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Beyond Choice

@mamazee73: “If you will only accept perfection, don't have children…”

Such was the opening line that kicked off a fascinating live discussion on Canada’s National Post around the surrogate abortion debate. The controversial case involving a B.C. couple who wanted to abort their baby –gestating in the womb of a surrogate– after learning that the fetus would be born with Down syndrome, was one that ended tragically. On the upside, the debate it has generated has revived a much needed discussion on the dignity of human life, in all its forms.

In a society with no restrictions on abortion, the sounds of ethical alarm bells that rang far and wide when news of the case broke were, at the very least, encouraging. To recap, earlier in the year, the surrogate was implanted with an embryo created with the parents’ egg and sperm. An ultrasound during the first trimester revealed that the fetus was likely to have trisomy 21, the genetic abnormality that leads to Down syndrome. A further test confirmed the diagnosis.

It was later reported that the three had never seriously considered such a scenario before the pregnancy. When the discovery was made, the parents opted for an abortion while the surrogate refused to undergo the procedure. As Larry Kahn, a Vancouver lawyer, explains it, the contract between the parties usually absolves the parents of responsibility when “a defect” is found and the surrogate refuses an abortion. He acknowledged, however, that it is possible the courts would not recognize the contract if a legal battle did ensue, as family law would require the biological parents to support the child.

In the end, it was cited in the Times Colonist that “the surrogate, a mother of two children of her own, eventually chose to have the abortion, partly because of her own family obligations.” Other chronicles listed her inability to afford caring for a special needs child of her own and outside pressures as other influences that led to her decision.

While the case has raised serious questions about the increasingly common arrangement, it has also brought to light how children are coming to be viewed strictly as investments and how our obsession with attaining some imagined ideal has corrupted the very social fabric of our society.

Among the more pressing points of discussion that came up in debate was the unsettling reality of surrogate contracts. Juliet Guichon, a bioethicist of the University of Calgary, has been one of the more vocal on this point arguing that contract laws involving surrogates and parents should not apply to the transaction, “unless human life is to be treated like widgets in a factory.”

“Should the rules of commerce apply to the creation of children? No, because children get hurt,” said Guichon in the Post. “It’s kind of like stopping the production line: ‘Oh, oh, there’s a flaw.’ It makes sense in a production scenario, but in reproduction it’s a lot more problematic.”

During the live debate, Guichon pointed to the problem of terminology when using the word "contract" to describe the deal. “A contract is an agreement that the law will enforce. These written agreements are not “contracts” because it is very unlikely that a court will enforce them, most obviously because they concern the creation of children and yet the best interests of the child are usually not considered or considered as an afterthought. The court has jurisdiction to override any deal made between parents that is not made in the best interests of the child. To use the word ‘contract’ is a duplicitous attempt to make the pregnant woman believe that she is bound by some legal obligation.”

Guichon convincingly added “that people might be in a good position to contemplate fire and flood in a ‘contract’ but knowing whether you would abort a fetus with Down's is something that few women could decide in advance and stick to that decision. Once the fetus is kicking inside, the idea of termination probably has different resonance.”

Diane Allen, former director of the Infertility Network, joined the debate claiming that this case is one more example of how Assisted Human Reproduction Canada [AHRC] is failing in its role (under the Assisted Human Reproduction Act of 2004) to protect and promote the health and safety, and the human dignity and human rights, of Canadians, and to foster the application of ethical principles.

“The creation of the AHR Act, banned commercial surrogacy and required counseling for all parties to AHR procedures…AHRC continues to turn a blind eye while the fertility 'industry' ignores the law, allowing human reproduction to be turned into a commercial enterprise,” she said. 

Françoise Baylis, a Dalhousie University bioethicist, added to this last point by stating that the child in question “is seen by the commissioning parents as a product, and in this case a substandard product because of a genetic condition.”

This leads to another more poignant thread of discussion on the B.C. case – the tragic extent of our cultural obsession with “perfection.”

An anonymous mother of four said it best in the live discussion explaining that when a doctor announces the probable outcome and encourages the woman to end the pregnancy, we face a completely different moral dilemma:

“This is not about a woman's right to choose or unfettered access to abortion. It is about the seemingly endless search for perfection and superiority we want for ourselves and our families. [I’m] speaking to the trend of what we define as 'normal' in society, and our ever shrinking sense of compassion.”

Reading this last statement brought to mind the Holy Father’s visit in New York in April 2008 when he met with young people with disabilities at a seminary in Yonkers. During his visit, he spoke of the differing talents and gifts each of those young people possess with which to serve God and society in various ways. He then explained how the witness value of our efforts (no matter how great or how small) is always a sign of hope for everyone. And while it is challenging to endure struggles, he remarked that “our faith breaks open the horizon beyond our own selves in order to see life as God does.”

Based on these words, it goes without saying that the parents in question have denied themselves a life time of deep joy, faith and growth. Beyond the loss however, is the encouraging witness of many who have come forth in defense of the surrogate’s initial instinct to bring the pregnancy to term and the child who was deemed not ideal enough to deserve life. I leave you with, arguably, the most convincing statement to come of the live discussion in support of the life of this child, courtesy of Juliet Guichon:

“I have a friend who has Downs. She doesn't know how to be mean and when someone is mean to her she tells me that she "runs away" to play in a tree. Seems she is an ideal human.”

- Michèle Nuzzo-Naglieri

Never Say Never Again

Most people would never think that an economic theory based in large part on G.K. Chesterton and his contemporaries would become the talk of British political circles. Yet, one man is helping to make that a reality.

That man, Phillip Blond, has become one of the most effective proponents of Catholic social teaching in politics and yet, surprisingly, is an Anglican.

Blond, is a former philosopher and theologian from the University of Cumbria and leader of new British think tank inspired by the economic thought of Catholics such as Hillaire Belloc and G.K. Chesterton (former Anglicans); Now, he is also one of the most influential advisors to Conservative Party leader and current British Prime Minister David Cameron.

When most people think of a Catholic politician, they think of a series of social issues: pro-life, traditional marriage, dignity of human life, etc. Blond has gained much attention for a new way of thinking not simply on social issues, but the broader economic and macro-level issues as well.

The new ways of thinking Blond represents will probably find acceptance neither from conservatives nor liberals (in the American sense).  Blond argues that the separation of morality from economic and civic improvement is a fiction, and we must consider both together. He argues that big government statism and capitalism are both founded on amoral individualism and the same faulty “monopoly logic.”

This leads him to a view that can best be described as a communitarian or more specifically, distributist, with a heavy emphasis on restoring the vitality of the civil society, voluntary organizations, and broadly distributed ownership (in other words, expanding the ranks of the small business, entrepreneur class by using  the power of the state if necessary).  

In many ways, this is an old way of thinking, which is why Blond laments that Britons have “killed our history” by losing touch with this rich foundation of Catholic social thought. He admires and draws heavily on Catholic giants such as Belloc and Chesterton. Many of these same themes are present papal encyclicals such as Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum.

At a time when people are reconsidering policy argument from moral as well as economic perspectives, Blond’s approach is appealing, and lacks a clear counterpart in the United States, where the lines of demarcation between free-market and progressive political forces seems as wide as ever. But Blond’s approach is not a watered down compromise position as much as a distinct third, way. It’s not Big Government, but Big Society. Between unbridled capitalism and crushing statism is “society itself,” or as Blond quotes from Burke, “little platoons of family and civic association.” 

Blond advocates breaking monopolistic government and corporate controls over sectors of the economy to allow all socio-economic levels to fairly compete. “The Tories must take on the unrecognised private sector monopolies that hide on every British high street,” he argues. In essence, he argues that free market liberalism, in its insistence on individualism, has eviscerated morality and the bonds of community, as well as created monopolies. Monopolies, whether in banking, grocery stores, or mobile phones, force the lower income levels into choosing wage-earner status instead of being active participants in an ownership economy, i.e, starting their own business. The economic barriers to entry for competitors have become too high, he argues.

Blond’s original attention-grabbing article from 2009 spells out his argument at length, which is complex and worth reading in full. It has since been developed into a book.

His thought is based on “the distributism of Chesterton, Belloc and Skelton—all of who knew that, without something to trade, one cannot enter a market. Making markets truly free prevents corporate domination, but also extends ownership, prosperity and innovation across the whole of society. The task of recapitalising the poor is, therefore, the task of making the market work for the many, not the few.”

He echoes Pope Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum, who said “The law, therefore, should favor ownership, and its policy should be to induce as many as possible of the people to become owners. Many excellent results will follow from this; and, first of all, property will certainly become more equitably divided.” 

Distributism raises many questions. Are big businesses and big government really on the same side? How truly free are our markets? Are certain laws and regulations stacking the deck against new competitive enterprises by protecting de facto monopolies?

The UK Catholic Herald quotes statistics from Blond’s new book finding that in Britain “in 1976 the bottom 50 per cent of the population owned 12 per cent of non-propertied wealth; by 2003 it was one per cent. Meanwhile the median wage of the average British worker has not increased in 40 years, although productivity has increased massively, meaning that people are required to buy more things with the same income. The system has therefore sought growth by lending wage-earners ever more money to keep the economy going, plunging large sections of society hopelessly into debt.”

“The Right is exclusively pro-market and the Left is proscribing everything but the state. They are now no longer sustainable positions,” Blond argues to the Catholic Herald.

Distributism is not without its critics among Catholic economic thinkers, however. Thomas E. Woods, a prolific writer and a fellow at the Mises Institute, argues that “[e]ven granting the distributist premise that smaller businesses have been swallowed up by larger firms, it is by no means obvious that it is always preferable for a man to operate his own business rather than to work for another. It may well be that a man is better able to care for his family precisely if he does not own his own business or work the backbreaking schedule of running his own farm…Surely, therefore, we are dealing here with a matter for individual circumstances rather than crude generalization.

Woods goes on to argue that we are allowing our view of history of the Industrial Revolution to be distorted. If it was not for capitalism, there would be no wage earners at all, most of whom are glad to have the wages they make. “Had they not had the opportunity to work for a wage, therefore, they and their families would simply have starved. It is as simple as that. Capitalism, and not distributism, literally saved these people from utter destitution and made possible the enormous growth in population.”

Further, though mentioned indirectly by Pope Benedict, it was not given particular prominence in his latest encyclical on Catholic social teaching, Caritas in Veritate. However, Blond’s contribution is probably a welcome one, especially in the secular political environment of British society. At the very least, Blond’s meteoric rise may help give Chesterton, Belloc, and the rich history of papal social thought a place at the table of political leaders.

Paul Ciarcia

Synod Fathers Weigh In on Israeli-Palestinian Crisis

 
This past weekend the Synod of Bishops on the Middle East concluded after more than two weeks of high level meetings in Rome. The synod produced a list of recommendations for Pope Benedict XVI to consider in confronting the unique pastoral challenges facing the Catholic faith in the Holy Land. Several of those recommendations have triggered outrage in Israel, shedding light on the Church’s difficult position in balancing relations with Palestinian and Israeli populations.

The Synod fathers listed the occupation of Palestinian lands, Israel's separation barrier with the West Bank, its military checkpoints, political prisoners, demolition of homes and disturbance of Palestinians' socio-economic lives as factors that have increasingly infringed upon the rights of Palestinians. The communiqué also called for a two-state solution to the crisis and was critical of efforts to biblically justify the Jewish presence in the occupied territories.

The Bishops wrote, “Recourse to theological and biblical positions which use the word of God to wrongly justify injustices is not acceptable.”

In a news conference highlighting the synod’s conclusions, Cyrille Salim Bustros, a US based prelate went even further saying, “The concept of the promised land cannot be used as a base for the justification of the return of Jews to Israel and the displacement of Palestinians. Sacred scripture should not be used to justify the occupation by Israel of Palestine.”

Reaction from Israel was swift and angry, demanding a retraction from Bustros and insisting that Israel’s positive influence on Christianity in the region had been ignored by the Synod. Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor claimed it was absurd that the Jewish state had been criticized by the synod since Israel is the only country in the Middle East that boasts a growing Christian population. 
However, while the number of Christians in Israel has grown by more than ten percent over the course of the past decade, this does not negate the Church’s duty to remain fair-minded in the bitter dispute between Palestinians and the state of Israel.

Indeed, the list of recommendations issued by the synod condemned “Islamophobia” and “anti-Semitism” while at the same time raising concerns about Israeli policies deemed harmful to prospects for future peace. This demonstrates that the synod was not “hijacked” by Arab propaganda as Palmor claimed, but was maintaining a balanced perspective consistent with the Vatican’s long standing insistence on the need for a Palestinian state.

In fact, during his 2009 visit to Israel, Pope Benedict XVI urgently called for the creation of a Palestinian state, saying:

Let it be universally recognized that the State of Israel has the right to exist, and to enjoy peace and security within internationally agreed borders. Let it be likewise acknowledged that the Palestinian people have a right to a sovereign independent homeland, to live with dignity and to travel freely. Let the two-state solution become a reality, not remain a dream.

The Church faces a difficult challenge in the Middle East as a small minority caught in the middle of a simmering age-old dispute between Palestinians and Israelis. Some observers, including John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter, have pointed out that Arab Christians often tend to emphasize their support for Palestinians as a way to gain credibility in their home country and avoid Muslim wrath. However, this reality does not support the notion that there was anti-Israeli propaganda at work in the propositions put forth by the Synod on the Middle East.

The bishops’ communiqué demonstrated their understanding that in order for religious freedom to thrive in the region that gave birth to the three great monotheistic faiths, all sides will need to make concessions. By clearly outlining how policy changes can help lead to a secure Israel and a separate Palestinian state—the synod was not only looking after its own immediate interest, namely the safety and freedom of Christian communities, but also the wider interest of peace in the Middle East. That is a noble goal that is beneficial to all parties, including Israel.

David Naglieri

Eight Days and Counting

Election Day is nigh and prognostications are readily available.  Predictably, Republicans are rearing to paint the town red, while Democrats are doing their best to avoid feeling blue.  While some are anticipating a monsoon, and others see more of a “meh,” many signs report to a historic outcome.   

Unsurprisingly, the two parties have very different visions of what the world will look like on November 3rd.  Appearing on the Sunday shows, both chairmen predicted victory for their side.  DNC chief Tim Kaine said of keeping majorities in both the House and the Senate: “We’ve got work to do, but we think we can do it.”  RNC head Michael Steele offered a different opinion, foretelling of an “unprecedented wave” that would sweep Republicans into control of both houses as well as state legislatures. 

But what do the odds makers have to say?

Irish bookies “Paddy Power” put the odds on Republican dominance in the House, listing the GOP as “hot favorites” with odds of 1-33.  It’s a different story in the Senate, where Republicans are 11-4 underdogs. 

Part of the issue is that many Senate races are wildly unpredictable.  Both the Cook Political Report and Real Clear Politics list 8 seats as toss-ups.  It’s anybody’s guess who will come out on top.  Republicans will likely need 7 of those 8 to gain control of the upper chamber.

Among those 8 toss-ups is the hotly contested Nevada race between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican challenger Sharron Angle.  It is one of many races that could turn Capitol Hill upside down.

Simply put, according to Politico, if Reid loses “all hell will break loose on the leadership front.”  And it’s not just in the Senate.  Experts predict that if Democrats lose the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi will choose to step down and retire, paving the way for another mini-drama.  If the Democrats manage to maintain control, some believe that she could still be in trouble.  A handful of Congressional Democrats have said they wouldn’t vote for her as Speaker, several others hinted as much.  What will end up happening remains a mystery.  And who her successor would be is no more certain.  Experts predict that the larger the loss for the Democrats, the larger the battle over who should lead the party in the House. 

Some of the more brave of the pundit class would argue that the House is already a foregone conclusion.  Consider that with 218 seats as the magic number for control of the chamber, Real Clear Politics already has the Republicans with 222 seats, a pickup of 44, let alone the 36 seats that are listed as toss-ups.  But nothing is certain in politics.

That having been said, some Democrats are already revving up the rhetoric about why they lost.  The “excuse,” as Politico calls it, being pointed to by both the President and Vice President (among others) is that the “conservatives bought their way to power with a flood of spending by outside groups.”  The Vice President was “amazed” by the numbers.  And, in what Politico reporter Jonathan Martin labels as a “sunny retelling of recent political history,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that “everything was going great and all of a sudden secret money from God knows where – because they won’t disclose it – is pouring in.”

The article admits that while there is some truth to the statement, this is not “clear-cut”:

The DNC and the party’s two congressional committees have outraised their GOP counterparts and airing millions of dollar worth of TV ads. Further, it’s AFSCME [a union], not one of the new conservative groups, that is spending the most money of any outside group this election, dropping $87.5 million to help Democrats. Other unions are also spending tens of millions on the campaign.

For all that, spending by outside groups—not affiliated with the candidates or parties—is only expected by experts to be about 10 percent of the total money spent.

As is arguably true with any election, the outcome will ultimately depend on two things: turnout and independents.

As for turnout, party bosses for both sides of the aisle are seeing encouraging trends in the early voting data.  Republicans and Democrats alike are convinced they’re doing better than normal given the particulars.  But as some point out, “history won’t be much of a guide.”  As George Mason University professor Michael McDonald put it, “we are in uncharted territory.”

The most recent data on independents, however, is in some cases simply stunning, and may end up being the deciding factor.  In the final pre-election Battleground Poll, Republicans have a significant advantage, polling 14 points ahead of Democrats among independent voters.   

To be clear, the independents are not swooning over Republicans – unsurprising given their overwhelming and not-so-distant unpopularity in 2006 and 2008.  They see them as equals to their Democrat counterparts when it comes to solving the nation’s problems, but they seem to prefer them nonetheless.  In fact, among voters who view both parties unfavorably, Republicans have a whopping 22-point advantage. 

If the numbers are right, the answer to the question why may be President Obama himself. 

When pollsters asked Americans why the country was heading in the wrong direction, they got a plethora of answers.  2 percent identified the wars in the Middle East.  8 percent put the blame on Congress.  7 percent put the blame on spending.  1 percent thought Republicans were guilty, while 5 percent eyed the Democrats.  2 percent said health care.  Surprisingly, only 6 percent said jobs, arguably the cornerstone issue for the election.  The largest, specific answer was “President Barack Obama” with 21 percent (only “other” scored higher).

Similarly concerning for the White House was the President’s comparison with congressional Democrats.  When given a choice between congressional Democrats and congressional Republicans, and asked who can best create jobs, Americans were split 45-45.  Independents tended to side with Democrats, giving them a 44-38 advantage on the same question.  However, when given the choice of President Obama and congressional Republicans, independents sided with the Republicans to the tune of 50-26.  Americans favored Republicans too by a margin of 50-39.

***

In 1994, the Republicans gained 54 House seats in what is still referred to as a historic midterm election.  In 2010, conservative estimations already show 40 plus pickups for the GOP.  Another 34 Democrat-held seats are “toss-ups” and still another 27 Democratic seats lean blue.  That means that Republicans could reasonably gain anywhere from 0-118 seats (143 seats if you roll in all of the “likely” Democrat races).  Even half that number would be historic.  But it’s not over until it’s over. 

So, as you prepare to weep or rejoice, hold off on the Bob Dylan, because while the times may very well be a changing, a lot can happen in 8 days. 

- Matthew St. John

Chicago Catholics Are A Faith-Filled, Complex Bunch

 

A renowned sociologist and priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago recently released a study of Catholics in his archdiocese that is as encouraging as it is challenging — its highlights and shadows mix to a steady gray. In other words, it offers a complex portrait of the city's Catholic faith that should not be ignored, the author writes.

The study shows that vast majorities of the windy city's Catholics place considerable importance in their religion, approve of Church leaders, and are raising Catholic children. Statistics are based on a survey of 524 Catholics in Lake and Cook counties polled by the Survey Lab of the University of Chicago in 2007.

The study's author, Father Andrew Greeley, 82, wrote that even with a preponderance of good news there are some challenges. For example: few young people are considering a priestly or religious vocation, Catholic schools are closing, many skip Sunday Mass because it is boring and Cafeteria Catholicism is encouraging two camps to form within the Church.

Greeley's study, "Chicago Catholics and the Struggles Within Their Church," his 105th book, had been on his radar for a while. "This project I've always wanted to do and [it is why] I was trained a half century ago," Greeley writes about being sent to the University of Chicago to study sociology in the 1960s. "It occurred to me as I approached my eightieth birthday that time was running out."

A strong majority highly values their Catholic identity. Eighty percent polled said that their religion is very important or extremely important to them. The same amount of Catholics polled said that they approve of Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Francis George and their pastor. Also, nearly half of the Catholics polled say that five of their closest friends are Catholic also, emphasizing the communal nature of the Church.

When Catholics in Chicago get married they have little Catholics. A striking majority (95 percent) of Catholics raise their children in the Church.

In the introduction, however, Greeley notes an apprehension to sociological research on the part of Church leadership because they've come to expect only bad news. "So they pretend it doesn't exist or dismiss it with a cliché," he writes.

Greeley went on to add that "The majority of the Catholic laity in Chicago no longer accepts the Catholic sexual ethic," but they ardently identify themselves as Catholic.

This distancing is made clear in the book's fourth chapter, "Cafeteria Catholicism." The survey asked the question: Who is a Good Catholic? The top three responses were someone who: believes in Jesus' resurrection (94 percent), believes in Jesus' presence in the Eucharist (92 percent) and donates money to help the poor (75 percent). The bottom three: accepts Church teaching on divorce and remarriage (32 percent), accepts Church teaching on immigrants (24 percent) and votes the way bishops and priest suggest (5 percent). War and peace issues, gay marriage, the death penalty, the infallibility of the pope, abortion and weekly church attendance all fall somewhere in the middle.

Greeley's clear that he isn't endorsing these beliefs about the "good Catholic." Rather, he's "recording it and (trying to) challenge the leadership to listen to [it.]"

He is also convinced that the division between "institutional Catholics" and "communal Catholics" will continue to widen if Church leaders ignore the issue. "Leaders and followers will live in different worlds, and the Catholic institution and the Catholic community will be far apart," he writes.

Tom Smith, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Society at the National Opinion Research Center told The Chicago Tribune that church leaders "have to be aware that the church is [perceived as] too authoritative, makes too many rules. Its sermons tend to be uninspiring. There are a lot of areas in which the survey can point to areas where the church might want to try to strengthen."

Greeley notes that some expect the church to handle this by easily shaving off ideological outliers, expecting a "smaller, leaner, and purer church," which echoes a sentiment offered by the pope.

Greeley expects his work to be accepted with skepticism by both ideological poles. In short, some won't like the good news, and some won't like the bad. But both are there.

"The study, they will say, is mired in grayness — as if the real world in which people live and love and work out their salvation is not complex," said Greeley.

It's a temptation to see clear lines between those who are bathed in light and those who are not. But if the Church's evangelization is to be a new one, Greeley seems to be saying, we need to see each other in various shades of gray, constantly learning how to better love God and one other.

- Brian Dowling

(CNS photo by Karen Callaway)

Choosing Death: England’s Euthanasia Problem

Cristina Odone’s lifelong fight against assisted suicide and euthanasia is rooted in the story of her half-brother, Lorenzo.  Diagnosed with a degenerative brain disorder at the age of seven, Lorenzo was left unable to move enough to swallow food.  He could only communicate through blinking.  Cristina’s father and step-mother dedicated their lives to caring for their son and finding a cure.  Their search for, and eventual discovery of, a treatment for their son’s disorder is an inspiring story that was made into an Oscar-nominated film.  It is easy, therefore, to imagine Cristina’s horror when her father, suffering in a hospital ward, asked her to put him “out of [his] misery”.

In an article appropriately titled “I refused to help my father die”, Cristina relates this shocking moment and uses it to engage in a conversation about the rising euthanistic mindset in Britain.  She confronts the culture that drives even a noble man like her father, who showed that he was willing to suffer endlessly for his son’s sake, to give up hope in a hospital bed.  In a pamphlet that she wrote this week for Britain’s conservative think-tank, The Centre for Policy Studies, she cites a 2009 survey by The Times showing that 74% of the respondents supported the euphemistic “right to die”.  The blame for this attitude, in Cristina’s argument, lies with Western culture’s worship of eternal youth.  Because so much of advertisers’ time and money is spent emphasizing the “carefully defined template of human perfection”, “the ideal has become the norm” in a way that denigrates the weak, the vulnerable and the old.  Cristina agrees with assisted-suicide advocates that “few in Britain today die as they would choose to”, with dignity and surrounded by their loved ones.  She admits that protracted hospital stays can be painful and dehumanizing, and blames Britain’s hospital environment for her father’s humiliation and despair.  Her solution, however, is not to shorten people’s hospital stay by poisoning them but to implement a progressive, humane system of palliative care centers and support systems that would allow people to truly die with dignity.

Cristina’s main concern in the fight against assisted-suicide is protecting the vulnerable.  In her policy pamphlet, she takes a step back from her Catholic faith and starts with the mindset that “If this is to be resolved, it should be on the basis of facts, not faith. Legalizing assisted suicide risks harming the most vulnerable. It should be rejected on grounds of public safety, not personal morality.”  Many of the voices pushing for Britain to legalize assisted-suicide belong to what she calls the “chattering classes”, the “articulate, well-educated grown-up, with no money worries” who would know how to defend themselves against cost-conscious doctors or greedy relatives who tried to pressure them into suicide.  Cristina’s concern is for those elderly and the disabled who are not wealthy, are not well-educated and might easily be convinced that they are simply a burden on the National Health Service, or on their families.

Our own country, too often, does not do enough to protect the vulnerable from this threat.  Oregon, one of two states that have legalized assisted-suicide, has seen their assisted-suicide rates quadruple since legalization in 1997.  Cristina cites a 2009 article in the Washington Times that documents two horrific cases where the Oregon Health Plan refused to cover proscribed cancer medications, then offered to pay for an assisted-suicide pill. 

While assisted suicide does not have nearly the support here that it does in Britain, we can find many of the same warning signs and cultural factors.  We, too, “obsessed with health, youth and success, [...] make assumptions about the poor quality of life that people with disabilities suffer from, and shrink altogether from addressing the issues surrounding death and dying”.  Far too easily, assisted suicide could become for us, like for most of Britain, subsumed under the banner of individual choice.  Because of this, it is important that we start even now to remind our culture that, in Cristina’s words, “death is not an individual step, carried out in isolation. Rather, it is an act that places us in relationship with others – family, the local community, anyone with whom we must share our limited social and health service resources.”

Cristina responded to her father’s moment of despair by pleading with him to “to focus his extraordinary spirit on life, not death”.  She was there for her father in his time of need, and he made a recovery.  From her example, like that found in our own Brian Caulfield’s excellent series of columns, we can see that the very best defense against a culture of assisted suicide is a loving family, strengthened by hope.

- Luke Hansen

Truth or Gaffe? The First Amendment in Delaware

The crowd was stunned on Tuesday at the Delaware Senate debate between Democrat Chris Coons and Republican Tea Party candidate Christine O’Donnell. Following a clash over the propriety of the teaching of intelligent design in schools wherein Coons invoked the separation of church and state, O’Donnell challenged Coons to explain where in the Constitution the “separation of church and state” was, as if questioning whether the clause existed at all.
 
The crowd at Widener University Law School let out a noticeable gasp. Scattered laughter and scoffs could be heard. Did she just say that? Oh my Gosh!

USA Today reported the exchange: “Republican Senate nominee Christine O'Donnell, who has said she would make decisions in Washington based solely on the Constitution, suggested today that she doesn't believe the founding document calls for a “separation between church and state.”
 
The Widener law students certainly seemed pretty aghast that O’Donnell appeared to be questioning that the phrase “separation of church and state” was in the Constitution. Most media outlets saw it that way too, describing the scene as a huge gaffe for O’Donnell.

Was it? The wall of separation between church and state appears nowhere in Constitution. On that count at least, O’Donnell was correct. Second, the 1st Amendment’s prohibition on establishing a religion was and is plain and unambiguous. It is not a wall, and it was never intended to wipe the public square clean of religion.

Today, our politicians and political figures pretend otherwise, but in truth, it was simply a prohibition on the Federal government establishing a national religion. In fact, (since the Constitution applied only to the Federal government) at the time the 1st Amendment was adopted, 6 of the 13 states had established religions and the Amendment was explicitly a protection from Federal encroachment on the state’s religious self-determination; some established state churches, in one form or another, persisted well into the 19th century (See Michael Sandel, Democracy’s Discontent, pg. 56). There is no plausible rationale that justifies the widely broad interpretations of the 1st Amendment as a wall of separation between church and state.

This is not at all to say that established state churches are somehow praiseworthy; most certainly they are not. It is simply an example to disprove the contention that our founder’s intended the 1st Amendment as a weapon to bludgeon any and all religious expression on public spaces, especially on the state local level. It is simply without foundation.

Later Supreme Court decisions have blurred the edges of the 1st Amendment, as they have much of the Constitution, through an expansive view of the 14th Amendment’s due process provision. But O’Donnell was making a political point, not an argument about legal theory or common law interpretation. She asked about what our Constitution says; that there is no wall of separation between church and state in the Constitution is plainly true, but nevertheless, our next generation of lawyers nearly laughed her off the stage for not assuming the secular interpretation of our Founding document. Sadly, the secular outlook has been taken to heart by many.

Our challenge, as ever, is to counter wherever we can the revisionist view that our Founders intended to create some post-Christian secular society where people kept their religious views to themselves. To carelessly swap the 1st Amendment for the wall of separation is to rewrite our history, and it is this thinly veiled agenda that is at the bottom of this issue. The more we are careless and lazy in the way we discuss the past, the more we disfigure its meaning and confuse our political debates.

- Paul Ciarcia

An Ecological Call to Action

The world may be confronting the most dramatic loss of animal and plant life, since the dinosaurs disappeared from the planet more than 65 million years ago.

That’s a statement extreme enough to grab even the most dedicated couch potato’s attention. It certainly caught mine when reading through Monday morning’s news.

That warning from the United Nations is the major topic of the Convention on Biological Diversity  that convened in Nagoya, Japan, yesterday. The delegates to the 193-nation convention are faced with the daunting task of setting a course for reigning in the biodiversity loss over the next decade. At the start of the new millennium, UN members agreed under the Millennium Development Goals to abate the loss of wildlife by 2010 the International Year of Biodiversity . But despite their ambition, this met with no success, and habitat destruction has continued.

Convention delegates undertaking the task of coming up with some type of strategy to meet these issues find themselves facing not only  this lack of past success, and a U.N. report  released from this past spring that stated – as recorded in a report by CNN – “several eco-systems including the Amazon rainforest, freshwater lakes and rivers and coral reefs are approaching a ‘tipping point’ which, if reached, may see them never recover.”

Ahmed Djoghlaf, executive secretary of the CBD said in a statement reported by CNN: "The news is not good. We continue to lose biodiversity at a rate never before seen in history." 

The two week meeting aims at addressing this by bringing together nations and businesses with the goal of taking steps to protect and revitalize ecosystems that are vital to a growing human population – ecosystems that provide basic needs such as clean air, water food and medicines. The targets for the convention include cutting pollution, halving the loss of forests and other natural habitats, increasing public awareness, and ensuring that agriculture and aquaculture are sustainably managed.

Without question, it’s a momentous task.
Despite these daunting charges, reports from the opening of the convention, as well as the media coverage leading up to it, all indicated that no one seriously denies that the loss of biodiversity (though both the destruction of habitats and extinction of species) is a problem. So where’s the rub?

The potential sticking points come in the dispute between rich and poor nations – those who achieve their current prominence by using their own natural resources (and in some cases those of other nations) versus developing nations (which now own much of the biologically diverse habitats and natural wealth still present on the globe) who wish to raise their standards of living through utilizing these resources.

The choice: allow developing nations to exploit and diminish these resources (and continue along the path of further loss to biodiversity), or compensate them (i.e. pay) to preserve these resources. As with so many other debates, the question ultimately comes down to who will pay.

One option is to adopt the Access and Benefits Sharing (ABS) Protocol that seeks to guarantee that developing countries realize an equitable sharing of benefits from natural resources -- for instance an indigenous plant that has a use in the medical field. Through this proposal companies agree to pay a “gene” fee should researchers discover plants/animals (previously used by indigenous peoples) that have a commercial use. For developing nations, this protocol can be seen as a way of obtaining potentially billions of dollars in funds. Another plus is that this protocol provides these developing nations with incentive to preserve natural resources that benefit civilization in general.

On the minus side, some industrialized nations and pharmaceutical companies are wary of these extra costs draining investments made on research and complicating development procedures. The challenges for this protocol  fall mainly in two areas.

One disagreement is whether the fee to be paid applies only to the genetic resource, or also to all the derivatives produced from its DNA. The convention delegates will need to determine how this will play out if the “fee” will cover all uses, will have to be paid for each subsequent use from the original genetic material, or if it will be negotiated on an item by item basis.

Another area of potential contention is whether the protocol will require payment for past profits from natural resources. Developing nations would prefer to have payments for past profits included, while industrialized nations seem to be open to the ABS Protocol, they also tend to shy away from its application to past activities.

Convention delegates are going to be charged with forging agreements around these, and numerous other issues over the next two weeks. No small task, when some argue that the future of the planet may quite literally be at stake. As Achim Steiner, head of the U.N. Environment Program said at the meeting opening: “It’s about your life. It’s about life on this planet and it is about what we are doing to this planet with our eyes open today and increasingly being culpable of, being accused by the next generation of having acted irresponsibly and increasingly questionably from an ethical point of view.”

 How’s that for a call to action?

- Chuck Lindberg

Voting Catholic

Election frenzy has hit a fever pitch, as it always does around this time of year.  With only a few weeks left until the potentially-historic midterms, political news is all the rage.  Particularly popular are the series of polls and predictions that are released on a daily basis showing just how close each individual horse race is.  It’s no surprise then that around this time of year, stories pop up about the elusive Catholic vote.  What is it?  Where is it?  How big is it?  And what does it mean?

One such story produced by the Catholic News Service on Friday, took a slightly different approach.  Covering a panel of pollsters at the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies at the Catholic University of America, CNS highlighted what the pollsters showed was a “growing divide” among the worldviews of different Catholic constituencies.

The most significant differences appeared to be between the white Catholic and the Hispanic Catholic votes.  The two groups disagreed significantly on whether or not government is bigger because it’s sticking its nose where it doesn’t belong, or because our problems have become bigger.   62 percent of white Catholics say it’s the former, while only 48 percent of Hispanic Catholics agree.

Disagreement was also found when respondents were asked if one of the big problems facing this country was that not everyone was given an equal “chance.”  67 percent of Hispanic Catholics said yes, while only 48 percent of white Catholics agreed. 

Statistics like these are hardly surprising.  It should not be shocking to find that the Universal Church is home to a wide array of political persuasions.  In fact, speaking on this topic CNS quoted Gregory A. Smith, a senior researcher with Pew, saying “it’s a misnomer to say that there’s a single Catholic vote.”

It’s also clear that given the diverse nature of the Catholic “vote,” the breakdown of party affiliation is in flux.  CNS reported that overall Catholic support for Democrats has fallen 8 percent since the 2008 election, when a majority of Catholics voted for President Obama.

This isn’t exactly surprising either.  Historically whichever party occupies the White House loses several seats in the midterms.

Something that may be surprising is the emphasis – or lack thereof – that Catholic voters are placing on social issues this cycle.  According to CNS, only 43 percent of Catholics said abortion was an important issue.  Even less – 23 percent – said the same about same-sex marriage.  It would appear that in this current economic climate, a shift in emphasis from social to fiscal issues is taking place.

But certainly we know that Catholics, and even Americans in general, are none-too-happy about the moral state of our nation.  In our polling from February of 2010, we found that 62 percent of Catholics believe that the moral values of our nation are headed in the wrong direction, while 67 percent of Americans agree.

In a similar vein, Politico pointed out a disturbing divide between ordinary Americans and “D.C. elites” on social issues this summer.  In their Power and the People series, they found that 83 percent of the general population believes that “family values” are an important issue in the United States.  Of those 83 percent, 57 percent identified it as “very important.”  But when the D.C. elites were asked about it, only 57 percent saw it as important, with only a stunning 27 percent saying that it was “very important.”  Happily, both sides agreed that “ethics in government” was also a major issue, with a majority of both the general population and D.C. elites identifying it as “very important.”

Catholics may certainly disagree on the particulars of policy and party.  As evidenced by the CNS piece, they already do.  But whatever the case may be, whatever slice of the Catholic vote you may belong to, the deteriorating moral atmosphere in our country ought to concern you.  And maybe the fact that D.C. elites don’t see traditional values as a major issue ought to concern you even more.   And concern ought to translate into action.

As Pope Benedict reminded us in his encyclical Dues Caritas Est we have a duty to participate in the political arena :

The direct duty to work for a just ordering of society, on the other hand, is proper to the lay faithful. As citizens of the State, they are called to take part in public life in a personal capacity. So they cannot relinquish their participation “in the many different economic, social, legislative, administrative and cultural areas, which are intended to promote organically and institutionally the common good.” The mission of the lay faithful is therefore to configure social life correctly, respecting its legitimate autonomy and cooperating with other citizens according to their respective competences and fulfilling their own responsibility.

Now is not the time to sit back and watch how it all shakes out.  Each of us has a duty to participate.  As expressed by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops:

In the Catholic Tradition, responsible citizenship is a virtue, and participation in political life is a moral obligation. This obligation is rooted in our baptismal commitment to follow Jesus Christ and to bear Christian witness in all we do. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us, “it is necessary that all participate, each according to his position and role, in promoting the common good. This obligation is inherent in the dignity of the human person.... As far as possible citizens should take an active part in public life”

Only 15 days left until the election.  What have you done to fulfill your moral obligation?

“Gracious and loving God, let your Spirit be with us today. Hear our prayers, and increase in us the will to follow your Son Jesus. Help us to draw on the resources of our faith as we use the opportunities of our democracy to shape a society more respectful of the life, dignity, and rights of the human person, especially the poor and vulnerable. We ask this through Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever. Amen.”  ~ Taken from Faithful Citizenship, an initiative of the USCCB

- Matthew St. John

Synod of Bishops calls for a unified, multi-cultured Middle East

This past week, the Holy Father led a Synod of Bishops of the Middle East that discussed several issues and concerns regarding the Church and its place in the world. Two of the major issues covered were the presence of Christianity in the Middle East and the relationship between Christians and Muslims in that region.

The Synod was established by Pope Paul VI in 1965, defining it as a “ecclesiastic institution, which, on interrogating the signs of the times and as well as trying to provide a deeper interpretation of divine designs and the constitution of the Catholic Church, we set up after Vatican Council II in order to foster the unity and cooperation of bishops around the world with the Holy See.”

This most recent meetings comes at a time when there is noticeable lack of Christians within the Middle East. Mohammad Sammak, a Sunni Muslim who is secretary general of Lebanon’s Christian-Muslim Committee for Dialogue, told a synod of bishops the declining numbers in the region was a concern for all Muslims.

“The emigration of Christians is an impoverishment of the Arabic identity, of its culture and authenticity,” said Sammak, who is an adviser to Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri. He added that maintaining the Christian presence in the Middle East was a “common Islamic duty.”

Iran’s Ayatollah Seyed Mostafa Mohaghegh Damad Ahmadabadi, a Shi’ite law professor, also stated the need to protect minority communities in his speech to the Synod of Bishops. Damad stated that “the stability of the world depends on the stability of the lievelihood of small and large groups and societies.”

The other issue addressed at the Special Assembly of the Middle East of the Synod of Bishops was the relationship between Muslims and Christians. The synod stressed that without dialogue, clashes between Christians and Muslims could result.

The Archbishop of Damascus of the Greek Melkites said in his address to “participants in the Synod for Middle East that living together in peace and the Christian presence in the region are concretely and existentially connected. He also highlighted some of the roadblocks that are currently impeding the desired harmony.  As reported by a Catholic News Agency article:

"Pointing to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the “main reason” for this conflict, [the Archbishop] said that the situation is marked by fundamentalism, slow development, increased hatred and loss of hope among young people who are the majority of the population (60 percent) in Arab countries.”

The importance of the Synod stretches far beyond the fact that it was a congregation of famous figure heads of the Church. The synod stressed the importance of the stability of Christianity, as well other religions in the region. Speaking at a joint news conference in Rome, the Muslim scholars Sammak and Damad stressed that the radicalization of religions was not just an Islamic problem.

“There is the rise of fundamentalism inside Israel, and in Christian and Zionist movements in the United States, and there is the rise of Islamic fundamentalism also,” said Sammak. “This is a negative phenomenon, and not only Christians are suffering from it.”

Certainly challenges await both sides as they look to mend broken bridges and work together as one.  While there may well be detractors in both camps, well-meaning Christian and Muslims in the Middle East seek genuine peace and a harmonious relationship.  That desire was on display as the Synod convened.  Moving forward, let us hope that the Church and her Bishops continue to play and important and vital role in helping the region move forward. 

- Patrick Redding