Articles by Father Thomas Berg
Healthcare, Human Life and America
Mar 23, 2010 / 00:00 amLike millions of Americans, I watched the healthcare legislation drama unfold from last summer to its catastrophic climax Sunday night. The 219 to 212 House vote approving the Senate health bill was, for this country, a before-and-after moment of epic proportion and as such it will be remembered.
Why I Didn't Give Up Facebook for Lent
Mar 16, 2010 / 00:00 amI would like to dedicate this column to all my Facebook friends.
Our Sex-Crazed Culture
Feb 16, 2010 / 00:00 amLast week, I shared my dismay at how “unimportant” sex has become to young adults these days. By this I meant how our culture simultaneously places a tremendous premium on having sex, and in so doing, empties sex of its God-given meaning and value.
The Unimportance of Sex
Feb 9, 2010 / 00:00 amI don't often write about sex.But as a priest who has prepared dozens of engaged couples for marriage, I have a unique perspective on the topic.To begin with, what amazes me most these days is how unimportant sex has become for most couples. Let me explain. Of course, in one sense, intercourse is hugely important to young people; if it weren't, 7 out of 10 would not have "done it" by age 19. Being sexually active exercises an obsessive kind of importance for many, if not most girls in their early teen years -- sadly today, for most girls, it is the key to social acceptance. What I'm getting at, rather, is that most of the young adults I deal with as a priest have been having sex for several years, perhaps a decade, before they end up in my office at the rectory wanting to get married. But this is what I hear and see when we talk: Gone is that anticipation which -- somewhere, once upon a time -- would characterize an engaged couple, even those who maybe, during courtship, slipped and had a roll in the hay. Gone is the expectation, the longing for sexual intimacy. Gone is the excitement about the wedding night. Gone is the sense of urgency to get to that day... because in a way, they've been there already; done that. Sex just is not that important to them anymore.To put it another way, our culture simultaneously places a tremendously high value on having sex, and in so doing, devalues sex by treating it as a consumer item. In so doing, sex is also stripped of its God-given meaning. Today, of course, it's a truism to say that 'sex has lost its meaning.' Not only can we not recall what sex was ever about, the very notion that sex was even supposed to have a 'meaning' provokes reactions of utter befuddlement: "Like, what do you mean?"The first step in getting minds and hearts open to the genuine meaning of human sexuality as intended by its Author is to re-associate and stitch back together the three realities of sexual intercourse, marriage and procreation. The phenomenon of recreational sex, along with the contraceptive mentality and the boom in artificial reproductive technologies, have combined to set these three realities asunder in the most unnatural way imaginable. The hook-up culture has reduced sex to little more than 'a really cool thing', up there with lots of other passing thrills that have zero relation to marriage. The reality of human procreation, in turn, filtered through the contraceptive mentality, has been entirely disassociated from sexual intercourse -- to such an extent that all too often, when a pregnancy does result from intercourse, it's perceived as an "accident", a "failure", a "crisis", a show-stopper, and an abnormality requiring medical treatment. Not to mention, of course, that babies can be made today entirely apart from marriage and even intercourse. It is vitally urgent that we help our young people rediscover, in the very intelligibility of our human nature and human flourishing, how these three realities (sexual intercourse, marriage and procreation) live and hang together. We must continue to strive to find creative ways to help them understand:• Why and how sex is meant to make a man and a woman one flesh;• That we call this one flesh-union 'marriage'; • That this union is so real that it might look into their eyes someday and say "mommy"... and ... "daddy;" • That our bodies speak a language, and that sexual intercourse "says" something.• That sex was intended by the Creator to allow a husband and wife to say physically, in the language of the body, what they said with lips and hearts the day of their marriage: "I... take you... to be my spouse. I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honor you all the days of my life."• That sex was thus meant to be the celebration and renewal of the marriage covenant.That is what sex means. That is why sex is important.And that is why we need to share this good news with our young people.
Recovery in the Big Easy
Feb 2, 2010 / 00:00 amJust days before Super Sunday, I cannot resist writing about a team, and more importantly a city and a people I have come to love. There was so much more behind the New Orleans Saints victory over the Minnesota Vikings -- clinching the NFC championship -- than the average sport fan might imagine. Their victory was about the recovery, renewal, and indeed the emotional and psychological resurrection of a people and a city.In late August of 2005, New Orleans was devastated by hurricane Katrina. The horrific symbol of this great city's destruction and plunge into darkness was the Superdome in the days immediately following the storm. A recent AP story told it well:
Catholic Teaching on Assisted Nutrition and Hydration
Jan 26, 2010 / 00:00 amThe United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services (ERDs) offer authoritative moral guidance to Catholic healthcare facilities on several difficult moral matters. Last November, the USCCB revised these directives on the issue of providing patients -- particularly those diagnosed as being in a "persistent vegetative state" (PVS) -- with assisted nutrition and hydration (ANH). In the wake of the revision, there has been some misleading information and confusion about this important matter. I offer the following to help clarify what the revision really means. Prior to the revision, Directive 58 of the ERDs stated that there should be a "presumption in favor of providing nutrition and hydration" to patients with chronic conditions like PVS, and who are not imminently dying. The revision of ERD 58 now clarifies that such patients should receive food and water by "medically assisted" means if necessary: In principle, there is an obligation to provide patients with food and water, including medically assisted nutrition and hydration for those who cannot take food orally. This obligation extends to patients in chronic and presumably irreversible conditions (e.g., the "persistent vegetative state") who can reasonably be expected to live indefinitely if given such care.
Haiti
Jan 19, 2010 / 00:00 amHaiti.Prior to January 12, 2010, the name automatically evoked images of immense poverty, exploitation, political corruption, and social unrest.It will now forever suggest the notion of catastrophic disaster, ominously ranked among the worst earthquakes in recent history: the Sichuan, China quake of 2008 that killed 70,000; the Kashmir quake of 2005 that left 90,000 dead, and the Indian Ocean quake of 2004 the killed 230,000 people. Haiti was still recovering from the deadly hurricanes that ravished the country in 2008 when the quake struck.I am sure we all had a similar experience last week: sipping our coffee over breakfast, reading the tales of despair and horror in the morning newspaper, or watching the endless images of bodies, bloodied children, and devastation streaming over the cable news stations -- how could we not be overwhelmed by a sense of frustration at our own inadequacy or inability to come to the immediate aid of those in need? And we could only be consoled that amidst the devastation, there were also miracles. Most of us recall the recent history of the western hemisphere's poorest nation. Following a coup d'etat in September 1991, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was flown into exile. Three years later, the country narrowly averted a U.S. invasion when 11th hour diplomatic efforts managed to excise the military junta and restore Aristide to power. Aristide was eventually removed from power by the U.S. military in 2004. In May of 2006, Rene Préval became the president of a country which today, in the words of Archbishop Timothy Dolan, lies before us as "the broken and bloodied body of Jesus in the arms of his blessed mother."The populace is largely Catholic, and the Church there has paid a heavy toll: Archbishop Joseph Serge Miot, age 63, known as a humble shepherd who cherished the poor of the Archdiocese of Port-au-Prince, was among the tens of thousands of Haitians who died in the quake. The vicar general of Port-au-Prince, Monsignor Charles Benoit, as well as the chancellor were unaccounted for by the end of last week. The archdiocesan offices, the seminary, and the Cathedral all lie in ruins.It is not easy to write about this tragedy. Observations about "the challenges now facing the people of Haiti" and how recovery will require "the generosity of the international community and the private sector" though true enough, sound so trite and academic. It is only natural to wonder, however: once the dead have been buried, and rescuers have provided shelter, blankets, food, water and bandages to the survivors, who will rebuild Haiti? Dare we entertain the hope that the international community will take advantage of this juncture in history to build a new Haiti? Could western leaders find motives to bring about the kind of stunning recovery that transformed the charred remains of Chicago -- leveled by the great fire of 1871 -- into the city that hosted the Chicago's World Fair in 1893, only twenty-two years later? Thankfully, this pitiful country can in fact count on the Haitian Diaspora and Haiti's other numerous friends throughout the world. It can also count on the Catholic Church and Catholic Relief Services. In the U.S. alone, almost $6 million dollars was donated as of last Friday to CRS, and second collections all around the country last weekend add to that. Of course the seeds of Haiti's rise from the ashes and transformation into a self-sufficient and prosperous nation lie in much more than western capital. The future lies in the goodness and determination of the Haitian people themselves. On Saturday, the doorbell rang at the rectory. The Haitian father of one of our school children, a distinguished man in his mid forties, stood at the door. He did not come by seeking consolation or assistance; we only found out by asking him that he did in fact have one family member, an aunt, who perished in the quake. This good man stopped by our rectory to offer us his condolences for the loss of Archbishop Miot, and of our other brother priests and seminarians who were killed. It is such nobility and magnanimity of heart that characterizes these good people, and that offers the best grounds for believing there will be a bright new future for Haiti.
What's Wrong With Us?
Jan 12, 2010 / 00:00 am"When does a civilization become incompetent?" mused recently Bret Stephens, the "Global View" columnist for the Wall Street Journal: I've been mulling the question in a number of contexts over the last year... But the question came to me again in Brussels on Sunday as I watched my children -- ages six, four, and four months -- get patted down before boarding our U.S.-bound flight. The larger-than-allowed bottle of cough syrup in my carry-on, however, somehow escaped our screener's humorless attentions.
Challenging Totalitarianism in 2010
Jan 5, 2010 / 00:00 amHopefully over the Christmas weekend we were all aware that, while we took advantage of the political and religious freedoms we enjoy in the West, in other parts of the world, some persons were paying the ultimate price in a struggle for those freedoms. In China, the communist government, ignoring the protests of a dozen nations, sentenced 53-year-old literary critic Liu Xiaobo to 11 years in prison. His crime? Peacefully agitating for democracy. In Iran, thousands of agitators for democracy -- broadly acclaimed as "freedom fighters" -- continued their efforts in opposition to their country's standing Islamic totalitarian government in spite of violent and deadly reprisals. Both Mr. Liu and the freedom fighters, as noted by the editors of the Wall Street Journal last Monday, are viewed as dangers by their respective totalitarian states because they wield "the power of the unbreakable individual spirit." What do the Mr. Liu's of the world in countries like China or North Korea ultimately intend? Beyond democratic reforms, what are the ultimate goals of the freedom movement in Iran? I don't profess to know. Are they fighting, for instance, for religious freedom writ large, one that would be inclusive of Judaism and Christianity free of harassment? We can only hope so. History has often demonstrated that once hard sought after political freedom is attained -- and we might go all the way back to the French revolution -- the freedom impulse is too often overpowered by the impulse to sanction every form of licentiousness and moral depravity.
My Christmas Prayer List for 2009
Dec 15, 2009 / 00:00 amI found myself in a Starbucks in Fishkill, New York last Wednesday afternoon. As I sipped my vanilla latte and overheard pieces of conversation and chitchat of patrons sitting nearby, I could not help being struck once again by the way our culture trivializes Christmas. What always gets to me is that reduction of what Christians consider to be the pivotal event of human history - the birth of God made man- to little more than mind numbingly repetitive background music."Oh come let us adore Him... Christ... the Lord!" And we sip our lattes. Was I contributing to that trivialization by just being there? Not sure.Be that as it may, I was there reading a book which has quickly come to fascinate me: What Americans Really Want... Really by Dr. Frank Luntz, one of the nation's leading communication experts. Americans, writes Luntz in the Introduction, "are desperate for the political-economic-social elixir that will restore our 'peace of mind' or at least protect us from further harm." Now, in a very succinct nutshell, isn't that what Americans really want right now, especially this Christmas? I think Starbucks patrons of diverse worldviews and political and philosophical persuasions would agree with me that Luntz nailed it.One thing, of course, is what most Americans want - really. Another is what we need. Sometimes the two overlap; other times they don't. So, for what it's worth, here is my take on the latter. In past years I have referred to this as my "Christmas wish list," but that was very imprecise. What follows is my prayer list for Christmas 2009. It's certainly not comprehensive, but hopefully you'll agree it's a good start. Let me begin by expressing my hope that, as a grateful nation, we will redouble our efforts in the New Year to support our veterans after they've served our country, and that they will all find peace and the help needed to readjust to civilian life. And how could I not be mindful of the unemployed? May the good God guide all of them to secure and enduring employment. And here is a petition very near to my heart: that those women who do not already understand it, will come to realize that their inherent dignity does not depend - as our culture continues to insist - on a putative “right” to abort their unborn babies.
NIH Approves Lines of Human Embryonic Stem Cells
Dec 8, 2009 / 00:00 amLast Wednesday, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced the approval of the first 13 human embryonic stem cell (hESC) lines for use in NIH-funded research under the new NIH Guidelines for Human Stem Cell Research published on July 7, 2009. The NIH is, of course, the great financial umbilical cord supplying U.S. tax-payer dollars to fund the vast majority of biomedical research in our country. I explored the details of those guidelines in a previous column. Let me extrapolate the facts about what this announcement meant from the spin that it was given by advocates of embryo-destructive research. Recall first of all that the revised NIH guidelines were greeted by the same advocates with howls of disappointment last July because they were so "restrictive." Under the new NIH guidelines, for any stem cell line to be approved for funded research, it had to be demonstrated that the line was derived from an embryo created exclusively for fertility treatment purposes (not specifically for research purposes) and was made available for research by the parents under strict informed consent processes. In fact, all previously approved lines of stem cells -- the so-called "Presidential" or "Bush" lines -- were ipso facto disqualified for funding until such time as it could be demonstrated that they, or any other stem cell line, had passed muster with the new guidelines. So, while approximately thirty NIH grants for hESC were approved for funding in 2009 (totaling more than $20 million), the grant monies have been on hold until last week when these thirteen lines of hESCs came on line for fundable research. Children's Hospital Boston developed eleven of the approved lines and Rockefeller University in New York City developed the other two in 2005 with private funding from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. None of the lines approved were from among the "Presidential lines," and some 96 additional lines are in a cue awaiting review.Now, the upshot of this news is that there is practically no news here. That's why proponents of embryo-destructive research were desperately trying to spin this announcement into something that it is not. Take for example, The Washington Post's Rob Stein who reported last Wednesday:
Death Panels?
Dec 1, 2009 / 00:00 amEarl Blumenauer is a Democratic member of the House of Representatives from Oregon. He took credit recently in the New York Times for authoring the now infamous end-of-life provisions which, in varying forms, are still alive in both House and Senate healthcare reform bills. Most notorious among these was the 'death panels' provision as coined by Governor Sarah Palin. While over the top, the term 'death panel' has stuck, and the burden has been on legislators to convince America that their future health decisions will not be dictated by a panel of Washington bureaucrats. Blumenauer maintains that his intention sprung from a legitimate concern for end-of-life planning which he noted even Sarah Palin endorsed once upon a time. Wrote Blumenauer:
Thanksgiving 2009 and the End of the Decade
Nov 24, 2009 / 00:00 amNext Thanksgiving will find us, please God, at the beginning of the second decade of the 21st century. Our present celebration this Thursday finds us at the close of the peculiarly enumerated decade of the '00s. Not surprisingly, the New York Times' David Segal recently invited readers to get a head start on one of America's favorite intellectual fetishes: "name that decade." "You know the rules," wrote Segal: "coin a pithy, reductive phrase that somehow encapsulates the multitude of events, trends, triumphs and calamities of the past 10 years." Looking back at these past ten years, that's a tall order: from the now laughable Y2K scare, to the nightmare beyond imagining which was 9/11 and its aftermath, to America's painful soul searching about how to deal with Islamic terrorism, to our economic meltdown, to the ever widening chasm between left and right on issues ranging from stem cell research, to gay "marriage" to healthcare reform...Segal suggests one possible name might be "the decade of the unthinkable" -- not a bad first stab in my opinion. Bret Stephens writing last week in the Wall Street Journal suggests, on a more dour but realistic note, the decade "of American incompetence" -- symbolized by the gaping hole in lower Manhattan known to the world as Ground Zero, an erstwhile emblem of American resilience and determination. In our more pessimistic moments, many of us are honestly assaulted these days by the sense that we are witnessing the gradual undoing of our country through a mechanism of state and federal policies, programs and regulations which are antithetical to the core principles of the American experiment. Consider, not least among these, the aggressively anti-life agenda of the current administration, an ever more expansive "spread-the-wealth" mentality, the bloating of government, the bailout plan, the astronomical U.S. deficit, the creeping socialization of healthcare, and our paralysis in the war on terror. We know of course, that our beloved country -- obviously imperfect in so many ways, but in so many other ways truly the 'best there is' -- is not the final hope of humanity. Christ, and only Jesus Christ, is the first and final hope of humanity. So, while it might be harder to feel thankful on this Thanksgiving Day, let me suggest that there are still plenty of reasons. How about these for starters? For our faith in Jesus Christ, King of the Universe and Savior of the World;
Of Bishops, Healthcare and the Stupak Amendment
Nov 17, 2009 / 00:00 amI must have missed it.Apparently, late on the evening of Saturday November 7, as the U.S. House of Representatives was about to vote on the healthcare reform bill (H.R.3962), several Catholic bishops and a cardinal or two strong armed their way into the House chamber and forced a majority of the members (including 64 Democrats) to vote for an amendment (the Stupak-Pitts amendment) which would prevent the healthcare bill from opening new avenues for the federal funding of abortions. Yes, I'm being facetious. But given the level of hysteria, hyperbole and venom directed at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) last week by pro-abortion advocates, you would think that's exactly what happened.A fuming Jodi Jacobson, senior political analyst at the Reproductive Health Reality Check website wondered whether the bishops' lobbying on this issue doesn't prove we live in a de facto "theocracy." "The USCCB apparently is running the US government," wrote Jacobson, "aided by a cadre of 'faith-based advocacy groups,' the House Democratic leadership, the White House and members of the Senate." Rep. Lynn Woolsey of California said the bishops had "managed to bully members of Congress" to vote in favor of the Stupak amendment. She went on to suggest the government remove the bishops' tax-exempt status. Get a grip, ladies. Gerald Seib, writing in the Wall Street Journal last Friday had a much more objective analysis. "From the point of view of the [Stupak] amendment's authors, and the Catholic bishops who were part of the conversation, the effort was simply to retain a two-decade-old position widely accepted as the status quo: Abortions will remain legal, but taxpayer dollars won't be used to fund them. That position represents a kind of rough national consensus on abortion policy, grudgingly accepted by all sides."As to the bishops' role in all this, Richard Doerflinger, Associate Director of the USCCB Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities, explained: "What the Church did here, on a large scale, was what it always does: It raised facts and arguments to support an effort in Congress, led by members of the majority party, to improve legislation that directly impacts Catholic values -- and it informed lay Catholics around the country so they could raise their voices as well."How then does the Stupak amendment assure that healthcare reform legislation will maintain the status quo on the federal funding of abortions? The reform bill creates the Health Insurance Exchange Trust Fund as the means of funding new health care spending and entitlements, including "affordability credits" - subsidies for individuals making up to 400% of the federal poverty level to put towards the purchase of health insurance. Without amendment, the bill would therefore have allowed tax-funded "affordability credits" to be applied to insurance that provides coverage for abortions. However, the Stupak amendment maintains the current policy of preventing federal funding for abortion: it prohibits federal funds for abortion services in the public option, and also prohibits individuals who receive affordability credits from purchasing a plan that provides elective abortions. Individuals, both who receive affordability credits and who do not, are free to separately purchase with their own funds plans that cover elective abortions. This is currently the status quo in the 32 states (plus the District of Columbia) that do not pay for elective abortions with state money. It is also the status quo for the federal employee benefits plans.Of course, if a woman lives in a state like New York, she could still get a state subsidized abortion through Medicaid, provided she meets the Medicaid eligibility standards. The Stupak amendment allows states to pay for elective abortions with their own money, just as the Hyde amendment does.In sum, it was not the Catholic bishops who made Nancy Pelosi cave in and allow a vote on the Stupak amendment; it was moderate and pro-life Democrats, led by Representative Bart Stupak (D-MI). They, in turn were responding to their constituents and to a majority of Americans (many of them pro-choice) who do not want federal tax payer dollars spent funding women's abortions.
Fruits of the Same Tree
Nov 10, 2009 / 00:00 amScientists can now make human eggs and sperm, no men or women needed. Let me repeat that: as reported recently in the journal Nature, researchers at Stanford University have successfully produced human sperm and eggs from embryonic stem cells. This should come as no surprise since sperm and eggs are specific kinds cells, and human embryonic stem cells have the capacity to give rise to all cell types in the human body. In fact, researchers have been working hard to make this happen for the past few years. And while biotech is hardly on the cusp of mass producing human eggs and sperm by such artificial means, this disturbing biotech achievement should have us all thinking.The science of making human sex cells is aimed at more easily manufacturing and manipulating human embryos, whether for reproductive or research purposes. Making and manipulating human embryos, destroying them for stem cells, studying them under the microscope, using them to test drugs: it's only taken about fifteen years for Americans by and large to become comfortable with this prospect. The question is: how did we get here? If you turn the clock back fifteen years or so, America was definitely not comfortable with the idea of using human embryos as disposable laboratory material. In 1994, for instance, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) convened the Human Embryo Research Panel in response to growing tensions over the issue of using human embryos for research purposes. That panel eventually recommended that, in some circumstances, federal funds should support the direct creation of human embryos for research purposes. When Dr. Harold Varmus, then director of the National Institutes of Health, publicly endorsed that recommendation, he was soundly rebuked by no less than The Washington Post editorial board. The editors wrote: The creation of human embryos specifically for research that will destroy them is unconscionable.... [I]t is not necessary to be against abortion rights, or to believe human life literally begins at conception, to be deeply alarmed by the notion of scientists' purposely causing conceptions in a context entirely divorced from even the potential of reproduction (Editorial, "Embryos: Drawing the Line," The Washington Post, October 2, 1994 at C6).
The Faith that Makes Us Human
Nov 3, 2009 / 00:00 amThis is part seven of my reflections on Pope Benedict XVI, Joseph Ratzinger's book, Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures. If you missed the earlier columns, here are the links: part one; part two; part three; part four; part five; part six.
The Stakes in Afghanistan
Oct 27, 2009 / 00:00 amThe war in Afghanistan and our continued commitment to that battle raises any number of moral issues. These were recently addressed by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in a letter sent to the United States government's National Security Advisor General James L. Jones USMC (Ret.). Of course, America's military engagement of the Taliban has roots in the 9/11 attacks. Most observers find the U.S. at a critical juncture, and are anxiously waiting for President Obama to make a decision on tactical and strategic options while popular support for the war languishes at home. Bret Stephens writes the Wall Street Journal's "Global View" column. In his September 7 column, Stephens explained why the consequences of an American failure in Afghanistan would be catastrophic for western civilization. "Afghanistan," he wrote, "matters not because that's where 9/11 was conceived. It matters because that's where it was imagined." It was imagined because prior to the U.S. occupation, the Mujahedeen had already -- in their jihadist conception of things -- defeated one of the great super powers, Russia. "Imagine," invites Stephens, "the sorts of notions that would take root in the minds of jihadists -- and the possibilities that would open up to them -- if the U.S. was to withdraw from Afghanistan in its own turn."I last interviewed Bret a little over a year ago on the seventh anniversary of 9/11, and was grateful for the recent opportunity to engage him further on the issue of Afghanistan. Here's what he had to say. Berg: How did the Taliban manage to rearm themselves after 9/11 with American and coalition forces fighting them on their own terrain? Stephens: The Taliban were a relatively weak force until 2006, when they started cutting deals with the Pakistani government of Pervez Musharraf and gaining the sanctuary in Pakistan necessary to sustain their campaigns in Afghanistan. Those noxious habits of deal-making culminated with the Taliban's takeover this spring of the Swat Valley, from which they have only recently been bloodily evicted. Factors within Afghanistan clearly haven't helped. There is, of course, the money that comes from poppies, opium and heroin; there is the dysfunction and corruption of the Afghan government, there is the failure to train and supply an Afghan army and police force of adequate size, and the problem of NATO itself, in which different countries operate under different rules of engagement and don't necessarily contribute much (if anything) to the overall mission. Still, it is a mistake to overstate the strength of the Taliban, or the weakness of our position in Afghanistan. The Taliban are feared but widely detested by Afghans. They are present only in a portion of the country (the so-called Pashtun belt straddling the old Durand Line). Our own casualty rates remain a fraction of what they were in Iraq. We have a proven and recent record of successful counterinsurgency. If this war is going to be lost, it'll be in Washington, not Kabul or Kandahar. Berg: Does the memory of the Russian quagmire and withdrawal from Afghanistan in the late 80's raise legitimate fears of the same thing happening now to the U.S.? Stephens: The conditions were very different. The Taliban isn't fielding Stinger missiles supplied by a friendly superpower. The Afghans are mainly with us, if doubtful of our staying power. The U.S. has core strategic interests in Afghanistan, sustained (albeit in a weakening way) by the memory of 9/11. For all our economic trouble, our economy's ability to sustain war is infinitely greater than the Soviet's was. Afghanistan broke the Russian army. By contrast, the experiences of Afghanistan and Iraq have in many ways improved the quality of ours, not least by giving a generation of officers and senior enlisted men invaluable combat and counterinsurgency experience. Berg: Is the Afghan war winnable? At what price? Stephens: Of course it's winnable. The price is sustained commitment over many years, with casualties that will be real and heartbreaking but, by any historical measure, relatively trivial. But the war is not winnable if the Taliban sense the U.S. is looking for the exit signs. There is a saying common among Taliban fighters: "The Americans have the watches, but we have the time." I hope President Obama proves them wrong.
An Abortion Mandate in the Making
Oct 20, 2009 / 00:00 amLast week saw significant progress toward a final version of a healthcare reform bill which could be voted on by Congress as early as the end of October. The path toward that final bill is so tortuous, however, that even experts disagree on just how it will be accomplished. As explained to me by my colleague Dorinda Bordlee, Executive Director and Senior Counsel for Bioethics Defense Fund, and editorialized in the San Francisco Examiner, the bill was taken behind closed doors in the Senate chambers under the direction of Senate majority leader Harry Reid. From there it will eventually make its way to both chambers of Congress, but quite possibly without further input from the American public and without the opportunity for further amendment. Bordlee explained:
Some thoughts about public discourse
Oct 13, 2009 / 00:00 amReaders will forgive me for waxing philosophical for just one column. But let's take a step back from healthcare reform, unemployment, the economy, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, al Qaeda, Gitmo, water-boarding, gay marriage and stem cell research to think for a minute about just how the exchange of ideas is faring in the public square these days. It is Christopher Tollefson, professor of philosophy at the University of South Carolina, who has me thinking about this. His recently published and timely thoughts on the nature of public discourse are well worth a read. Tollefsen explains that public discourse is crucial to the common good and should transpire precisely in public forums where the general populace can have access to the exchange of ideas and even participate. As to the meaning of 'discourse', Tollefson continues:
The 'Common Ground' Non-Argument
Oct 6, 2009 / 00:00 amMany within and without the Catholic Church have suggested of late that a "common ground" approach is the way to resolve our sharp cultural divide on the issue of federal funding for abortions. Within current debates over healthcare reform, "common ground" has taken on a more specific meaning, namely, to maintain the status quo on federal funding. Supposedly this would be a reasonable way ahead, especially to open a path for healthcare reform we could all live with. Among advocates of such reasoning, Christopher Korzen, president of a group called Catholics United has been particularly vocal in drumming up support for such thinking. "[I]n order to reach consensus on the larger issues," affirms Korzen, "reform ought to preserve policies that are currently in effect regarding federal support for abortion services." Korzen, like many Catholics, appears to be convinced that when the day is done any healthcare reform legislation will remain "abortion neutral."I find a number of problems with such reasoning. First of all, "common ground" reasoning is tactically wrongheaded. Contrary to Korzen's faith in the proposed legislation, it clearly will fail to maintain the status quo on abortion funding. As I explained last week, that should be apparent after an honest and careful reading of the Capps amendment to the current House bill, and elements of which have been worked into the Baucus Senate proposal. More importantly, the search for "common ground" entails an error in moral judgment. It assumes we are all beholden to some moral imperative to pass healthcare reform legislation, no matter what. On such a view, Catholics in good conscience would have no other option than to seek this putative "common ground" on the abortion issue as a way forward. But there simply is no such imperative. Much less can the issue of healthcare reform (with its many well intended good effects) be placed on an equal footing with the genuine moral imperative to curb the abortion license in the U.S. I wrote last year attempting to explain why and in what sense abortion remains the most pivotal of contemporary cultural issues, and also tried to expound this in an op-ed published in National Review Online (October 8, 2008 "Economy Matters, Life Matters"). It will not hurt to revisit a Catholic and natural-law-based account of why this is so.Not all moral issues have the same "moral weight" as the natural law tradition makes clear and, among others, the bishops of the United States have reminded the lay faithful (Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship (www.faithfulcitizenship.org). The inalienable right to life of every innocent human person outweighs other concerns where Catholics may use prudential judgment, such as how best to meet the needs of the poor or to increase access to health care for all.Here, "weighing of issues" means perceiving the degree and kind of malice each brings about. X, Y, and Z might all be moral evils, but they are not so in the same way. Some things are gravely evil in and of themselves, no matter what the circumstances in which they happen. The natural law tradition refers to these as intrinsically evil actions. Such are, for example, homicide, rape, genocide, human trafficking, adultery, euthanasia and procured abortion. Now one might argue: there are many forms of intrinsic evil; why should we consider abortion to be the "worst" among them, and consequently the "most important" issue? To which the natural law tradition replies: first and foremost there is the issue of magnitude -- 50 million innocent (fetal) human lives deliberately destroyed. Secondly there is the way abortion, like no other threat to human life, constitutes not only an attempt at the unborn, but at the very fabric of our civilization. In sum, there is no absolute imperative to reform our healthcare system. And we simply cannot support legislation that will set the stage for broader federal funding of abortions and further ensconce America's abortion license. Rather, we must urge Congress to take the time necessary to work out legislation that all Americans can live with, especially the 67% of us who oppose using federal tax money to fund abortions.