Articles by Russell Shaw
Iraqi Christians paying the price for US 'victory' over Saddam Hussein?
Dec 20, 2010 / 00:00 amI see that apologists for the Iraq war are now pronouncing it a success. Even by modest standards of success—a sort of stable kind of democratic Iraq, with a tolerable level of violence (whatever “tolerable” violence might be)—that judgment plainly is premature. Although I opposed the war from the outset on moral grounds, while it was underway I wrote that, applying the most modest of pragmatic standards, it couldn’t be judged either a success or a failure for at least 10 years. That still seems about right. Meanwhile, though, at least two things about this war are all too clear. One is that, pending further developments, the big winners up to this time are the America-hating mullahs of Iran. The United States has handed them a weakened Iraq under Shiite leadership, a highly desirable gift from the mullahs’ point of view. The other is that, with the exception of Saddam Hussein and his crowd, the biggest losers as usual are innocent parties, and in a special way Iraqi Catholics and other Christians.George W. Bush was eager to go into their country and Barack Obama was eager to get out. By a painful coincidence, the disparate exigencies of these two American presidents have come together to help create conditions for a tragedy of historic proportions now being experienced by the Iraqi Christian community.The tragedy reached a bloody climax Oct. 31 when terrorists stormed into the Syrian Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady of Deliverance in Baghdad. Before it was over, 58 Christians had been killed, including two priests, and 75 injured. As the slaughter was taking place, a three-year-old boy named Adam wandered amid the carnage pleading with the killers to stop. Finally they killed him, too. That’s what you do in a holy war, I guess.Before the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Iraqi Christian community numbered about 900,000. Now it’s about 350,000. Most of the rest are refugees stranded in camps in Syria and Jordan. Terrorists like the ones who stormed the cathedral in Baghdad are most directly to blame of course. But the U.S. needs to shoulder its share of responsibility and take quick and effective action to relieve the plight of these people.Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, outgoing president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, made that point in a Nov. 10 letter to President Obama. “Having invaded Iraq,” he said, “our nation has a moral obligation not to abandon those Iraqis who cannot defend themselves.” Among the minimum steps necessary, according to the cardinal, are strengthening the capacity of the Iraqi military and police to provide security for everybody, “including minorities,” promoting human rights, especially religious freedom, rebuilding the country’s “shattered” economy, and assisting Iraqi refugees.Toward the end of last month, the House of Representatives adopted a resolution calling for the protection of Iraqi religious minorities. The action was praised by chairmen of bishops’ conference committees for international justice and peace and migration. No doubt it was a welcome gesture, but a congressional resolution is only words on paper.What’s imperative now are tangible steps by the American government to give concrete help to Iraqi Christians who choose to leave their troubled country along with those who choose to stay—or who perhaps stay because they have no other choice. In his letter to Obama, Cardinal George termed “decimation of the Christian community in Iraq” one of the “tragic consequences” of the war. If that’s success, what could failure possibly look like?
A public relations flub, but no seismic shift in teaching
Nov 30, 2010 / 00:00 amThe first and perhaps most important thing to say about Pope Benedict XVI’s remarks on the subject of condoms and AIDS is that they in no way change the Church’s teaching that contraception is wrong. If the Pope’s comments were a “game changer,” as Father James Martin, SJ, of America magazine says, this wasn’t the game. Nor did Pope Benedict depart from his previously stated position — the position of the Church — that abstinence is the morally correct course of action for someone infected with HIV. Sexual abstinence may not be popular today, but morality is about what’s right, not what’s popular. So what did the Pope say about these matters that was new in his book-length interview with German journalist Peter Seewald, published in English as “Light of the World” (Ignatius Press)? Just this.If someone infected with HIV nevertheless persists in sexual activity despite its wrongness, at least it should be in a way that involves the least potential harm to the other party — by using a condom, that is. This is a minimal step in the direction of responsibility. It was here that Pope Benedict offered his now-famous example of a male prostitute. I don’t mean to dismiss the newness of this papal statement. It will be discussed for a long time to come. But to call it a “seismic shift” in Church teaching, as an AP story did, was over the edge. What the Church has long taught remains fully intact. Contrary to some of the commentary, Pope Benedict was not advocating the choice of the “lesser evil.” Evil, whether lesser or greater, may never be chosen. If it’s necessary to lift a phrase out of the moral theology manuals, try “double effect.” In a double effect situation, the same action produces two results, one good and one bad, and in certain circumstances it can be allowable to perform the action for the sake of the good, though never the bad. Condom use to prevent HIV transmission could be something like that. The Pope’s remarks do not apply to the situation of a married couple who believe that pregnancy would threaten the woman’s life. Preventing conception (something good in itself) and preventing the transmission of a deadly disease (something bad in itself) are radically different in a moral perspective. The only right —and responsible — course of action for a couple like this is abstinence. A lot of people have blamed the media for the confusion that has surrounded this incident. In some instances, the media did indeed blow it, but that was hardly their fault.Seewald’s book carried a Nov. 23 embargo. On Nov. 20, L’Osservatore Romano published excerpts — reportedly with authorization from the Vatican publishing house — and thereby broke the embargo. This in turn led to an eminently predictable media frenzy. As far as I can tell, moreover, the Vatican had no plan in place to provide journalists with an authoritative background briefing by experts in order supply explanation and interpretation of what the Pope had said. Instead, the director of the press office issued a statement and then went ahead with a previously scheduled Nov. 23 news conference to plug the book. The result of that was to keep the story alive and give some newcomers a well publicized opportunity to get their oars in and add to the confusion that already existed. In sum, nothing fundamental has changed. Pope Benedict shed some new light on a relatively new question. The Vatican flubbed its media relations one more time. That’s about all.
Reading the Mid-Terms: What does it tell us about the Catholic vote?
Nov 23, 2010 / 00:00 amA Catholic vote or Catholics voting? The recent election sheds fresh light on that question. On Nov. 2 about 55 percent of the Catholics who voted, give or take a percentage point or two, voted Republican. In the two previous elections, Catholics as a group had tilted to the Democrats. This has been the pattern for years, with Catholics mirroring the electorate at large in their back and forth swings between the two parties. Yes, certain Catholic subgroups—notably, weekly churchgoers and Hispanics—are consistent in their voting, though in quite different directions. The rest are not. If, then, there ever was such a thing as a Catholic vote, there evidently isn’t one now. As Joseph Bottum, former editor of First Things correctly remarks, American Catholics as a group have “ceased to be any kind of a distinct voting bloc”—provided by that one means an identifiable body of voters who consistently vote along lines defined by specific values and commitments. In the present lull between election seasons—destined, certainly, to be all too brief—it’s worth reflecting on these matters before the campaign of 2012 goes into hysteria mode. Fifty or 60 years ago, it was relatively easy to talk about the responsibilities of Catholic voters. All that really needed saying was something like this: “When it comes to participation in politics, Catholics should observe the teaching of the Church and the principles of natural law where these are clear and well defined, but in regard to everything else—and that includes a great deal—Catholics are free to use their consciences and make up their minds for themselves.” But that was before the authority of the Church was undermined by, as Bottum puts it, “the priest scandal and the constant attack from the nation’s press” and before the moral consensus sustained by natural law largely broke down in American society. In his eloquent defense of natural law, “We Hold These Truths,” published in 1960, Father John Courtney Murray, S.J., conceded that even then natural law thinking had for a long time been abandoned in key sectors of American academic and intellectual life, and the consensus sustaining politics and society in general was in danger of collapse. Father Murray was right. And over the past half-century the nation has continued to experience that collapse and its consequences. Now America is a country of well over 300 million people loosely organized into frequently competing interest groups that lack a shared moral compass to shape their decisions and actions in common. All this impacts as much on Catholics as it does on any others. It’s visible in the fact that Catholics taken as a body are about as inclined (or disinclined) as other Americans to support candidates for office who back legalized abortion, liberalized “gay rights” laws including same-sex marriage, and other items on the agenda of libertarian individualism that has taken the place of the natural law consensus in significant sectors of today’s America. There are no quick and easy remedies for this state of affairs. From the standpoint of the Church it constitutes what, in religious terms, is frequently described as a serious catechetical problem. That is to say, it’s a matter of education. But to say that simply points to another problem: How many Catholics who need instruction are in fact listening these days? Meanwhile, hold on to your hats—2012 is just around the corner, and it’s anybody’s guess which way Catholic voters will swing that year and, more important perhaps, what will move them.
Some questions about direct-mail religion
Nov 1, 2010 / 00:00 am“I’m getting more and more ticked off about this stuff,” I said.“How’s that?” my youngest daughter replied. “Day after day I get these direct mail appeals from religious groups.” I waved that day’s arrivals in the air. “No doubt some of them are good causes, and I assume that they all operate within the law. But the pitch that many of them make really does get under my skin.” “How’s that?” the daughter asked again. “Look at these.” I read from a couple of the envelopes. “‘Enclosed you will find a medal that touched the saint’s relic.’ ‘Send us money and we’ll send you blessed oil—strictly as gift of course.’” “And this one is the absolute worst—a crucifix. If somebody wants a crucifix and decides to buy one, that’s just fine with me. But sending unsolicited crucifixes through the mail in the hope that pious people will send a few dollars back … what do you think a lot of people do with them?” “Throw them away, I guess,” the daughter said, making a throwing-away gesture. “Exactly. But a crucifix is a sacred symbol, a religious object with tremendous spiritual meaning. This whole business makes me sick.” “Maybe it’s something else to write about,” the daughter suggested helpfully. I pondered that. “You may be right.” She was. I expect you’ve gotten the drift of this column by now. Religious groups are entitled to raise money, and to use direct mail if they wish. But sending cheap religious articles—medals, holy pictures, rosaries, statuettes—to people who didn’t ask for them crosses the line into a realm that can reasonably be called sacrilegious. Here’s a real-life illustration of the human harm this practice can have. I used to know a pious Catholic woman, now deceased, who unfortunately was afflicted with scrupulosity. One form that took was the idea that she had to send money to every single religious group that sent her a piece of direct mail. And so she did—send them all money, I mean. Now, she was not a wealthy woman, and I imagine she had to strain to come up with even a small check for every outfit that asked. This was a clear case of the religious groups exploiting a good person’s weakness for their own benefit. The exploitation is even worse when the bait is an unsolicited religious article. In that case the sender counts on the recipient’s respect for religious symbols—more respect, I might add, than the sender shows. Yes, some people welcome the religious articles they receive this way and are glad to make a donation. So here’s an approach that takes that into account while facing up to the problem I’m talking about. Instead of sending religious articles indiscriminately to people who’ll want them and people who won’t, tell everyone who gets your mailing that they can receive the rosary or the medal or whatever it is simply by writing back and asking (free-will offerings gladly received of course). If someone objects that this takes guilt out of the picture (am I not obliged to pay for what I get, even if I didn’t ask for it?), I reply: Do you really imagine it’s okay to squeeze money out of simple, pious souls by making them feel guilty? Religious groups that raise funds this way should stop exploiting people and causing scandal. Recipients should refuse to give in to psychological bullying. And Church authorities should speak up about an obnoxious practice that’s clearly gotten out of hand.