offer the means chosen, or, the object of prenatal adoption new definitive teaching and is a summary of what we and thus circumstances that surround such a choice. As already knew prior to the issuance of Dignitas personae. such, the criticism of the CDF is directed toward the unjust The final sentence of n. 19, cited above, adds weight to situation which is concomitant to the object of prenatal adop- this understanding. Those who claim embryo adoption tion, not prenatal adoption itself. These problems are re- is a closed issue have relied on the phrase “seems to be lated to the “situation of injustice” and the environment no morally licit solution” to argue their point. However, of absurdity that the entire IVF industry has created two things need to be mentioned here. First, “seems to through production and freezing of embryonic human be” is not the sort of language that is used to condemn beings outside of the marital act. the object of human acts in Church documents. To say This understanding (that the problems which con- “seems to be” is to deliberately leave “wiggle-room,” cern the CDF are circumtancial in nature) is further and to indicate that there might still be a solution. This indicated by the final paragraph of number 19 cited is no absolute prohibition made by the CDF or Blessed below, in full. Pope John Paul II, the original author of the sentence. All things considered, it needs to be recognized that Secondly, this is a restatement of the late Holy Father’s the thousands of abandoned embryos represent a situ- position from a 1996 speech, and does not offer a de- ation of injustice which in fact cannot be resolved. Therefore velopment in teaching. As such, this citation implies John Paul II made an “appeal to the conscience of the that we are, as regards the intrinsic morality of prenatal world’s scientific authorities and in particular to doc- adoption, in the same place we were prior to the issu- tors, that the production of human embryos be halted, ance of Dignitas personae. That is, this citation makes it taking into account that there seems to be no morally licit solution regarding the human destiny of the thou- clear that this is an open question. sands and thousands of “frozen” embryos which are and remain the subjects of essential rights and should there- fore be protected by law as human persons.” Conclusion Here what cannot be resolved are the circum- e are limited here to addressing wheth- stances; the situation itself is deemed unjust. The object er or not the moral quality of the chosen by prenatal adoption is not mentioned here. If it object of prenatal adoption is an open had been—if the Congregation had employed language question. We have not been concerned along the lines of “All things considered, and in spite of Wwith whether prenatal adoption is intrinsically moral or

FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 29 Articles immoral or if a couple can, in good conscience, pursue embryo transfer] rescue is illicit, but that, regardless of what their explicit intention was regarding that specific judgment, they have, based upon this act now. As has been argued, the preponderance what they clearly said in the document, logically committed themselves of evidence more than suggests that the Congrega- to the conclusion that HET rescue is illicit.” Christopher Oleson, tion for the Doctrine of the Faith did not deliberately, “Dignitas personae and the Question of Heterologous Embryo Transfer,” explicitly, or implicitly close the door on the question The Linacre Quarterly 76.2, (May 2009), 135. 7 Cited from the Mission Statement of the National Catholic Bioethics of the intrinsic moral quality of prenatal adoption. This Quarterly. is the understanding of the overwhelming majority of 8 Luke Gormally, “The ‘Various Problems’ Presented by Embryo Adoption Catholic theologians, the United States Conference of (n. 19),” National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 9.3, (Autumn 2009), 471. Catholic Bishops, and institutions that are firm adherents 9 William E. May, “Response to Letter to the Editor,” National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, (V.11 N.2), 217. For my argument, see the to the Magisterium of the Church. Moreover, a careful forthcoming Arland K. Nichols, “Colloquy,” National Catholic Bioethics reading of Dignitas personae indicates that while it raises Quarterly 11.4 (Winter 2011). concerns about the circumstances surrounding the act, 10 “Dignitas Personae and the Question of Embryo Adoption: A Debate the Congregation never explicitly condemns prenatal on Dignitas Personae, Part Two, nn 18-19,” ncbcenter.org/page. aspx?pid=1010 The goal of this debate is explained thus: “The National adoption itself, and does not offer any new development Catholic Bioethics Center offers the following exchange between two in Church teaching regarding the object of adoption of its ethicists to illustrate how certain moral questions are still open to of frozen embryos as a remedy for their unjust plight. further theological reflection.” 11 “Grabowski and Gross, “Dignitas Personae and Embryo Adoption,” Unless and until such a condemnation is made official, National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 10.2, (Summer 2010), 315. faithful Catholic ethicists may continue to debate the 12 Concerning surrogacy, Donum Vitae states, “Surrogate motherhood question without fear of transgressing the Magisterium represents an objective failure to meet the obligations of maternal love, of Pope Benedict XVI. ✠ of conjugal fidelity and of responsible motherhood; it offends the dignity and the right of the child to be conceived, carried in the womb, brought into the world and brought up by his own parents; it sets up, to the detriment of families, a division between the physical, psychological and Endnotes moral elements which constitute those families.” Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Donum Vitae, II.A.3. 1 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, “Regarding the Instruction 13 The CDF also criticize the circumstances of this act by addressing Dignitas Personae. various problems concomitant with this act. 2 Ibid. 14 See for example, Ted Furton, “Embryo Adoption Reconsidered,” National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 11.2 (Summer 2011), 330. He writes, “As to 3 See for example, Human Embryo Adoption: Biotechnology, Marriage, and the the object, we find no statement in the document that embryo adoption, Right to Life, eds. Thomas V. Berg., Edward J. Furton, (Philadelphia, PA as an action chosen by the will, is intrinsically immoral. It seems and Thornwood, NY: The National Catholic Bioethics Center and the reasonable to suppose that if the Vatican had decided that the action was Westchester Institute for Ethics and the Human Person, 2006). intrinsically immoral, it would has said so. Instead, it said nothing.” 4 Interestingly, some in the pro-life community discount this statement 15 Some authors have suggested that the primary moral evaluation against by Monsignor Fisichela because of the “Recife affair.” While I do not use of embryos as a treatment for infertility also should be considered as wish to make any comment on this matter, the claim that Monsignor one of the “problems” of prenatal adoption. (See Luke Gormally, “The Fisichella’s statement is insignificant and does not hold much weight ‘Various Problems’ Presented by Embryo Adoption (n. 19), 471). If this because of a perceived later error in judgment, has no bearing on this were the intended/stated meaning of the CDF, it would indicate that matter. Such arguments amount to an ad hominem or poisoning the well. prenatal adoption is intrinsically evil. However, such a reading is not in 5 United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Questions and Answers keeping with the clear purpose of this passage. Furthermore, if this were on Dignitas personae, usccb.org/issues-and-action/marriage-and- the intention of the CDF, this would be a rather odd and unclear way to family/natural-family-planning/upload/nfp-forum-newsletter- express a negative evaluation of the act itself, especially considering that it winter-spring-2009.pdf While the interpretation of the USCCB is never explicitly does so. This is noted by a number of authors. Consider not definitive in any proper sense, this statement, nonetheless, does offer Ted Furton who argues that the structure of the paragraph indicates only clear evidence to support the position articulated here. one reasonable understanding; “Indeed, the Italian specifically uses the 6 Note that there are some ethicists who argue that the principles same word, problema, in both this and the preceding paragraph. These delineated by Dignitas personae necessitate the conclusion that prenatal are not the ‘same reasons’ that make IVF and surrogate motherhood adoption is immoral, but they acknowledge that this was not the intrinsically immoral, but are other problems that attend IVF and embryo intention of the CDF. Nonetheless, this is a different kind of claim than adoption alike.” (Ted Furton, “Embryo Adoption Reconsidered,” 334). my focus for this essay. Consider, Christopher Oleson who writes “I am It seems rather unlikely that the CDF would rely on a vague and unclear not saying that the authors of Dignitas personae are implicitly or indirectly reference to declare prenatal adoption to be intrinsically immoral when or ambiguously intending to render a judgment that HET [heterologous they were fully aware of the debate surrounding the matter.

30 FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 “Natural and Necessary”: Catholics and the State

by Steven Millies dulging our discouragement to seek comfort in modern University of South Carolina Aiken political ideas can have for Catholics once we begin to see the state through the prism of coercion and power. he Catholic understanding of the state cannot To look to just one particular example, the United support any variety of libertarianism, or any States Supreme Court reached its decision in Griswold v. other view of the state so negative as to see it Connecticut (1965) by identifying an altogether unprec- primarily as an organ of force or coercion. edented constitutional right to privacy. This remains T The Catholic understanding of the state cannot a controversial ruling today because, among other support any variety of libertarianism, or any other view reasons, the Constitution of the United States makes of the state so negative as to see it primarily as an organ no use of the word privacy at all. But the decision has of force or coercion. a more evident internal logic when we consider that To see the state as an opponent or antagonist is to the lawfulness of contraception became a contested owe a heavy debt to modern political ideas, and to carry issue in the climate of modern political thought that the heavy burden that comes with it. The Libertarian sees government as an organ of force and coercion, Party expresses that perspective in a pithy way: “Mini- and which understands freedom only in its negative mum Government, Maximum Freedom.” But Catholics dimension. What the Catholic tradition would see as know this cannot be true. We know that freedom comes a question of positive freedom to experience marital from somewhere other than the absence of government. intimacy or to enlarge the human family is cast by the This is why we are not surprised that, though it did not Warren Court, instead, against the question of whether reach its familiar expression until the twentieth cen- we should “allow the police to search the sacred pre- tury in the United States, libertarianism finds its roots cincts of marital bedrooms for telltale signs of the in and the Enlightenment. To see the state as, use of contraceptives.” Inevitably, because freedom at best, a necessary evil requires willfully averting one’s from the coercive power of government is its high- gaze from classical and Christian traditions that predate est good, modern political thought must conclude, as and forcefully contradict the claims of modernity. the Supreme Court did conclude, that Connecticut’s Yet this libertarian mistrust of government is com- prohibition of contraception was wrong only because, mon among many American Catholics in our time. “The very idea is repulsive to the notions of privacy In a way, it is understandable. At one time, during the surrounding the marriage relationship.” There must be high middle ages, the Church enjoyed such a close re- a right to privacy because the modern understanding of lationship with governments that there seemed to be rights and freedoms recognizes nothing more certainly less opportunity that laws of the state could become to be avoided than “all invasions on the part of of the moral law. (The history of that time, government and its employees of the sanctity of a man’s with its Inquisitions and defenses of slavery, should home and the privacies of life.” Force and coercion are dampen too much enthusiasm for easy alliances between evils to be avoided, government is the instrument of the Church and political authority, and any hope that force and coercion, and goods are possible only when allying state with Church can assure that the positive government’s efforts to force or coerce can be thwarted law adheres to the moral law.) In our time, even the by our negative freedoms. Those negative rights may Church has acknowledged it should not intrude on civil be transgressed only in the presence of “a compelling government, calling the distinction between the political subordinating state interest,” a high barrier against all and religious spheres “a value that has been attained and claims of government power over the private prefer- recognized by the Catholic Church [which] belongs to ences of individuals. The Griswold decision is a realiza- the inheritance of contemporary civilization.”1 For this tion of the highest hopes that modern political thought reason it is worth dwelling on what consequences in- can express for restraining government, and it expresses

FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 31 Articles a typically libertarian reaction against all of the coercive always are incontrovertible goods (even if some people intrusions government might make against our privacy, are bad) particular states may be (often, they are) bad. our negative right to resist the force of government. However, government as such is always essentially good. Of course, the Griswold decision also was the neces- Like persons, government is full of boundless capaci- sary legal predicate upon which the Roe v. Wade (1973) ties for human goods that, in our world of temptation decision was built. This can come as no surprise. The and sin, sometimes can be a bit difficult to notice. Still, Libertarian Party platform asserts that, “we believe that we who hold the Catholic faith bear a responsibility government should be kept out of [abortion], leaving when we deal with states, as when we deal with people, the question to each person for their [sic] conscientious to be a sign of the Gospel at work in the world, and to consideration.” After all, why should government be call states and persons to something better through our permitted to regulate something so private as abortion living witness. We never give up on the state, any more if government is described best as an organ of force and than we give up on people. coercion? If government is only an antagonist, an adver- Catholics understand this because it is our tradition. sary in our struggle for freedom, why should it have a A different tradition is summarized well by the English power, for example, to speak on behalf of unborn per- philosopher (1588-1679), who wrote sons who have no voice against the rights of “born and in The Elements of Law Natural and Politics that “no man naturalized” citizens? Modern political thought that sees in any commonwealth whatsoever hath right to resist the state only as coercive leads quite ineluctably to the him, or them, on whom they have conferred this power conclusion that, the “right of privacy …is broad enough coercive, or (as men use to call it) the sword of justice” to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to (II, 1). The formation of a commonwealth comes about terminate her pregnancy,” as the Court ruled in Roe. when citizens consent to surrender to the state their Our conclusion should be, at this juncture, equally natural liberty through a covenant, a social contract, and inescapable. Catholics who resort to libertarian argu- in return the state makes promises to provide security ments against the power of the state also cast aside the against violent death. Different modern philosophers foundation of political arguments against abortion-on- dealt with this understanding of the state in various demand. Once the state is seen to be first and foremost ways. John Locke, for example, agreed that the state an organ of coercion and force, the imperative becomes begins from a contract, but prized a guarantee of civil finding a mechanism of resistance in order that there liberty over mere security and held to an affirmative can be some exercise of liberty. There is no sure ground right to end the social contract that creates government left to stand on from which to argue for the positive if rulers should prove to be untrustworthy and ambi- role of the state as the teacher of virtue. The Catholic tious. Yet what holds all modern political philosophers understanding of the state has been exploded, and all together is their common beginning from understand- that remains is the desiccated remnant of modern lib- ing the state primarily as an organ of force that exerts a eralism, its soulless insistence on freedom as license and negative power to coerce citizens, not as a positive good not as grace. and teacher of virtue. Our Catholic understanding of the state has a dif- Understanding the state in this way yields predict- ferent pedigree. In the mid-twentieth century, a Catho- ably necessary results. Hobbes’s preoccupation with lic political theorist wrote that: violent death prevented him from worrying about how To the Christian philosophers, following the classical force and coercion could be abused by rulers, relying scholars, the state is not a necessary evil but a positive as he did on that power of the state to prevent the vio- good. It not only makes day-to-day existence possible, lence all around man in the state of nature. Because he but it makes that existence good…. For the Christian did not share all of Hobbes’s fears, John Locke, James the state becomes a holy order with an end and pur- Madison, and others later saw quickly that a state un- pose of its own. It is a perfect society like the Church derstood in its nature to be oriented primarily toward itself. It therefore has a sanctity above all other human force and coercion could pose a threat to law-abiding institutions.2 citizen as much as to criminals. To guard against the encroachments of the state with its power against the This is the constant understanding and teaching of private citizen, Locke concocted his civil liberties, the Catholic tradition: government is a positive good, understood as a “freedoms from” the intrusion of the always and everywhere. In the same way that persons state on conscience, property, etc., and which may be

32 FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 described in their atomistic consequences, according to to the state is appropriate not only because it returns us Berlin’s familiar criticism, as negative freedoms. to our subject—the Catholic understanding of freedom (We also might liken this view of liberty to Benjamin as it corresponds to the Catholic view of the state—but Constant’s distinction between the liberties of the an- also because it demonstrates the necessity of under- cients and the liberties of the moderns.) standing freedom in a different way from modern po- The distinction between negative and positive free- litical writers. In Veritatis Splendor, Pope John Paul gave dom corresponds rather well to Blessed Pope John Paul the problem of freedom his most thoughtful treatment, II’s distinction between false freedom, a unilateral free- distancing the Christian tradition from the modern un- dom of license, and true freedom that brings us closer derstanding of freedom and finding that true freedom to God, sees us live according to the Gospel. As far back has a positive character: we are called not to a freedom as 1964, Bishop Wojtyła had said, “There is no freedom of ego and will that must resist all interference from without truth.”3 Later as pope, he wrote that truth is anyone, but instead we find our true freedom through “a condition for authentic freedom” in contrast with a adherence the moral law. As the Holy Father argued in “superficial, unilateral freedom,” and condemned a “false Evangelium Vitae, it is the particular obligation of Catho- notion of individual freedom” that sees freedom only as lic Christians to participate “in social and political life… a matter of personal preference.4 These condemnations to ensure that the laws and institutions of the State in were rehearsed in Veritatis Splendor and again in Evange- no way violate the right to life, from conception to lium Vitae because the topics of those encyclicals were natural death, but rather protect and promote it.”12 This linked insuperably to the problem of a negative freedom presupposes that the state plays a vital role we must not that licenses us to do only what we want and recognizes indulge our discouragements to overlook because, in no obligations beyond the private will. fact, “[t]he real purpose of civil law is to guarantee an It is worth spending a moment further with Pope ordered social coexistence in true justice.”13 Govern- John Paul, whose anthropological account of human ment is good, essentially. Simply to treat it as a menace freedom encompassed several different categories, all to true freedom as the moderns regard it, an antagonist oriented toward understanding the human person in that frustrates us, is to rip something integral from the the light of the Gospel. In his first encyclical letter, the chest of the Catholic tradition, still beating. Holy Father wrote that, “Through the Incarnation God Yet, as self-evident as this conclusion really is, and as gave human life the dimension that he intended man entirely devastating as absorbing those modern politi- to have from his first beginning,” Christ “brings man cal ideas is to the Catholic moral argument in politics, freedom based on truth, frees man from what curtails, it should surprise us little that so many Catholics have diminishes and as it were breaks off this freedom at its turned to libertarianism in recent decades. While even root, in man’s soul, his heart and his conscience,” and, the Church has recognized secularization as “a value for these reasons, the Church is “the guardian of this that …belongs to the inheritance of contemporary civ- freedom,” given by God, “which is the condition and ilization,” it does place new burdens on those of us who basis for the human person’s true dignity.”5 This free- attempt to live out the Gospel. That difficulty has sown dom, a “creative subjectivity,” expresses itself through confusion and frustration among Catholics confronted subsidiarity in a network of relationships which are by legalized abortion and other evils, leading many to religious, social, economic, and more.6 Yet, finally, “Va r i - despair and to give up entirely on the possibilities for ous circumstances may make it advisable that the State step in good found within the state. The editors of First Things to supply certain functions,” in order to safeguard the free- went so far in 1996 as to ask “whether we have reached dom and dignity of human persons.7 It is, for example, or are reaching the point where conscientious citizens “the State that must conduct a just labor policy.”8 The no longer can give moral assent to the existing regime.” state “has the task of determining the juridical frame- The question has hung in the air for fifteen years, and it work within which economic affairs are to be conduct- lies at the root of efforts to diminish the state, placing a ed.”9 Finally, “The responsibility for attaining the common growing emphasis on subsidiary institutions such as the good, besides falling to individual persons, belongs also to the market. State, since the common good is the reason that the political However, there are costs to viewing the state that authority exists.” 10 The state is charged to promote and way. To prize the institutions of above attain to “the requirements of justice.”11 government is to ignore the consistent teaching of our To bring Pope John Paul’s account of freedom back tradition across millennia, beginning with Pope

FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 33 Articles

Gelasius’s admonition to Emperor Anastasius that there So much greater the need for evangelization and hope. are “two powers,” the Church and the governing au- For, if not to the state when we seek justice for the thority. Only two. To unseat the governing authority poor, for the worker, for the stranger, for the sick, or from this privileged position in favor of subsidiary civil for the unborn, “To whom shall we go?” We have the institutions not only subordinates the state but, by im- Church to form our consciences for citizenship, and plication, multiplies authorities so far as to diminish the to give us the language to describe the justice we seek role of the Church as well. The same modern political in the world. We have the state, now more than ever ideas that conceive of the state so negatively also see the that we can vote and speak our point-of-view freely, to Church as a voluntary association, relegate it to being bring forth the Kingdom as we seek justice on Earth. “merely one of the many organizations within a demo- “Two powers there are,” whose benefit we have been cratic society,” of little more consequence than a book given, the Church and the governing authority. How club or a bowling league.14 could we have hope or freedom without either? ✠ Catholics possess the armature in our tradition to avoid these problems. St. , S.J. re- Endnotes jected Reformation critics of Christian participation in governing, observing that, “if subjection or civil rule is 1 Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Doctrinal Note on Some Questions Regarding the Participation of Catholics in Political Life (24 opposed to Christian liberty, Ecclesiastical subjection or November 2002), 6: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Vatican City, 2002, p.11. rule is more opposed to it, since Christian liberty per- 2 G. Kerwin, Politics, Government, Catholics (New York: Paulist Press, tains more to a Christian as a member of the Church 1961), 9. than as a member of civil society” (de Laicis, 3). Certain- 3 Bishop Karol Wojtyła, “Intervention of 25 September 1964,” in Acta synodalia Concilii Vaticani II, Period III, 2:531. ly Bellarmine was aware of the possibility of “corrupt 4 Pope John Paul II, Redemptor hominis, §12. Also: Pope John Paul II, political magistracy,” but that possibility did nothing to Homily at an Ecumenical Service at the University of South Carolina diminish the grandeur of “Political rule,” or the fact that Williams-Brice Stadium (11 September 1987), §6. it “is so natural and necessary to the human race.” Bel- 5 Redemptor hominis, §1, §12. larmine adds that “it is false to state that most rulers are 6 See a discussion in: Pope John Paul II, Sollicitudo rei socialis, §15ff. 7 Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, §188. Cf. Pope John Paul evil,” but even “the examples of evil rulers do not prove II, Centesimus Annus, §§47-48. that authority is evil” (chapter 4), which was as shock- 8 Pope John Paul II, Laborem exercens, §17. ing a statement in his time as ours. No matter how 9 Pope John Paul II, Centesimus annus, §15. shocking, Bellarmine offers a potent reminder of how 10 Catechism of the Catholic Church, §1910. far persuaded the Catholic tradition is of the goodness 11 Ibid., §1908. of government. 12 Pope John Paul II, Evangelium vitae, §93. The secular state gives no guarantee to the Catholic 13 Ibid., §71. point-of-view and, yes, that creates troubling situations. 14 Pope Benedict XVI, Homily at the Olympic Stadium of Berlin, 22 September 2011. •

catholicscholars.org

34 FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 Maintaining Equilibrium at The Catholic Law School

by (Rev.) Michael P. Orsi, the truth. The greatness of Catholic education lies in Ave Maria School of Law the belief that once the truth is spoken, its attractive- ness forms minds and hearts. These are the two weights Reverend Michael P. Orsi is Chaplain and Research Fellow that a Catholic law school must balance in maintaining in Law and Religion at Ave Maria School of Law in equilibrium—the natural and the supernatural. Both Naples, Florida. reason and faith are necessary in the pursuit of truth. How does a faith-based law school attempt to ve Maria school of Law (AMSL), which do this? recently celebrated its tenth anniversary, It must be clear that all law schools are, first and was founded with the hope of preserving foremost, professional schools where aspiring attorneys the Catholic legal tradition in our country. come to learn a trade. Religiously affiliated law schools InA this essay, I hope to present how AMSL has thus far are not schools of theology. Nevertheless, certain as- successfully lived out its mission, and to identify some sumptions about man and society must ground their of the dangers it (and other institutions) must guard programs, informing the students how law is to be against. I hope that my observations may help other law made, read, and applied, and how a lawyer is to live out schools be faithful to their Catholic heritage. his or her vocation. Such schools should also provide After the Land O’Lakes Conference of 1967, many opportunities to grow in the spiritual life. Catholic colleges and universities separated themselves For Catholics this starting point has always been from the life of faith. Many such schools have diverged the natural law which holds its ground in the philoso- so far from their religious roots in the name of aca- phia perennis. This of course requires metaphysics, which demic freedom that they are no longer recognizable as presumes that, “Law exists prior to jurists and legal Catholic (Gleason, 1995). This has allowed the National philosophers” (Rommen, 1946, p. 118). Natural law Labor Relations Board (NLRB), from whose control philosophy holds that through the senses, which are Catholic schools had always been exempted for fear of in contact with reality, the intellect comes to discern compromising religious freedom, to assert that Man- universal truths which are immutable. Furthermore, hattan College in New York and Xavier University in Saint Paul posits that the natural law is “inscribed in the Chicago are not in fact religious schools (Garvey, 2011). heart” which affirms by intuition a certain order of be- Although this is a dangerous precedent, as President ing. These truths provide the foundation for inalienable John Garvey of The Catholic University of America human rights—life, liberty, property, justice, the pursuit points out, the NLRB’s assessment of these schools begs of happiness—which cannot be taken away by any state. the question: What is it that makes a school Catholic? Because human reason is flawed, due to original There is no doubt that “academic freedom is an sin, but not completely obliterated by the Fall, divine essential component of a Catholic university” (John revelation aids us in our quest for truth (Aquinas, 1265– Paul, II, 1992) or a Catholic law school. But while all 1274, I, Q. 1, A. 1). Supernatural revelation highlights positions theological or legal must be open to academic and completes the natural knowledge discerned by inquiry and discussion, not all have equal intellectual reason. Since the Church possesses the fullness of truth, or moral worth. In a Catholic academic environment handed down by the Apostles, she has the obligation to current thought, social trends, and positive law must be share it with humanity. examined in light of the Catholic philosophical tradi- How is this to be accomplished? tion and faith (John Paul, II, 1998). This is not indoc- First, the Catholic law school must make supernatu- trination or proselytizing, but rather a true reflection ral revelation available to its students. The teachings of of the Catholic intellectual heritage—as Blessed John the Church must be instantiated in the school’s overall Paul II put it, a matter of “proposing not imposing” program and coursework. Courses should reference

FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 35 Articles

Church documents, especially those that provide insight peer evangelization among fellow Catholics and also into human anthropology by answering such questions with the non-Catholics. Many self-identifying Catho- as, “Who is man?”; “How should he act?”; and “What lic students are poorly formed in the faith and perhaps is his final end?” These questions are indispensable to only understand the rudiments of their religion. Others forming a just society. Documents, such as Veritatis have never been confirmed. But this Catholic school Splendor (1993), a moral treatise, Evangelium Vitae (1995), culture into which they are immersed and the one-on- a defense of human life, and Fides et Ratio (1998), an one relationships they build with fellow students who explanation of how faith and reason cooperate in know- are strongly steeped in Catholicism bring many to more ing the truth, as well as Dignitatis Humanae (1965), which fervent religious practice. Needless to say, these also speaks of the inviolable rights of the human person— provide strong incentives for non-Catholics to learn especially religious liberty—and the constitutional order more about the Church. We have seen this happen of society, are vital teachings for a firm Catholic legal here at AMSL every year since our founding—converts foundation and worldview. among faculty, staff and students. Second, the majority of the faculty must be Catho- There are, of course, dangers which could jeopar- lic, in fact an overwhelming majority, at least 90 percent. dize a highly focused Catholic law school’s credibility The faculty, including the non-Catholic members, must in the legal academy. A Catholic law school must not be conscientiously and enthusiastically support the school’s viewed as a sectarian oddity. In the best tradition of Vat- mission. They should be familiar with the religious doc- ican II, especially in light of Gaudium et Spes (Constitu- uments mentioned above. And, of course, they should tion of the Church in the Modern World), the Catholic law have a Catholic understanding of natural law. This will school must engage the culture. Therefore, the school help them to train their students to guard against the must protect itself against right-wing political zealotry, pervasive relativism that now guides our legislation and from the so-called uber-Catholics, as well as against the positive law. It is also vitally important that Catholic temptation to teach the Catechism instead of the law. professors be practicing Catholics. Their example is in- These are, again, the two weights that a Catholic law valuable in creating a Catholic culture at a law school school must balance in maintaining equilibrium—the (Miscamble, 2007). natural and the supernatural. The Catholic law school Third, there must be a strong chaplaincy on cam- must teach its students to be in the world (Mt. 28:19- pus. Daily mass, frequent availability of confession, and 20), and yet not of it (Rom. 12:2); to be “wise as ser- the promotion of major feasts should be highlighted. pents and innocent as doves” (Mt. 10:16). On special occasions (for example, holy days of obliga- Regarding politics, a truly Catholic law school may tion), no classes, faculty meetings, or other school events be seen as a natural refuge for political conservatives. should be permitted so as not to detract from liturgical And it is true that many right-wingers—Catholics and participation. Retreats and days of recollection should non-Catholics—are seeking either refuge from the be scheduled each semester for faculty and students culture wars or ammunition for anticipated legal and alike. The chaplain should work directly with the dean political battles. (For example, Mormons and Evangeli- to assure a Catholic environment at the school. He cals, many of whom are politically motivated, have felt should also be vigilant as to any opposition to Catholic a degree of comfort at our school.) But it must be re- teaching and conduct on the part of either faculty or membered that Catholicism is not a political theory or students. And he should have ready access to the dean a political party. It is the Body of Christ, commissioned to ensure the effectiveness of his guidance in preserving to preach the truth of the Gospel. As Lumen Gentium the Catholic identity vital for the school’s survival as a states, “the Church must be leavening in the dough of Catholic entity. society.” And, as Saint Paul admonishes Christians, truth Fourth, the ideal proportion of Catholic students must always be spoken in love (Eph. 4:15). should be about 75 percent. At the moment, AMSL is Catholicism has a broad social consciousness, a at 63 percent. This is almost twice the percentage of respect for all people, even for those with whom we Catholic students at other Catholic law schools (in an disagree. It encourages a spirit of cooperation with civil unofficial survey of six Catholic law schools, the Catho- authorities in order to promote good order in society. lic population has been determined to be between 30 This is all based on a concern for the common good, a and 38 percent). A preponderance of Catholic students central pillar of Catholic social teaching. Recently, for enhances the Catholic environment. It also allows for example, many conservative law students have become

36 FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 enamored with Libertarianism, which promotes indi- material vital to helping students pass the bar exam and vidual freedom but tends to ignore one’s obligations to becoming proficient at their trade. Of course, mention society. It endorses a moral code that knows no limits should be made of Church teaching in, for example, a on self-expression as long as no one else is hurt (Ste- family law or property class. A professor at a Catholic phens, 2008). This is not political conservatism, nor is it law school must be versed in the Church’s teaching on Catholic, and administrators must be vigilant that their difficult topics, such as in-vitro fertilization and same- school is not taken over by such an ideology. sex marriage, and ready to explain them in class. This is Similarly, there are many orthodox Catholics who especially true in cases where positive laws contravene are frustrated and angry with perceived laxity of reli- the natural law. But this should not be the meat of the gious practice in parishes and instruction in Catholic class or distract from the specifically legal issues at hand. higher education. They fear the “politically correct” Students who wish to extend their inquiry should be and ideologically driven curricula of many law schools encouraged to meet with professors outside of class. which are often focused on social engineering (Olson, Topics such as those mentioned above engender 2011). AMSL has been a refuge for people with these heated classroom arguments, and often reflect per- concerns. But we must be vigilant that the school does sonal issues that require pastoral guidance. Students not take on a ghetto mentality and allow the ultra- with moral questions or concerns should be sent to orthodox to gain hegemony. The Catholic law school the chaplain’s office. On certain occasions, the chap- must remain in the mainstream. It must be discerning lain should be invited to a class to explain the Catholic in its teaching and careful with its clinical and pro- understanding and the religious implications of an issue. bono work, in order to fend off extremism. For example, I have recently spoken to a criminal law The following will suffice to make my point. class on the inviolability of the seal of confession, and to One of AMSL’s students helped to process a few di- a wills and estates class on end-of-life issues. But for a vorces during his internship in a pro-bono program (in professor to take up valuable class time in extended dia- consort with Catholic Charities), which caused quite logue with students on Catholic morality is tantamount a stir among some faculty and students. A good legal to a breach of contract. Law students must be taught education requires familiarizing students with the pro- the material necessary to pass the bar exam and become cess of filing papers for divorce. Accusations that AMSL good lawyers. was cooperating in evil and disloyal to its mission were Student organizations also require scrutiny, with tossed about. This required due diligence on the part of a faculty advisor to monitor their activities. It is in- the dean and the chaplain to make sure that we were conceivable that a Catholic law school can support a indeed being faithful to the Catholic mission of the club that promotes, for example, abortion or same-sex school, and necessitated our explaining the school’s marriage. This would be inconsistent with any truly position to everyone who expressed concerns. Catholic mission, and adherence to the school’s mission Although divorce is contrary to the Gospel, it supersedes freedom of expression. For example, a few is unfortunately a fact of life. Catholic lawyers must, years ago here at AMSL, some students wanted to start therefore, deal with it. The Church cautions lawyers, a Democratic club on campus. Permission and funding however, not to promote a divorce culture, and encour- would only be granted on the condition that within ages them to discourage divorce if possible. She also the group’s constitution anything contrary to Catholic “recognizes that the incompatibility of spouses in a teaching (e.g. abortion advocacy) would not be part of valid marriage sometimes makes it necessary for them the agenda. The organization met that condition and (the couple) to separate, even permanently…. A civil was approved. divorce may be necessary to protect certain civil rights The same caution must prevail with groups that of the spouses and their children.” This does not contra- seem unabashedly Catholic. For instance, at AMSL we dict the sacramental indissolubility of marriage which a have a pro-life organization known as Lex Vitae (Law of Catholic law school must uphold (McMahon, 2010). Life). It was founded to protest prayerfully the evils of There is also a tendency for religiously motivated abortion. For many years its members remained loyal to faculty members to perceive themselves as theologians the original constitution. Recently, some students want- or catechists. This is not what professors of law are hired ed to amend the constitution and add anti-contracep- to do, nor is it something they should do. Professors tion language as a requirement for membership. This was have only a fixed amount of class time to cover the not allowed, since it confused two very different issues

FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 37 Articles

(we are not talking about RH486 or the ‘Morning After and Xavier University should be a wake-up call to oth- Pill’). Certainly, artificial contraception is wrong, but to er religious schools that are in danger of losing their add this to the organization’s purpose would severely status. What has been proposed in this essay would curtail membership and, therefore, hinder the work of go a long way toward preventing a declaration that a saving the lives of the unborn. Catholic school is no longer Catholic. By maintaining Perhaps there is a need not only for pro-life groups equilibrium, a Catholic law school can remain faithful at Catholic law schools, but also for groups to form that to its mission, train competent lawyers, and even pro- would help educate the students on the evils of contra- vide the means for them to attain the graces needed ception and how it contradicts a Culture of Life. As a to be truly virtuous practitioners. After all, consistent matter of fact, such organizations may now be necessary with the natural law is its teleology— man’s final end in light of “ObamaCare,” which mandates that all insur- is to be with God. The Catholic lawyer should be not ers cover contraceptives. But at a Catholic law school, only legally ethical, but always morally upright, in the problem should be addressed in the Religious other words, one who adheres to a higher law requir- Liberty (First Amendment) course. The bill includes a ing him “to do what is beautiful and just.” very narrow conscience exemption that would protect In the end, a Catholic law school has the obligation few religious institutions, including colleges, and would to help its students become (Wright, 2010). ✠ leave insurers or individuals who have moral objections completely vulnerable. The recent bill violates Catholic moral principles and the Church’s religious mission. References Discussing the bill in class would provide an opportuni- ty for a reference to and a short discussion of Humanae Aquinas, St. Thomas (1265–1274). Summa Theologica. Gleason, P. (1995). Contending With Modernity: Catholic High Education in the Vitae (1968). (Gomez, 2011) Twentieth Century. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, Inc. What is it then, in brief, which makes an institu- Garvey, J. (2011, June 30). The Catholic Standard and Times: What’s a tion of higher learning Catholic? Firstly, a “Catholic” Catholic School? National Labor Relations Board shouldn’t decide. institution must live in harmony with Church teach- The Catholic Standard and Times, 4. Gomez, José H. (2011, October 25). Defending Our First Freedom. First ing, as is demanded by the Vatican document, Ex Corde Things. Retrieved from firstthings.com/onthesquare/2011/10/ Ecclesiae (1992). Therefore, the Catholic Intellectual defending-our-first-freedom Tradition should be integrated into the various pro- John Paul, II (1992). Ex Corde Ecclesiae. grams of study, without neglecting the primacy of John Paul, II (1998). Fides et Ratio. knowledge and learning essential to each discipline. The McMahon, Rev. Msgr. K. T., (2010, November 1). “A Catholic Lawyer Facilitating Divorce: A Moral Opinion.” Msgr. McMahon is a Professor majority of faculty should be Catholic or, if not, at least of Theology at Pontifical College Josephinum, Columbus, Ohio. See pcj. be in wholehearted agreement with both the mission edu/aboutus/mcmahon.html. and philosophy of the institution. Likewise, the student Miscamble, W.D. (2007, August 10). The Faculty ‘Problem’: How body should be around three-fourths Catholic. Finally, a Can Catholic Identity Be Preserved?. America. Retrieved from americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=10176 Catholic institution should devotedly assist the students Olson, W. (2011). Schools for Misrule: Legal Academia and an Overlawyered on their spiritual journey and formation, enabling them America. New York: Encounter Books. to fulfill their vocation and achieve their final end: Rommen, H.A., (1946, 98) The Natural Law: A Study in Legal And Social heaven. If an institution of higher learning meets these History and Philosophy. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, Inc. Stephens, B. (2008, January 15). Ron Paul and Foreign Policy. The Wall Street criteria, I think it is safe to say that it is truly a Catholic Journal, A12.7 institution. Wright, N.T. (2010). After you Believe: Why Christian Character Matters. The NLRB’s recent ruling on Manhattan College New York: Harper One.

catholicscholars.org

38 FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 Further Reflections on “Brain Death”

by William G. White informed by Christian doctrine and Aristotelian philos- ophy, teaches that human beings are creatures compris- William G. White, M.D. is a past President of the ing a material body and a spiritual, immortal soul. The Catholic Medical Association of the United States. soul (Latin: anima), is the spiritual substance that gives life to (“animates”) the body. At the time of conception, his is a response to Professor William E. the parental germ cells unite into a single, new, totipo- May’s article, “Responding to Teachings tential cell, animated by the newly created human soul, Proposed Authoritatively but not Irreform- and a new person comes into being. At the other end of ably by the Magisterium and the Criterion life’s span, the moment of death, the soul and body sepa- forT Determining that a Human Person Has Died” (Fel- rate. The person has “departed”; only “remains” remain. lowship of Catholic Scholars Quarterly, Fall, 2011). Professor Since the soul is a spiritual substance, undetect- May points out that the Church defers to the scientific able by the senses and by the tools of the physical sci- and medical professions in establishing the criteria for ences, it cannot be directly observed leaving the body. declaring death. “Note that in this address [to the 18th The physician, therefore, must look for secondary signs International Congress of the Transplantation Society] that indicate that the body is no longer animated, i.e. John Paul II makes clear that ‘the Church does not that the body’s living systems no longer function in make technical decisions’ with regard to the scientific an integrated way. These functions include sensation, criteria for determining death.” He further quotes the movement, and cognition; the circulation of the blood Holy Father: “…the criterion…for ascertaining the fact by the heart; the oxygenation of the blood by the lungs; of death, namely the complete and irreversible cessation of the oxygenation of the tissues by the blood; the regula- all brain activity, if rigorously applied, does not seem to tion of the body’s chemistries by the endocrine system; conflict with the essential elements of a sound anthro- the maintenance of body temperature by the skin and pology” (emphasis added by Dr. May). the autonomic nervous system, and many, many other In recent years, however, for utilitarian reasons functions, all of which interact with and depend upon including the desire to transplant vital organs, the medi- one another. They all ultimately depend upon the soul, cal profession has gone well beyond its competency to which animates and vivifies them, and without whose make technical decisions, such as developing criteria for presence none of them could function. the diagnosis of death, but instead has sought to manu- Brain-based criteria for declaring death (so-called brain facture new definitions of death. This present response death) assume that the brain is the only integrating organ to Dr. May’s article questions whether the medical and that, once it has completely and permanently stopped profession has indeed rigorously developed and applied functioning, the functional unity of the body has been lost criteria for ascertaining the fact of death, and whether and the person is no longer present. But the brain is only medical science possesses the tools to conclude, on neu- one of many “integrating” organs. The soul is the true rological criteria alone, that the “complete and irrevers- integrating principle of the living body, and the soul’s ible cessation of all brain activity” has occurred. presence is detectable not merely by the functioning The determination or diagnosis of death and the of the brain, but by all the many physiological func- definition of death differ. The determination or diagno- tions mentioned in the previous paragraph that mani- sis of death is the application of the observational tools fest that life is present. of the medical arts to achieve “moral certainty” that Another consequence of the fact that the soul can- death has occurred. But this practical judgment depends not be directly observed leaving the body is that the not only upon the observation of certain physical signs, precise moment of death cannot be determined. Al- but also upon the correct understanding of what death though it cannot be detected, there is a precise moment is. This definition of death is the separation of the soul of death. Death is not a “process.” Dying is a process, from the body. To borrow Blessed John Paul II’s term, but a dying person, until the actual moment of death, the correct definition of death is one of “the essential is a living person. The moment before death, the soul is elements of a sound anthropology.” Sound anthropology, present and the person is alive; the moment after death

FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 39 Articles the soul is absent and the person has died. The physi- barbiturate intoxication, where the neurological criteria cian can achieve certainty that death has occurred by for “brain death” are in every other way met or exceed- the signs of disintegration of unified bodily functioning ed, including complete neurological unresponsiveness that take place only after the soul has left the body. In and a flat electroencephalogram, and yet such individu- other words death can be diagnosed with certainty only als have made full recoveries. Although their loss of brain in retrospect. function was apparently complete, it was not irreversible, Rigor mortis is a certain sign that the body’s sys- a fact that was discovered only by the occurrence of tems are no longer functioning in an integrated way. their recovery. Their potential for recovery or lack there- However, the malfunctioning of a single organ, even a of could not have been detected prospectively on the vital organ like the heart or the brain, is not a sufficient basis of physical examination or medical testing during sign that death has occurred. Death may be imminent; their deep coma. Just as in the case of cardiac arrest, the but, as long as the rest of the body continues to func- irreversibility of the loss of brain function can be known tion in an integrated way, the patient may be dying, with certainty only in the presence of the corroborat- but he is not dead. This persistent functioning in a fully ing signs of bodily disintegration and decay. Thus, in integrated way of the systems mentioned above is evi- those patients who meet the criteria of “brain death,” it dence of life, that is, of the presence of the soul. is impossible to state with that moral certainty necessary It is popularly assumed that cardiopulmonary ar- to diagnose death that the brain has irreversibly ceased to rest was once considered a certain sign that death had function. Until those signs of decay and disintegration occurred. On the contrary, physicians have long used that occur only after death are detectable, the diagnosis other signs to diagnose death, e.g. fixed pupils, venous of irreversible loss of brain function is an attempt to make pooling, bodily cooling, lack of reflexes, etc. Cardiopul- a prospective diagnosis (i.e. a prognosis) of a condition that monary arrest is a necessary sign of death but is not suf- can be diagnosed only in retrospect. ficient to make a certain diagnosis. Even though cardiac Even in the absence of such conditions as hypo- arrest was at one time considered equivalent to death, thermia and barbiturate intoxication, there is reason to the advent of successful cardiopulmonary resuscitation doubt that the so-called “brain dead” patient is really during the twentieth century should have put that fal- dead. As a physician, I find it both medically and ethi- lacy to rest forever. The resuscitation of a person who cally problematic to be called upon to declare dead has suffered cardiopulmonary arrest demonstrates de- a patient whose living lungs are absorbing oxygen finitively that the person was not dead. The statement, into the bloodstream; whose living heart is pumping “I was clinically dead, but they brought me back,” is without artificial stimulation; whose living kidneys are inaccurate. Apart from true miracles, which we are not producing urine; whose living intestines are absorbing considering here, the return from death is impossible. food; whose living skin is warm, moist, and pink; and Death is, by definition, permanent. whose living limbs, innervated by a living spinal and If “the complete and irreversible cessation of all peripheral nervous system, recoil when painful stimuli brain activity” is to be considered a valid criterion for are applied. This complex interplay of vital functions, diagnosing death, the key word is “irreversible.” As a which can persist for days or weeks, is a true homeosta- physician I know that, in the case of cardiopulmonary sis, not the inexorable process of decay that takes place arrest, the heart and lungs have stopped “irreversibly” after death has occurred. only by observing the cessation of function of all the The declaration of death in such a situation, i.e. fol- other integrating systems of the body. Until that time, lowing the criteria for “brain death,” would imply that the heart and lungs may be capable of resuscitation, and the death of the person can occur without the death if so the person is still alive. of the body. This dualism is, I believe, inconsistent both Similar considerations apply to the definition of with sound anthropology and with Christian doctrine. “brain death” as “the complete and irreversible loss of The integrated functioning of the many living, physi- all brain function.” The irreversibility of brain function, ological systems of the “brain dead” body, even in the like the irreversibility of cardiac arrest, is a retrospective absence of some neurological functions, cannot occur diagnosis. As in cardiac arrest, the lack of brain function in the absence of the soul. alone, without other signs of bodily disintegration, is not Many, both lay and professional, understand that the sufficient to diagnose the death of the person. There are gravely injured and dying “brain dead” person is not re- certain conditions, for example, such as hypothermia or ally dead, but is alive. Such intuition, “common sense,” or

40 FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 sensus fidelium, may deserve greater attention than it of- fictions of either “cardiac death” or “brain death.” Note: ten gets. Even physicians, in unguarded moments, betray this description is not the “Pittsburgh Protocol,” which their intuitive understanding. I once heard a physician say, depends upon the fallacious concept of “cardiac death.” “The neurologist declared the patient brain dead, so we In fact both “cardiac death” and “brain death” are took him off the ventilator and let him die.” misnomers, unless we are somehow to believe that there The assumption that, unless a person can be declared are two new classes of dead people, one with function- “brain dead” he must be left to languish indefinitely on ing brains and nonfunctioning hearts, and the other a ventilator, is false. The Church requires neither starting with functioning hearts and nonfunctioning brains. In nor continuing futile or excessively burdensome “ex- both cases, in the absence of life-saving intervention, traordinary” treatments. It is perfectly in keeping with the individuals involved will die very soon, but they are humane treatment and Catholic morality to withdraw a not dead yet. In fact, without the life-saving “interven- ventilator in certain circumstances and to allow natural tions” of food, fluids, and oxygen, we would all soon be death to take place. This is in no way euthanasia. The dead. But being dead soon and being dead already are objectionable feature of such a scenario is the false pre- two very different things. tense that a person must be declared dead before he can In conclusion, I consider the concept of “brain be allowed to die. death,” that is, the declaration of the death of the person Even the transplantation of human organs, for which on neurologic criteria alone, to be invalid. In isolation the concept of brain death was invented, may not neces- from other corroborating findings, brain-based findings sarily require such ethical gymnastics. Transplants from are insufficient to achieve moral certainty of the death of living donors of paired or multiple organs like the kid- the person. neys or the lobes of the liver pose little ethical difficulty. As Pope John Paul II pointed out in his address of 20 Even the transplantation of a heart from a living donor March 2004 to the International Congress on “Life-Sus- who is in the last moments of his life may in certain taining Treatments and Vegetative State…,” “…even the circumstances be ethically permissible. If the person is simple doubt of being in the presence of a living person nearing death and resuscitation to further prolong his already imposes the obligation of full respect and of ab- life is deemed inappropriate and morally dispensable, if staining from any act that aims at anticipating the person’s spontaneous cardiac arrest has occurred, and if the ap- death.” propriate consent has been obtained, might it be ethical I am grateful to Professor May for his conclusion to transplant the still living (not still beating) heart from that his still living body? How could this be? Once the heart …theologians (and other learned persons) who with- has spontaneously arrested, it is no longer a vital organ, hold or suspend assent from the teaching of Blessed i.e. it no longer performs its life-sustaining function. It John Paul II on the criterion for determining that remains a living organ, that is, it can be resuscitated and a human person has died are not dissenting from a will resume its function in the recipient, but because it teaching authoritatively but not irreformably pro- no longer serves its circulatory function in the dying posed, and that they ought not to be accused of being donor, it is no longer a vital organ. Once it has arrested, disloyal Catholics or dissenting theologians or philoso- it no longer maintains or prolongs the life of the donor. phers. (emphasis in original) Removing it, therefore, does not cause the person’s death, a death that is fully anticipated and ethically The Church defers to the judgment of physicians permissible. In those few minutes between cardiac ar- to diagnose death, but physicians must be informed by rest and death, the transplantation of the non-vital (i.e. that sound anthropology which guides us to a proper non-life-sustaining), non-beating, but still living heart is understanding of what life and death really are. It is we ethically and medically equivalent to the transplantation physicians who bear the responsibility to clarify the of a living kidney from a living donor. Thus even heart proper criteria for the diagnosis of death. We have yet transplantation may be ethical without resorting to the to do so. ✠

FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 41 Book Reviews

Edward Feser. The Last Superstition: any disinterested observer, if one could A Refutation of the New Atheism, pub- A Refutation of the New Atheism. imagine such (let’s call on that accom- lished by St. Augustine’s Press in South South Bend, Indiana: St. Augustine’s modating fellow who has just dropped Bend, Indiana. In his previous publica- Press, 2008. xi + 299 pp. $27.00 in from Mars), would not be exactly tions Professor Feser has shown himself swept off his feet by the case these to be a philosopher of the first rank, and Reviewed by D. Q. McInerny, Our Lady of books make against religion, and still in this work he has given us a document Guadalupe Seminary, Denton, Nebraska less by that made on behalf of atheism. of singular importance. Of all the books In some instances the arguments are so written in response to “the new atheists” n recent years we have borne wit- glaringly inept that one could imagine (that designation, I believe, originates ness to an outburst of books written a self-respecting atheist being positively with Feser), this one has to be counted Iby a coterie of true-believing athe- embarrassed by them. As to the third among the very best. There are three ists, the intent of which was twofold: to point, perhaps it’s simply a matter of principal reasons why this is so. The first attack theism as fundamentally irrational there not being very much in atheism has to do with the style in which the in all its forms, and to promote atheism capable of bringing joy to the human book is written; it is direct, clear, forceful, as in every way the superior alternative. heart. and—no small matter—witty. Secondly, Christianity was singled out for special For every action, we are told, there the arguments which carry the substance attention, for, to hear the tale told by is an equal and opposite reaction. Let of the book are of the highest quality; most of these authors, while apparently this recent spate of atheist literature they are tightly constructed, masterfully having contributed nothing of real count as the action; this drew a reaction controlled, and compelling. Thirdly—and import to Western culture, Christian- in the form of several books written in I take this to be the book’s strongest ity must be held responsible for at least direct response to it, a reaction which, feature—there is the manner in which ninety-eight percent of its woes. This, the laws of physics notwithstanding, Professor Feser sets the phenomenon supposedly, is to be allowed to pass for was appreciably more than equal to the of the new atheism in a larger histori- history. initiating action. Indeed, in light of the cal/philosophical context, and thereby The books I have principally in mind reaction, the action pales in comparison. gives it sharper identity and makes it are Daniel Dennet’s Breaking the Spell, The books I have in mind are Father more fully understandable. He shows Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion, Thomas Crean’s A Catholic Replies to that the new atheism, and the secularism Sam Harris’s The End of Faith and Letter Professor Dawkins, David Reuben Stone’s of which it is a particular manifestation, to a Christian Nation, and Christopher Atheism Is False: Richard Dawkins and the did not come out of the blue, but that it Hitchens’s God Is Not Great. The pe- “Improbability of God” Delusion, Dinesh has its roots in our philosophical past; to culiar genre represented by these books D’Souza’s What’s So Great About Chris- know that philosophical past is to have a could be said to have its genesis, at least tianity, Mike King’s The God Delusion firmer grip on the philosophical present. in modern times, in Ludwig Feuerbach’s Revisited, David Berlinski’s The Devil’s By the frank admission of its author, The Essence of Christianity—a work Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Preten- The Last Superstition is a polemical book, which has nothing to do with the es- sions, Alister E. McGrath and Joanna an angry book, and he makes no apolo- sence of Christianity. Of more recent Collicut McGrath’s The Dawkins Delu- gies for its being either. The occasion vintage, there was H. L. Mencken’s Trea- sion? Atheist Fundamentalism and the Deni- often dictates the response proper to it. tise on the Gods and Bertrand Russell’s al of the Divine, and David Bentley Hart’s If one is confronting serious error, the Why I Am Not a Christian. There are Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution triumph of which could prove to have two things about the more recent books and Its Fashionable Enemies. And this is a completely unraveling effect on the that the reader cannot help but find es- only to name those books with which already tenuous status of Western civili- pecially striking. First, there is the highly I am personally familiar. Each of them zation, a spirited approach is called for. nervous, almost frenetic, tone which is impressive in its own right—those Secularism and atheism now run ram- seems to dominate the style in which by Father Crean, David Berlinski, and pant; the cost, should they gain the day, they are written; second, the arguments David Bentley Hart are especially distin- would be altogether too high. “What is of these books, with but few exceptions, guished—and all of them taken together needed to counteract the antireligious are sustained by a logic which is shaky amount to a fairly thunderous reply to and libertine madness of the present at best, and, at worst, of the most ques- the atheists. If the atheists have not been time,” Professor Feser writes, “is not a tionable kind. I would add a third point. reduced to silence (that would be ask- crude populism or short-term politi- These books are rather wonderful for ing altogether too much), their dubious cal strategizing, but a rethinking of the their stark humorlessness. methodology and their limping logic has relevant issues back to first principles” As to the first point, one has the now been given full exposure. (ix). And a rethinking of relevant issues impression that these men are not es- But there is another book which is to back to first principles is precisely what pecially confident in their atheism; they be added to the above list, the book to he does in this book, and with telling protest too much, and too stridently. As which this review is devoted, Professor success. to the second point, it would seem that Edward Feser’s The Last Superstition: The book is divided into six chapters.

42 FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 The first is given over to a compre- Professor Dawkins evidently believes temporary discourse, there is reason to hensive critique of the new atheism, that he has neatly disposed of St. Thomas shy away from the term “values,” for the in which Professor Feser shows that Aquinas’s arguments for the existence of fact that it is too suggestive of the sub- it represents an important part of the God, but he has done no such thing, and jective. A value is something to which spirit of secularism, a spirit which has that for the simplest of reasons—he did we attach worth, sometimes for reasons its proximate historical sources in the not respond to St. Thomas’s arguments that are entirely subjective. The good, on positivism and scientism which came to at all. He was jousting, with a valor the other hand, has objective status; it is the fore in the nineteenth century. The worthy of Don Quixote, against scraggly what it is, regardless of whether or not second through the fifth chapters of the straw men of his own concoction. Pro- we value it. Much of Professor Feser’s book are dedicated to what Professor fessor Feser puts his finger on the nub of efforts in this book go into explicating Feser describes as a crash course in the the problem. Devotee of scientism that the thought of Aristotle, and for good history of Western philosophy. Chapter he is, Dawkins, taking the methodology reason. He rightly laments the fact that Two provides an account of the Greek of the empirical sciences to be the only modern philosophy has effectively aban- foundations of Western philosophy, giv- way to truth, misapplies that methodolo- doned Aristotelian thought, to the de- ing special emphasis to the thought of gy to the realm of metaphysics, with the cided detriment of modern philosophy. Aristotle. Chapter Three contains an es- unfortunate consequences which were “Abandoning Aristotelianism,” he writes, pecially accomplished working through completely predictable. Judging from “as the founders of modern philosophy did, of the classic Scholastic arguments for his own writings, one can only con- was the single greatest mistake ever made in the existence of God, and here we have clude that Dawkins is quite innocent of the entire history of Western thought” (51, a definitive response to the new atheists’ metaphysics. Though this is not in itself, emphasis in the text). The extent of that treatment of those arguments. Chapter perhaps, a criminal offense, it becomes mistake is best appreciated when we real- Four treats of the Scholastic understand- at the least a very serious matter when ize that Aristotelian ideas “provided the ing of the soul, the natural law, faith, rea- one rushes headlong into a field the most powerful and systematic intellectual son, and the nature of evil. Chapter Five geography of which one is a complete foundation for traditional Western reli- provides us with a lively and pointed stranger. Much of the crusade to which gion and morality—and for that matter, critique of modern philosophy. The final Dawkins has dedicated himself is fueled for science, morality, politics, and theol- chapter of the book, which focuses on by his conviction that there is a war on ogy in general—that has ever existed” formal and final causality, argues force- between science and religion, and he (52). fully for the need of Western philosophy sees himself as right in the thick of it, Within the context of discussing the to return to the fundamental principles battling on behalf of science. But if sci- concepts of act and potency, matter and of Aristotelian metaphysics. ence and religion are rightly understood, form, and the four causes—all key ele- One of the central arguments of it becomes immediately evident that ments of Aristotle’s philosophy—Profes- the book is that what we have in the there is no war between the two, nor sor Feser provides a pointed critique of new atheism, and the secularism within was there ever one, nor will there ever David Hume’s position on causality, and which it is enfolded, is something which be one. To be sure, there is a war going in a crisp, cogent way makes explicit its bears all the earmarks of a religion. But on, but as Professor Feser points out, it elementary flaws. That so many philoso- if atheism is a religion, it is of the fee- is not between science and religion; it is phers have succumbed so thoroughly to blest kind, for its whole raison d’être is to between two philosophies, “the classical Hume’s errant reasoning on this matter stand in opposition to true religion; it is philosophical worldview” (13), on the surely has to stand as one of the marvels defined by that opposition. However, it one hand, which Professor Feser so ably of modern times. To break the spell, as is the quality of that opposition which explains and defends, and the philosophy Professor Feser has done, one has only to reveals the utter poverty of atheism. The which was ushered in by the likes of call attention to the obvious—that the new atheists can count among their Descartes, Hobbes, Kant, and all the rest Emperor David is liable to philosophical numbers some rather flashy rhetori- of the moderns. arrest for indecent exposure. cians and golden-tongued proselytizers, In his survey of the principal tenets In his careful working through proofs but they fall markedly short of making of the Western philosophical tradition, for the existence of God, Professor Feser anything like a convincing case for their Professor Feser deals in an especially chooses to focus on the first, second, and position. They are very good at ridicule illuminating way with, among other fifth of St. Thomas’s famed Five Ways, and deprecatory name-calling, at hurl- things, “problem of univer- that is to say, respectively, the argument ing impassioned anathemas at what they sals,” gives us nine trenchant arguments from motion, the argument from ef- regard as benighted theists—tactics well against nominalism, and, in treating of ficient causality, and the argument from calculated to draw lusty guffaws and the thought of Plato, makes an apt ob- finality. He properly calls attention to raucous applause from the groundlings servation in recommending that, instead the fact that Richard Dawkins entirely (slapstick or its equivalent always sells)— of talking about “values,” we make “the misconstrues the argument from final- but this serves as no substitute for seri- good” the subject of our conversation. ity, taking it to be an argument from ous discourse. Although it figures prominently in con- design, and then, supposing himself to

FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 43 Book Reviews be attacking the thought of Thomas every empiricist readily does, without the door wide to skepticism, creating Aquinas, is actually attacking the thought at one and the same time subscribing serious problems relating to personal of William Paley. In his Natural Theology, to the reality of final causality, for the identity, free will, and natural rights. The the eighteenth-century divine William first is unintelligible without the second. general consequences for morality are Paley offered to the world one of the And he notes that the whole process of given prominent display in the moral most elaborate and detailed versions of inductive reasoning, which is the engine philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Despite the argument from design that we have. that runs the empirical sciences, is only his best efforts to develop an ethics Professor Feser finds the argument from defensible in terms of formal causality. founded on objective criteria, Kant design to be problematic, which explains It is refreshing to hear the celebrated ended up giving us a system that ulti- his less than enthusiastic attitude toward mind-body problem—which we owe mately amounts to just another kind of the current Intelligent Design movement. to the universally recognized father of subjectivism, though admittedly a very He sees that whole approach to the exis- modern philosophy, René Descartes— classy kind, and once subjectivism has tence of God to be seriously debilitated referred to as the pseudo-mind-body been given center stage relativism waits by the fact that it effectively accepts a problem. For such it is. It is one of impatiently in the wings. mechanistic view of the universe, a view any number of pseudo-problems that In the final chapter of The Last Super- shared by the atheists. I think his criti- modern philosophy has invented for cisms of the argument from design are itself in attempting to make sense of a stition Professor Feser makes a convinc- warranted, up to a point, but it seems to world in which sound psychological ing case for what he calls irreducible me that there are certain positive aspects and metaphysical principles have been teleology. Try as we might to get rid of to that argument which can be put to carelessly pushed aside. As the result final causality, it refuses to cooperate good purpose if the entire argument is of M. Descartes’s splitting man right with our intemperate and irrational de- made subordinate to the argument from down the middle, troublesomely mak- signs. By a focused analytic examination finality, and taken as a corollary to it. ing two substances where there can be of biological phenomena, of complex Professor Feser tracks the begin- only one, philosophers started wringing inorganic systems, and of the basic laws nings of modern philosophy back to the their hands and wracking their brains in of nature, he gives us incontrovertible fourteenth century, specifically to the trying to figure out how there could be evidence that final causality is an integral nominalism and the voluntarism which any communication between the mate- and inextricable fact of nature, and not welled up out of that century. Interest- rial (the body) and the purely immate- to recognize it is as such is simply to be ingly, he identifies William of Ockham, rial (the soul). And then, as materialism content with a profound incomprehen- whom we regularly label as a nominalist, eventually came to prominence and the sion of nature. In reviewing a book one as a conceptualist, and there is something very notion of soul was regarded as no seldom calls attention to the notes that to that. It is a fairly common supposi- longer philosophically acceptable, the are attached to the text, but in this case tion, which our histories of philosophy next logical move was to reduce mind there is reason for doing so, for they do not always take pains to correct, that to brain. We have an extreme version represent a rich store of references per- modern thought, both philosophical and of the materialistic position expressed taining to the many subjects which are scientific, decided to dispense with for- in what is called “eliminative material- dealt with in the book. In sum, this is an mal and final causality, and make do with ism,” two of the more prominent pro- important and weighty work, which ad- material and efficient causality only, be- ponents of which are Paul and Patricia dresses vigorously and deftly what is very cause formal and final causality had been Churchland. The basic thesis of elimi- likely the single most serious problem clearly refuted. But no such refutation native materialism is the very soul of of our age. It is a book which the new ever took place; it was simply a matter of simplicity: all reality is material, period. atheists could benefit much by reading, choosing to ignore the reality of formal Commitment to this thesis entails sur- but they doubtless would be reluctant to and final causality, a choice driven by the rendering naive folk notions such as that ideological commitment to a mechanis- which would hold, for example, that our do so, out of fear, perhaps, that it might tic view of the universe. Though never ideas are immaterial. Not so, for to be prove to be an instrument of conversion. openly admitted, it was understood that, immaterial is to be nothing. Our ideas once formal and final causality were are to be reduced to purely material • acknowledged, the existence of God phenomena, such as synaptic activity had to be acknowledged. But reality has within the brain. Professor Feser dem- Nicholas E. Lombardo, O.P. The Logic a way of having the last say, and while onstrates conclusively that this position of Desire: Aquinas on Emotion. Wash- formal and final causality were denied is fundamentally incoherent. In spite of ington, D.C.: The Catholic University on the theoretical level, they were ev- itself, eliminative materialism, cannot of America Press, 2011. xiii + 319 pp. erywhere tacitly recognized on the avoid relying on what it wants to deny. $34.95 practical level. As Professor Feser makes The consequences of the rejection clear, one cannot subscribe to the real- of formal and final causality are as wide Reviewed by D. Q. McInerny, Our Lady of ity of efficient causality, which of course ranging as they are damaging, opening Guadalupe Seminary, Denton, Nebraska.

44 FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 here has been a marked defi- Latin of St. Thomas. Even so, that does can be made for the legitimacy of those ciency of attention given to the not mean that there are not significant distinctions, even so, Father Lombardo is Tethical thought of St. Thomas conceptual connections between our rightly calling attention to real difficulties Aquinas, specifically with respect to the common understanding of the term, and in the texts we have to deal with. prominent emphasis it gives to the emo- what Aquinas has to say about the pas- If we were to take our lead from the tions, a circumstance all the more unfor- sions and affectivity in the Summa. Stoics, we would look upon the pas- tunate for the relevancy of that thought The Thomistic texts on which Father sions with a jaundiced eye, regarding for the times in which we live. So argues Lombardo’s study is centered have come them as deadly enemies which must Father Nicholas E. Lombardo, O.P. in to be known under the collective title be overcome as we travel the high road his book, The Logic of Desire, and then, in of the Treatise on the Passions, which is leading to the ultimate victory of virtue. that book, he makes no small contribu- made up of Questions 22-48 of the First No attitude could be more alien to the tion toward remedying the deficiency, Part of the Second Part of the Summa thought of St. Thomas. “For Aquinas,” and demonstrating the relevancy of the theologiae. Aquinas divides the passions, or Father Lombardo appositely observes, emotions for ethical behavior. His prin- sense appetites, into two basic groups, the “the passions are not a threat to human cipal thesis, which provides the basic concupiscible passions (love, desire, plea- virtue, but an essential component, and structure for the book, is that, for St. sure; hate, aversion, pain) and the irascible the ideal relationship between the pas- Thomas, emotions, as manifested in the passions (hope, audacity; fear, despair; sions and reason is more fluid” (101). sense appetites or passions, and as those anger). Considered generally, a passion “is The passions exercise a certain degree of are treated in the Summa theologiae, act a physiological and psychological re- autonomy in their operations, and our as “the guiding principle around which sponse to the apprehension of a sensible ordinary experience tells us that they Aquinas organized his most mature good or a sensible evil” (20). “Appetite” are capable at times of functioning in a thought” (xi). The special value of the designates a larger category, and besides damagingly disordered fashion, but for approach which Aquinas takes here is the passions it takes into account the all that it remains the case that they have to be found in the fact that it represents will as well, which Aquinas refers to as a natural orientation to reason. We could a rich synthesis of psychology and eth- the intellectual appetite. An appetite is say that the passions have a built-in pro- ics. The most telling aspect of Aquinas’s “the principle in being that aims toward pensity to cooperate with reason, and do treatment of human emotion is his what is perfecting or completing” (26). cooperate so long as reason itself fulfills repeated affirmation of its fundamen- It is common to both the passions and its proper role in the ongoing drama tal goodness. Human emotion can go the will that they are ordered toward and of man’s ethical life. When everything wrong, but when it does so it departs seek to attain the good. What differenti- within the person is ordered as it ought from an elementary, natural orientation. ates the concupiscible and the irascible to be, that is, toward the attainment of The term “emotion” proves to be passions is that the first represent simple goods that are truly perfective of the quite elusive, and the psychologists have and direct responses to what is perceived person, then (pace the Stoics) “virtue not been able to pin it down with the as either good or evil, whereas the iras- does not eradicate the passions, that is, kind of precision that its critical im- cible passions are responses to a good passions actively oriented toward human portance in human psychology would which is difficult to attain, or to an evil flourishing” (106). seem to warrant. Because of his com- which is difficult to escape. Man is naturally ordered toward the manding influence, William James’s There is an especially fresh and lively good, and all the particular goods which understanding of emotion, by which he quality to Father Lombardo’s explica- we strive to attain in this life can be said effectively reduces it to feeling, that is, tion of and commentary on the passions, to have their summation—certainly to physical sensations, held sway among which is explained by the fact that he their basic intelligibility as goods—in the professionals until the middle of the brings to his analysis a broad knowledge man’s ultimate good, which is of course last century, when a cognitive account of current trends in the psychology of God Himself. But we need supernatu- of emotion began to gain prominence. the emotions. He has thus ably equipped ral help, in the form of grace, in order The hallmark of the cognitive approach himself to show the specific ways in to enable us to live virtuously and thus is to regard the emotions as intentional, which Thomistic thought has germane properly direct ourselves toward our which is to say that they are object application to an array of contempo- culminating final end which is beatitude. oriented and consist of a combination rary issues. He makes several thoughtful Hence the need for that specific mani- of sense experience and cognitive evalu- and potentially productive criticisms of festation of grace which are the infused ation. When we respond emotionally Aquinas’s thought, as when, for example, virtues, which Aquinas regarded as the to something (emotion always has an he questions if there is a legitimate basis only perfect virtues, properly speak- object toward which it is directed), we for a real distinction, given Aquinas’s ing, and which, though gratuitous gifts respond both as feeling creatures and as description of them and the part he has of God—it is that which distinguishes thinking creatures. Our “emotion,” as them play in his system, between love the infused virtues from the acquired Father Lombardo points out, has no reli- and desire, as well as between despair and virtues—nonetheless require human able equivalent in the thirteenth-century fear or aversion. Although I believe a case cooperation, for, after all, gratuitous gifts

FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 45 Book Reviews require an attitude of active receptivity Chapter Eight of The Logic of Desire of emotion. Second, apart from his treat- on the part of the recipient. In call- is devoted to a preliminary evaluation of ment of vice, he does not address the ing attention to the disputed question Aquinas’s thought on emotion, and in it issue of psychological pathology. Third, whether Aquinas, in the Second Part of Father Lombardo explains that “Aqui- he pays little attention to the important the Second Part of the Summa (wherein nas’s category of affection [affectio] cor- role which memory plays in human specific virtues are considered) is dealing responds to the category of emotion, and psychology. Finally, he gives insufficient with acquired virtues or with infused therefore Aquinas’s account of affection attention to interpersonal relationships. virtues, Father Lombardo gives the al- should be seen as Aquinas’s account of While all of these criticisms are defen- together reasonable response, and argues emotion” (224). He goes on to provide sible, I wonder if the first, given the still conclusively on its behalf, that Aquinas is us with a succinct summary of the find- unresolved problems regarding the very dealing with both. And he makes a point ings of his study in the following terms: definition of emotion, might not be worth pondering when he cites what he “When Aquinas’s account of emotion is faulting Aquinas for not meeting a con- regards as a less than adequate treatment put in conversation with contemporary cern which is more ours than his on Aquinas’s part of the relation between theories, Aquinas should be seen as advo- In the final chapter of the book Fa- the acquired virtues and the infused cating a theory of emotion that equates ther Lombardo offers a number of stim- virtues. emotion with intentional feeling, views ulating suggestions for the formulation In his discussion of Aquinas’s treat- emotion as intrinsically dependent on of a contemporary theology of emotion. ment of the theological virtues, Father cognition (including perception) and He begins by considering the matter of Lombardo shows how the notion of usually but not necessarily involving the discernment, and with reference to St. affectivity guides the Common Doctor’s body, and limits emotion’s extension to Ignatius’s Spiritual Exercises, cites interior thought, as when, for example, he stresses discrete psychological events, thus ex- peace and consolation as very reliable the inseparableness of affection and cluding long-term affective dispositions indicators that one has discerned in a faith, and by his characterizing charity as from being considered emotions (but not manner which is in accord with the will friendship with God. The passions play as moods, as long as a mood is under- of God. He next proposes forgiveness as a prominent role in Aquinas’s treatment stood as a more or less continuous series the proper antidote to a tenacious and of the cardinal virtues, as evidenced by of similar emotions)” (229). debilitating anger. “Because the passions his placing the irascible passions under Because of their intrinsic orienta- respond to the direction of reason,” he the governance of fortitude; and he as- tion to the good, Aquinas regards both writes, “useless anger can be redirected signs the same task to temperance with the sense appetites (the passions) and the through forgiveness and dispersed” (253). respect to the concupiscible passions. intellectual appetite (the will) as basically In view of the homiletic blandness to Furthermore, justice too involves affec- trustworthy. When we go wrong morally, which, by and large, Catholics have tion, and cannot be regarded as the mere it is because, with the loss of grace, we been subjected in recent decades, Father mechanical meeting of the standards of a are beset by a complex of desires which Lombardo has some especially pertinent bloodless equity. are in competition with one another, things to say about emotion and preach- In treating of the affectivity of Christ, and so we experience a war within. ing. A sermon must be substantive, to Aquinas had the difficult task of trying Desire ceases to be properly focused. It is be sure, and its sound doctrinal content to strike the right balance between the a particularly perspicacious observation directed principally to the intellect, but facts that, while Christ was fully man, He on Father Lombardo’s part that Aqui- “good preaching presents objects for was fully God as well. Christ enjoyed the nas’s grouping of the passions into the consideration that naturally awake the Beatific Vision, and though He possessed concupiscible and the irascible is “one intended passions or affections” (257). infused knowledge of a very special kind, of the most important structural features His analysis of boredom, that peculiarly He nonetheless, Aquinas argues, gained of Aquinas’s account of emotion.” For modern malaise, contains any number of knowledge through those ordinary St. Thomas, every passion is good unless pregnant insights. There is no inner rest means common to all human beings. corrupted, and his conviction that pas- for the bored, no joy, no real love. The Not only does Aquinas reject Hilary of sion is naturally oriented to reason “is the seat of the problem is to be found, not Poitiers’s contention that Christ suffered foundation of Aquinas’s account of how in cognition, but in desire, a desire bereft no physical pain (dolor) on the cross, but virtue and grace perfect human activity” of a proper object. He quotes Tolstoy’s argues that, precisely because He was (239). Freedom, for Aquinas, is meant pointed description of “boredom as the perfectly human, Christ crucified suffered for the perfecting of the human person. desire for desires” (264), and fittingly the most intense kind of pain. However, Because of desire’s rooted orientation to- associates boredom with Aquinas’s acedia. Christ’s sorrow (tristitia) was in the sense ward the ultimate good, when we sin we “Working within the context of Aqui- appetite only. Though Christ underwent are thereby frustrating our deepest desires. nas’s anthropology,” he writes, “boredom temptation, it was related to Him only Father Lonbardo cites what he identi- might be described as the emotion that extrinsically, not intrinsically; he was fies as four problematic areas in Aquinas’s ensues when the will finds nothing it not subject to the fomes peccati, an innate system as it relates to emotion. First, desires and nothing worth seeking” susceptibility to sin. Aquinas does not provide a description (264).

46 FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 All in all, we have in The Logic of De- questions to be translated into English self, grows, and reproduces, as do plants sire a work which is truly seminal for the and presented to the public has been and animals; he not only has the powers large span of productive possibilities it done by Professor Alfred J. Freddoso of of sensation, appetency, and locomotion, opens up for future research in Thomis- the University of Notre Dame, and he as do animals; but as a rational crea- tic studies. One can readily agree with has assigned to his volume the particu- ture he also has the capacity to know Father Lombardo’s view that Aquinas’s larly apt title, Treatise on Human Nature. the truth and love the good. Though thought is eminently applicable to our Within the scope of this work St. his intellect is no match for that of an times, and more readily applaud the suc- Thomas discusses an array of subjects re- angel, he nonetheless shares with the cess with which he developed that view lating to man’s basic identity, to what he angel what is proper to intellect as such. in his book. That Aquinas’s psychological is in terms of his essential nature. Those Another and most significant way in and ethical thought is relevant to our subjects can be roughly grouped together which the rational soul differs from the times should not be cause for wonder, into five broad categories: the nature and vegetative and sensitive souls is that it is for, in his meticulous examination of powers of the human soul; the nature subsistent, which is to say that, although the passions and of affectivity in general, of human knowledge; human sensation, its natural condition is to be united to Aquinas was dealing with certain basic emotion, and appetency; the creation of the body and serve as the body’s animat- constants of human nature, which re- man; man in the state of innocence. ing principle, it can exist apart from the main in the twenty-first century what Relying on philosophical terminolo- body, which is precisely what it does they were in the thirteenth. But it was gy he adopted from Aristotle, St. Thomas after death takes place. Man as man, that Father Lombardo’s singular contribu- regarded the human soul as a substantial is, as the composite creature of body tion to have made explicit in this book, form, that is, as the determining prin- and soul, is mortal, but the human soul, in any number of significant ways, the ciple which constitutes man precisely as as soul, does not suffer death. And, St. application of Aquinas’s thought to man. “It is through the soul,” he explains Thomas teaches, though the soul, in its prominent concerns and problems in in more concrete terms, “that [the body] separated state, does not have the pecu- contemporary psychology, especially as is a body” (35), and specifically a human liar kind of knowledge which was pro- they relate to the emotion. Viewed in a body, the fit and adequate corporeal vided to it through sensation, it retains larger perspective, this book provides ad- expression of the animating principle the powers of intellect and will, and will ditional and impressive evidence of the which is the soul. The human person be able, through preternatural means, to vitality and promise of the renewal of is body and soul together. Man is not exercise the knowing powers of intel- Thomistic studies to which we are now his soul alone; that would be Platonism. lect. For St. Thomas, there is something happily bearing witness. Nor is man his body alone; that would about the bare fact of being a rational be materialism. “It is clear,” St. Thomas creature that seems somehow necessar- • writes, “that man is something com- ily to imply immortality, and apropos of posed of a soul and a body and is not that he remarks interestingly, “everything St. Thomas Aquinas. Treatise on a soul alone” (14). In another place he that has an intellect naturally desires to Human Nature, Summa Theologiae had put it in a particularly pointed way: exist always” (14). And there would be I, Questions 75 - 102. Translated by Anima Petri non est Petrus, “The soul of something fundamentally incongruous Alfred J. Freddoso. South Bend, Indiana: Peter is not Peter.” If we were to opt about the circumstance of a natural de- St. Augustine’s Press, 2010. xiii + 353 for the Platonic position, and claim that sire which existed only to be frustrated. pages + xiii. $20.00. man was essentially soul, we would have When we think about body and soul no ontological basis on which we could and how they relate to one another we Reviewed by D. Q. McInerny, Our Lady of distinguish the essence of man from that tend to think of the soul as being “in” Guadalupe Seminary, Denton, Nebraska. of angel. the body. But St. Thomas suggests that All living creatures, plants, animals, it would be more appropriate to reverse n the First Part of his Summa Theo- and man, can be said to have souls, that mode of thinking, for “it is the soul logiae, St. Thomas Aquinas devotes that is, animating principles, which that contains the body and makes it to Iseveral questions (a question in this explain the fact that they bear within have oneness, rather than vice versa” work can be considered to be roughly them that astonishing reality called life, (31). The soul can be regarded as “con- comparable to a chapter) to a thorough but there are radical differences to be taining” the body in the sense that it examination of the nature of man. There noted among the vegetative soul (that has the whole body, in all its particulars, is a fairly long-standing practice within of plants), the sensitive soul (that of entirely within its animating embrace. Thomistic circles of excerpting this set animals), and the rational soul of man, As rational creatures we can be of questions and publishing them as the distinguishing feature that, besides said to have been made for the sake of a separate book, two of which I have be- possessing all the powers proper to the knowledge, for “the proper operation of fore me on my desk, one entitled Treatise vegetative and sensitive souls, possesses man qua man is intellective understand- on Man, the other simply On Man. The as well the surpassing powers of intellect ing” (22). The human mind is potentially most recent book comprising this set of and will. Man not only nourishes him- all things, for theoretically there are no

FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 47 Book Reviews limits to what the mind is capable of divine mind. knowledge of contingent things, and the encompassing. And what makes hu- The two great powers of the human knowledge of separated souls. And he man knowing so wondrous a thing is soul, intellect and will, are interrelated in explains how it is that the human intel- the peculiar kind of intimacy which is the closest possible way. The two powers lect has direct knowledge of universals established between the knower and the include one another, for “the intellect but not of singulars. known, in that the knower in a mysteri- understands what the will wills, and the The human soul was created directly ous but significant way becomes what will wills what the intellect understands” by God, and because it is the substantial he knows. In a root epistemological (127). We can say that the intellect is form of the body it would be unreason- sense, man can never be alienated from prior to the will in that it provides the able to suppose, as some have done, that the world all about him, given the man- will with the information upon which it was created separate from and ante- ner in which he is bound to it through it acts. But the influences between these cedent to the body. In arguing that “it knowledge. two powers is reciprocal, and the will was necessary for the first human body Whence comes our knowledge? How can exercise directive and disciplin- to be formed directly by God” (244), St. do we, as intellectual beings, come to ary power over the intellect, as when it Thomas would presumably not be sym- know what we know? It all begins with commands the wandering mind of the pathetic with the views advocated by the senses. Sense knowledge apprises scholar to dispense with the distractions those committed to the notion of the- us of the existence of concrete particu- and give full attention to the subject at istic evolution. Considering the sexual lars, of the that-ness of things. Then the hand. The proper object of the intellect distinctions of human nature, and hav- intellect takes over, and through acts of is truth, and that of the will, goodness, ing in mind the potent truth that man abstraction, working on the raw material but these are really two sides of the same was created in the image and likeness of supplied by the senses, is productive of coin. “The true and the good include God, he writes: “The image of God is ideas, and through ideas we are apprised one another” (103). We love truth be- found in both the man and the woman of the what-ness of things. We thus come cause it is a good—indeed the highest with respect to what the character of to know things in terms of their inner- good—and we pursue the good because an image primarily consists in, viz., an most identities, their specific natures. We it is true. intellectual nature” (266). And a couple are not born with ideas, but we are born It is through synderesis, which we of pages later he expands upon that line with the capacity to give birth to them. might regard as the intellectual ground or reasoning: “the image of God is com- These ideas are the absolutely necessary for conscience, that man comes to know mon to both sexes, since it stems from means though which we come to know the basic principles that govern the the mind, in which there is no distinc- things, but it is those things themselves, moral life. Man is possessed of free will, tion between sexes” (271). not the means through which we come without which he could not qualify Turning to the subject of man in the to know them, which are the proper as a moral agent. To say that the will is state of innocence, that is to say, before objects of the human mind. Let us say free is simply to say that it is an initiat- the Fall, St. Thomas develops a number “rock” represents the idea in question. ing cause, and that, as such, with regard of points. Man in the state of innocence, Then, St. Thomas would remind us, to concrete cases, “it can take one thing though he then had true scientific “what is understood is the rock, and not while rejecting another” (135). That knowledge, did not know the essence of a likeness [i.e., the idea] of a rock” (28). God is the principal cause of every God, for if the latter had been the case We can of course focus our attention on act of man—“without me you can do he would not have been capable of sin- ideas just as ideas, but in most instances nothing”—does not negate the freedom ning. Man in the state of innocence had we look right through our ideas, as it of the will, for God enables man to act been created in full possession of sancti- were, without even being aware of them, precisely as a free agent. The human will fying grace; he possessed all the virtues, focusing on the things of which they are is determined vis-à-vis beatitude, which most particularly that of original justice, the formal signs. is to say that man, in every choice he and he had perfect integrity, which is St. Thomas links man’s signal char- makes, is ordered toward the ultimate to say that his passions were completely acter as a rational creature with that good. He is constitutionally incapable of under the control of reason. Man, the arresting scriptural claim which tells choosing evil as evil; he always opts for human person, the composite of body us that he was made in the image and what he perceives to be good, but his and soul, was, before the Fall, immortal. likeness of God. Because man, through perceptions, alas, might be, and too often Are we to suppose that there was sexual his capacity for knowledge, is potentially are, quite erroneous. union between man and woman in the all things, he thus “comes close in a It is a token of St. Thomas’s abid- state of innocence? St. Thomas argues certain sense to a likeness of God” (109). ing interest in the nature and capacities that it would be unreasonable to suppose Though the human intellect is infinitely of the human intellect that he returns otherwise. Furthermore, and quite inter- distant from and inferior to the divine to that subject in the later questions estingly, he contends that “in the state of intellect, man’s mind, by the creative of the treatise, discussing such matters innocence celibacy (continentia) would choice of God Himself, reflects, however as the pervasive reliance of the intel- not have been praiseworthy” (320). remotely and dimly, something of the lect on phantasms (sense images), our The above represents but a sketchy

48 FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 and highly selective account of St. or phrase which he had just translated, to be said on this matter: this new ren- Thomas’s Treatise on Human Nature, a allowing the reader who is familiar dering of the Summa into English will work whose worth and richness can with the Latin to make quick compari- prove to be most timely, for it comes at a only be adequately appreciated by di- sons between the original text and the time when we are experiencing a heart- rect and active engagement with it. This translations. One of the consequences ening revival of interest in St. Thomas is something which can now be done of these inclusions, taken all together, is and Thomistic studies. The forthcoming with especially beneficial results for any to give accent to the felicity and ac- work will constitute a substantial contri- reader, thanks to the excellent translation curacy with which Professor Freddoso bution to that revival. of the work provided to us by Professor rendered certain words or passages. Just Freddoso. This must be regarded as a su- a few examples illustrate this point. The • perior work on several different counts. Latin: non ex collatione; the translation: Earlier in this review I mentioned two “not by comparing alternatives.” The Etienne Gilson. Medieval Essays. Trans. other translations of the treatise which Latin: secundum quas rationes; the transla- from the French by James Colbert. preceded this one, but that was not quite tion: “in accord with these conceptions.” Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books, 2011. accurate, to the extent that I left the Latin: non cognoscit nisi propriam passionem; 222 pp. impression that those earlier translations translation: “for if a power has cognition and Professor Freddoso’s all deal with only of what it receives within itself.” Reviewed by Jude P. Dougherty, the same basic text. This is not the case. Latin: cogitando interius verbum formamus; The Catholic University of America The work entitled On Man, begins with translation: “we form an interior word Question 75 and ends with Question by thinking.” St. Thomas’s Latin is highly tienne Gilson needs no introduc- 79; the work entitled Treatise on Man compressed, and to attempt to translate a tion to readers of the Fellowship begins with Question 75 and ends with word or phrase of his in a rigidly literal Eof Catholic Scholars Quarterly. We Question 88. Professor Freddoso’s trans- way would be almost inevitably to miss remember him as the medieval historian lation begins also begins with Question the full import of what he is attempting who produced lasting works such as His- 75—this is the logical starting point— to say. The peculiar strength of Profes- tory of Christian Philosophy in the Middle but carries on through Question 109, sor Freddoso’s translation is that, besides Ages and specialized studies of St. Augus- thus giving us the full account of the fulfilling the basic obligation of bring- tine, St. Thomas, Duns Scotus, and Dante. nature of man as St. Thomas conceived ing across the denotative import of St. It is said of him that he would do re- it to be and intended to communicate it. Thomas’s language, it conveys its signifi- search at the drop of a hat on any subject The quite accurate subtitle attached to cant connotations as well. he was asked to address. Thus we have Professor Freddoso’s translation is, “The What makes this work particularly Heloise and Abelard, Choir of Muses, From Complete Text,” which indeed it is, and interesting is that it is a part of a much Aristotle to Darwin and Back, and Painting which makes it especially valuable, and larger and very important project. In and Reality, the Mellon Lectures deliv- superior to the earlier translations. 2009 St. Augustine’s Press published ered at the National Gallery of Art in As to the translation itself, it reads Professor Freddoso’s translation of St. Washington. All are worth revisiting. The wonderfully well. The text, as we would Thomas’s Treatise on Law, comprising present volume is a newly translated col- expect, is entirely faithful to St. Thomas’s Questions 90 through 108 of the First lection of lectures and essays directed to Latin, and is rendered into an English Part of the Second Part of the Summa professional audiences, essays nevertheless which is not at all strained; it is clear Theologiae. (Incidentally, once again in accessible to the layman, presupposing and vigorous, and flows along smoothly this case he gives us the full text; which only a minimal knowledge of philosophy throughout the entire book with steady other translations I have at hand failed to and theology. Gilson brings to life what assurance. It is a particularly happy fea- do.) These two works represesent very he calls “the glorious age of metaphysics.” ture of this translation that the language promising indications of what is yet to Clearly, metaphysical treatises from the is not in the least bit obtrusive; it does come, for Professor Freddoso is in the Middle Ages have much to do with how not distract or stand in the way of the process of translating the entire Summa today we think about God, ourselves, our reader as he attempts to engage with Theologiae. He has thus set himself to a relation to God, about faith and reason, the ideas presented to us by St. Thomas. task which is as commendable as it is and about morality. The language has to it the kind of trans- needful. The translation of the Summa In 2012 Paris will mark the 850th parency which the best prose is always by the English Dominicans represents a anniversary of the founding of Notre marked by, so that the reader is unaware distinguished enterprise, and it has done Dame Cathedral. In preparation for an of its presence, and has the sensation good service over the years. But we anticipated celebration, four bells from that he is dealing with the ideas directly. stand in need of a new translation, and the North Tower of the Cathedral will Especially helpful, I think, was Profes- in his Treatise on Law and Treatise on Hu- be removed, melted down, and recast, sor Freddoso’s including here and there man Nature we have proof positive that with the new ones intended to recreate throughout the text, as parenthetical Professor Freddoso’s will be of the high- the sound of the present seventeenth- additions, the Latin for a particular word est quality. But there is something more century ones. The point of the recasting,

FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 49 Book Reviews explained the rector of the Cathedral, is istence whereby it is, constitutes one lectured on world history for the first authenticity. “We are not destroying the of the “most solemn moments in the time in the winter semester of 1822-23 bells,” he said, “we are only intensifying history of Western thought.” Thomas, in Berlin. The lectures were repeated the sound of Notre Dame.” Apparently meditating on a passage from Gen- on four occasions and rank among the bells cast from a bronze alloy may look esis 3:13, wherein God in response to most popular of his writings. Much of indestructible, but they can wear down , reveals himself as I Am Who I Hegel’s philosophy of history is surpris- and fall out of tune. Something like that Am, finds God revealing himself in the ingly relevant in an age of globalization. occurs as each generation recasts inher- language of being. God is envisaged as His survey of world history begins with ited texts. Pure Act of Existence, uncomposed, Be- China and successively deals with India, Notre Dame, it may be mentioned, ing Itself. This conjunction of Scripture Persia, Asia Minor, Palestine, Egypt, the was approximately 100 years old when and Greek philosophy, Gilson is con- Greek world, the Roman world, and St. Thomas Aquinas studied and taught vinced, brings us closer to a metaphysi- finally the Germanic world. there. Thomas, having begun his studies cal understanding of divine being than Hegel, early on in the lectures, makes with the Benedictines at Monte Cassino, any available in antiquity. “Christian a distinction between what he calls continued his studies at Naples and thought,” writes Gilson, “did not simply “original history” and “reflective his- eventually with Albert the Great at Paris use the peripatetic (Greek) universe, it tory.” Original history is written by his- and Köln. At Paris Thomas earned de- metamorphosed it from within.” torians such as Herodotus, Thucydides, grees from both the Faculty of Arts and Obviously one would have to read Xenophon, and Caesar in his Commen- the Faculty of Theology. As a Master of further to grasp the full meaning of taries, who have themselves witnessed, Theology, he was empowered to teach. Gilson’s reading of Aquinas. Suffice it to experienced, and lived through some Gilson’s extensive scholarship re- say, Gilson in any of his essays or books of the events described. Such histori- minds us that the thirteenth and four- is an unrivaled intellectual companion. ans are immersed in the material and teenth centuries not only produced The reader, professional theologian or do not rise above it to reflect upon it. great cathedrals but great theologians not, can be grateful to James Colbert for Reflective history goes beyond what is as well. If Notre Dame Cathedral is making this collection available in the simply present to the author of an his- deemed a cultural legacy, so too are the English language. torical account. The reflective historian works of many theologians of medieval comes to the historical record with his Europe. The roll call would include • own spirit, and in his reflective account Anselm, , Scotus, Albert, and everything depends on the maxims Occam among others. Like the bells of G. F. W. Hegel. Lectures on the Phi- and representational principles that he Notre Dame, they are often recast in the losophy of World History: Volume I: brings to his material. When a reflective interest of authenticity. Etienne Gilson Manuscripts of the Introduction and historian attempts to depict the spirit of has done a bit of recasting himself. He Lectures 1822-3. Edited and trans- an age it is usually his own spirit that is finds that for a century or more histori- lated by Robert F. Brown and Peter heard. Hegel also speaks of “philosophi- ans of medieval philosophy have tended C. Hodgson. Clarendon Press: Oxford, cal world history” whose focus is the to represent the Middle Ages as inhab- 2011. 562 pp. spiritual guide of peoples, the principles ited solely by philosophers rather than Reviewed by Jude P. Dougherty, which inform individual actions and by theologians. He humorously remarks, The Catholic University of America events and the history of those prin- “Medieval theologians who never wrote ciples. Hegel admits that it is difficult for any philosophy in life seem to have tudents of Hegel who find it a writer to transport himself completely composed a great deal after their death.” sometimes difficult to read him in and vividly into times past. As much as Medieval Essays consists of two essays Sthe original German may welcome we may admire the Greeks, we cannot devoted to an overview of the medieval this translation based on a critical edi- truly share their feelings. landscape, followed by studies of Anselm, tion of the lectures. The sixty-three page A further distinction is made among Peter Lombard, William of Auvergne, “Editorial Introduction” provided by several modes of reflective history. One Maimonides, and Avicenna. They show Brown and Hodgson is a valuable guide may be called a “survey,” that is, of a clearly that Thomas, for example, did to Hegel’s own introduction to the people or a country. Another is what not work in an intellectual vacuum. lectures. Hegel in these lectures is not Hegel calls “pragmatic,” for example, His recasting of Aristotle profited from inaccessible to the lay reader. As a mat- history that focuses on the totality of contact with the Islamic theologians, al ter fact, Hegel himself, in addressing his the interests of a state, a constitution, or Farabi and Avicenna, and from his be- audience, says: “Those of you gentlemen a conflict, determining perhaps how a loved Rabbi Moshe (Maimonides). who are not acquainted with philoso- people becomes a state, what the ends of Gilson finds that Thomas’s appropria- phy, I could perhaps appeal that you a state are, what institutions are needed tion of the distinction between essence approach these lectures on world his- to bring true interests to actuality. What- and existence, that is, between what a tory with a faith in reason, with a desire ever the mode adopted by the historian, thing is, its essence, and the act of ex- and thirst for knowledge of it.” Hegel an assumption must be made that reason

50 FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 governs the world and that the unfold- actions are to be understood as mere 1304 and ends with the publication of ing of world history is a rational process. episodes, or moments, in the self-man- Pierre Gassendi’s Syntagma philosophiae The alternative would be to attribute ifestation of the Absolute. Even Hegel Epicuri in l655. In the roll call, the names everything to chance, and this Hegel’s seems at times uncomfortable with fly by: Petrarca, Lorenzo Valla, Nicholas overarching system will not permit. this deterministic viewpoint. “When of Cusa, Marsilio Ficino, Lorenzo de’ Moving into his subject matter, viewing the ruins of ancient splendor, a Medici, Pico della Mirandola, Erasmus, Hegel writes, “In all world-historical profound sadness passes over us, a sense Machiavelli, , Luther, peoples, we encounter poetry, fine art, that everything passes away and nothing Calvin, Bacon, Galileo, Hugo Grotius, and also philosophy. But these differ endures.” But he recovers his perspec- Thomas Hobbes, Descartes, and Tom- not only in tone, style and orientation tive because this regret applies only to maso Campanella, to name only the as such, but in their substance.” And yet natural life, to the material order, and most prominent. similarities cannot be ignored: “Since not to the spiritual order. Much that is new in the seventeenth the Europeans have become acquainted On the whole, history has not been century, we are told, is the victory of with Chinese morality and with the kind to Hegel. Influential in the last Copernican cosmology coupled with writings of Confucius, it has received decades of the nineteenth century, it be- the success of mechanical philosophy the highest praise and the most flatter- came evident early in the twentieth that and the rejection of established author- ing acknowledgement of its merits from Hegel’s system could not account for ity. Hankins acknowledges the influ- those who are familiar with Christian the remarkable advances in the natural ence of Ernest Cassirer in tracing the morality.” He goes on to say, “The Chi- sciences. Idealism soon gave way to origins of modern philosophy back nese took their moral rules as if they naturalism and other forms of material- to the Renaissance. Cassirer dated the were laws of nature, positive external ism. In the political order there may still rise of modernity to Nicholas of Cusa, commandments, mandatory rights and be right-wing and left-wing Hegelians, whom he regarded as the first to place duties, or rules of normal courtesy,” but his system is largely of antiquarian the problem of knowledge in the fore- further comparing Confucian morality interest only. That said, there is reason ground over that of being or nature. with that of the Stoics. to explore with him, if not in fidelity to Cusa is also cited for understanding the In speaking of the Orientals, Hegel his word, the large issues he deals with proper role of mathematics in analyzing says they did not understand the human that forever remain contemporary to nature. With Cassirer, Hankins believes being as essentially free. “The conscious- the life of the spirit. that Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa deserves ness of freedom first awoke among the the title of the first “new philosopher” Greeks and accordingly they were free; • of the Renaissance. but like the Romans, they knew that In his overview, Hankins finds that only some are free, not the human be- Cambridge Companion to Renais- recent Renaissance scholarship can be ing as such.” Although the principle of sance Philosophy, Edited by James classified in a three-fold manner, de- freedom was recognized from the start Hankins. Cambridge: Cambridge pending on its focus, i.e., on humanism, in Christianity, it is obvious that it did University Press, 2011. xvi + 432 pp. on scholasticism, or on the new philoso- not find immediate expression in laws, phies (in the sense of non-Aristotelian) government, and political organizations. Reviewed by Jude P. Dougherty, of the period. The new philosophies, “The Germanic nations were the first to The Catholic University of America in substituting a Baconian emphasis on come to consciousness, through Chris- power over nature for the scholastic tianity, that the human being as human his is the paperback edition of a tendency to pursue knowledge for its is free, that freedom of the spirit consti- volume first published in 2007. own sake, in effect, served as a pre- tutes man’s inherent nature.” TJames Hankins’s introductory condition for the emergence of science By way of comment, it must be essay is followed by seventeen other es- and technology in the modern period. said that Hegel’s view of world history says, including two by the editor himself. The humanists wanted philosophers to has to be seen in the context of his To say that the volume is a valuable give up their rationalism, their pursuit of metaphysics, an a priori system that is contribution to an understanding of the ultimate reach of reason, and confine inseparable from his teleological view of Renaissance philosophy is almost an themselves to the modest task of moral nature and the course of history itself. understatement. Hankins is professor of formation. Petrarca’s critique of scholas- History, for Hegel, is an extension of his history at Harvard University, and the ticism is one case in point. Hume in his general theory of the Absolute Spirit as sixteen other contributors to the vol- Enquiry Concerning Human Understand- it unfolds and informs the realm of hu- ume are without exception recognized ing similarly places moral philosophy man, temporal happenings. The histori- as distinguished scholars of the move- first because it “considers man chiefly cal process has an end, and this end is ment. In the opening pages of the vol- as born for action.” Moral virtue thus advanced through the necessary law of ume, Hankins offers a chronology of the becomes the most valuable of objects for events. Put another way, from the world period under consideration that begins study for Hume. historical point of view, all events and with the birth of Francisco Petrarca in In an overview of the period,

FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 51 Book Reviews

Hankins suggests that the great merit She documents Polanyi’s many scientific scribes his own scientific investigations of Renaissance philosophy is the com- achievements, but the strength of the as ordinary, typical of science, “natural mon conviction that classical antiquity volume is her description of the scientif- science,” in Thomas Kuhn’s use of the constitutes a reservoir of excellence, ic communities in which he flourished, term. “The popular notion of a straight- literary, artistic, intellectual, and moral, to first in Budapest, then in Weimar Ber- forward relationship between empirical which debased and decadent “modern lin, and finally in Manchester. Polanyi data and scientific discovery or verifica- times” could turn in order to repair the earned a medical degree in 1913 and a tion is rooted in a misunderstanding barbaric and corrupt medium aevum that Ph.D. in physical chemistry in 1917 at of how science really works.” Good followed the fall of the Roman Empire. the University of Budapest. With the evidence is often ignored when a com- The Renaissance, Hankins believes, dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian munity of opinion favors one opinion did not produce great philosophers. At Empire following the Great War, many over another. He describes as pernicious its best, in the case of writers like Valla, Hungarian scientists trained in Budapest the simple prescription of nineteenth- Machiavelli, More, and Montaigne, it found it expedient to leave Hungary. century positivism and logical empiri- produced witty subversives and incisive Eugene Wigner, John von Neumann, cism as naïve. Bertrand Russell is a target provocateurs. “In short,” Hankins writes, Leo Szilard, and Edward Teller were for Russell had written, “The triumphs “Renaissance philosophy offers many among the Hungarian émigrés. Some of science are due to the substitution of parallels with the philosophy of our own found refuge in Germany, others in observation and inference for authority time. In our era, too, we have the frac- England. Polanyi chose to further his in intellectual matters. Every attempt to turing and crisis of authoritative tradi- study of physical chemistry at Karlsruhe revive authority in intellectual matters tions, a new pluralism of philosophical but in 1920 moved to Berlin to work at is a retrograde step.” “Nothing could be perspectives, an unsettling information the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Fiber further from the truth,” argues Polanyi, revolution, and passionate aspirations to Chemistry. Berlin of the 1920s was the citing his own experience, his career, integrate into philosophical discourse city of Einstein, Planck, Fritz Haber, and authority structures in science. the literature of non-Western traditions.” Walter Nernst, and Lisa Meitner. Weimar The scientific community of Weimar In this brief notice, it is impossible Berlin had become the cultural center of Berlin was in a sense detached from the to cover the remaining contributions to Central and Eastern Europe. Besides the social and political turmoil that was de- this volume, but one datum stands out. Humboldt University, suburban Dahlem stroying the Republic. In describing the Luca Bianchi, in his essay, “Continuity was the site of seven scientific institutes. situation, James Crowther, a reporter for and Change in the Aristotelian Tradi- The racial policies of the National the Manchester Guardian upon visiting tion,” calls attention to the fact that Socialist Party eventually forced Polanyi Berlin in 1930, wrote: “ I was left with more than 3000 editions of Aristotle’s to leave Germany. After first declining, the impression the brilliant scientific works were published between the Polanyi accepted a chair in chemistry at effervescence …had an intellectual life invention of printing (c. 1440) and 1600, the University of Manchester in 1933. of its own, above that of industry and of which hundreds date to the fifteenth By 1940 his interests had shifted to the people, in spite of the integration of century. economics and social and political phi- the scientific research with industry. This losophy, and he exchanged the chair in division of high intellectual life from • chemistry for one in social philosophy. the rumblings underneath was one of In 1951 he was offered a chair in social the most striking features of the Weimar Mary Jo Nye. Michael Polanyi and philosophy at the University of Chicago, Republic.” Polanyi’s mother had a dif- His Generation: Origins of the So- a position that he was unable to accept ferent perspective: “The times in Berlin cial Construction of Science. Chicago: because he was denied a visa by the U.S. are beginning to be frightful,” she wrote University of Chicago Press, 2011. xxi State Department, no doubt because to a friend in Budapest, “unemployment, +405 pp. his name was associated with the left- privation, and disheveled economic, ist politics of his brother Karl who had political and emotional life. One says the Reviewed by Jude P. Dougherty, supported the Soviet economic policies worst will come in January, the other in The Catholic University of America of the 1920s and l930s. February …but that it will come, they Nye is especially interested in the all believe” (67). his is a chronicle of the scien- social nature of science, in the close-knit Nye devotes an entire chapter to the tific achievements of Michael families of physicists and chemists who reception of Polanyi’s Personal Knowledge, TPolanyi, but it is more than that. comprised the scientific communities a book based on his Gifford Lectures It is a description of the scientific, po- of Budapest and Berlin. Polanyi’s views of 1951-52. Of the book, Nye writes, litical, and cultural landscape of Europe on the nature of science are worthy of a “Polanyi’s realism appealed to many from World War I to the Cold War. Nye treatise unto itself. Science, he held, is a scientists who found his account of sci- follows Polanyi’s life and career from his community of dogmatic traditions and entific life and scientists’ behavior more birth (1891) in Budapest to his death social practices, not a march of revolu- recognizable than most philosophers’ or in Manchester at the age of 84 (1976). tionary or skeptical ideas. Polanyi de- historians’ analyses. The religious tone of

52 FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 the realism was also congenial to many Vatican II. John Courtney Murray in We visible to the intellect and the Church scientists. The spiritual dimension of Hold These Truths (1960),3 noted happily as visible, one can say, in the eyes of the Personal Knowledge found favor among that the Church in North America was public who know it only through the Christians, and his discussion of cosmic not divided between left and right as it media. “The person of the Church,” evolution proved useful to proponents of was with destructive consequences in writes Maritain, “can be holy while be- teleology and intelligent design in argu- Europe. By the close of Vatican II, the ing composed of members who are all ments against mainstream evolutionary European virus had spread to North sinners to some degree.” Indeed, we can biology.” America. Maritain, who had been the agree with Maritain that members who With respect to economic theory, darling of the liberal Catholic intelli- are holy can be guilty of gross error in Polanyi took the side of von Hayek and gentsia because of his social philosophy, their prudential judgments. Noble pur- von Mises. The economy, he maintained, was suddenly ostracized, his later work poses can be pursued by ignoble means is not to be used for social engineer- ignored. For Maritain a liberal social or frustrated by actions gone awry or ing. Economic theory based on political policy did not presuppose a liberal by miscalculations and adverse circum- preferences is no substitute for natural Catholic theology, certainly not one stances. laws. He agreed with von Hayek that if a at war with the intellectual heritage of The distinction made, Maritain depression seems underway, any attempt the Church. Many American scholars, defends the person of the Church while to cure it by monetary and fiscal policy otherwise cognizant of Maritain’s vast admitting the evils perpetrated in her will likely worsen the situation. A slump oeuvre, remain unaware of the publica- name, in his account, by the Crusades, in a trade cycle is a sign that the sys- tion of De l’Église du Christ. by the Inquisition, by the suppression of tem will head back to equilibrium and In The Church of Christ, Maritain the Albigensians, by the imprisonment should be left alone. Patience must reign speaks of the “profoundly troubled mo- of Galileo, by the execution of Joan, during inevitable periods of unemploy- ment” at which he was writing.4 He and by the burning of Savonarola and ment, and an elastic supply of currency calls himself “an old Christian philoso- Giordano Bruno. No critic or cynic is makes the situation worse—not better. pher who has thought about the mys- likely to draw a longer list of the “sins of No brief review can do justice to this tery of the Church for sixty years.” He the Church,” for the most part grievous densely packed book. Those interested is appalled by the appreciable number of errors of judgment by otherwise noble- in Polanyi’s insider account of the nature Catholic intellectuals who in his judg- minded “Churchmen.” Maritain’s indict- of scientific investigation can be grateful ment employ themselves to destroy the ment of Churchmen in many cases may for Mary Jo Nye’s painstaking research. treasure of truth which is the Church’s be a bit too harsh. Serious scholarship responsibility to transmit. He would largely published since Maritain wrote • “have done with the tempest of widely has shown that most of the episodes he diffused foolish ideas that have caused addresses are a bit more complex than The Relevance of a Neglected Volume: confusion among the faithful.” He he makes them out to be, and in some Maritain On The Church of Christ would “have done with the demythiza- cases the Church comes off honorably tion of doctrine and the secularization even by secular standards. Jude P. Dougherty or profanization of a Christianity which There is one area where Maritain The Catholic University of America our new doctors and spiritual guides forcefully comes to the defense of the Washington, D.C. would like to entrust to the hands of the Churchmen—namely, the treatment of sociologist, of the psychoanalysts, of the the Jews. “The hatred of the Jewish peo- t a time when the Church is structuralists, of the Marcusists, of the ple in the Middle Ages was the deed of accused of clerical malfeasance phenomenologists, and of the pioneers the populace and of many in the bour- Aon both sides of the Atlantic, of technocracy.”5 geoisie and in the nobility and many in Maritain’s treatise on the Church and The subtitle of On the Church of the lower clergy. The high personnel of her personnel is worth revisiting. Christ is indicative of a distinction that the Church, the Papacy above all, re- Maritain’s last complete book, On is crucial to an understanding of the mained free of it.”7 He continues, “The the Church of Christ: The Person of the Church. “Churchmen will never be the Popes, even the ones most severe in their Church and Her Personnel, was published Church,” writes Maritain. “One can legislation, never knew this hatred.” It in English translation from the French take a detached view, making positive was in the papal states that the Jews fared in the year of his death (1973).1 It was and negative assessments of the activity best. “During the whole of the Middle ignored by the secular media and given of Churchmen throughout the centu- Ages and the darkest periods of the latter, scant attention in the Catholic press. ries while remaining confident of the it was the Popes who were their great- It followed by seven years the publica- holiness of the Church itself.”6 This est protectors and defenders.”8 The Bull tion of Le Paysan de la Garonne,2 which distinction runs through the work, that of Calixtus II (1120) condemning the had earned Maritain the enmity of the is, the difference between the “person violence against the Jews and their bap- Catholic left for its critique of some of of the Church” and “her personnel,” tism under constraint was confirmed at the theology developing in the wake of i.e., the difference between the Church least twenty-two times up to the middle

FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 53 Book Reviews of the eighteenth century. That defense hortly before the end of World as those of the twenties and thirties that was continued through the much ma- War II, F. A. Hayek (1899-1992) created National Socialism. ligned papacy of Pius XII and is implicit Spublished a short work, The Road The Constitution of Liberty may be in Dominus Iesus, published on August 6, to Serfdom, a book that has never lost its read as one gigantic footnote to Hayek’s 2000, with the approval of John Paul II relevance. Sixteen years later in 1960 he earlier volume. If The Road to Serfdom and signed by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, brought out The Constitution of Liberty was written for a general audience, this then Prefect of the Congregation for the wherein he returned to discuss in detail may be considered to be the scholar’s Doctrine of the Faith.9 many of the topics addressed in the pre- edition. Written with the academic sec- Maritain acknowledges that inexact- vious work. The University of Chicago tor in mind, Hayek examines in great ness of language often leads some to Press has now reprinted the latter work detail notions such as “freedom,” “lib- attribute to the Church an act or deci- in what it calls “the definitive edition” erty,” “liberalism,” “the rule of law,” and sion of her directing personnel without under the valuable editorship of Ronald “the regulative value of a constitution,” distinguishing whether the act belongs Hamowy, emeritus professor of history at and makes distinctions where differences properly to the perpetrator as its sole the University of Alberta. in meaning are often overlooked. The cause or as an instrument of the Church The Road to Serfdom was the result of book is divided into three parts: I, “The herself. He reminds his reader that “it Hayek’s reflection on the socialist drift in Value of Freedom,” II, “Freedom and the is only the solemn magisterium of the Europe that facilitated the rise to power Law,” and III, “Freedom in the Welfare Pope speaking alone (and not through of Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin. When State.” Throughout the work he chal- a Roman Congregation) or when he the Anschluss Osterreichs took place lenges many commonplace notions that speaks conjointly with the bishops as- in March 1938, the Austrian economist one hears repeatedly in the leftist media sembled in General Council (Ordinary was lecturing at the London School of of our own day. Magisterium) that it is the Church Economics. Granted British citizenship, Hayek is convinced that in the pur- speaking and acting, the Church one, he remained throughout the war years suit of an egalitarian society, a silent rev- holy and infallible.”10 Although Maritain in England, where he continued to teach olution has gradually whittled away most wrote forty years ago, his words remain until 1950 when he accepted an ap- of the guarantees of individual liberty for timely as we witness individuals and pointment to the Committee on Social which at one time people were willing associations with the aid of a willing Thought at the University of Chicago. to fight. In his discussion of liberty, he media to present themselves as an alter- Written when the outcome of World insists that liberty is not one particular native Magisterium. War II was still uncertain, The Road value but the source and condition of to Serfdom may be fruitfully read as an most moral values. Liberty in practice Endnotes historical review of the social and eco- depends on very prosaic matters, and 1 Jacques Maritain, De l’Église du Christ, trans. nomic policies that prevailed during the those anxious to preserve it must prove Joseph W. Evans (On the Church of Christ: The first decades of the twentieth century, their devotion to it by their attention Person of the Church and Her Personnel) (Notre but that was not Hayek’s primary pur- to the mundane concerns of public life. Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1973). pose in writing the book. It was issued Political freedom may permit a choice 2 Le Paysan de la Garonne (Paris: Desclee de Brouwer, 1966). as a prophetic warning, yet, as Hayek of government, but it does not guarantee 3 John Courtney Murray, We Hold These Truths modestly wrote, one does not need to a society of free men. “We have seen (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1960). be a prophet to be aware of impending millions voting themselves into complete 4 Maritain, On the Church of Christ, v. disaster. “When one hears for a second dependence on a tyrant.” 5 Ibid., 241. time opinions expressed and measures Alarmed by the spectacular growth 6 Ibid., 138. advocated which one has met twenty of government in Great Britain and the 7 Ibid., 167. years ago, they assume a new meaning as United States, he warns that welfare 8 Ibid., 168. 9 Available at: vatican.va/roman_curia/congrega- symptoms of a definite trend: they sug- socialism is just as pernicious as National tions/cfaith/documents. gest that future developments will take a Socialism. “What socialists have sought 10 Maritain, On the Church of Christ, 239. similar turn.” He continues, “It is neces- ever since the French Revolution is sary now to state the unpalatable truth not equality before the law but equality • that it is Germany whose fate we are of outcome.” In contrast to socialism, now in danger of repeating. The danger “liberalism,” in the nineteenth-century F. A. Hayek. The Constitution of is not immediate,” he wrote then, “and meaning of the term, is concerned with Liberty: The Definitive Edition. conditions in England and the United limiting the coercive power of all gov- Chicago: University of Chicago Press, States are still so remote from those we ernment, whether democratic or not. 2010. xii + 581 pp. have witnessed in Germany as to make Liberalism, as Hayek uses the term, is it difficult to believe that we are moving a doctrine about what the law ought Reviewed by Jude P. Dougherty in the same direction.” Still, he warns, to be, whereas democracy is about the The Catholic University of America the socialist policies endorsed by our manner of determining what the law Washington, D.C. “progressive” intellectuals are the same will be. The “dogmatic” or “doctrinaire”

54 FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 democrat acknowledges only one limit One of the gravest threats to free- n today’s world the concept of hierar- to government, namely, current major- dom, Hayek identifies as governmentally chy is likened to slavery or feudalism: ity opinion. Liberalism accepts majority established regulatory agencies that are Ihierarchy is an unjust form of gover- rule as a method of deciding in those essentially removed from the rule of law, nance that limits freedom and empowers instances when immediate action is re- insofar as they possess legislative, execu- a small number of privileged persons. quired and the conflict between left and tive, and judicial authority in one body. The Roman Catholic Church’s refusal to right is not otherwise resolvable. It does Every agency has marked out for it a abandon this seemingly corrupt and anti- not accept majority opinion as a reliable certain area of jurisdiction, and within quated system therefore grates at modern guide as to what the decision ought to the boundaries of that jurisdiction, the sensibilities. How can the Church—with be. “To the doctrinaire democrat the fact agency can act without exterior con- her unelected pope, bishops, priests, and that the majority wants something is suf- straint. “Every public officer can act deacons—maintain any credibility before ficient ground for regarding it as good.” freely according to his own discretion, contemporary democracies and popular The crucial principle of the doctrinaire and the courts will respect his action as notions of equality? Or more impor- democrat is that of popular sovereignty: final and not inquire into its rightful- tantly, how can the Church impose a the current majority has the right to ness.” The only issue that any court is top-down system of authority when St. decide what powers it has and how to likely to recognize is one of jurisdic- Paul himself writes that in Christ “there exercise them. This conception of law tion. In a free society, Hayek maintains, is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither goes by the name of “legal positivism” government edicts, unlike those of a slave nor free man, there is neither male and is used to justify appeals to a “living regulatory agency, must take the form of nor female” (Gal 3:28)? constitution” when the constitution itself general rules, applicable to all, rules that In Christ and the Catholic Priesthood, may prohibit a certain course of action. prohibit specific action and are not insti- Matthew Levering takes on the daunting Hayek points out that the doctrines of tuted as ad hoc commands. One is free task of defending the Church’s hierar- legal positivism have been developed in when one is not coerced, and coercion chical system before its contemporary direct opposition to a tradition which for occurs when one man’s actions are made critics. This exceptional work makes two 2000 years has provided a conception of to serve another man’s purpose. major contributions to the contempo- a law that is not man-made but found In his discussion of fundamental rary debates. First, Levering, like his great in nature. From the vantage point of the values, Hayek laments, “A large part of teacher Thomas Aquinas, summarizes and positivist, every single tenet of the tradi- the peoples of the world borrowed from responds to some of the best critiques of tional conception of law is represented as Western civilization and adopted West- the Church’s governance, thereby offer- metaphysical superstition. By1930 legal ern ideals at a time when the West has ing the reader a clear understanding of positivism had so conquered Germany become unsure of itself and has lost faith the issues in play. Second, he composes that “to be found guilty of adherence to in the traditions that have made it what a compelling and cogent theology of a natural law theories [was] a kind of social it is…. So far as the West is concerned, hierarchy rooted in Trinitarian theology, disgrace.” Hayek adds, “The possibilities we must hope that there still exists wide Christ’s Pasch, and sacramental media- which the state of opinion created for an consent on certain fundamental values.” tion. In doing so, Levering avoids the ob- unlimited dictatorship were already seen In a poignant passage he writes, “Al- fuscations of so many current discussions by acute observers at the time Hitler was though I still regard myself as mainly an that focus on issues of functionality and trying to gain power.” economist, I have come to feel more and power. He successfully reveals the truly By contrast, the liberal, in Hayek’s more that the answers to many of the liberating and humbling role of hierarchy sense, insists that the powers of any tem- pressing social questions of our time are in Roman Catholicism. porary government be limited by long- ultimately to be found in the realm of In the first chapter, he establishes term principles, such as in the United principles that lie outside the scope of the ecclesial hierarchy as a reflection of States by the Constitution. In addressing technical economics or any other single the substantial relations of Father, Son, the safeguards of liberty, Hayek main- discipline.” Many thoughtful readers will and Spirit. In part, this chapter responds tains that the rule of law is more than undoubtedly concur. to Miroslav Volf, who believes that the constitutionalism: it requires that all laws ecclesiologies of Josef Ratzinger and have to conform to certain principles. • John Zizioulas, in particular, fail to main- The rule of law is law concerning what tain the equiprimacy of person and com- law ought to be. It presupposes a moral Matthew Levering. Christ and munion, thereby leading to a monarchi- tradition, a common ideal shared by the the Catholic Priesthood: Ecclesial cal conception of Church governance. majority, that is, a firm element of public Hierarchy and the Pattern of the Levering turns to Thomas Aquinas and opinion. If people cease to honor that Trinity. Chicago: Hillenbrand Books, his understanding of substantial Trinitar- moral tradition or fail to strive for its 2010. 340 pp. ian relations as gifting and receptivity, e.g. realization, respect for law will rapidly “The Father’s role as ‘principle’ is there- disappear. Such a society will quickly Reviewed by John Gavin, S. J., fore a gifting that is already bound to the lapse into a state of arbitrary tyranny. College of the Holy Cross ‘receptivity’ of filiation” (45). Hierarchy

FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 55 Book Reviews reflects and sustains this Trinitarian pat- priesthood that “sacramentally mediates of the priesthood is the sacraments, the tern of receptivity-gift that unites the to all believers the power of Jesus’ Pasch” faithful dispensation of divine gifts. In faithful in the Body of Christ: “When (119). short, if “the ‘ministries’ are intrinsically the Father gives the gift of his Word Yet, did a hierarchical priesthood connected to what they mediate, then and human beings receive the gift in emerging from the priesthood of Christ leadership in the Church will be more the Holy Spirit through faith and the exist in the early Church, or did it come than a functional leadership” (177). The sacraments of faith, this divine gifting is later as a concession to the need for hierarchical mediation in the Church sacramentally mediated by fellow human greater structure and governance? Or provides “an antidote to pride and the beings in the Church. The believer’s worse, is it a perversion of the divine autonomy it seeks” since Christ “wills adoptive sonship is experienced as active intention for freedom in Christ? The that his followers receive him from oth- reception of a gift within the matrix of a third chapter, addressing this question, ers” (180). sacramental communion shaped by gift- begins with a summary of the work Chapter four deals with the prob- ing/receptivity” (52). This pattern is also of James Burtchaell and Francis Sul- lem of primacy, a key issue in current Christological, since it reveals Christ’s livan. Burtchaell maintains that the early ecumenical dialogues. Here Levering own kenosis (gift) and receptivity before Christian community emphasized “more engages the critiques of Nicholas Afa- the Father as the Paschal Lamb. Thus a egalitarian and diverse modes of leader- nasiev, who rejects Roman Catholicism’s hierarchy based upon a Trinitarian and ship in the pursuit of caritas” without adherence to a “universal” ecclesiology Christological model does not harm authoritarian structures (128), while that sees the Church as an “organic, persons or communion since “it is the Sullivan understands the episcopate to universal whole”, and Olivier Clément, Eucharistic unity of the mystical Body, be a functional form of governance that who opposes a juridical primacy in in which persons come to indwell each emerged later, under the guidance of favor of a more kenotic and Eucharistic other in Christ through the grace of the the Holy Spirit, to preserve unity in the authority. Levering finds his response Holy Spirit, a unity-in-communion that struggle with the Gnostics. Neither au- once again in St. Thomas, who high- transcends the opposition of the one and thor understands the ecclesial hierarchy lights the Church’s unity in faith and the many” (52). to be a form of mediation that finds its love in the Eucharist, which is served by Next, Levering seeks to demonstrate mandate in the priesthood of Christ. the special charism of Peter. “Aquinas that Jesus himself understood his death Levering musters a variety of sources thus begins not from the standpoint of upon the cross as a priestly action that to offer an alternative explanation. He a universal institution that must be run he shared with his disciples in the Last begins with the Scriptures, specifically in a sane and functional manner, but Supper. His argument requires this Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians from the standpoint of the Person and demonstration in order to establish a and the Gospel of Matthew, in order to graced humanity of Jesus Christ, who, in divinely intended mediation through support a conception of priestly media- the Holy Spirit, lovingly shares himself the perpetuation of Christ’s priesthood tion in the Church’s origins. St. Paul, in with his Church” (222). Furthermore, in the hierarchy of the Church. Here, explaining his apostolic mandate to the this primacy ensures a unity of faith and Levering makes a clever move by draw- Corinthians, demonstrates that partici- teaching, since this teaching “rests on ing his description of the significance pation and mutual self-subordination in Christ and the Holy Spirit, not on Peter, of Jesus’ death from four contemporary Christ is not impeded by the mediation on the pope, or on any merely human historical-critical commentators: Jesus of the apostle (in this case, Paul himself): theological expert” (219). Once rightly understood his death as an eschatologi- “By faith, Baptism and the Eucharist, understood, the primacy of Peter is not cal sacrifice (N. T. Wright), a sanctifying the Corinthians participate directly an exercise of juridical power or op- sacrifice (Steven M. Bryan), a Eucha- in Christ’s cross and Resurrection. Yet pression, but one of mediation, teaching, ristic sacrifice (Scot McKnight), and a this direct participation does not oc- and service as the instrument of Christ’s unitive sacrifice (Brant Pitre). Such an cur without apostolic mediation” (141). headship. understanding of Jesus’ death clearly Matthew’s Gospel shows the nature of Finally, he returns to the main ob- indicates the priestly nature of the self- the apostle’s mediation and his mission jections of Miroslav Volf, who accuses offering on the cross. Levering then to sanctify the world, to teach, and to hierarchy of suppressing individual gifts moves from the scriptures to Thomas follow Jesus through abandonment of all and undermining Christian personalism. Aquinas, showing how the Angelic things for Christ. Moreover, the apostle’s Here Levering develops his response Doctor illuminates these four aspects authority, according to Matthew, does through a surprising selection of inter- of Jesus’ priesthood and the manner in not come from the apostle himself, but locutors: Moses Mendelssohn, Johann which Jesus’ priestly action inserts time from Jesus alone. Georg Hamann, Franz Rosenzweig, into divine eternity, removes sin, draws After a brief consideration of John and Pesudo-Dionysius. The answer that man into God’s peace and unites man Zizioulas’s Eucharistic ecclesiology, comes forth from this eclectic group to God’s glory. Jesus shared this priestly Levering concludes with a consideration of sources stresses the radical receptiv- action with the apostles at the Last Sup- of St. Thomas’s emphasis upon the me- ity and divine gifting that takes place in per, forming the basis of a hierarchical diating role of the priesthood: the end hierarchy. The hierarchical order based

56 FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 upon efficacious, theocentric dispensa- for those interested in one of the fun- University, where God would reenter tion of the sacraments and the passing damental questions in contemporary her life through, surprisingly, a reading on of divine teaching allows for the Christianity. This is a work for which we of an account of the Pilgrims’ first win- flourishing of divine gifts in the body of should be truly grateful. ter in the New World. The Pilgrims’ care Christ. “As a participation in the gifting and support for one another in the harsh and receptivity of Christ, this hierarchi- • conditions awakened Ruth to the power cally structured unity allows for true of love and inspired her to set out on diversity, the many individual participa- The Appalling Strangeness of the a new journey of faith with her fellow tions in Christ’s love” (288). Mercy of God: The Story of Ruth student and future husband Michael. One may criticize Levering’s ap- Pakaluk. Edited by Michael Pakaluk. This journey would bring them, at proach in this volume on two points. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2011. 272 first, to a vibrant evangelical community First, the book leaves aside some of pp. ISBN 978-1-58617-451-4. of the Intervarsity Christian Fellow- the more concrete issues that concern ship, along with participation in the ecumenical dialogue today, such as the Reviewed by John Gavin, S.J., local Presbyterian Church. Yet, Ruth manner of governance entailed by Papal College of the Holy Cross and Michael found both approaches to primacy or the exact role of the laity Christianity unsatisfying. The conversion within hierarchical governance. Some “ he world crises are crises to Catholicism of a friend, the study of readers desiring chapters on these issues of saints.” With these words Catholic doctrine and history, and an may be disappointed on this ground. TSt. Josemaria Escriva gave a important meeting with the philosophy Second, though he marshals an impres- profound diagnosis of our violent and professor and Catholic convert Peter sive variety of sources—both critics and blood-soaked age. The lack of saints, in- Kreeft would lead them to the truth defenders of ecclesial hierarchy—Lever- dividuals of courage and faith who seek of Catholicism. They would enter the ing always uses them to support what union with God above all things, has al- Church after their marriage and gradu- is ultimately a Thomistic thesis. This, of lowed the multiplication of atrocities at ation in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, course, is a great and just tribute to the an unprecedented scale throughout the where Michael had a post-graduate timeless teaching of the Angelic Doctor world. When ordinary people rendered fellowship. and in many ways may be considered extraordinary by grace fail to appear, the From there the account of Ruth’s a virtue of the text. Yet, every chap- culture of death freely devours the most life unfolds in the United States. She, ter tends to follow a tedious pattern: innocent victims of society. Michael and the growing family would a posing of the question, a reading of A book such as The Appalling Strange- spend some years back at Harvard, sources and critiques, and a reading of ness of the Mercy of God, however, gives where Michael completed his doctoral St. Thomas for the formulation of a re- the reader hope in these days of crisis. degree, and eventually in Worcester, sponse. Thus the voice of the St. Thomas This volume consists of letters and talks where Michael had a position at Clark tends to drown out some of the other composed by a remarkable woman, University. During these years both essential thinkers that Levering discusses. Ruth Pakaluk, who died of cancer in husband and wife would grow in the One may wish for a greater engagement 1998. Ruth was one who stood out faith and love for the Church, especially with the Church Fathers and with some through the ways in which she sancti- through their participation in Opus Dei. of the important contemporary thinkers fied the ordinary and accomplished the Ruth was always deeply committed such as John Paul II and Benedict XVI, extraordinary. A convert to Catholi- to the divine gift of life: of her own, of which might open up other paths for cism, a wife and mother of six children, her husband’s, of her children, and of the discussion. a leader in the pro-life movement and unborn. In fact, it is as a pro-life advo- Yet, one volume cannot treat all of a superb speaker and debater, she gave cate that many remember her today. She the issues that the current debate sur- fully of herself in response to God’s became the president of Massachusetts rounding hierarchy requires. In the end call. And it was through her self-emp- Citizens for Life, worked for the pro- Levering admirably limits his book tying love and suffering that lives were life education of youth, and gave talks to the explication of the theological touched, lives were born, and lives were throughout the state. As a public debater, grounding for the Church’s hierarchical saved. she clearly, charitably, and successfully mediation, which may serve as the basis The volume begins with a general refuted the arguments of her pro-choice for discussing such concrete matters as biography by her husband, Dr. Michael interlocutors. She was, quite simply, one the manner of the exercise of authority, Pakaluk, now professor of philosophy of the most remarkable pro-life voices in the role of the laity, and the problem of at Ave Maria University. Born in East New England. dissent and scandalous behavior on the Orange, New Jersey in a Presbyterian But Ruth was a woman who also part of some members of the hierarchy. family, Ruth rejected early on the faith knew suffering. She had lost one child This book would make an excellent that she knew as being “incoherent and to crib-death, an agony that perhaps text for a course on Ecclesiology or confused.” A bright and successful shaped her deep commitment to the Priesthood, as well as a superb source student, she would go on to Harvard protection of the innocent. Then the

FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 57 Book Reviews suffering invaded her own body in the Leszek Kołakowski. My Correct Views him an expulsion from the university. form of breast cancer, first diagnosed in on Everything. Edited by Zbigniew His writings banned and his teaching 1991. In the years following the diag- Janowski. South Bend, Indiana: St. Au- forbidden, Kołakowski finally left Poland nosis Ruth experienced the pains and gustine’s Press, 2010. in 1968. He made his way to the United indignities of chemotherapy, but never States where he taught at the University succumbed to despair. Instead, she con- Reviewed by Kevin Walker of California at Berkley for many years. tinued in her vocation as a mother and While there, he soon concluded that activist in a heroic manner, until her f there is an Intellectual History Marxist thought and Stalinist totali- death in 1998. Museum in Heaven, we should tarianism really were inseparable—that This volume includes a selection of Iexpect Leszek Kołakowski to be its Soviet statism was indeed a direct out- letters from the period of Ruth’s un- tour guide. This great Polish philosopher growth of Marxist thought. The deprav- dergraduate years (1978) to her moving is best known for his powerful attack ity of the Left became most apparent in final messages left to her children (1998). on communism, his own former creed. the new generation of campus radicals, Some of the letters offer a glimpse into But his mind was never limited to mere who featured “a mental degradation of her personal life and soul, including criticism. His other writings reveal a the kind I had never seen before in any missives to friends and family. Others are thinker concerned with the broader tra- Leftist movement” (17). The West need- correspondence with important figures jectory of culture, the consequences of ed complete rethinking, and Kołakowski in the pro-life movement, giving the ideas, and the state of the modern soul. devoted himself wholly to that task for reader a fascinating glimpse into the His work is always unified by the truth the rest of his life. He was later invited struggle for the defense of the unborn that “the greatest deeds are thoughts”: to the illustrious All Souls College in during the eighties and nineties. Overall, far more than biology or economics Oxford, where he lived and wrote until however, it is Ruth’s Christian personal- or psychology, Kołakowski taught that his death in 2009. ity that shines forth in this collection, only philosophy gives the truest insights The new volume from Saint Au- into the heart of man. Only philoso- whether she is sharing a recipe for gustine’s Press provides a fine survey phy could show us the ancestry of our of Kołakowski’s philosophy as it ap- steamed pudding or explaining the dig- opinions, and keep us from being mere peared in a variety of lesser-known nity of the unborn to Senator Edward products of our time. The path between essays and interviews. The book consists Kennedy. ancient philosophers and “the contem- of his powerful anti-communist writ- Ruth’s acceptance of suffering deeply porary philosophy of hippies and flower ings, as well as his theological dabbling impresses the reader. She made her own children, often called postmodernity, and philosophical explorations into trials and agony a sharing in the Cross of is convoluted and twisting”—but he the pressing questions and issues of our Jesus for the sake of the redemption of assured readers, with an infectious ex- times, written both before and after the world: “We want to be like Him, we citement, that “it can be traced” (233). his defection from Marxism. It features want to share His suffering with Him, His accessible prose has guided many many succinct and brilliant essays de- to keep Him company, not falling asleep readers through the twisting and turning voted to a variety of neglected questions: like Peter, James, and John. He will ac- story of ideas, including all of its detours, “Concern about God in an Apparently cept our patient endurance of trials and cycles, glorious achievements and ter- Godless Age,” “The Demise of Historical turn them into glory, like His Resur- rifying dead ends. Man,” “Neutrality and Academic Values,” rection” (173). Her union with Christ It was, of course, much like the story and “Where are Children in Liberal in the passion undoubtedly converted of his life. Kołakowski was a lively and Philosophy?” hearts even more effectively than her brilliant student who wrote his thesis on The book’s peculiar title is named af- powerful words. Spinoza at the University of Warsaw in ter his famous open letter to the Socialist The book also includes a small col- the 1940s, and went on to be chair of Weekly where he gave his final farewell lection of Ruth’s talks to pro-life groups his department. He was wholly devoted in 1973. While others scrambled to con- and spiritual conferences. The brevity of to strengthening the intellectual ground- demn Stalinism and redeem “true Marx- this section will leave the reader hun- work of Marxism: having lived through ist teaching,” Kołakowski announced gering for more. Fortunately, Michael Nazi occupation, he saw communism as that the entire scheme was beyond Pakaluk has promised a more substantial the truly humane and enlightened al- repair because it was rooted in a major biography in the near future. For now, ternative to barbarism. But a visit to the philosophic error: it made itself “abso- however, this volume provides a fine horrors of Stalinist Russia ended that. lutely irrefutable because it was able to introduction to an ordinary saint for He quickly revised his earlier views, and neglect all empirical facts as irrelevant.” our times. became a strong critic of communism It was therefore pointless to criticize in practice, accusing the Soviets and his socialism by exposing practical failures, • own Polish Communist Party of distort- because, in the end, it was “nothing else ing and misusing Marx’s teaching. He but the expression of an ideological made his criticism public, and it earned commitment, incapable of being either

58 FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 validated or disproved empirically.” “conservative,” nor did he allow himself self-assurance of unbelief, too, has been Marxism was only a series of symbols to be identified with any conservative shaken,” Kołakowski wrote; “the Na- and theories, which did not even try movements in the United States. He had ture of the atheistic Enlightenment, the to relate with reality. Communism was good things to say about the free market, godless world of today is perceived as an “total,” Kołakowski wrote, “in a much but he recognized that it was little more afflicted, endless chaos. It is robbed of stronger sense, at least in its claims, than than the normal order of life. Marx- all meaning, all direction, all road signs, any religious faith has ever achieved” ism and capitalism were not conflicting and all structure” (174). Enlightenment (69). Rigid old traditions could indeed notions at opposite ends of the ideo- Reason, it seemed, led into a vast and be oppressive, but at least they offered a logical spectrum, because “[c]apitalism terrifying void. Gone were the days of way out of the present, which could be developed spontaneously and organically the “cheerful atheist”; the only ones left far more tyrannical. With communism, from the spread of commerce,” he wrote. were usually fools, struggling to ignore the inclination of man to cling to tradi- No one had planted greed and selfish- the terrible nothingness that lay beneath tion would be fulfilled by a false tradi- ness in the human heart; the free market the surface of their most sacred values. tion, engineered and constantly modi- simply recognized it as a constant in The wise thing, it seemed, was to fied by social planners. human behavior, and turned it from a just keep “doing science,” and not be For all its closedness, however, it vice into a practical virtue. Upsetting troubled by such concerns, which were was remarkable what a “cultural force” as that might be, it was “incomparably miniscule compared with accurate Marxist theory was among the Western better than a society based on com- predictions of what was once uncertain, intelligentsia. Individual free thought pulsory brotherhood” (96). Depending and technological power over what was was still the norm for artists, musicians, on selfishness was a much better thing once open chance. Others, though, took and philosophers, and thoughtful people than trying to engineer love—a love of the question seriously, and began to for- would defend it fiercely; yet somehow, which human beings are incapable. An mulate a new approach: perhaps “God is Marxism was the theory of choice, and alteration of human nature necessarily dead,” and Nature gives no guidance— all seemed to flock to it. How was it that called for the absolute power of a totali- but we still have History, evolution, and the greatest minds aligned themselves tarian state. “progress.” For many, it seemed that His- with an ideology which, in practice, Kołakowski knew that Marxism was tory could do even better than the En- would either force their talents into a symptom of a much deeper shift in lightenment did: right was right because propaganda campaigns, or make them our self-understanding. It came from of the place we had arrived at in our disappear? It was because of commu- a habit of radical skepticism, in both development, as we moved toward uni- nism’s tendency to usurp revolutionary intellectuals and in the minds of regu- versal liberal democracy, which stood as fervor, Kołakowski wrote. Communism lar people. Tracing the history of ideas, strong as Church teaching once did. In was a “parasite” that “efficiently ex- Kołakowski taught that such uncertainty this, “History became a substitute for the ploited all social ills, attaching itself to came from an equally radical certainty substitute—a newly discovered infallible causes that were not only important but of the Enlightenment era. Once, the foundation on which meaning could also worthy, and supported by much of age of faith was found too unreliable be built, and the binding power that an intelligentsia nurtured on the ideals compared to the power of almighty could reconstruct a meaningful whole of enlightenment and humanism.” Great Reason. Enlightenment rationalism, or from disconnected pieces and define our movements, however just and wise, still the new science, gave us a clear view of place in it” (220). The obvious problem, lacked the simplistic clarity of com- nature—not as a participation in God’s of course, is that History is not the kind munism, with its animosity toward the nature, as it was previously understood, of thing that can give values. God and rich, and sanctimony of the poor, and but Nature as it was in itself. Science Nature had been immutable and un- rationalizations for mob violence. Once could crack Nature’s codes, discover its changing; they gave moral constants that a revolution began, communists became secrets, and settle comfortably on rock- did not come and go like fads. History, the only leaders who could “impose solid absolutes, thus allowing mankind though, was “mutability itself”: it offered their own rule on a demoralized and to free itself from the faiths, opinions, no indication that it improved or got disorganized society” (82). A truly just and superstitions that had dominated it worse. All that could be said for sure was revolution took a decent respect for the for eons. that it “changed”—that all things were old regime—despite its flaws—wisdom But the Enlightenment was doomed historically relative. “Thus universal rela- enough to frame a new government, to failure: for all its discoveries and tivism no longer has any need for his- and sufficient public virtue to receive it. advances, it could not justify itself in the tory,” Kołakowski wrote. “And the path Modern nations like Russia who lacked most necessary way—i.e., it could not from historicism in this sense to simple, such character were easy prey for the say that it was good, since “good” was all-embracing, all-engulfing relativism is simplistic appeal of Bolshevism, and the a fundamentally unscientific concept. a straight one” (223). demagogues who could use it. Moreover, by rejecting God, or at least Modern man is entirely unconcerned For all his criticism of the Left, a role for God in the world, it deprived with this, of course, since he finds Kołakowski never called himself a the intellect of its highest end. “The “opening before him the perspective of

FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 59 Book Reviews divine self-creation,” Kołakowski writes, which is itself under great assault even Weber imagined it. But Kołakowski “where all things are regarded with from the inside. Kołakowski looked at proposed a far more specific remedy equal indifference” (272). No one is in- Vatican II as a tremendous weakening when he wrote that “the survival of different about the need for indifference, (however inadvertent), and surrender to our religious heritage is the condition however. People speak of expressive in- modernity. “The Church is more than for the survival of civilization.” Vibrant, dividualism (particularly with regard to ever before reconciled with the liberal- serious, orthodox Christianity was the sex) with the same moralistic gravity of democratic order,” he writes in an essay true savior of the West, as Christ had “rights” and “values” that previous gen- on the Catechism, which attempts to been for mankind. Religion, after all, erations spoke about virtue and holiness. bend its authority to what has emerged was not about “spirituality”; it was about Meanwhile, we find philosophers and as the much higher authority of modern the “meaning of Being, about the mean- ethicists whose work is wholly devoted relativism (146). Christ still meets the ing of the universe and our place in it” to covering up the nihilism that lingers faithful, to be sure, but they do not nec- (271). Being was eternal and timeless, beneath the surface of it all, working essarily receive and participate in Him in and the closest thing to timelessness overtime to ignore the angst and confu- the way they used to. from our point of view is oldness; Be- sion we all know is there. Christianity’s greatest institution— ing could only be known by “historical Religious faith continues, of course, the university—finds itself in the same explanation, by paying homage to ori- as a popular choice of many. But it is situation. Once, teaching was the true gins and foundational events,” which the difficult to distinguish from the broad role of the university, as John Henry Catholic Church had been devoted to array of other personal choices. Most Newman insisted. Professors were men- for centuries (272). Apostolic succession Christian thought occurs almost entirely tors and guides, who helped instill a makes the Church a gift to the future, on the terms that modernity has set for liberal sense into their students—an and a blessing even to those who hate it. it. Theology, once the highest science ability to appreciate and understand all For all his praise, however, requiring years of preparation in logic interpretations, and then use those to Kołakowski only saw the pragmatic and Scripture, now gives its voice of ascend upward to the good, the true, and value of the Church. For him, it was authority to whatever political or social the beautiful. Liberal education holds not old because it was good; it was interest captures it first. In a way, this is “that some values are universal in the good because it was old, and not much nothing new, since it is in “the nature sense of being independent of social and else. It was simply the more humane of Christianity” to adapt itself to the ethnic divisions” (249). But once relativ- and gentler alternative to totalitarian- philosophic and cultural frameworks it ism became the norm, it was clear that ism, and an incidental friend to human finds most useful. “Christianity, while there was nothing to teach because there dignity. He was never formally Catholic, considering itself a repository of divine was nothing that merited study (aside and he dismissed much of the spiritual grace, at the same time remains an or- from what the professor himself declared disciplines as too goofy and strange for ganism that exists in this world—cultur- important). Research became the greater a true philosopher to take seriously. ally and historically determined, and priority—even though the vast major- In this, he never considered how in- forced to act with the temporal means at ity of studies and publications “disap- timately connected Catholic spiritual its disposal” (179). Early Christians used pear, so to speak, into nothingness … disciplines—particularly the Mass—are Plato to shape a statement of orthodoxy, without any contribution to the general to the Catholic intellect. It is indeed the and medieval theologians thought like culture” (238). Rather than shaping and last standing pre-modern institution, Aristotle to defend the faith; this was influencing the general culture, prepar- but it is more than that. The Church acceptable, though, because the ancients ing students for liberty, and elevating maintains the meeting of revelation and were metaphysical theists of the highest public tastes, the relationship is now the reason—reason understood as teleology, order. It is a different activity entirely, other way around: universities are totally which the Enlightenment so disastrously however, to allow the spirit of the times captured by current cultural and political rejected. Still, for all his misunderstand- to dictate how we know God and our- trends. They had always been vulner- ing, Catholics can count Kołakowski selves. Modern Christianity found itself able to such political attacks, Kołakowski a friend, whose writings are more of a unable to avoid the latter approach, and writes, but they were able to rest on treasure than perhaps even he knew. it was therefore complicit in the drift their own “intellectual dignity,” know- into nihilism. ing that the pursuit of truth would give Kevin Walker, Ph.D., received his degree The Roman Catholic Church was them a purpose that no political power in Government from Claremont Graduate the lone exception: it alone maintains a or social movement could take away, University in 2010. He will be an Assistant tradition, both spiritual and intellectual, and which could justify their resistance Professor of Government at King College in designed to prevent such a drift. In this, when necessary. But a university that Bristol, TN in 2012. it proves to be a haven for all Christians, gives up that defense is inevitably little as indicated by the new attitudes among more than the tool of the regime. • Evangelicals toward the Church’s teach- It is trite to say that we can only be ing. But the Church is a lone institution, saved by a “spiritual revival,” as Max

60 FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 T. M. Doran. Toward the Gleam. San While I dare not reveal too much of don’t “get” one or two key secrets, they Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2011. 467 pp. the well engineered plot, I will say that risk missing the thrill of the book. No- the book has some breathtaking mo- where, for instance, not even in its pub- Reviewed by Stephen Mirarchi ments. A face-off with deadly, unseen licity materials, does Toward the Gleam Instructor of English and Theology foes late in the novel had my blood explicitly announce its primary narrative at Jesuit High School Tampa pumping and my telltale heart pounding sleight-of-hand (which I will not reveal). Stephen Mirarchi holds a Ph.D. in American in my ears. A surprise attack by a female Even fans of Tolkien and Chesterton literature spy caught me totally off-guard, almost can be in the dark through most of as much as it did her intended victim. the novel. For those who don’t “get it,” hat if The Lord of the Rings That the latter scene comes off with all the book comes across as a thoroughly and Orthodoxy are true? the right notes of the Catholic legiti- mediocre exercise at best—proselytizing W Sure, any catechism- mate defense tradition speaks volumes propaganda at worst. trained Catholic can discern something to Doran’s skill in crafting an enrap- To those who do “get it,” then, what about exorcism from Gandalf’s silenc- turing narrative true to its proclaimed gives with the weak sacramentality in ing of Grima Wormtongue, and many allegiance. Indeed, students of apologet- the aborted adultery scene? Has Doran Christian adults do indeed appreciate ics will revel in the intellectual combat himself become an unsuspecting victim the world according to the “Ethics of exhibited in several scenes—skirmishes of unintentional accommodationism? Elfland.” But what if Tolkien and Ches- in which the “good guy” doesn’t always How frustrating that in a few scenes the terton had proof of a prehistoric society, prevail. novel backs away from the very mo- were able to understand those docu- For all its strengths, the book has one ments of conversion that have the power ments, and embellished them into … sacramental flaw so glaring that I cannot to convince. Ought not Catholic fiction well, you know the rest. recommend the novel for unsupervised wish to rise above something more than If this preposterous idea sounds as if reading by even older children. At one an entertaining in-joke; to broaden its it would make an adventure tale to rival point the protagonist spends time with a appeal without diluting its message? To the books you used to read as a teen late dashing woman not his wife and, finding put it bluntly, “profane” literature figures into the night, you’re not far off. Throw himself smitten, agrees to commit adul- out how to do just that in every age. in a healthy dose of the twentieth- tery with her. To his credit, the protago- A Catholic writer must take very seri- century Catholic intellectual tradition— nist thinks it over later and never meets ously Christ’s injunction to learn from including appearances from Chesterton her for the tryst—an ironic no-show, the dishonest stewards of this world; an himself and —and you’ve by modern standards. He has, however, author must be much more shrewd in got Toward the Gleam, an utterly fantastic objectively committed mortal sin, and attempting to reach a wider audience and completely unbelievable genre- not even the idea of confession comes while clinging to the truth. crossing novel that manages to impart up, much less the sacrament. For a book If Catholic fiction wishes to aspire ancient wisdom while playing the cat that claims to impart Catholic teach- to great literature, it must take great and mouse games usually reserved for ing especially in the face of captivating, literature seriously. Doran’s novel takes the hard-boiled noir set. Difficult to put meretricious philosophies, the sacramen- a step in that direction, but we have a down and easy to laugh with, the book tal privation in this key scene seems like great chasm to gulf, one that is widened delivers suspense and horror in a com- a nod to the more dangerous temptation by both self-righteous certainty and bination that embraces both the impec- of presumption. lukewarm pusillanimity. To paraphrase cably erudite training of the romantics Whom does Doran have in mind for Chesterton, Catholic fiction must have and the seedy, exhilarating grotesquery his audience, anyway? The book’s very just enough faith to write adventures, so deservedly associated with masters of structure has an unfortunate answer. If and just enough self-doubt for readers to the gothic. religious and non-religious readers alike enjoy them. • catholicscholars.org

FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 61 Books Received

If you would like to receive one of Into Your Hands, Father: Abandoning In Memory of Me: A Meditation on these books to review for the Quarterly, Ourselves to the God Who Loves Us. the Roman Canon. Milton Walsh. San please email Alice Osberger— Wilfrid Stinissen. San Francisco: Ignatius Francisco: Ignatius Press, (2011), 197 pp. [email protected] Press, (2011), 105 pp., paper. paper. The : Saint Anthony and Battle-Scarred: Justice Can be Elusive, the Beginnings of Monasticism. Peter H. • John F. Kippley. (2011), LaVergne, TN, Görg. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, (2008), 250pp. paper 131 pp., paper. If you would like to receive any Preach the Word: Homilies on Cicero: In Defence of the Republic. of the books listed below to review the Sundays and Feasts of the Translated with an Introduction and Notes for the Quarterly, please email Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite. by Siobhan McElduff. London: Penguin Fr. Joseph Koterski— Kenneth Baker, S.J. Staten Island, NY: St. Books, (2011), 315 pp., paper. [email protected] Paul’s, ( 2010), paper. Abandonment to Divine Providence: Both Sides of the Altar. Frank Morgan. With Letters of Father de Caussade A Year with the Angels. Michael South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, on the Practice of Self-Abandonment. Aquilina. Charlotte, NC: Saint Benedict (2011), 214 pp., paper. Father Jean-Pierre de Caussade, S. J. San Press/Tan Books, (2011 Francisco: Ignatius Press, (2011), 453 pp., The Pope’s Soldiers: A Military History The Life of Sr. Marie de Mandat- paper. of the Modern Vatican. David Alvarez, Grancey and Mary’s House in Ephesus. University Press of Kansas, (2011), 429 pp., The Uganda Blessing: An American Rev. Carl G. Schulte, C.M. Charlotte, NC: hardcover. Catholic Encounters the African Saint Benedict Press/Tan Books, (2011). Church. Gus A. Zuehlke. Light to the Happiness, God & Man: “We Were What The Saints Said About Heaven. Nations Press, (2008). 112 pp., paper. Created to be happy.” Christoph Ronda Chervin, Richard Ballard, and Cardinal Schönborn. San Francisco, CA: Living the Call: An Introduction to the Ruth Ballard. Charlotte, NC: Tan Books, Ignatius Press, (2010) 189 pp., paper. Lay Vocation. Michael Novak & William (2011). E. Simon Jr. New York: Encounter Books, Fire of Love: A Historical Novel about Shakespeare’s Catholicism: A Critical (2011), 191 pp., paper. Saint . José Luis Analysis of the Bard’s Life and Plays: Olaizola. San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, In Defense of Sanity: the Best Essays an eight-part video course. Joseph (2011) 217 pp., paper. of G. K. Chesterton. Selected by Dale Pearce. Charlotte, NC: Catholic Courses. Ahlquisst, Joseph Pearce, Aidan Mackey. (CatholicCourses.com) San Francisco: Ignatius Press (2011), 387 pp., paper.

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62 FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 Officers and Directors

President Gerard V. Bradley, Esq. Rev. John M. McDermott, S.J., Ph.D. Joseph W. Koterski, S.J., Ph.D. University of Notre Dame Sacred Heart Major Seminary Fordham University School of Law 2701 Chicago Blvd. Department of Philosophy Notre Dame IN 46556 Detroit MI 48206-1799 Bronx. NY 10458 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Bernard Dobranski, Esq. Susan Orr, Ph.D. Vice-President Ave Maria School of Law Assistant Dean for William L. Saunders, Esq. Naples FL 34119 Program Development Senior Vice President and [email protected] Benedictine College Senior Counsel 1020 N. Second Street Americans United for Life Atchison KS 66002 655 15th St NW—Suite 410 [email protected] Washington DC 20005 ELECTED DIRECTORS [email protected] Joseph Varacalli, Ph.D. (2009-2012) Nassau Community College Executive Secretary Department of Sociology Msgr. Stuart Swetland, Ph.D. Max Bonilla, S.S.L., S.T.D. One Education Drive Vice Pres. for Catholic Identity Vice Pres. International Relations Garden City NY 11530 Mount St. Mary’s University Catholic University of Avila [email protected] 16300 Old Emmitsburg Road Avda. de la Inmaculada, 1-A Emmitsburg, Maryland 21727 05005 Ávila, Spain [email protected] [email protected] (2011-2014)

Editor of FCS Quarterly Kristin Burns, Ph.D. Alfred Freddoso, Ph.D. J. Brian Benestad, Ph.D. Dean of the Graduate School University of Notre Dame University of Scranton Christendom College Department of Philosophy Department of Theology 4407 Sano Street Notre Dame IN 46556 St. Thomas Hall #367 Alexandria, VA 22312 [email protected] Scranton, PA 18510 [email protected] [email protected] Anthony Giampietro, C.S.B., Ph.D. Anne Carson Daly, Ph.D. University of St. Thomas Editor of the FCS Proceedings Vice President of Department of Philosophy Elizabeth Shaw, Ph.D. Academic Affairs Houston TX 77006 [email protected] Belmont Abbey [email protected] 100 Belmont, Mt. Holly Rd Belmont, NC 28012 Stephen Miletic, Ph.D. Past Presidents [email protected] Franciscan University Department of Theology William May, Ph.D. Carter Snead, Esq. Steubenville, OH 43952-1763 Emeritus McGivney Professor University of Notre Dame [email protected] of Moral Theology Notre Dame Law School (740) 284-5284 Pontifical John Paul II Institute Notre Dame, IN 46556 for Marriage and Family [email protected] Christopher Tollefsen, Ph.D. The Catholic Univ. of America University of South Carolina [email protected] (2010-2013) Department of Philosophy Columbia SC 29208 Earl A. Weis, S.J., Ph.D. Christian Brugger, Ph.D. [email protected] Colombiere Center St. John Vianney 9075 Big Lake Road Theological Seminary Clarkston MI 48346-1015 1300 South Steele Street Denver CO 80210 James Hitchcock, Ph.D. [email protected] St. Louis University [email protected] Department of History 3800 Lindell Blvd. St. Louis, MO 63108 [email protected]

FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 63 Notice

JOURNAL OF THE CATHOLIC MEDICAL ASSOCIATION

Editor in Chief CALL FOR AUTHORS: PHYSICIAN AND William V. Williams, M.D. ETHICISTS WILLING TO COLLABORATE

Executive Editor The Linacre Quarterly is the official journal of the Catholic Medical John M. Travaline, M.D. Association. Continuously published since 1932, The Linacre Quarterly is the oldest journal in existence dedicated to medical ethics. The Linacre Quarterly Contributing Editors provides a forum in which faith and reason can be brought to bear on analyzing Reverend Thomas Berg, Ph.D. and resolving ethical issues in health care, with a particular focus on issues in Richard J. Fehring, Ph.D., R.N. clinical practice and research. Articles published in The Linacre Quarterly are peer reviewed and selected for the highest level of scholarly discourse. Editor Emeritus Eugene F. Diamond, M.D. The Linacre Editorial Board has undertaken an initiative to pair physicians and ethicists to address both the medical and ethical aspects of specific issues of interest to physicians and ethicists alike. These issues include (but are not limited Case Report/Book Review Editors Thomas M. Bender, M.D. to) abortion, euthanasia, contraception, assisted nutrition and hydration, fertility Marie-Alberte Boursiquot, M.D. care, same sex attraction, health care reform, conscience protection in medical Greg Burke, M.D. practice, organ transplantation, spirituality in medicine and others. We are seeking to encourage ethicists and physicians to work together to craft scholarly Managing Editor articles addressing these and related issues for submission to The Linacre Louise A. Mitchell, M.A. Quarterly. This effort should benefit both ethicists and physicians by providing well researched clinical background information to allow a better understanding and application of ethical principles to these controversial areas.

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64 FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 Ex Cathedra Fr. James Schall’s new book, The Modern Age

by J. Brian Benestad the modern age is autonomy or choice. “The modern Editor age is characterized by the claim that man can pro- pose his own final end, can decide the content of his r. Schall’s new book, published by St. Augus- own happiness” (31). I would argue that, as of yet, not tine’s Press, is a meditation on the charac- everyone lives his or her life by embracing choices teristics of the modern age, modern politics, unguided by revelation and reason. But everyone is and the drama of human existence, that is to affected by the tone set by the emphasis on autono- Fsay, the eternal significance of the life of every per- my and choice in the modern age. son who has ever lived. To achieve his purposes Fr. Recall to mind a presidential debate between Schall also discusses philosophy, political philosophy, Al Gore and George W. Bush. Mr. Gore approached revelation, theology, “the brighter side of hell,” and Mr. Bush and asked, “Do you believe in choice?” Chesterton’s Orthodoxy, which is especially concerned He was, of course, referring to the right of a woman with “the positive relation of religious authority to to choose abortion. I don’t recall Mr. Bush’s exact reason, to philosophy” (167). answer, but he didn’t say, “Of course, I believe in The “modern age, at its core, is an effort to re- choice, because choosing in the light of standard define the transcendent purposes of man initially established by faith and/or reason is necessary for outlined in revelation so that man’s happiness is now anyone who wants to act in accordance with his to be achieved solely by human effort for the benefit dignity as a human person.” Or as Fr. Schall puts it, of human beings who still exist on this earth” (12). “[God] knew that we could not love Him or anyone Otherwise stated, the modern age proposes to estab- else without our choosing to do so. How we choose lish the Kingdom of God by human means, especially thus still remains the central point in the drama of by science and politics. “The modern age is itself human existence” (43). These kinds of a common- charged,” writes Schall, “with the responsibility of sense statements cannot be made in a presidential outdoing revelation by showing what it can produce campaign because of the deference people pay to the that is better. Thus, universal brotherhood and peace, autonomy celebrated by the modern age. That is to non-ending life, avoidance of suffering and death, say, we bow before the proposition that we ought complete correspondence between nature and man, “to create our own rules, our own world,” even if and complete liberty to do as we wish to demon- we don’t consistently live this way. (42). Most of my strate our ‘autonomy’ became secular, not religious university students would never think of saying that or philosophical goals. They were now seen to be marriage can take place only between a man and goals that could be brought about by will and scien- woman. They say that it is up to each individual to tific organization” (110). The modern age proposes to decide what marriage is for him or her, whether they achieve its lofty goals without educating people to be believe this or not. The ethos of the modern age has just and charitable human beings. It does not see that even affected the practice of medicine. A student universal brotherhood cannot be attained if all people of mine who went to an elite medical school came are encouraged to assert their untutored autonomy. back to visit and told me that he was taught to ac- The modern age takes its bearing by rejecting cept patient choices even if they were not the best the Christian and classical view that all human be- way to restore health or relieve suffering. My former ings have a common human nature which must be student was not taught to persuade patients to choose perfected by the pursuit of wisdom and virtue during what his medical knowledge indicated was best for the course of one’s life. The alternative proposed by them. The rationale for this teaching was respect for

FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 65 Ex Cathedra patient autonomy. Fr. Schall says that the “modern better health and prosperity, modernity, with its em- doctor …asks the patient what he wants done to phasis on rudderless autonomy and ungrounded rights, him” (23, my emphasis). The subjective request, then, has ill served the good of the human person. Moder- is more important than the objective validity of the nity, in brief, has made more difficult the acquisition request. The ultimate example of a groundless patient of the virtues, especially justice and love, in view of request is physician-assisted suicide (PAS), which is communion with God and neighbor in this life and now legal in Oregon and Washington. PAS may soon the next. be approved by a referendum in Massachusetts next As a beginning of a solution to problems caused November, even though most Massachusetts doctors by modern politics, Schall echoes Pope Benedict XVI’s are against it. Under the influence of the modern age, argument that politics must serve ethical ends and give many American citizens believe it is their right to up its eschatological pretensions to solve all human have doctors give them a lethal dose of medicine so problems and produce happiness for all. Politics must that they can end their lives by the exercise of their be liberated “from the burden of having to substitute autonomy. for transcendence” (135). It really serves human be- Modern politics in service to the modern age ings when it deters and punishes unjust acts. “Politics “proposes to identify the causes of human evil and deals primarily with justice, the relations of ourselves to eliminate them. They are located outside the hu- to others within an order. Politics also contributes man soul in institutions and things” (129). Science and to making possible things beyond justice. Politics is politics will eliminate the causes of evil, not love and important primarily for what else it makes possible, justice in the souls of individual citizens brought about things beyond politics” (102). For example, politics can by the conversion of hearts. Science and politics will, serve the ultimate good of human persons and society in addition, bring about “personal dignity, abiding love by protecting the religious liberty of individuals and and friendship” (129). This mindset, of course, leads churches. Schall quotes an important statement by many Christians to put more emphasis on political and Pope Benedict XVI on February 28, 2009, indicating economic solutions than on the good and destiny of the principal contribution that Catholic social doc- their souls, which would have a more profound impact trine makes to civil society when the Catholic Church on the struggle against evil in the world. has and exercises its religious liberty: “The Church The primary means used by the modern state has never simply denounced evils; it also shows the to accomplish its purposes is to protect rights. “The paths that lead to justice, to charity, to the conversion ambiguity surrounding the word ‘rights’ is notori- of hearts. In the economy as well, justice is established ous. Many classical ‘vices’ are now political ‘rights.’” only if there are just persons. And these persons are In the modern age rights are quite flexible since they assembled through the conversion of hearts” (113). serve the autonomy of every individual. “The word Politics, of course, can make possible other fine things ‘right’ is used to oppose tyrants as well as to justify such as philosophy, art, literature, a thriving economy, overturning of the natural law” in matters pertain- the relief of poverty, and the protection and promotion ing to the protection of life and marriage (27). Schall of human dignity. is, of course, referring to the argument that there are Though his reflection on “The Brighter Side rights to abortion and same-sex marriage. As one age of Hell” in chapter five Schall brings out the great- succeeds another, rights will come and go as the ma- ness of human dignity and the significance of every jority abolishes and creates human rights by an act of single human life. C. S. Lewis expressed this point in will. While this looks like freedom, it is really the dic- a memorable way: “There are no ordinary people. You tatorship of relativism. All are expected to give their have never talked to a mere mortal. Natures, cultures, assent to the creation and destruction of rights in the arts, civilizations—these are mortal, and their life is to modern age and to march in lock-step, no matter us as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we their religious beliefs. joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—im- While Schall recognizes that the modern age and mortal horrors or everlasting splendors” (The Weight modern politics have brought good things such as of Glory and Other Addresses, rev. ed., 18-19). protection from tyranny, protection of freedom, All are called to participate “in the inner life

66 FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011 of God” (42). That is the full realization of human them if we choose” (78). The choice to love God and dignity. The drama of human existence is the choice neighbor, with all that this decision entails, “remains that each individual makes to accept his or her des- the central point in the drama of our existence” (43). tiny, or to separate from God and thus from all other To make good choices, of course, the mind must be human beings. A positive decision for God not only able to come in contact with reality and discern the leads to eternal happiness, but also to good social and good. Hence Schall logically says, “The very defense political benefits, while a negative decision causes the of civilization begins with and depends on a defense loss of eternal happiness and more injustice and lack of the integrity of the mind itself. A mind that can- of love in this world. not tell the difference between burglars and police is The doctrine of hell teaches everyone that mean- no mind” (168). God could not fairly judge human ingful freedom exists and that our free choices have beings if they could not discern truth from falsehood everlasting significance. “[H]ell is the guarantee that and good from bad. our lives are really and ultimately important…. Thus In sum, Schall is arguing that the fleeting culture hell has the paradoxical function of enhancing our (the modern age) and political order in which we awareness of the meaning of our lives. They are not live must be judged and reformed according to their insignificant wherever or whenever they are lived…. success or failure in helping individuals become Our lives are ultimately so important that we can lose “everlasting splendors.” ✠ •

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68 FCS Quarterly • Winter 2011