Catholic Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy Could Dominate Abortion Cases

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A University of Alabama law professor says that Justice Anthony Kennedy could become the dominant force on the issue of abortion on the Supreme Court if the Senate approves the nomination of appeals judge Samuel Alito.

On the current court, pro-abortion Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has largely dominated the issue. In 2000, she was the deciding vote and wrote the majority opinion in a case striking down a Nebraska ban on partial-birth abortions.

The decision had negative implications for other state abortion bans and prompted Congressional lawmakers to retool the national partial-birth abortion ban President Bush signed.

Should Alito be approved to replace O'Connor and should be take a pro-life position on abortion cases, as most groups on both sides expect, professor Bryan Fair says pro-abortion Justice Anthony Kennedy could become the driving force.

"Justice Kennedy will be the swing vote in many of the most controversial cases, including parental notification on abortion and other abortion issues that may come up and a wide variety of criminal, federal law and civil rights cases, not only in 2006 but in the next two or three years," Fair predicted.

"The court will have a 4-1-4 alignment with Justices Stevens, Breyer, Ginsburg and Souter on one side and Justices Roberts, Thomas, Scalia and Alito on the other. Kennedy will be the questionable vote in the center," he told the Decatur Daily News.

Where Kennedy stands on abortion cases is somewhat of a question.

Kennedy was expected to be another vote to overturn Roe when he was approved for the court, but he sided with the 6-3 majority in upholding the central tenants of Roe v. Wade. Where he departed from the pro-abortion view was on the Nebraska case. Kennedy joined with former Chief Justice William Rehnquist and pro-life Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia to provide a fourth vote to uphold the pro-life measure.

That dissent puts him in a position to determine the outcome of two key abortion cases the court will consider this term -- a New Hampshire parental notification law and the pro-abortion lawsuit against the national partial-birth abortion ban.

Both cases involve the health exception issue that dominated the debate on the Nebraska ban and Kennedy could easily be the swing vote if he joined new Chief Justice John Roberts, Alito, Thomas and Scalia to uphold the two pro-life laws at issue.

Whether Kennedy would reverse his position on Roe is another question and pro-life advocates don't believe they can count on that. As a result, they're hoping for President Bush to have one more opportunity to appoint a pro-life Supreme Court justice before his final term is over in 2008.

Fair says he thinks that's unlikely, even though the four other pro-abortion members of the court are advancing in age.

Let us pray that Justice Kennedy will make the right decisions.

God loves every embryo, Pope says

From Catholic World News:

Man is the masterpiece of God's creation, and when a chld is conceived, "God already sees the future of that still-unformed embryo," Pope Benedict XVI said at his public audience on December 28.

God recognizes a human being even when the unborn child "is not visible to the eyes of other men," the Holy Father told the 20,000 people who gathered in St. Peter's Square. The Pope's meditation, based on Psalm 138, also reflected his thoughts on the feast of the Holy Innocents.

Psalm 138 extols the power of God the creator, and his knowledge not only of the past and present, "but also the entire range hidden by the future," the Pope observed. God knows and loves the smallest of his creatures, and sees every human being as the finest product of his handiwork, he continued. He added that this theme is particularly appropriate for reflection during the Christmas season, as the world celebrates the God who was "made man for our salvation."

Take note, Catholic politicians who enable the Culture of Death by ignoring this teaching of their Catholic faith!

"The Truth about Torture"

The Evangelical Outpost is hosting an on-line symposium exploring the perspective(s) offered by Christian ethics on the claim that torture is morally permissible under certain circumstances. There are two contributions from Catholics: one from Father John Neuhaus and the other from Rich Vischer. I recommend all the essays.

Benedict XVI on Catholic Politicians

Pope: Catholic Politicians Need to Be Aware of Christian Identity
Urges That They Act Against Injustice and Tyranny

VATICAN CITY, DEC. 18, 2005 (Zenit.org).- One of the challenges facing the Church is to help Catholic politicians recognize their Christian identity and act accordingly, says Benedict XVI.

The Pope addressed this topic Saturday when receiving in audience a third group of Polish bishops making their five-yearly visit to the Holy See.

Recalling the teachings of the Second Vatican Council's constitution "Gaudium et Spes," the Holy Father said: "Those who are suited or can become suited should prepare themselves for the difficult, but at the same time, the very noble art of politics, and should seek to practice this art without regard for their own interests or for material advantages."

Referring to Catholic politicians, he continued: "With integrity and wisdom, they must take action against any form of injustice and tyranny, against arbitrary domination by an individual or a political party and any intolerance.

"They should dedicate themselves to the service of all with sincerity and fairness, indeed, with the charity and fortitude demanded by political life."

To do this, the Pope added, "Christian politicians cannot remain without the help of the Church."

Applying values

"It is a matter of helping them, in a particular manner, be aware of their Christian identity and of the universal moral values that are based in the nature of man, in such a way that, in virtue of a correct conscience, they commit themselves to applying [the values] to civil law, to build a coexistence that respects man in all his dimensions," the Holy Father said.

According to the Pontiff, "It is very important, especially where a pluralistic society prevails, that there be a correct notion of the relationship between the political community and the Church, and a clear distinction between the tasks which Christians undertake, individually or as a group, on their own responsibility as citizens guided by the dictates of a Christian conscience, and the activities which, in union with their pastors, they carry out in the name of the Church."

Benedict XVI dedicated his discourse to the Polish bishops to analyze the role of the laity in the parish, in the movements and in the political sphere, as well as in the realm of volunteer work.

"Why I Am a Brownbacker"

Back in June '05 David explained why Brownback's Devotion To Life, Other Issues Makes Him A Standout Senator.

Steve Dillard from Southern Appeal joins us in explaining Why I am a Brownbacker, citing a Dec. 15th article in SC's The State:

The road to the White House typically leads through Iowa and New Hampshire. For Sen. Sam Brownback, it's led to a desolate refugee camp in the hills of eastern Congo.

The Kansas Republican, a leading social conservative, has made Africa a focal point of his expected bid for his party's 2008 presidential nomination. It's a move that blends his longtime interest in the troubled continent with political savvy. Helping Africans plays well not only with evangelical Christians, Brownback's base, but also with more secular voters who otherwise might be turned off by his hard-line views on abortion and gay marriage. . . .

Brownback sees the movement as a natural evolution, for him and for his party.

"My faith calls to deal with the poor," said Brownback, who was raised an evangelical Christian and converted to Roman Catholicism a few years ago. "And my faith says, as well, if you don't help the poor that is a wrong thing to do."

Get the Rest of the Story.

Bureaucratic Games in South Bend

Recently, I wrote, upon request from a friendly editor at CatholicExchange.com, an article on the "Notre Dame Queer Film Festival" held annually (apparently every February) at the revered South Bend institution (here is the link to the official festival website). The gist of my article was pointing out the abuse of the language involved in associating the phrase "Notre Dame/Our Lady" with something celebrating sodomy as love. Now either the phrase "Notre Dame" really does refer to the Virgin Mary and so we have unadulterated blasphemy; or that phrase's primary meaning is, at least in the decision-making corridors of power at this university, no longer to refer to Mary but to whatever goes on at this particular American educational institution. Either way you slice it, the words "Notre Dame" are being grievously misused: the ancient title for Mary is either being abused blasphemously, or is being deceptively altered in meaning by changing its primary historical reference to Mary.

Now, as we speak, the university is planning and discussing the third annual "Notre Dame Queer Film Festival" for next spring. Under the new presidency of a Fr. Jenkins, the university is apparently trying to find a way to rein in the controversial public relations aspect of this third annual event. But from one recent local news report there appears to be no move afoot to just plain stop hosting the event on university property and to stop several university departments from sponsoring and organizing it (see link). This same news report indicates that an effort may be afoot to try to say that, although hosted at the university, although sponsored and organized by several of the unversity's academic departments, the film series or festival is not "sponsored by the university." Here is an excerpt from a local South Bend newspaper report:

Fort Wayne-South Bend Bishop John D'Arcy sent a letter to the South Bend Tribune on Feb. 10 calling Notre Dame's willingness to host the event "an abuse of academic freedom."

The administration has countered this argument by explaining that the event is not University-sponsored but housed under specific academic departments. Last year, the Festival was sponsored by the FTT Department, the Gay and Lesbian Alumni/ae of the University of Notre Dame and Saint Mary's College (GALA ND/SMC), the English Department, the Anthropology Department, the History Department, the Counseling Center and the Gender Studies Program. Films were shown in the DeBartolo Center for the Performing Arts.

The Observer, 12/6/05, at this link (bold emphasis added).

Now forget about this particular university for a moment. What we see here, as a warning to all of us, is further absurd abuse of language in trying to have us believe that an event taking place on campus and organized by the departments and faculty of the unversity is somehow not "university-sponsored." That is a Machiavellian attempt at hoodwinking people. It is further deceptive abuse of language on top of the original outrage of associating a title of Mary with sodomy.

Let us see: are the football games not "university-sponsored" because organized by the Athletic Dept.? Are Masses not "university-sponsored" because scheduled by campus ministry or the department of residential life? Are diplomas for English majors not "university-sponsored" because certified by the faculty of the English Department? What does this university sponsor? Or does the "university" really exist? It seems to me that we see here an example of the disintegration of the concept of a university, especially a Catholic university, precisely because there is no unifiying and coherent vision of reality. It seems that this problem does not exist at Franciscan University in Steubenville or Ave Maria University in Florida. Those universities are not phantoms so hard to pin down.

Catholics in Congress on Torture

I recommend our readers check out the updated report on Catholics in Congress to see how our Catholic legislators came down on support for the McCain amendment prohibiting torture.

All of the Catholic senators voted for the amendment. Unfortunately, there were 21 Catholics in the House (20 Republicans and one Democrat) who voted against supporting the legislation. Though, I am not accusing these 21 Catholics of being "pro-torture", given the need, at this time in our battle against the terrorists, to reaffirm the United States objections to the the use of torture and the clear teaching of the Catholic Church against it (recently restated by a Vatican official) their "No" votes are IMO not an extension of their Catholic faith.

If it is wrong for pro-abort Catholics to ignore their faith on abortion, is it not wrong for these 21 House members to ignore it on torture?

"The truth is, politics and morality are inseparable. And as morality's foundation is religion, religion and politics are necessarily related. We need religion as a guide.” - Ronald Reagan

Bishop Frederick Henry on Catholic politicians

ZENIT interviews the bishop of the Diocese of Calgary (Alberta, Canada) and he has some direct, coherent things to say about a number of topics, including Catholic politicians who play the "personal beliefs" card:

Q: What would you say about the issue of Catholic politicians voting contrary to Catholic moral principles? How can Catholics be more active in bringing Church teaching into the political scene?

Bishop Henry: Catholic politicians have a duty to be morally coherent. They cannot live as spiritual schizophrenics.

In undertaking any public initiative, it is morally incoherent to leave out completely one's own fundamental convictions, whether for noble or pragmatic reasons. The truth regarding the human person and obligations to uphold this truth do not change when a politician leaves the security of the home and ventures into the secular or political sphere. In all that he or she does, the Catholic politician must work to proclaim and put into action the truth about man and the world.

All Catholic politicians would do well to imitate the example of St. Thomas More, who by his life and death taught that man cannot be separated from God, nor politics from morality. In him, there was no sign of a split between faith and culture, between timeless principles and daily life, but rather a convergence of political commitment.

While serving all, More knew well how to serve his king, that is the state, but above all wanted to serve God: "The king's good servant, but God's first."

When a politician acts in a manner that is scandalous to the faithful, harmful to society, and gravely immoral, I believe that in keeping with Canon 223, "Ecclesiastical authority is entitled to regulate, in view of the common good, the exercise of rights which are proper to Christ's faithful."

Although not the first course of action, this includes the right to holy Communion. For as Canon 915 states: "Those [...] who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to holy Communion."

(via Insight Scoop)

Catholic Conservatives Cheerleading Vengeful Warmongering Texans?!?

Stephen Hand (who blogs at TCRMusings) provides a lengthy quote from a soon-to-be-published article by Thomas Herron (Culture Wars) on Catholic Senator Eugene McCarthy (not to be confused with the infamous anti-communist Sen. Joe McCarthy). Stephen's citation contains a passing reference -- I would say mischaracterization -- of this particular blogging collective:

". . . His opposition to the Vietnam War, as he recounts in his The Year of the People (1969) was based on an application of the Catholic Just War Theory to our involvement in Big Muddy. Also the witness of Clergy and Laity Concerned About Vietnam which had been founded in 1966 by a young Lutheran clergyman from Brooklyn, Richard John Neuhaus, was influential in his thinking.

"He knew he was committing political suicide by challenging the vengeful Texan who occupied the White House and going against the leadership of his party which controlled both houses of Congress. But for Eugene McCarthy, a published Commonweal Catholic, the principles he was educated in were of paramount importance. It also didn't hurt that the blue collar French and Irish Catholic voters of Manchester, New Hampshire, confused him with that other Senator McCarthy and asked him why he wasn't talking so much about the Commie Menace anymore . . .

"These days there is a clique of young Catholic conservatives who like to talk about Catholics in the Public Square. In fact that is the name of one of their web sites although it really is little-more than cheer-leading for another vengeful warmongering Texan in the White House and his Catholic servants in Congress like Sam Brownback and Rick Santorum. It would behoove young Catholics who wish to really understand the application of Catholic social principles to American politics to fully examine the life of Eugene J. McCarthy. His roots in Catholic social teachings and the Catholic Revival are deep and we should honor him for his courageous attempt to end the Vietnam War in 1968. We should also ask ourselves why the Catholics in Congress can't bring forth his like to oppose this immoral war. As Patrick Buchanan and Scott McConnell have recently commented in The American Conservative where have you gone Gene McCarthy?"

My colleagues can respond to the charges (as well as the larger issue of Sen. McCarthy as role model) if they wish. But I personally found this characterization amusing, since the focus of this particular blog is by and large the relationship of Catholic legislators to the Church and their fidelity to Catholic teaching -- and to my knowledge, whatever our personal opinions on U.S. foreign policy in Iraq, we've engaged in precious little if any "cheerleading for vengeful warmongering Texans."

Perhaps I may be partly at fault in bringing down the wrath of these critics, having maintained another website and blog devoted to the issue of the war in Iraq and the just war tradition. And while I've never met Thomas Herron personally, I had been chastised previously in the pages of Culture Wars for my "rabid support of the current American occupation of Iraq" and sympathy for "the Jewish tribe," whoever they are (see Response to Thomas J. Herron Against The Grain Sept. 13, 2005 for the sordid details).

Culture Wars, if you can guess, is not very high on my reading list, so I appreciate the kindness of Stephen Hand for bringing this criticism to light.

* * *

Meanwhile, I'd like to take the opportunity to remind our readers that David Schrader has devoted much time and effort in compiling a detailed and very useful report on the Catholics in Congress, based on their voting record on abortion, euthanasia, human cloning, embryonic stem cell research (ESCR), torture, and same-sex marriage (SSM). In defense of Senator Rick Santorum and Senator Brownback, they have commendable records (compare them with some of the other infamous Catholic legislators -- Senators Kennedy and Kerry, for instance), and so I gladly join David in his support.

Real Social Justice

The Sunday N.Y. Times for December 4th had a wonderful column by lawyer and economist Ben Stein celebrating the life of his old friend and mentor economist and Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman who became famous at the University of Chicago while teaching there from 1946 to 1976. Friedman celebrated the virtues of the free market and is now in his nineties. Yes, he celebrated the virtues of the free market--I still recall my father carrying a copy of Friedman's 1980 bestseller Free to Choose--but Friedman, in my view, is one of the leading proponents of social justice today. Why? Friedman back in the nineteen fifties was, I believe, the first to propose school vouchers as an alternative to the public education monopoly of public money. He is still, in his nineties, crusading for that long overdue social justice reform.

Many fancy themselves great proponents of social justice in our society. In my opinion, the two greatest social justice issues in American society today are ending legal abortion and making school vouchers available to as many parents as possible--in that order. Yet, many who pride themselves on oozing with social compassion for the poor and the weak refuse to attack legal abortion and turn up their noses at school vouchers. In this world, things are not as they appear; and rhetorical self-description is highly suspect.

In his column praising Friedman, Stein gives us a grand example of the deceptive character of our high-flown rhetoric:

In about 1965, the whole world was worshipping at the altar of John F. Kennedy's words, "Ask not what your country can do for you--ask what you can do for your country." Professor Friedman, in his writing, said that neither was a fitting question in a free society. People should be asking what they can do for themselves and their friends and communities, not how they can serve the state or what they could get as wards of the state.

Ben Stein, "On Milton Friedman's Birthday, We Get the Present: Him," N.Y. Times, Sunday, Dec. 4, 2005.

Personally, I never "took" to Kennedy's famous rhetoric from his inaugural speech. I could not quite put my finger on it, but the high-flown phrase, nay command, always seemed empty and vacuous to me: words in search of elusive content, the sort of thing you would expect a politician or an aggressive salesmen to say. Sounds good, but what does he really mean? What is he trying to get me to do? Do I want to do what he is ordering me to do? Is his agenda really the agenda I want? To me, the phrase always seemed more manipulative than enlightening. (By the way, the Ronald Reagan of 1961 also had a similar reaction; he referred pejoratively to Kennedy's rhetoric as "statism," in spite of its glamorous presentation.)

So when I read Friedman's analysis of the absurdity of the Kennedy rhetoric, I can say "Eureka!," like Archimedes of old. The state is not our focus and should not be our focus. Catholic social justice teaching points precisely to what Friedman pointed to: ourselves, our families, our friends, our communities, our civic and cultural associations, our local schools and places of worship. I cannot give my love, affection, and loyalty to the abstract state. My country is not a state; my country, my patria, is the social web of friendship and affection that flourishes well beyond the state and, in many cases, in spite of the state and, nowadays, in great tension with the state. The state is, at its best, merely the framework for all of that to flourish. Our primary affection is not to the necessary and sometimes oppressive framework that is the state but to the content protected by the framework.

For too long, many of us have reflexively fallen for the vacuous rhetoric of those who, in seeking the levers of power over us, give encomiums to the state. For too long, the superficial and deceptive glamour first brought to American politics by Kennedy has clouded reality. That is why today it is still a shock to many that, if we want to look for the real crusaders for social justice, we need to look in some places we may have wrongly viewed as unlikely focuses of compassion. We need to look at those who are willing to address the leading social justice issues of our time: ending legal abortion and putting school vouchers in the hands of as many parents, especially inner city parents, as possible. Surprise of surprises: we do better in embracing social justice by looking to the education reform long proposed by the conservative Jewish economist from Chicago than to the rhetoric of the ostensibly Catholic pol from Boston. But, then again, the truth has a way of surprising us. It's a funny image: maybe the inner city poor should hang a picture of the balding and bespectacled Professor Friedman next to that of the tanned and well-coiffed glamour icon of the sixties!

Note: For the record, I am not aware of Friedman's position on abortion and disagree with Friedman's apparent proposal for drug legalization. But on school vouchers, I am with Friedman all the way. Here is a link to the Friedman Foundation website for the curious.

Another Catholic in the US Senate

Incoming New Jersey governor John Corzine will appoint Representative Robert Menendez to fill his Senate seat. Rep Menendez's voting record is less than stellar:

Voted against:
the Partial Birth Abortion ban
a ban on human cloning
the Unborn Victims of Violence Act
a ban on federally controlled substances for assisted suicide

Voted for:
lifting the ban on abortions in military facilities
funding UNFPA
increasing federal funding of ESCR

I suspect Senator Menendez's voting record will be no different.

If there was any doubt...

...B16 says:

Children Deserve Married Parents and Presents Institution as "Patrimony of Humanity"

VATICAN CITY, DEC. 4, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Children have the right to parents who are married, says Benedict XVI.

The Pope made this point when addressing participants of a conference of presidents of the episcopal commissions in Latin America for the family and for life. The conference Saturday was organized by the Pontifical Council for the Family.

"Children have the right to be born and to grow within a family based on marriage," said the Holy Father, who invited the ecclesial community to "present in all its richness the extraordinary value of marriage that, as a natural institution, is the 'patrimony of humanity.'"

In his address in Spanish, Benedict XVI stated that "the present phenomenon of secularization … hinders the social conscience from properly discovering the identity and mission of the family institution."

In recent times, continued the Pontiff, "unjust laws" have been approved that "are ignorant of the fundamentals of the same."

"New forms of marriage have been proposed, some of them unknown in the cultures of the nations, in which its specific nature is altered," he said in an implicit reference to so-called same-sex marriage.

"Truly, children are the greatest wealth and most appreciated good of the family," the Pope continued. "That is why it is necessary to help all persons to become aware of the intrinsic evil of the crime of abortion that, in attempting against a human life in its beginning, is also an aggression against society itself."

The Church reminds "politicians and lawmakers, as servants of the social good," of their duty "to defend the fundamental right to life, fruit of the love of God," he added.

When this is forgotten, Benedict XVI continued, "the elimination of the embryo or its arbitrary use" is facilitated "in the interest of the progress of science," which without ethics "becomes a threat to the human being himself, being reduced to an object or a mere instrument."

"When these levels are reached," he added, "society itself is offended and its foundations are shaken with all sorts of risks."