Hitch-22: The Last Revolution

Christopher Hitchens, the famous author and journalist, lays out his life story in his recent bestseller Hitch-22. In many ways, he embodies the generation which came of age during the 1968 revolution, throwing over political and sexual conventions, and, over time, shedding their illusions about socialism and pacifism. His memoir leaves nothing for anyone else to embellish on, from his early sexual escapades, to his high profile fights with prominent thinkers, artists, and politicians of the day, to his political reversals. It offers a fascinating history and perspective on the last forty years of world events and the people who made them, recalling for baby-boomers the ride they have taken through the decades, through for most from an armchair.

Hitchens' father was a career military man and World War II veteran who had found his war years to be the best and most meaningful. His mother was free-spirited and pushed his education forward. Her tragic suicide while he was a young man was a bitter experience, particularly knowing he had missed phone calls that he might have intervened. Later he discovered the Jewish roots she had concealed and found more places from his past.

His years at Oxford's Balliol College he described as follows: “a training in logic chopping and Talmudic-style microexegesis [that] can come in handy in later life, as can a training in speaking with a bullhorn from an upturned milk crate outside a factory, and then later scrambling into a dinner jacket and addressing the Oxford Union debating society under the rules of parliamentary order.”

Hitchens traveled from place to place as a young revolutionary supporting the cause, from Greece to Cuba, Portugal to Poland, and his observations during these engagements would test his socialist leanings. On a field trip to Cuba for young revolutionaries, in answer to his question about whether free speech was allowed, he was told: of course, except in the case of the “Leader of the Revolution” himself. Hitchens replied to the effect that “if the most salient figure in the state and society was immune from critical comment, then all the rest was detail” and was amused to find himself labeled a “counter-revolutionary.”

He soon discovered that journalism was best-suited to his tendency to straddle both sides of the fence and his relish for argument. Hitchens realized he could not support the curbs on freedom that a socialist regime imposes for the supposed good of all. “Whatever I might argue, I was more profoundly attached to liberal concepts of freedom—freedom of speech and of the press, academic freedom, independent judgment and independent judges.” A leading figure in the Solidarity movement in Poland, Adam Michnik, told Hitchens: “The real struggle for us is for the citizen to cease to be the property of the state.”

9/11 was another turning point. “In truth, a whole new terrain of struggle had just opened up in front of me.” And this time it was personal. As the Pentagon burned, his wife couldn't get across town to pick up their daughter from school. While the multicultural left was enabling radical Islam, Hitchens recognized that “to repudiate war in [a] morally neutral way was to allow fascism a clear run.” As Hitchens challenged a Georgetown audience, would Mandela or Allende have recruited supporters to slaughter innocent bystanders to move their cause forward?

In Iraq, he saw allied forces greeted as “liberators”, and in a harrowing description he recalled the brutal chemical slaughter of the Kurds as a reminder of the unpredictable brutality of Saddam Hussein, even while deploring the war's excesses. Hitchens dubbed himself a “pro-government dissident” from the Left. After living through the revolutionary years of 1968, 1989 and 2001, he recalls Hannah Arendt’s observation of “the lost treasure of revolution” with their “convolutions and contradictions". He considers Islam the worst enemy and America the best hope.

As is well known, Hitchens bitterly opposes religious strictures and hypocrisy. Recently, he called Pope Benedict XVI that “elderly criminal” and said that he was sorry he wouldn’t see his death before his own. His sloppy accusation, from a cursory and not disinterested reading of the sexual abuse scandal, is only the latest of his regular invectives against the Church. He is currently one of the four best-known British atheists and has written an entire volume on Mother Teresa and her “fraudulent” work, along with another bestseller God Is Not Good, the title of which his friend Salman Rushdie critiqued as having one word too many. Hitchens was hired by the Vatican to critique Mother Teresa’s canonization proceedings, and he boasts he is "the only living person to have represented the Devil pro bono".

Hitchens became an American citizen in 2007. He has an unabashed admiration for the American ideals, after so many disillusions. He described a deep admiration at his first sight of the skyline of New York: “I knew that I was surveying a tremendous work of man” and he asks himself: “How is the United States at once the most conservative and commercial AND the most revolutionary society on Earth?”

His idealism has been tempered by his philosophy. He writes: "I suspect that the hardest thing for the idealist to surrender is the teleological" and recalls Oscar Wilde's quip that "A map of the world that did not show Utopia would not be worth consulting." He states that: "It is not that there are no certainties, it is that it is an absolute certainty that there are no certainties". He is not unaware of the contradiction between his asserting rights and wrongs and his denial that religion should give anyone such an assurance of truth, nor does that hinder him. He adds that he sees "the unbounded areas and fields of one's ignorance are now expanding in such a way, and at such a velocity, as to make the contemplation of them almost fantastically beautiful".

He shares with fellow atheist Richard Dawkins the acknowledgement of an incredible coincidence, the "sense of wonder at the sheer unlikelihood of having briefly `made it' on a planet where crude extinction has held such sway, and where the chance of being conceived, let alone safely delivered, is so infinitesimal." Again, it is personal, because he lived, while his mother had aborted twice, just before and just after him.

The coincidence of his memoir’s publication and his cancer diagnosis is especially poignant with the volume's reflections on death. The first page of his book quotes Leopold Bloom in Ulysses: “Read your own obituary notice; they say you live longer. Gives you second wind. New lease of life.” Hitchens proactively discounts any potential deathbed conversion as untrustworthy and "pathetic" because he would be "half-demented". He is only at his best and truest, according to himself, when being in full possession of his powers.

Hitchens doesn’t squirm to confront his own logical conclusion: “The fact is that all attempts to imagine one’s own extinction are futile by definition.” For a man who has always been ready to brawl over the latest injustice, he adds: “I do not especially like the idea that one day I shall be tapped on the shoulder and informed, not that the party is over but that it is most assuredly going on—only henceforth in my absence.” Even after such so many and varied experiences, he complains: "How terrible it is that we have so many more desires than opportunities." He refuses any answer to this, a priori.

Reprinted from ilsussidiario.net

Meeting: Irish President Mary McAleese

Irish President Mary McAleese will address the Rimini Meeting on Sunday, August 22nd.  Journalist John Waters, who will join the panel, offers background on her political role in an article for Il Sussidiario.  

She was marginalized and repudiated by her fellow workers (some of whom have since recanted and apologized to her as President). When, later on, she acted as spokeswoman for the Catholic Bishops, she was the subject of venomous attacks which resulted in her life being threatened by unionist extremists.

Nevertheless, by sheer force of personality, McAleese emerged as a thoughtful and courageous voice, unafraid to speak up about her origins, her faith or her sense of an Ireland ungoverned by ideological prescriptions. A keen student of philosophy, history and politics, her public interventions were characterized most of all by her engagingly conversational style, by which she succeeded in saying quite complex, and sometimes quite rigorous things without conveying any sense of intellectual detachment.

In addition to all this, she was a clear-minded and unapologetic Catholic who took her faith seriously and saw no reason to compartmentalize it outside or alongside her public persona. Her work with the Catholic bishops had mainly been in the context of a forum established to address the matter of the continuing conflict that had blighted her home place for many years. She was, naturally, dismissed by opponents as “conservative” and “traditionalist”, but when the arguments started she left them all for dead.

“Perez… that’s a very hot topic in our country right now” and ...

I have not watched a beauty pageant since I was around 7 years-old, when the Miss America Pageant was 1970s “must see T.V.” I certainly do not plan to start watching pageants now. Since it was all over the news this morning, I can’t help but laud Miss U.S.A. contestant, Carrie Prejean, a.k.a. Miss California, who, when asked by pageant judge Perez Hilton, whether she thought every state should follow Vermont and the three other states that have given legal recognition to same-sex marriage, responded: "Well I think it’s great that Americans are able to choose one way or the other. We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage. You know what, in my country, in my family, I do believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman, no offence to anybody out there. But that’s how I was raised and I believe that it should be between a man and a woman. Thank you."

It was not enough to ask a baiting question and accept the answer given, Mr. Perez, who is a well-known and very vocal advocate for same-sex marriage, lambasted Prejean after the contest, saying that her answer was "the worst answer in pageant history." Why? One can only surmise that it is because she neither came out in favour of same-sex marriage, nor did she choose to be "diplomatic" and avoid answering the question directly. Isn’t this a bit like seating a V.P. of Citibank as a pageant judge and her asking contestants what they thought about Hank Paulson’s TARP legislation? In fact, it was a question about bank bailouts that Prejean’s competitor, Kristin Dalton, Miss North Carolina, who went on to be named Miss U.S.A., was asked, but not by a bank vice-president.

Being a generous man, Mr. Hilton went so far, after the pageant, to suggest an answer he would not have found offensive: "Perez, that’s a great question and that’s a very hot topic in our country right now. I think it’s a question that each state should answer for themselves because that’s our forefathers designed our government. The states rule themselves and then there are certain laws that are federal." Looking back at Carrie Prejean’s answer, I think she did state what Hilton suggested as regards what it means to live in a constitutional democracy, like the U.S. Her apparent misstep was answering his question in its entirety, a question that asked what she thought about the matter.

It is also important to note that her opinion is the opinion of a majority of Californians who went to the polls last November and democratically rejected giving legal status to same sex marriage, thus popularly overturning an edict by the California Supreme Court. It may bear reminding Mr. Hilton that the only state that recognizes same-sex marriage that has done so by anything like a democratic process (i.e., not by judicial fiat) is Vermont. In Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Iowa it is something imposed by state supreme courts. Further, wherever same-sex marriage has appeared as a ballot initiative to amend the state’s constitution to define marriage as between one man and one woman, including California (and Utah), it has passed, the California vote being far and away the closest, though Colorado and Arizona passed marriage amendments with majorities of 55% and 56% respectively. I will concede that while Massachusetts began recognizing same-sex marriage as the result of a state Supreme Court ruling, subsequent attempts to amend the state constitution have been defeated in the legislature. New Jersey and New Hampshire both have civil partnership laws, like Vermont did prior to the recent vote to override the governor’s veto of a bill to legalize same-sex marriage.

Sadly, Hilton was not able to limit himself to dismissing her answer with prejudice. Posting a video blog he went on to call her " dumb bitch." I would expect to see feminists take issue with a gay man calling a woman a dumb bitch, just as people did when Isiah Thomas, defending himself in a sexual harassment lawsuit, claimed that it was alright for an African American man to call an African American woman a bitch, but it was not alright for a white man. Just to be clear, it is not okay for a man of any colour or sexual orientation to conduct himself in such a reprehensible manner, especially under these circumstances, in which she was merely giving an honest answer to a question he asked!

It is true that her answer likely cost her title Miss U.S.A., but that is a small price to pay for maintaining her integrity. Perhaps Perez Hilton should just stick to asking himself questions, that way he’ll always get the answer for which is looking.

I think this event is very instructive regarding the current cultural circumstance in which we find ourselves. The question for us, attending to the totality of its factors, how do we live this reality, how do we give witness to Christ in this reality? Part of the answer lies in giving honest answers to questions, questions that are ultimately about meaning and purpose, our meaning and purpose, even in the face derision and hostility.

While I am at it, note to Janeane Garofalo: just as it was not inherently un-patriotic to criticize Pres. Bush, it is not inherently racist to criticize Pres. Obama.

Being always aware of the One whose witnesses we are

It is not a question as to whether we should be reduced to practicing our faith in private or giving public witness. Without a doubt, we are to give public witness to the truth, whether it be about the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death, or about the nature of marriage. So, it becomes about the nature of our public witness. This gets back to something I posted not long ago, namely an observation by the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan: "that for conservatives it is axiomatic 'that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society.' As one might suspect, it is an atomic truth of liberalism that politics is more fundamental and important to society than culture."

The reaction of many to the two recent dust-ups involving President Obama and Catholic institutions do nothing but prove the thesis I set forth in my earlier post, namely that in the U.S. almost everyone is liberal because we look to politics and/or political solutions, that is, power plays and assertions of will, to solve every problem. By doing this, we expend resources, effort, and energy that are better spent building up culture through education and other means. Reacting to circumstnaces in this way leads to a reduction of faith, which is a reduction of ourselves and others.

Let's take another controversy as instructive of what it means to start from a positive hypothesis: the Holy Father's assertion that the way to prevent the further spread of HIV in Africa is not by distributing condoms, but by rehumanizing sexuality. This is not a political assertion, though it is one in conformity with the epidemiological facts. Hence, it is not an ideology, an assertion of what the church teaches against a reality that contradicts it. Rather, he begins by recognizing the humanity of the people of Africa, the fact that the human person is a direct relationship with the mystery, and by recognizing sexuality as an authentic part of being human. You become ideological when your abstractions and theories discount and reduce the humanity of others because you are asserting yourself against the fact that constitutes reality.

As Rose wisely observed: "Let us start from the fact that we need to be educated, even in living sexuality. But education primarily concerns the discovery of self: the person who is conscious of himself. He knows that he has a value that is greater than everything. Without the discovery of this value - for themselves and others - there is nothing to hold." Hence, to begin, as those who think the distribution of condoms is either the only way, or merely the primary way, of combating the spread of this deadly virus, from a negative hypothesis- that people in Africa, or anywhere, like teenagers in high school, will inevitably behave in a sexually irresponsible manner is dehumanizing. As the Holy Father said, the rehumanization of sexuality consists of "bringing a new way of behaving towards one another." As Carlo put it in a title to his post on Paper Clippings, it is a matter of putting education over mechanics.

This is the kind of witness we are called to give. Somehow I do not think shouting, marching, carrying banners, condemning to hell, etc. are ways to witness to Christ or to give witness to the sanctity of human life because they do not start from a positive hypothesis, but a negative one and are ideological expressions. It is a way to further polarize, a polarization that not only pits the church against the world, but members of the church against each other.

Is there nothing we can do? I remember Fr. Trento's declining to be made a Knight of the Order of the Star of Solidarity of the Republic of Italy, due to the government's refusal to intercede on behalf of Eluana Englaro. Why? Because it contradicted his solidarity with those whom he serves. After receiving it, he quietly returned it on his own to the Italian embassy in Paraguay, the country in which he lives and ministers. He did not call a press conference, or organize a demonstration, he did not angrily denounce or condemn anyone, he merely pointed out the contradiction of honoring someone who has devoted his life to serving many people in the same situation as Eluana. He then went back to his ministry, where he remains giving witness to the One whose presence "is the only fact that can give meaning to pain and to injustice."

A Catholic University?

I have been following the events at Notre Dame with great curiosity, and when I read what Sharon blogged (she has links to everyone else, so just read what she wrote and follow her links) on the subject, I sensed an invitation in her post. So, here I am!

Every time I began to think about the president's invitation to speak at (and to receive an honorary degree from) Notre Dame, a conversation I once overheard would run through my mind. A Catholic philosopher who was teaching at the University of Chicago was speaking to the dean of one of the colleges that is considered more orthodox and serious about its Catholic identity. The philosopher observed that he could always tell which of his students were either Catholic or Jewish from the rest of the students. The dean asked him how he could tell, and the philosopher replied, "The Catholic and Jewish students all have a sense that there are other countries in the world, that people speak other languages, that in the past there were people, people who came from cultures very different from our own, who thought great things and whose works are worthy of examination." The dean seemed bemused and then said, "Well, we know our students are Catholic because daily Mass on campus is packed with students, because they often gather together to pray the rosary, and because a majority of them major in theology, and because they engage in a multitude of pro-life activities." And that was the end of the conversation.

I think that Stephen (not my husband, but a good friend) is right that the people who now decry Notre Dame's invitation to President Obame are (more or less) the same people who have been suspicious of Notre Dame's claim to being a truly Catholic institution. It seems that this controversy provides them with a litmus test -- to judge just how "Catholic" Notre Dame is. Will Notre Dame waver under the barage of email, phone messages and letters of protest, or will she remain "Catholic in name only"?

The question about what makes a University Catholic and what makes its students Catholic seems to be the unspoken heart of the whole brouhaha. There is enormous pressure on the students to "prove" their Catholicism by protesting or even boycotting their graduation ceremony.

What troubles me is that this drive to reject a man (who is after all, our president) seems neither human nor Christian. Many of the children in my atrium pray for President Obama that he may be a good president and make good decisions. A few pray that he will stop killing babies. Both prayers indicate a commitment toward his person, toward his humanity, I think. These prayers imply a relationsionship with the man. If we want these things for him, for his ultimate good, then we must spend time with the man. Jesus spent more time with Pharisees than he did even with the poor and the lame -- at least, his conversations with the Pharisees use much more ink in the Bible. Why? Why did he spend time with them? Why did he pray with them, witness to them? Why did he forgive them from the Cross?

As Catholics, we should think hard about how we approach those who come from other worlds, who speak another language. God has placed this president in our lives for a reason. He exists and leads us for our good, to lead us to Christian maturity (as Sharon so beautifully points out). We should spend some time thinking about what is best for him, how we might help him "to be a good president and make good decisions."

Cross posted at Come to See.

Catholic Senators Vote Against Freedom of Conscience for Health Care Workers

Troubling news comes from CNA about a majority of Catholic senators voting against a conscience protection amendment yesterday that keeps health care workers from being forced to participate in abortion-related and other morally objectionable services.

Senator Tom Colburn’s amendment states, "To protect the freedom of conscience for patients and the right of health care providers to serve patients without violating their moral and religious convictions."

The amendment was voted down by a margin of 41-56, in which a majority of Catholic Senators voted against the amendment 9-16. The failure to pass this legislation now leaves the door open for the Obama Administration to rescind the law by executive order and force health workers to compromise their moral convictions.

A good number of senators voted in favor of this amendment suggesting it was a reasonable amendment.  It wasn't a matter of restricting abortion but of protecting freedom of conscience, not for some obscure cultish scruple, but in a hotly contested moral arena.  This is after Cardinal George's very public appeal to Catholics to advocate for these conscience protection rules.

It is becoming more evident that the Church is the main defenders not only of life, but of freedom.

A bit of a rant

Is there some course offered at exclusive country clubs about how, if you are wealthy, you don't have to pay all of your taxes? I mean Geithner, Daschle, Sebelius! So, you want to tackle the details that will lead to the long overdue and total transformation of our financial regulatory system, or even the more difficult and detailed analysis required to reform health care, but you either cannot master the IRS tax code as it pertains to personal income tax or even find an accountant who can? I realize that a post like this is a little out of skew and dramatically over-simplifies things, but come on!

How 'bout that Obama vetting team? I guess finding people who are are not tax cheats is pretty hard, which explains why all but one (the secretary) of the 23 Treasury positions that require Senate confirmation are filled. The president has only nominated two (besides the Secretary) to fill these positions. Among the many priorities we should have, perhaps simplifying the tax code should be added in somewhere.

Culture, politics, and society

The late Daniel Patrick Moynihan observed that for conservatives it is axiomatic "that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society." As one might suspect, it is an atomic truth of liberalism that politics is more fundamental and important to society than culture. The worst outcome, that which began in the late 1960s, is the politicization of culture; culture co-opted in the service of politics. I think this distinction helps because it shows how deeply-rooted liberalism is in the U.S. and why there is a persistent attempt to banish religion from the public square. Questions about what such a conservative view would mean for our initial decision to invade Iraq in the first place aside, how many times have we heard that in Iraq what we need is a political, not a military, solution? Have you ever heard that what we need is cultural solution? No! Why? Because religion, which is the foundation of culture, is seen as the obstacle to unifying and sustaining society. Nonetheless, we must ask, despite being the only predominantly Arab country with a Shi'a majority, how many Iraqis, especially leaders, actually listen to the Grand Ayatollah Sistani? Let me answer that one too- Not many!

Too often the trouble with religion is that religious leaders and people become liberal in the sense that they begin to seek salvation through politics. The Holy Father understands the priority of culture and how human culture, especially high culture, is not really possible without religion. He also sees the necessary link between Christianity and the advancement of western culture. Stated simply, the loss of faith leads to the coarsening and ultimate demise of culture. Msgr. Giussani also understood this very deeply and sought to communicate this in everything he taught. It is important that those of us who share Giussani's charism listen and learn, both from Giussani and the Holy Father, as well to and from Fr. Carrón.

Factoring in Bill O'Reilly

I am not a big fan of the cable news shout fests, like The O'Reilly Factor, Hardball with Chris Matthews, or Keith Olbermann's program. Once in a while, via the constant news feed at work, when I am there in the early evening, I'll catch a few minutes of one of these programs. However, I do think that these folks perform a service, the kind of service Jon Stewart was urging Jim Cramer to perform in his now famous Daily Show interview. This service consists of asking the tough questions that we all want to ask and pressing interviewees hard for answers, not letting them off the hook in the easy manner in which they are let off on, say, ABC's This Week, and other more convivial shows.

I have to admit that at least Bill O'Reilly has a sense of humor about himself and appears on The Colbert Report, on which he is known as Papa Bear, and has also appeared on the Daily Show. Even though he and Jon Stewart could not have a more different political frame of reference, I think Stewart respects O'Reilly, at least as much as he respects anyone, though not to the point of not criticizing him, as when he lambasted O'Reilly's two-faced take on women running for high political office, depending on whether he was talking about Hilary Clinton or Sarah Palin.

For some odd reason, I linked to an interview with O'Reilly off the Yahoo home page this morning because I really had to find out who the actor was that O'Reilly would not even go see his movies- Sean Penn. I actually found the interview interesting and O'Reilly's answers to be refreshingly straightforward and candid. He has a lot of very complimentary things to say about a lot people. It was nice to read about this side of a guy whose on-air persona is gruff and often angry. On his Hollywood A-List? Clint Eastwood. His favorite Eastwood film? Unforgiven. I can't fault him for taste on that!

The part of the interview I liked the most and to which I found myself saying Yeah! to was this:

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: WHY ARE ACTORS SUCH FREQUENT TARGETS OF "THE FACTOR"?

O'Reilly: My job is to watch the powerful. A performer has a forum that other people do not, and all we ask is that they be fair. If they believe something and use their TV show, movie or concert to spout off about it, that's fine. But if we have some questions about their beliefs, I think they should answer them -- and not be drive-by people.

THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: WHO ARE THESE DRIVE-BY PEOPLE YOU SPEAK OF?

O'Reilly: I take it case by case. We took on George Clooney over the 9/11 charities, and we were absolutely right, but Clooney does a good job with Darfur. We took on Bruce Springsteen for things he has done at concerts because we want to know what his frame of reference is. These are powerful people, and we're not going to give them a free ride. If there was somebody screaming right-wing stuff, we'd do the same thing. But there is no one like that because if they do that in Hollywood, they're not going to work, which is an interesting story in and of itself.

After all, how many drive-by attacks has the Holy Father endured both with regard to his largely misunderstand and misinterpreted lifting of the SSPX excommunications and his all too accurate statement that condoms are not the answer to HIV/AIDs in Africa?

Mortgaging our future

In an article written for the Wall Street Journal entitled The World Won't Buy Unlimited U.S. Debt: We're asking others to sacrifice for our 'stimulus', Peter Schiff ponders our immediate and intermediate economic future. In the process of doing so he gives a very straightforward and realistic analysis of the proposals on offer from the Obama Administration. The sad thing is that there is no change here and without change there can be little hope that we will fix what is fundamentally wrong with our economy, which flows from what is wrong with us. The economy is not something apart from us.

I tackled one aspect of Schiff's analysis in a post on my blog, Καθολικός διάκονος, entitled What sacrifice? I tackled another issue in a previous post here on Cahiers back in November, Debt. This is a point that is rarely addressed, it was not even addressed by either economist who participated in the panel discussion that comprised part of the New York Encounter that was, in turn, part of our National Diakonia last weekend, Finance and the Economy at a New Crossroads: Different Models or a Different Vision. This discussion, with the exception of Prof. Freeman's refreshing presentation, was exclusively about new models and who is to blame, but there was no new vision on offer, just as there is no new vision on offer in Washington, despite the change of administrations. What the economists almost completely ignored is the fundamental fact that the economy exists for the human person and not the human person for the economy. Due to the inevitable human factor involved, economies do not follow laws as in physics.

The discussion was also disappointing because not one panelist addressed the crisis wrought by the irresponsibility of financial institutions in light of what we should have learned from the Savings and Loan crisis of the 1980s, which demonstrated both the need for an updated regulatory regime and that de-regulation was a bad idea. In other words, we spent a few hours pretending that nobody could've seen this coming. Well, the truth of the matter is that plenty of people saw this train wreck coming, it's just that their opinions did not matter because they were not part of the revolving door, Ivy League elite. The same elite whose education, as was observed months ago on Paper Clippings, consists almost exclusively of "empirically-oriented knowledge directed at problem solving," to the neglect of "philosophy," which entails "grappling in a systematic fashion with questions of truth and meaning".

Anyway, this quote from Schiff gets to the heart of the matter, which our economic and political elites continue to evade for reasons of personal gain and political expediency:

"The root problem is not that America may have difficulty borrowing enough from abroad to maintain our GDP, but that our economy was too large in the first place. America's GDP is composed of more than 70% consumer spending. For many years, much of that spending has been a function of voracious consumer borrowing through home equity extractions (averaging more than $850 billion annually in 2005 and 2006, according to the Federal Reserve) and rapid expansion of credit card and other consumer debt. Now that credit is scarce, it is inevitable that GDP will fall."

It should be shocking to us all that 70% of our Gross Domestic Product is consumer spending and not only consumer spending, but spending that depends almost wholly on consumer borrowing, to include draining the equity out of our homes. To use an old observation, the chickens have come home to roost. This state-of-affairs has proven to be unsustainable. Hence, we cannot seek to replicate it moving forward. This seems like a common sense observation, but that is exactly what is on offer, more of the same. At least it will continue to be a bi-partisan effort. I read a book quite a few years ago, the thesis of which strikes me as more relevant now than when it was published, Pete Peterson's Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It.

Schiff observes that we will no longer be able, as less than 5% of the world's population, to account for 25%of global GDP. You know what? This contraction, while somewhat painful, is a necessary correction not only for economy, but for our humanity. This is the truth of the matter. Stated simply, hope for a better economic future cannot be realized if we fail to address this truth, this fact, verified by the reality we are experiencing. There is no hope in falsehood. President Obama was correct in his inaugural address, we must put away childish things.

Medaille on Republicans and the Economy

John Médaille at The Distributist Review has a thoughtful piece on the question of what the Republican party stands for and where the conservatives are.

So what is wrong with the Republican Party? Let me suggest that the problem is that they have no idea of what they ought to conserve; they have no idea of what constitutes liberty. Indeed, the only common theme among the factions is economic, and in that what they are trying to conserve is economic liberalism, the doctrine of laissez-faire capitalism. They have forgotten that this was the very doctrine that destroyed conservatism in the 19th century, and while it is now over 200 years old, it will never be conservative.

What conservatism ought to conserve is the proper scale of things; government at its lowest possible level, strong families as the foundation of society, small manufacturing, small farms, strong communities. Low taxes, to be sure, but taxes commensurate with the tasks we ask government to perform. We know that the key to lowering taxes is to localize government as much as possible and reduce its scale. But you cannot have localized governments in the face of commercial institutions that are bigger than most states—indeed, bigger than most nations. These institutions declare themselves “too big to fail,” when in truth they are too big to succeed without massive government support. Republicans since Reagan have tried to grow government, shrink taxes, and deregulate everything. Alas, they have been all too successful.

Distributists know that the key to shrinking government and ending oppressive taxation is to shrink the need for government. Great and global institutions require big government and large military and regulatory apparatuses. And these require big taxes. And while they create great wealth, for some, they create great dependency for the mass of men, a dependency that expresses itself as the welfare state. The small farm is better for food, but it is also better for community; the small manufacturer, tied by bonds of economy and affection to his locality is the basis of a sane economy

Conservatives are out there; they're just not represented by a political party at the present time.

But because America has no conservative party does not mean she has no conservatives. Indeed, The left wing is scratching its head over the fact that the Black Obama voters in California voted solidly for a ban on gay marriage. At heart, America is a conservative country, not only in the South and Midwest, but in the Northeast, Northwest, and even in the great cities that are regarded as the strongholds of liberalism. Indeed, much of the new liberalism today involves a certain nostalgia for the land, for the community, and for a more human scale to the economy and to politics. It is a natural conservatism that spans race and age and gender. Indeed, the newcomers are more authentically conservative than many of the older population. But American conservatism lacks any real institutional support, and any real ideology. It picks up what older liberals have discarded and calls it conservative, and then is very surprised when it turns out liberal.

The economic crisis may be the opportunity for recovering a more healthy social and economic model, if the recovery plan assists local economies rather than enabling the failures of supersized institutions.  And the Republican party's defeat can be the occasion for a new direction, if it doesn't continue to favor large corporate interests and discredited economic theories.

Petitio Principii in California

While I am on the subject of would be oligarchs, California Attorney General, Jerry Brown, who is the former and, if current reports are accurate, maybe the future governor of that state (reminds me of a friend who used to work for Louisiana State investigative division who told me that when out of office, the now prisoner, Edwin Edwards, was introduced as "the former, future governor of Louisiana"- I guess recycling extends to politics these days, too) and whose Dad was governor, is asking the state Supreme Court to overturn Proposition 8, a referendum passed on 4 November that amended the state’s constitution to define marriage as being between one man and one woman. His reasoning? "Proposition 8 must be invalidated because the amendment process cannot be used to extinguish fundamental constitutional rights without compelling justification."

I guess explicitly defining the family in the way it was understood when the state constitution was written and ratified is not compelling justification. In other words, not only is the justification compelling, but to assert that there is a "fundamental constitutional" right at stake is to beg the question. The only basis for such a claim is the State Supreme Court's ruling back in May claiming such a right. The citizens of California rejected this claim and amended the constitution in a legal and fair manner. Hence, there is no reasonable basis for Attorney General Brown's argument. Alas, law these days has less and less to do with reason properly employed because legal arguments and judicial decisions are no longer grounded on any objective premises. As Alasdair MacIntyre describes us, we are an emotivist society with no way of arriving at a consensus that is not seen as an arbitrary imposition, a power play, of one side against another. Such attempts at ushering in rule by the judiciary do not bode well for the future of our constitutional system of government, which is grounded on objective premises. In addition to After Virtue, I am also reminded of the highly controversial 1996 First Things symposium, The End of Democracy? The Judicial Usurpation of Politics.

So, here’s the question, why is an elected official seeking to overturn a legally enacted constitutional amendment? The lesson here is that, as voters, we need to stop playing both sides of the street. We must vote in a clear-headed manner. How can we continue support candidates who do not value what we hold dear and expect anything different?

An Ideal for the World Economy

Pope Benedict XVI issued his World Day of Peace message for this year on the theme "Fighting Poverty to Build Peace". The text takes up issues of globalization, development, finance, population and more. Above all, it emphasizes a guiding perspective on the world economy that recognizes the human race as a family:

[T]he reference to globalization should also alert us to the spiritual and moral implications of the question, urging us, in our dealings with the poor, to set out from the clear recognition that we all share in a single divine plan: we are called to form one family in which all – individuals, peoples and nations – model their behaviour according to the principles of fraternity and responsibility.

If there is a temptation to minimize abortion as the primary unjustice, the message here is clear. These are the poorest of the poor. "The extermination of millions of unborn children, in the name of the fight against poverty, actually constitutes the destruction of the poorest of all human beings."

The Pope notes that population, rather than being a deterrent to well-being, has helped development, as the poverty rate of the world which was 40% in 1981 has been halved since then. He emphasized the vulnerability of children and the need to combat AIDS with a holistic approach that factors in the dignity of the person in sexual matters. The problem of the diversion of resources into armament is addressed, another in a long series of papal pleas.

The Holy Father spoke positively of financial markets as a necessary means to achieve economic stability for the future, but urged an "ethical approach to economics".

Objectively, the most important function of finance is to sustain the possibility of long-term investment and hence of development. Today this appears extremely fragile: it is experiencing the negative repercussions of a system of financial dealings – both national and global – based upon very short-term thinking, which aims at increasing the value of financial operations and concentrates on the technical management of various forms of risk. The recent crisis demonstrates how financial activity can at times be completely turned in on itself, lacking any long-term consideration of the common good. This lowering of the objectives of global finance to the very short term reduces its capacity to function as a bridge between the present and the future, and as a stimulus to the creation of new opportunities for production and for work in the long term. Finance limited in this way to the short and very short term becomes dangerous for everyone, even for those who benefit when the markets perform well....

While it has been rightly emphasized that increasing per capita income cannot be the ultimate goal of political and economic activity, it is still an important means of attaining the objective of the fight against hunger and absolute poverty. Hence, the illusion that a policy of mere redistribution of existing wealth can definitively resolve the problem must be set aside. In a modern economy, the value of assets is utterly dependent on the capacity to generate revenue in the present and the future. Wealth creation therefore becomes an inescapable duty, which must be kept in mind if the fight against material poverty is to be effective in the long term.

The preference for the poor was emphasized, and the Pope noted that the gap between rich and poor has also widened in developed countries. Practical solutions are not sufficient in front of the whole need of the person.

As my venerable Predecessor Pope John Paul II had occasion to remark, globalization “is notably ambivalent”[14] and therefore needs to be managed with great prudence. This will include giving priority to the needs of the world's poor, and overcoming the scandal of the imbalance between the problems of poverty and the measures which have been adopted in order to address them. The imbalance lies both in the cultural and political order and in the spiritual and moral order. In fact we often consider only the superficial and instrumental causes of poverty without attending to those harboured within the human heart, like greed and narrow vision. The problems of development, aid and international cooperation are sometimes addressed without any real attention to the human element, but as merely technical questions – limited, that is, to establishing structures, setting up trade agreements, and allocating funding impersonally. What the fight against poverty really needs are men and women who live in a profoundly fraternal way and are able to accompany individuals, families and communities on journeys of authentic human development.

We are not off the hook of our responsibility by simply offering charitable aid. A more comprehensive change is proposed to us.

Faithful to this summons from the Lord, the Christian community will never fail, then, to assure the entire human family of her support through gestures of creative solidarity, not only by “giving from one's surplus”, but above all by “a change of life-styles, of models of production and consumption, and of the established structures of power which today govern societies”.

Banking on an Oligarchy

Deacon Scott Dodge cites two recent editorials during the interregnum between Bush and Obama, one from Thomas Friedman, "The Great Unravelling", and the other a poignant reflection from The New Republic, "Important People" (clipped at Paper Clippings). Unravelling is the word for it because the dynasties have been in place and on the take for a long time.

Friedman compares Madoff's actions with Wall Street generally:

I have no sympathy for Madoff. But the fact is, his alleged Ponzi scheme was only slightly more outrageous than the 'legal' scheme that Wall Street was running, fueled by cheap credit, low standards and high greed. What do you call giving a worker who makes only $14,000 a year a nothing-down and nothing-to-pay-for-two-years mortgage to buy a $750,000 home, and then bundling that mortgage with 100 others into bonds — which Moody’s or Standard & Poors rate AAA — and then selling them to banks and pension funds the world over? That is what our financial industry was doing. If that isn’t a pyramid scheme, what is?

And Leon Wieseltier is by turns angry and philosophical:

In a society as wounded as our own, there is something repellent about the assertions of elitism. Its most awful expression, of course, is the acquiescence of almost everybody in the dynastic ambitions of the Kennedys. I can almost not imagine a more obvious mutilation of the meritocratic ideal than the appointment of Caroline Kennedy to the United State Senate. A Senate seat is a fucking valuable thing, you just don't give it away for nothing. But of course it will not be given away for nothing: the princess and her family will be delighted to pay for it. Ever since this democratic indignity was broached, the really smart talking point has been that she has the money for her eventual campaigns....

A society may be measured by whom it admires. No class of Americans has done more to damage America than the financial class. A generalization is an ugly thing, but every day's newspaper refreshes my impression that the titans, the insiders, the big players, the boldfacers, the movers and the shakers-the hoshover menschen, as we say where I come from-have been, many of them, fools or thieves....

In these days of dread I prefer to linger over all the people who have never been able to facilitate a favor. The media that used to be fascinated by the pleasures of the rich is now fascinated by the pains of the rich, but the fascination is the same, and it contributed to the bubble that burst in all our faces, and it interferes now with what we really need to know. When I read the papers I skip guiltlessly over the desperate sales of jewels and summer homes and go straight to the accounts of unglamorous desperation, of ordinary people helping each other because otherwise they would be even more powerless than they are.

I add the Deacon's comments as a judgment because the economy is a human endeavor and must be managed as such; the consumeristic credit-heavy model is unreasonable, unjust, unstable and ultimately unsatisfying.

Who besides Bernard Madoff, who turned himself in, has even been indicted? Did nothing untoward or illegal occur in the respective collapses of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns? What about that hole in A.I.G. that $125 billion of taxpayer money has not been able to fill? Given that, why not chuck $14 billion, a mere 11.2% of what's been flushed down the A.I.G. toilet, Detroit's way? For that matter, what about Mr. Paulson and his oh so urgent bailout, which appears to be nothing but another brazen executive power-grab by the Bush Administration? Dear Hank, what has your scheme to keep those whom you personally deem to be important people afloat corrected, fixed, or gotten headed in the right direction, how many foreclosures has it forestalled? Why is the only fix I ever hear mentioned more consumer spending? Isn't this ridiculous, given that more and more people do not even have jobs? Besides, isn't out-of-control spending, lending, and borrowing what got us into this mess in the first place? If I understand this idiotic reasoning correctly, we do not need regulatory reform and sounder national economic policies, consumer education, better personal financial discipline, and higher overall savings rate. No, our broken and shattered economy will be fixed by everyone buying new microwaves and iPods on our credit cards; that's like saying our greenhouse gas emission problem will be solved by everyone returning to the use of coal furnances and barbecuing with charcoal brickettes every night, while idling our cars in our driveways. Hey, it's almost Christmas and, as Ricky Bobby might say, "Baby Jesus needs a new pair of shoes!" Let's go for broke! Wait! We're already broke! Well, it was fun while it lasted.

Politics with Conscience

In recent days, two world leaders have taken a strong stand for life against the majority; they are exceptional in resisting the gathering momentum in legislation liberalizing abortion and euthanasia. For these men, conscience is applied to matters of state and not left home in the top dresser drawer.

When the Grand Duke of Luxembourg opposed a new euthanasia bill in his country, the parliament moved to negate his traditional prerogative to veto the bill. Stefan McDaniel notes:

Thus the last non-ceremonial political act by the last Grand Duke of Europe was in defense of human life. You don’t have to be a sentimentalist about Christendom to think that a splendid way to make your exit. (First Things)

Uruguayan President Tabare Vazquez, a leftist and a physician, vetoed an abortion bill last month. He subsequently left the socialist party over the issue.

In November, the Uruguayan Senate voted by 17 votes to 13 to make abortion legal if there was a health risk to the mother or foetus.

The bill would also have allowed a woman to end her pregnancy in the first 12 weeks under other circumstances, such as extreme poverty.

But centre-left Mr Vazquez, who is also a doctor, vetoed the bill, saying it was more important to provide support for women with unwanted pregnancies than to enable them to have abortions.

Review: What the World Should Be by Malcolm D. Magee

What the World Should Be: Woodrow Wilson and the Crafting of a Faith-Based Foreign Policy
by Malcolm D. Magee
Baylor University Press, 2008.

What is the impact of an individual's faith on public policy and the governance of a nation? Our modernist prejudices can cause us to underestimate the role of religion in our leaders. We tend to think that religion is at best an extra, a private motivation for pursuing or eschewing policies rooted in commonly held values; or, at worst a cynical move directed at selling these same values to a superstitious populace.

In his book, What the World Should Be, Malcolm Magee examines the religious beliefs of President Woodrow Wilson and demonstrates the pervasive affect that these beliefs had on Wilson's view of the world as it is and should be, how Wilson faced challenges in the political realm, and how these beliefs played out in history. John Maynard Keynes, the English economist and contemporary of Wilson wrote that:

"The President was like a nonconformist minister, perhaps a Presbyterian. His thought and his temperament were essentially theological not intellectual, with all the strength and the weakness of that manner of thought, feeling, and expression" (The Economic Consequences of the Peace, 1920).

Taking this claim of Keynes seriously, Magee examines in detail the distinct Princeton Presbyterian tradition that Wilson inherited and Wilson's own substantial theological writings.

Magee's approach limits itself to Wilson's foreign policy, from the US's intervention in Veracruz, Mexico, through World War I, and culminating in the negotiations for the League of Nations. Wilson's policies led time and again to disappointment: like a Greek tragedy in which the protagonist never recognizes his tragic flaw. For Magee, this flaw is lack of personal humility, but to me it seems that Wilson's theology isolated him even from co-religionists and made it difficult to learn from experience and from others. Magee describes the key ideas of the theology in a clear and concise way for a non-specialist reader. He demonstrates lucidly how this theology pervades Wilson's policies. With this information, the reader is in a good place to evaluate the intersection of the political, the theological, and the personal.

The ancillary materials include "Christ's Army": A Religious Essay by Woodrow Wilson from 1876, Wilson's "Fourteen Points" Address to Congress, The Covenant of the League of Nations. and the 1876 Inaugural Address of Wilson's father, the Rev. Joseph R. Wilson, DD Delivered before the Board of Directors of the Southwestern Presbyterian University. These documents display a consistent theological point of view, well supporting Magee's thesis of the influence of Wilson's theology on his foreign policy.

Building on Hope

Earlier this week in preparation for the holidays, Slate.Com offered an amusing little piece on what to say during those inevitable political arguments which come up during family gatherings. I'm always reminded of James Joyce's story "The Dead" and how little the disputes connect with what is really important, something that becomes clear by the climax of the story. Anyway, the article, "Ammunition for Settling--or Starting--Holiday Political Spats" offered a tongue-in-cheek debunking of cherished ideologies by showing how both sides are simultaneously right and wrong. Whether intentional or not, it was quite the post-election, mid-economic crisis piece to display the absurdity of the usual polarities.

The issue of Traces (Vol. 10 No. 9 2008) which just arrived is the perfect antidote to our necessary disillusionment with ideologies and offers a direction for our irrepressible desire for justice and the common good.

Economist Giorgio Vittadini in "Crisis Underscores the Reduction of the Human" writes about the need to build an economy which is for the whole person and not just profits.

The point is to admit that this is not just an economic crisis. It is an anthropological crisis that calls into question a human idea of reduced rationality, tending as it does to the maximization of short-term profits, but inattentive to the principles essential to create a real and lasting affluence. Hence, it is doomed to be cut off from reality and has built a virtual world that will fatally collapse. To look ahead, we need a rationality that reveals how even now Homo oeconomicus has other much greater motives than just quarterly profits unrelated to society. We need a healthy realism that will anchor finance firmly to the real economy, of which it is and must be only an instrument. From this point of view, after having demonized many aspects of the economic system, it is perhaps necessary to reappraise some, such as its close ties to the territory and its concern for the real economy, which is one of its riches that is not yet extinct.

Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete reflects on how the problem of hope makes more clear our need for God and introduces the next book by Fr. Luigi Giussani which we will be working on for School of Community titled Is It Possible to Live This Way?: Hope.

The “knowledge” sustaining modern hope has come from one or another ideology of progress: a political ideology, a scientific one (including so-called scientifically conceived politics that recognize the true structure of history and society), a philosophical system, etc. Yet, again and again, these ideologies show their inability to fulfill our hopes, and hope is increasingly being replaced by a stoic resignation approaching total hopelessness. This was precisely the situation in the culture encountered by the first Christians when they left Palestine and arrived in the great cities of the Roman Empire. Today, we must respond to it as they did. For this to happen, Pope Benedict says, it is necessary to undertake a “self-critique of modern Christianity” by returning to its “roots.”

Then the editorial of the issue asks the direct question: "Got Hope?"

At such an important time in our history, we cannot shy away from proclaiming the only true hope: the encounter with Jesus Christ. And this proclamation does not entail a flight from the world of politics, economics, culture, or justice–in other words, this proclamation does not entail a flight from the world. On the contrary, the hope afforded by the encounter with Christ is that which has most radically transformed life on this earth. As Pope Benedict recently reminded great figures from the world of culture in France, Christian monasticism gave rise to our civilization, without any pretense of a cultural project. We know that hospitals, orphanages, the concept of human rights, science, and polyphonic music all have their roots in that life built on the hope given by the encounter with Jesus Christ.

It would be easy at the point of disillusionment to retreat from active engagement into pietism. Instead, we are called to a great fraternal work born from a reasonable hope based on the person of Christ Incarnate living among us.

Party Soul-Searching

Deacon Scott pointed to a couple of articles on his blog on the election post-mortem from the point of view of Christian interests. I pass on a few of his quotes.

Ross Douthat's The Moral Obligation To Study Election Returns, in which he correctly chastises George Wiegel's take on the election...

I agree very much with a comment made by one Traductor, on a post over on Paper Clippings: "Catholics need to start proposing Christ and the possibility of a new humanity that is born out of the encounter with him. Some fights may be necessary, like protecting the freedom of Catholic works like hospitals, but history has shown that we will always be on the losing side of a war over 'values.' As Obama himself said, 'Don't bring a knife to a gunfight.' The bishops need to focus on educating their flocks, or else when and if they stand up, there may be no one behind them."

This puts me in mind, once again, of something Msgr Albacete said:
"We do not have the problem, or the mission, to construct a bridge between faith and politics. We do not have this problem. To have this problem and to attempt to solve it, already violates our humanity. Every single attempt to build this bridge has been a weakening of faith, or a betrayal of the Incarnation. And historically, there have been many attempts."

Let me add one from British philosophy professor John Haldane of The Witherspoon Institute, "Letter to America on the Future of Social Conservatism". It may be helpful to compare European Christian political experience when charting our own attempts to bring Christian values to bear in the public square. The article is worth a close read because of Britain's experience, where conservatives are abandoning pro-family platforms to pursue their pet economic and foreign policy agendas, a real risk now within our country's Republican party under reconstruction.

It has been a mistake for moral conservatives to associate their concerns with opposition to one candidate and one party. Not only has the previous administration proved itself unworthy, but the state of the Republican party continues to be divided over values such that, had it won the White House and Congressional elections, it would not have delivered a range of policies that would have addressed moral concerns about the conduct of war, the management of markets, the securing of marriage, or the protection of the unborn.

While it would be wrong to abandon the political parties, it would be equally mistaken to side with one of them. The fact is that elections will always be fought and decided on a range of issues and the balance will sometimes favour one side, then another. Social conservatives who look to politics should be seeking to work within both parties, and in the case of the Democrats, seeking to return them to a historical position that was once more in line with Christian moral values and Catholic social teaching than was that of the Republicans.

There is also a further reason to be wary of confusing moral concerns with the fortunes of a political party. Those within a chosen party whose primary interest is pursuing electoral victory may prove fiercer enemies of one’s moral position than political opponents in other parties....

Haldane predicts this will continue to be an uphill battle, but our work is to educate and persuade with a positive message more than via attacks. Ultimately, our task is to witness, even if we don't win.

What are you, and we, to do? The answer can only be to go on as we have learned to do already, arguing the case, fighting the battles, seeking to influence policy, but not investing our hopes in political parties that are more like one another than they are like us. Perhaps American social conservatives might reflect on that experience and prepare themselves for what are likely to be very difficult times ahead.

A Rare Partnership

In September, Sen. Ted Kennedy (R) and Sen. Sam Brownback (D) came together to sponsor a bill to assist women who receive a prenatal diagnosis of disability with information and resources in their decision. The bill was passed unanimously in late September after languishing for two years, helped in part by the candidacy of Sarah Palin, mother of a Downs Syndrome baby. Sen. Kennedy, although pro-choice, has been a long-time advocate of people with disabilities. Sam Brownback, pro-life, found a way to help women have and care for their afflicted children. A data registry will be established to point to disability resources and adoption options.

The bill was the result of a study by one Harvard Medical Student Brian Skotko who showed that doctors negatively influenced the mothers' decisions:

In two papers published in 2005, he showed that most doctors gave a very negative impression when informing parents that their child might have a disability. Studies show that about 90% of women pregnant with a Down syndrome child choose to abort it.

"The majority of the parents said that the information they got from their physicians was inaccurate, incomplete and sometimes insensitive," Skotko said. "It was in no way consistent with the advancements and possibilities and support that we've seen." (Bioedge)

I heard Sam Brownback speak on NPR the day after the presidential election, and he denied any discouragement, but instead saw opportunity ahead. This bill is a fine example of creative cooperation in the interest of children and their families.

(See also my Brownback Runs for President.)

Losing the Catholic Vote

The Catholic vote this election went to Obama by 54-45%, a huge shift from the 2004 Bush-Kerry contest where Bush won the Catholic vote by 52-46%, despite the president's unpopular war. This came after a very vocal effort on the part of the hierarchy and the local churches to put the life of the unborn first among moral issues.

The reason for Catholics abandoning the pro-life ticket is generally attributed to the economic crisis, and polls that distinguish between church-going vs. cultural Catholics show more voting on the advice of their bishops. However, there may have been a perceptual and educational gap which didn't translate the urgency of this election to many Catholic voters.

Even if voters don't know the term "proportionality", they are well aware that Republican administrations have barely stanched the wound of abortion. Some certainly feel that the party has used their vote in the past and betrayed the culture of life ideal, particularly in the present administration in regard to war, torture, and the immigration crackdown. The Hispanic Catholic vote was handed to the Democrats when, for example, roadblocks were put up in their neighborhoods to catch illegal residents on their way to Sunday Mass. The issue of a candidate's support of or opposition to abortion became an abstract and uncompelling argument. If the election actually had hinged on abortion continuing or not, one would hope the tide would have turned the other direction.

In fact, the real risk to the Catholic ideals in this election is something larger than abortion, as impossible as that might seem given the enormity of death in the womb. This risk was not understood and perceived generally by Catholic voters, although the U.S. Bishops themselves are well aware of it. This threat ultimately looms over every charitable and educational Catholic institution in the country. Every Catholic hospital, school, and social agency could be shut down, voluntarily or otherwise, if certain legislation under an ideologically liberal administration were to be enacted.

The most immediate threat is that of the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), which president-elect Barack Obama has promised to sign into law. The Act makes it a crime for anyone to deny a woman an abortion and would remove conscience clauses for physicians and hospitals. This is huge, both for medical professionals individually and for the Catholic health facilities across the country. Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Chicago, a canon and civil lawyer, explained:

[FOCA] could mean discontinuing obstetrics in our hospitals, and we may need to consider taking the drastic step of closing our catholic hospitals entirely. It would not be sufficient to withdraw our sponsorship or to sell them to someone who would perform abortions. That would be a morally unacceptable cooperation in evil. I do not think I'm being alarmist in suggesting the need to take such drastic steps. (Whispers).

It isn't hard to see that every other Catholic institution is threatened by the imposition of certain "rights". We have the example of the Boston Archdiocese closing its adoption agency in 2006 when mandated to adopt children to same-sex couples. If schools could not select their teachers with religious criteria, and were forced to "not discriminate", these would also be unable to continue their mission of educating in the faith.

The political education of Catholics must be refined beyond the usual ideological categories, especially when voters perceive no practical difference between one incumbent party and the other on life issues. What is at stake is even more than a grim tally of casualties. The fight is for the continuing presence of the Church in the realms of social life where Christians have served so many so well. Freedom has a higher value than even life, as we learn from our martyrs, who offered everything for the right to proclaim the destiny of human life in Christ.