Scandal in Notre Dame: Utilius est illi si lapis molaris ....

In assessing Fr. Jenkins's invitation of President Obama to Notre Dame, one must focus on two parts of the matter. First, one should look at Fr. Jenkins's act of inviting President Obama and awarding him with an honorary degree considering President Obama's extreme views and voting record on abortion and stem cell research. In this regard, one must ask whether it was scandal, or perhaps merely bad judgment or imprudent. Second, one should look at President Obama's speech itself, and see why the speech was not a call toward peace and cooperation, but a call to the Christian soldier to surrender to secularism and consequentialism if he is to participate in the democratic process. I will address the issue of scandal in this post, and will assess President Obama's speech in a subsequent post.

In assessing the propriety of Fr. Jenkins's act, it behooves us to reflect on the meaning of the word "scandal." It is a word that comes to us from the Greek word "skandalon" (σκάνδαλον). The word refers to that part of the trap to which bait is attached, and, as a synecdoche, to the entire trap. It also has the meaning of a stone or tripping hazard on a road or pathway. The word has wended its way into the idiom of the Church, as most things have, from Scripture. There are myriad references to "skandalon" in the Scriptures, and any good Greek concordance will point you to them. But perhaps the most ominous use of the word is the Lord's own appropriation of it in the Gospel of Luke (17:1-2):

It is impossible that scandals should not come; but woe to him through whom they come! It were better for him if a millstone were hung about his neck and he were thrown into the sea, than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.

We have lost the sense of the seriousness of scandal, largely because, as Pope John Paul II reminded us during his pilgrimage on earth, modern man's sin is that he has lost the sense of sin. If you lose the sense of sin, you will lose your grip on the seriousness of giving scandal.

In inviting President Obama and awarding him with an honorary degree, did Fr. Jenkins cause "scandal"? Did he lay a "trap" or a "stumbling block" to others to sin? In answering the question, we should turn to the resources of the Church, specifically, her moral theologians. Over the centuries, as moral theologians have reflected on God's Word, they have made useful distinctions regarding the sin of scandal. The principal concern surrounding scandal is avoiding the occasion, incitement, or excuse to another to sin. For scandal to occur, sin need not necessarily follow; it is sufficient that there be the strong probablity that sin could be occasioned, incited, or excused as a result. In other words, it is sufficient if the scandal could tempt another to sin. Moral theologians also distinguish between direct and indirect scandal. Scandal is indirect if the incitement to sin is not intended by the person giving scandal, even though it may be foreseeable that such incitement could be occasioned. The scandal is direct if the incitement to sin is intended by the person giving scandal. Scandal is diabolical if the person causing scandal has the specific intention of manifesting his hatred of God by inciting another person to sin. Finally, there is the so-called scandal of the weak. This latter notion derives from St. Paul's first letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 8:9, 13). Christians have an obligation to take reasonable steps to avoid giving scandal to the weak, to the confused, or to the ignorant, even when the particular action that may be involved is, in itself, good or at least indifferent. If it is foreseeable that scandal could result from a certain act, we ought to refrain from that act, if it can easily be done, even though the act itself may not be wrong. So did St. Paul instruct the Corinthians when he advised them not to eat flesh that had been sacrificed to idols, though there was no sin in it, "lest perhaps this right of yours become a stumbling block to the weak .... If food scandalizes my brother, I will eat flesh no more forever, lest I scandalize my brother." Ultimately, causing scandal--whether direct, indirect, or of the weak--is considered a sin against Charity, that is, Love. One who gives scandal does not obey the Golden Rule. He does not obey Christ's injunction to love his neighbor as himself, or to love his neighbor as God loved us.

I do not think anyone accuses Fr. Jenkins, the President of Notre Dame, of diabolical or even direct scandal. The issue is whether Fr. Jenkins caused indirect scandal or scandal to the weak by inviting President Obama to give the commencement address and by awarding him with an honorary doctorate in law. In assessing Fr. Jenkins's behavior, and whether it is the indirect cause of scandal, one should consider other circumstances. First, one should consider the Statement of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2004 entitled "Catholics in Political Life," of which Fr. Jenkins was aware. That document, states:

The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.

Clearly, the intendment of this directive by the U.S. Bishops was to avoid scandal. The Christian faithful have an expectation that the pronouncements of their bishops will be obeyed by the clergy.

More, in assessing Fr. Jenkins's decision, one should consider that he failed to consult with his own ordinary, Bishop D'Arcy, before inviting President Obama to campus. This was imprudent and disrespectful to his ordinary, to say the least. After the matter became public, it became clear that Bishop D'Arcy had informed Jenkins of his disapproval, his belief that he "considered it settled" that awarding any honorary degree contradicted the 2004 USCCB directive, and that Bishop D'Arcy himself was aware of the "outpouring of hundreds of thousands who are shocked by the invitation clearly demonstrates, that this invitation has, in fact, scandalized many Catholics and other people of goodwill." "In my office alone," Bishop D'Arcy informed Fr. Jenkins, "there have been over 3,300 messages of shock, dismay and outrage, and they are still coming in. It seems that the action in itself speaks so loudly that ... the action has suggested approval to many."
Given Fr. Jenkins's awareness of President Obama's public stances on stem cell research and abortion, and given his awareness of the 2004 USCCB directive as construed by D'Arcy, and given his knowledge that hundreds of thousands of the faithful would be confused, angered, and shaken by the invitation and granting of an honorary degree to a person so publically against the Church's teaching, it seems beyond argument that Fr. Jenkins went far beyond scandal of the weak, and is guilty of causing indirect scandal to many of Christ's faithful. We are dealing with far more than imprudence or bad judgment. We are dealing with a scandal, the result of which is a further erosion of the moral authority of the Church. It is just a skirmish, perhaps, in the long social war against abortion's blight. Symbolically and politically, however, it was a great concession to our opponents in America's culture war. And to those of our brothers and sisters who are smallest and weakest, and who are refused the right to life, liberty, and happiness, it was a sad betrayal. We should have expected more from Fr. Jenkins, and from Notre Dame.

St. Ambrose, bishop of Milan, refused to allow the Emperor Theodosius entry into his cathedral after the emperor slaughtered thousands in Thessalonica who had rebelled against his authority. The massacre of innocents shocked St. Ambrose, who demanded 8 months penance from the Emperor for this imprudent and sinful act. Whatever Fr. Jenkins is, he is no St. Ambrose. The Church should demand the smug, proud, and self-assured President Obama, what it should demand of all, that he should come to his knees and repent for his participation and promotion of a massacre, a constant holocaust of victims, to the insatiable appetite of Moloch. It is a message President Obama must hear, not only for the souls of his little victims who have no voice, but for his own soul.

First, Moloch, horrid King, besmeared with blood
Of human sacrifice, and parents’ tears;
Though, for the noise of drums and timbrels loud,
Their children’s cries unheard that passed through fire
To his grim idol. Him the Ammonite
Worshiped in Rabba and her watery plain,
In Argob and in Basan, to the stream
Of utmost Arnon. Nor content with such
Audacious neighbourhood, the wisest heart
Of Solomon he led by fraud to build
His temple right against the temple of God
On that opprobrious hill, and made his grove
The pleasant valley of Hinnom, Tophet thence
And black Gehenna called, the type of Hell.

Milton, Paradise Lost, i. 391-405

America, Quo Vadis?

President Obama announced to the world--to the Turks no less--that the United States is no longer a Christian Nation. "We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation; we consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values." This echoes his statement in June 2006: "Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation--at least, not just. We are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, and a Hindu nation, and a nation of nobelievers."
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One could take Obama to task for the obvious contradictions and confusions in the speech. How can one nation have other nations in it? Are we a "nation of citizens bound by ideals and a set of values," and also a "Christian nation," a "Jewish nation," a "Hindu nation," and a "nation of nonbelievers"? Is ours a nation of nations within nations? If so, is America also a "Wikkan nation," a "Satanist nation," and a "who-knows-what-else nation"? Regardless of the confusion, there is no reason to doubt Obama's sincere belief that our nation is no longer Christian, and, from the appearance of it (as well as our practice), most of the pundits would probably agree with him. A country which finds abortion to be a fundamental human and constitutional right is not a Christian nation. A country where more than 50% of its marriages end in State-sanctioned divorce is not a Christian nation. A country where same-sex "marriage" appears to be gaining ground is not a Christian nation. We have traversed across some boundary, and it is probably accurate to say that we are in a post-Christian America. But there was a time, not so very long time ago, where the majority view was against President Obama's. Our country's "Non serviam" is of fairly recent origin.

One can easily scour the public records of our nation and select evidence of the fact that we conscientiously styled ourselves as a "Christian nation" not so very long ago. Several examples may be culled from our nation's records. Most ironically, perhaps, may be the example of Justice Brewer (1937-1910), an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. In his book The United States: A Christian Nation, published in 1904, Justice Brewer stated "This republic is classified among the Christian nations of the world." The irony? Justice Brewer was born of American parents in Turkey. I'm sure, had he the chance, he would have informed the Turks in 1900 something different that did President Obama did in 2009.

On may also point to the case of Holy Trinity Church v. United States, 143 U.S. 471, 12 S.Ct. 511, 36 L.Ed. 226 (1892). After reciting a barrage of proof and historial justifications as prolegomena, a unanimous Supreme Court concluded as if it was a truism that "this is a Christian nation."Id. at 471. Chief Justice Melville Fuller, and Associate Justices Stephen J. Field, Joseph P. Bradley, John M. Harlan, Horace Gray, Samuel Blatchford, Lucius Q. C. Lamar II, and Henry B. Brown joined the opinion of Associate Justice Brewer. There was no dissent. Things have obviously changed. It is doubtful that even Justices Scalia and Thomas would, in a dissent given the opportunity, describe America as a "Christian nation." (Though no doubt they would recognize the role of Christianity in the formulation of the American organic, fundamental documents.) Clearly, something has changed.

(To see the Trinity Church opinion, click here.)

If Justice Brewer is accused of being a lightweight justice, and the Trinity Church is pointed to as an aberrant decisions or merely dicta, one may turn to the venerable Justice Story (1779-1845), who in Section 1867 of his third volume of his great commentary on the United States Constitution stated:

"§ 1867. Now, there will probably be found few persons in this, or any other Christian country, who would deliberately contend, that it was unreasonable, or unjust to foster and encourage the Christian religion generally, as a matter of sound policy, as well as of revealed truth. In fact, every American colony, from its foundation down to the revolution, with the exception of Rhode Island, (if, indeed, that state be an exception,) did openly, by the whole course of its laws and institutions, support and sustain, in some form, the Christian religion; and almost invariably gave a peculiar sanction to some of its fundamental doctrines. And this has continued to be the case in some of the states down to the present period, without the slightest suspicion, that it was against the principles of public law, or republican liberty. Indeed, in a republic, there would seem to be a peculiar propriety in viewing the Christian religion, as the great basis, on which it must rest for its support and permanence, if it be, what it has ever been deemed by its truest friends to be, the religion of liberty. Montesquieu has remarked, that the Christian religion is a stranger to mere despotic power. The mildness so frequently recommended in the gospel is incompatible with the despotic rage, with which a prince punishes his subjects, and exercises himself in cruelty. He has gone even further, and affirmed, that the Protestant religion is far more congenial with the spirit of political freedom, than the Catholic. "When," says he, "the Christian religion, two centuries ago, became unhappily, divided into Catholic and Protestant, the people of the north embraced the Protestant, and those of the south still adhered to the Catholic. The reason is plain. The people of the north have, and will ever have, a spirit of liberty and independence, which the people of the south have not. And, therefore, a religion, which has no visible head, is more agreeable to the independency of climate, than that, which has one." Without stopping to inquire, whether this remark be well founded, it is certainly true, that the parent country has acted upon it with a severe and vigilant zeal; and in most of the colonies the same rigid jealousy has been maintained almost down to our own times. Massachusetts, while she has promulgated in her BILL OF RIGHTS the importance and necessity of the public support of religion, and the worship of God, has authorized the legislature to require it only for Protestantism. The language of that bill of rights is remarkable for its pointed affirmation of the duty of government to support Christianity, and the reasons for it. "As," says the third article, "the happiness of a people, and the good order and preservation of civil government, essentially depend upon piety, religion, and morality; and as these cannot be generally diffused through the community, but by the institution of the public worship of God, and of public instructions in piety, religion, and morality; therefore, to promote their happiness and to secure the good order and preservation of their government, the people of this Commonwealth have a right to invest their legislature with power to authorize, and require, and the legislature shall from time to time authorize and require, the several towns, parishes, &c. &c. to make suitable provision at their own expense for the institution of the public worship of God, and for the support and maintenance of public protestant teachers of piety, religion, and morality, in all cases where such provision shall not be made voluntarily." Afterwards there follow provisions, prohibiting any superiority of one sect over another, and securing to all citizens the free exercise of religion."

(To see Justice Story's Commentary, click here.)

There is no doubt that the public "Christianity" mentioned by Justices Brewer and Story and by the Supreme Court in the Trinity Church case was a far cry from the rugged, confident, ebullient albeit primitive Christianity that Charlemagne, Alfred the Great, or St. Aethelbert tried to promote in their respect lands. Not only was this "Christianity" of a protestant varietal, it was, by this time, already quite watered down. And every generation until its eventual demise as a public religion it grew more insipid and brackish. At some point in time--not with a bang, but with a whimper--it was replaced by another public religion, that of secular humanism, that "civil religion" of which Robert Bellah has written. George M. Marsden has referred to this process as the "second disestablishment," the first being found in the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. (See The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 32). This secular regime is the regime under which we operate today. It is a cultural regime that (in the words of Peter Berger) operates on the principle of "methodological atheism." That practical atheism prevails in our public schools, our academies and universities, and in our arts, politics, government, and law.

One will find a similar transformation with that particular philosophy of law or jurisprudence known as the Natural Law. One can easily show--as I will in the next blog post--how natural law jurisprudence had the field at the founding of our nation. In the middle of the 19th century, however, things began visibly to change, and the natural law jurisprudence was jettisoned in fits and starts, until the 20th century where it virtually disappeared from the teaching of our laws chools and the language of our opinions and our law. There is, however, a remnant bastion of professors and philosophers that still intelligently advance natural law jurisprudence. Though the history of the natural law is a bit checkered in the Protestant traditions, there is modernly a recognition of the wisdom of a natural law jurisprudence by Protestant scholars. The Catholic Church has never wavered from its advocacy of a natural moral law, based upon right reason, that universally binds all men irrespective of creed or condition.

So what happened the last 100 years or so that has brought us to this juncture, where Christianity and the Natural Law are no longer part of our public conversations (except perhaps to be exposed to ridicule), will be part of the discussions of this blog. But what happened the last 100 years also depends upon what happened almost 500 years before that.

There will be plenty to talk about.

"Be Angry at the Sun"

This day's entry is a poem by Robinson Jeffers entitled "Be Angry at the Sun." It comes from his collection of poems of the same name Be Angry with the Sun published by Random House in 1941. Though Robinson Jeffers is not by any means a Christian poet, and his notion of "inhumanism" subject to serious reservations, Robinson evinces a deep natural religiosity. His poem expresses, I think, the stoic resignation required by the Christian as he sees the current state of the American Republic and the distasteful and unholy trinity at its head, Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi. After achieving calm, the Christian should turn to the Cross and pray.

Be Angry At The Sun

That public men publish falsehoods
Is nothing new. That America must accept
Like the historical republics corruption and empire
Has been known for years.

Be angry at the sun for setting
If these things anger you. Watch the wheel slope and turn,
They are all bound on the wheel, these people, those warriors.
This republic, Europe, Asia.

Observe them gesticulating,
Observe them going down. The gang serves lies, the passionate
Man plays his part; the cold passion for truth
Hunts in no pack.

You are not Catullus, you know,
To lampoon these crude sketches of Caesar. You are far
From Dante's feet, but even farther from his dirty
Political hatreds.

Let boys want pleasure, and men
Struggle for power, and women perhaps for fame,
And the servile to serve a Leader and the dupes to be duped.
Yours is not theirs.

Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962)