#450: Attacking Brussels = Challenging a Catholic Dream

The historic importance of Brussels in recent European history deepens the tragedy of this week’s attacks.

During my junior year abroad as a political science major, one of my courses at the University of Paris’ Institute of Political Studies was a seminar in energy policies of the Common Market. In those days (1969!) “Common Market” referred to the six-nation cooperative that later expanded into the European Economic Community (EEC), and finally into today’s European Union (EU).

The highlight of the term was a field trip to Common Market Headquarters in Brussels. For 4 days, our seminar group participated in working conferences with Common Market diplomats discussing the future direction of the Common Market.  (In those days, simultaneous translation was available in French, Italian, Dutch, and German--but not English, since Great Britain had not yet joined the Market.)

On the final day of the conference we finished with a lavish lunch that reinforced our impression that our hosts were intent on recruiting as many of our seminar members as possible for the work of international diplomacy.  My classmates knew that I was the exception, since I would be returning to the United States at the end of the year.  Nonetheless, they wanted to know what I thought of the entire gathering.  My response was that I hoped, if I returned in 25 years, I would find a new “United States of Europe” waiting for me.  This pleased everyone, since it was exactly what they were hoping for as well.

In the nearly 50 years since then, what was the Common Market has expanded to more than 25 countries, continues to expand, has added political institutions like the European Parliament,  opened the borders among all its member countries, and even established the Euro as a common currency among most of them.  And through all this time, Brussels has remained the capital of the New Europe.

 But behind this history is a vision that was driven by Catholic leaders whose dream, while it has come very close to fulfillment, is now being jeopardized by the terror movements that surfaced once again this week—precisely in Brussels.

The Common Market started with something called the Schuman plan in the years after World War II.  Its chief architect was Jean Monnet, a Frenchman who represented an entire class of socially elite Europeans who belonged to Christian Democratic parties and espoused a world view rooted in Catholic “Personalism.”

The theology of personalism looked beyond the national identities dividing people to focus on the people themselves. It called for the reconciliation of former enemies, the reduction of animosities and divisions among European countries, and the creation of a transnational community that could end the long history of European warfare and provide the basis for both peace and prosperity.

Their notion was that European nations, tired of long generations of war, would be willing to sacrifice some of their national sovereignty and independence for a more interdependent federation that would end up looking something like the United States of America.

Their agenda was gradual and progressive.  They intended to begin with free trade agreements leading to an economic union, which in turn would gradually encourage nations to form a political federation.  When I visited the headquarters in 1969, things like a common currency, a European parliament, and open borders were far away--but they were part of the vision from the start.

It may be difficult for Americans to appreciate what Europe has accomplished.  Most Americans I meet have no idea that the European Union is a clear imitation of the experience in American history of moving from three distinct colonies, to 13 loosely federated states, to a unified republic of states under the U.S. Constitution.  And while the media consistently describes contemporary China as the world’s #2 economy after the U.S., the fact is that by most standards the EU is a bigger economy than China.

But now, as refugees pressure the eastern borders of Europe, as the open borders within Europe allow radicals to move freely, and as security forces prove incapable of preventing further attacks, the common wisdom is that Europe’s experiment may be in jeopardy.  Perhaps the open borders will be lost.  Perhaps the single currency will soon be gone.  Perhaps the vision of a unified Europe will not survive terror.

Brussels remains at the center of that vision.  It is not only the headquarters of the European Union’s daily operations, is also the where NATO has located its Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) since 1967.  In short, this small country finds itself the host of the major institutions that make the Catholic dream of a united Europe a reality.

But ironically, it is precisely in this small country that we see the critical flaw in that original dream.

Observers on the scene have been informing us that the neighborhood recently raided by intelligence and security forces, the same neighborhood where the newest assailants lived, is a kind of isolated, “no go” Muslim ghetto within Brussels, capable of harboring fugitives and providing a home base for planning terrorist attacks.

Such neighborhoods exist in many major cities in many countries, and are almost always the result of the failure to integrate newcomers into the general mainstream of the population.  And it is no surprise that this has been especially difficult to do in Belgium, a country which has not even succeeded in unifying its own people.

Belgium has long been torn between the Flemish and the Walloons--that is, the Dutch-speaking and French-speaking.  It has it is as though Belgian has been caught cultural and between France and the Netherlands, and never resolved its identity.  With such a fissure in the main population, it is no surprise that the Muslim community has fallen through the cracks.

But there is a deeper tragedy in this fact.  The Christian democratic parties that founded the vision of a common Europe on Catholic personalism came from the elite classes of France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Italy.  These elites assumed not only that it was the responsibility of the educated elite to forge the continent’s future--they also assumed that the continent’s future depended on its Christian identity.  In other words, the vision behind the European Union was a vision of Christian culture dominating the continent.

No surprise, then, that the influx of Muslims into Europe has been consistently out of sync with the progression of the European Union.  Just as many conservative Americans cling to the myth of the Christian nation in the United States, many of the governing class behind the European Union have clung to the myth of a Christian Europe. 

The explicit endorsement of Christianity has disappeared from EU documents, to be sure, in the interest of the secularized cultures that have emerged since World War II.  But the founding vision has never been quite prepared for the pluralism that Europe has witnessed in the wake of the end of colonialism.  As populations have flooded into Europe from North Africa and the Middle East, Europe has been consistently caught off guard.  And this week’s attacks have revealed that the very city which has become the heart of the European Union has been perhaps the least prepared to broaden the vision that would keep that union alive. It has become home to the vision of United Europe, but has failed to become home to its newest peoples.

The lesson, for both Europe, and for America, is not to hold back the movement of new peoples.  That strategy would be little more than a finger in the dike of global migration.  Rather, the lesson, the moral of the story, is that we must learn better than ever how to welcome and integrate new peoples, adapting our vision of the future so that these people, rather than radicalizing into dangerous attackers, develop a sense of ownership and investment in the vision itself.

Ironically, the EU’s founding Catholic vision of a peaceful Europe will only work if it opens beyond Catholicism, and even beyond Christianity.

Nothing could be clearer about this week’s attacks than this: the attackers felt no stake in the status quo, and had nothing to lose by attacking it.  And nothing is more common sense than this: the survival of our hopes for the future--for the kind of life we would lead, and for the kind of world we want--all that depends on creating for such people a stake in our way of life.  Only when they have everything to gain by joining us, and everything to lose by attacking us, will the threat recede and civility return to our life.

But for both Europe and America, this means abandoning the destructive myth of a culture dominated by Christians, and accepting that the global future--and in all probability the providential will of God--calls for a single human family learning to inhabit, in civility and peace, what Pope Francis has called “Our Common Home.”

   © Bernard F. Swain PhD 2016

#449: Can Americans Elect a Moral President?

Chagrined observers of the nastiness we call “Campaign 2016” have begun to inject the character question into their coverage of the candidates. 

Even before the KKK uproar, the below-the-belt debating, and Mitt Romney’s aspersions and allegations, commentators (especially on the conservative side) were denouncing mean-spirited tactics and schoolyard taunts as evidence off the candidates’ unethical roots. 

So evangelical talk show host Michael Brown derided the willingness of voters to support candidates who lack a “solid moral base.” He wondered how they can justify voting for “someone who has a long track record of being ruthless, cruel, unchristian, immoral, profane, full of pride, greedy, and double-minded.” He bemoans that people are not looking for “men [sic] of integrity.” This is because he believes that an American president must be “a moral and ethical leader, a leader who will make godly choices.”

On the Catholic side, columnist George Weigel has lamented the anger pervading the campaign, grouping supporters of Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, and Bernie Sanders under the same “glandular” label.  Such anger, he claims, cannot be righteous:

Anger is a glandular thing. An angry politics is a politics of the gut. A passionate politics, informed and disciplined by reason, can be a politics of the intelligence, a politics of great ideas: a politics, if you will, of sound moral judgment. And sound moral judgment is rarely, if ever, the child of anger.

(Note that George Weigel neglects the reverse possibility: that anger can often be the righteous child of sound moral judgment--witness Jesus with the money changers!). 

Catholic politics, he says, must always be moral politics:

Catholic political theory is an extension of Catholic moral theology; or to put it another way, Catholic political theory treats politics as an arena of moral reasoning and moral judgment. The Catholic citizen, as the Church understands these things, is obliged to think, not just to feel; to judge, not just to react; to exercise prudence in weighing options among usually-imperfect alternatives, not to indulge in fantasies about simplistic quick-fixes to all that ails us and the world.

I think both men are onto something—but they  fail to go far enough.  The truth is that asking for a “moral president” is really asking for two things.

A Moral Person.  First, it is asking if the president is a moral person, a person of integrity.  Given contemporary politics (perhaps politics in general), this is asking a lot: a public official who is consistently honest, humble, dignified, unselfish, kind-hearted, willing to sacrifice, acts with sound judgment rather than blind anger.  How many past presidents could pass that test?  How many public officials today? 

In my view it is fair to pose the “personal integrity” test, although we risk having no one to vote for.  And anyhow, it may be important to look for more.

A Moral Presidency. A presidential inauguration includes a solemn oath.  In it, the new president promises, not to be a good person, but to protect and defend the Constitution.  In other words, the oath of office pertains to the president’s official duties rather than his or her private life.  And as Weigel notes, political policies are (for Catholics, at least) rooted in moral principles—or should be.

Thus we voters must hope not just for a moral president, but also for a moral presidency.

The standards for this are not rocket science.  Catholic Social Teaching, rooted in the Gospels and shaped by papal teaching since 1891, provides clear criteria for moral policymaking.  And since 2013, Pope Francis has shrewdly employed his popularity to make these criteria the stuff of headlines.  During his U.S. visit, for example, both his White House speech and his address to Congress offered us clear guidelines for a moral presidency.

Thus we can list major current issues and compare the positions of any candidate with Catholic Social Teaching.  Here are some examples. 

Climate Change.  The official Catholic position, forcefully articulated in Pope Francis’ June 2015 encyclical letter, is clear: climate change is real, is fueled by runaway consumption which breeds economic inequality, widespread resentment, and terror.  Reversing this threat to “our common home” is a moral imperative of the highest order.

We should look for candidates, then, who make this position a key plank of their platform.

Economic Inequality.  Pope Francis has called inequality “the root of all social ills,” and concluded that peace remains impossible until the problem of inequality is solved.

Since 1970 the U.S. has emerged, under both parties, as the most unequal of all major nations.  And the gap between rich nations and poor nations has also grown wider.

Which candidates call us to break with this history? 

Open Immigration.  Catholic Social Teaching acknowledges the right of governments to regulate immigration in the interest of public safety--but it also proclaims migration to be a human right, which governments cannot violate.  Which candidates stand by this human right? 

Nuclear Weapons.  Since Vatican II, Catholicism considers the production, installation, distribution, sale, threat, or use of nuclear weapons to be an unconditional evil.  A moral presidency would include aggressive efforts to remove nuclear weapons from the planet.

Weapons Sales.  The U.S. is the world’s largest arms dealer, and Catholicism teaches that arms sales not only promote war, but they also prevent the poor from escaping poverty.  Which candidates name the arms industry as a scourge on the common good?

Defense of Life.  Before the U.S. Congress, Francis called for defending life at every stage--which means opposing both abortion and the death penalty.  A moral presidency would defend this “seamless garment” of life.

Human Rights.  The Catholic definition of human rights includes the right to Health Care, to Housing, to Migration, to a Living Wage, to Education, etc.  None of these are privileges to be reserved, inherited, or rewarded. They are everyone’s birthright. A moral presidency would be committed to the government’s responsibility for securing such rights for all citizens

This list ignores both parties and personalities.  It focuses only on moral principles.

As Americans prepare to choose a president, it makes perfect sense to seek a moral person.  It makes even more sense to seek a moral presidency.

This sets extraordinarily high standards for voters to consider.  I doubt we have a single candidate who meets them all.  Our responsibility is to get beyond the personalities and parties to determine this: which candidate measures up to these standards better than any other?

Given what I have seen of this campaign, I can only think: God help us all! 

   © Bernard F. Swain PhD 2015

#448: 10 Reasons Why Pope Francis Was Right about Trump

The controversy following the Pope’s remarks about Donald Trump included overblown reactions that missed the point.. 

 1. Context.  If you read the entire interview text, you see that the pope’s statement comes only in answer to a question about Trump calling the pope a pawn and an instrument of the Mexican government.  When Trump took offense at being called “not Christian,” he was the pot calling the kettle black.  

2. A Hypothetical Comment.  Francis qualified his answer by saying “If a person…” and then offered the benefit of the doubt.  It was as if he could not believe a Christian would say the things attributed to Trump, and thus presumed that Trump must be something else than Christian. 

3. Not a Personal Attack.  This was how the Vatican clarified later.  But note that Francis spoke of “A person who thinks only about building walls…and not building bridges.” He did not specifically apply this to Trump.  And the key word is “only.”

4. Off the Cuff. The pope was speaking spontaneously, and his point would have been clearer had he said such a person “Is not acting Christian.” In other words, that would have made it clear that his comment was not about Trump’s religious membership (clearly the pope has no idea of Trump’s personal life) but about the public behavior attributed to him. 

5. No Magic Potion.  The focus on behavior is relevant because even a baptized person does not automatically follow the gospel.  Baptism is not a magic potion, and neither is church attendance. One may be officially a member of the Christian church, but the clear test of following Jesus is following Jesus’ command to “Love your neighbor.”

6. A Wall Along The Road.  The parable of the Good Samaritan is Francis’ favorite image for loving our neighbor--no wonder, since Jesus offered it to answer the question “Who is my neighbor?” The answer, of course, is: “the person who needs me.”  Imagine if we revise the parable to include someone who builds a wall around the man on the road so no one will help him!  Would anyone call that a Christian act?

7. Immigration.  Thus immigration becomes a key test for authentic Christianity.  The Church teaches that migration is a human right, so walls designed to prevent immigration (not just regulate it) are denying migrants their rights.  Francis is quite right that “this is not in the gospel.”

8. The Pope’s Job.  Trump professed offense that the pope “question another’s faith.” But the pope’s job description, as “moral leader,” includes challenging us all to live up to our faith by reminding us of its true meaning and obligations.  If Trump wants to be a “proud Christian,” he will need to show that his positions fit the Christian message.  He cannot claim “proud membership” but avoid the ethical test that goes with it.

9. The Vatican’s Walls.  It is true the Vatican has high walls, although one may enter St. Peter’s Square openly at almost any time (you need only walk over a white line). It is also true that since Vatican II (1962-1965) popes had been breaching that wall to connect with the world--especially with the world’s poor.  Donald Trump has dated himself by pretending that popes still hide in the Vatican, protected behind walls, as he wants Americans to be.

10. The Real Drama.  The media constantly marvel at the “theatrical” power of Trumps candidacy. 

But the pope’s comment came hours after 200,000 Mexicans gathered with him at the U.S. border while Americans watched from 300 feet away, across the Rio Grande.

All prayed for those who had died at the border, and also prayed for more open borders. 

  

 Is there any real doubt  whose performance is more powerful—or better reflects the Christian faith?

   © Bernard F. Swain PhD 2015

#447: Why Justice Scalia’s “Original” Genius Is a Bad Guide for Catholics

The death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia reminds us that how we interpret the past also guides us into the future—but his method is less helpful for the Church’s future. 

Any official document that guides a people must be interpreted, so that people know what it means.  And once the authors die, the task of interpreting falls to others. That is why we have the U.S. Supreme Court: to interpret the charter we call the U.S. Constitution. And the tributes following the sudden death of Justice Antonin Scalia make it clear that, for his contribution to how the Supreme Court functions, Scalia can arguably be ranked the most important Italian-Catholic in American history (with all due respect to Columbus and Frank Sinatra).

Scalia’s famous method for interpreting the Constitution was labeled either “originalism” or “textualism.” Either way, the strategy was to detect the true meaning of the Constitution in the words of the text itself, the legislation, without the “legislative history” (ideas, influences, sources, historical conditions or developments).

This strategy grew from Scalia‘s broader convictions.  Son of an academic, graduate of a Jesuit high school and college, trained in philosophy and theology and classical western culture, he developed deep respect for the rule of law, and a healthy suspicion that human nature often seeks to avoid or rationalize the demands of law into something more to our liking.

For Scalia, law reflects the agreements people reach to achieve a consensus about the basic question “How shall we live together?” Laws answer the question with standards of conduct, rules for proper procedure, and boundaries of what was acceptable behavior.  The law is thus a kind of fundamental social compact: it embodies agreement in the text--the very words--of any law.  Respect for such law, for such texts, is thus the foundation for the social solidarity of a people, guiding our unity against the whims and prejudices and disputes of the moment.  And thus the “rule of law” is superior to the “rule of man.”

Scalia knew that, in American Life, such rule is even more fundamental.  Our social solidarity does not come naturally to Americans.  We trace our roots to too many places; we emerge from too different cultures; we belong to too diverse races; we speak too many languages.  Even our shared national memories go back only a few generations.  Our nation of immigrants must find unity elsewhere then culture, or language, or race, or history.  And so we find it in the law, in the Constitution, which unites us by establishing the principals, the institutions, and the rights that we all share.  It is the Constitution which provides the unifying force that trumps (you should pardon the expression) all our differences.

This unifying function, Scalia knew, makes the Constitution our most sacred text--our “American scriptures.”  And that makes interpreting it a solemn responsibility.  In his view, that responsibility required a method of interpretation focused above all--or even only--on the text itself.  The aim was to determine “what did this text’s authors mean?” Any other meanings were either secondary or irrelevant.

But of course the practical result of this approach was to make Scalia one of the Supreme Court’s most conservative justices.  And it strikes me that many conservative Catholics find his approach equally attractive for interpreting things in Catholic life as well as American Life.  They prefer to stick to the texts of things, often taking them quite literally without reference to outside sources.

This is especially true when it comes to the documents of Vatican Council II (1962-1965).  Once the Council’s 16 documents were published in 1966, Catholics at all levels devoted untold hours to examining their texts.  And the impact of the Council has generally been determined by how the documents have been interpreted and explained.

Naturally those interpretations vary, and for 50 years three generations of Catholics have read the documents and come away with different meanings.  No wonder!  Compared to the U.S. Constitution, the documents of Vatican II are a dramatically more difficult interpretive challenge.  They cover hundreds of pages, they are translated from Latin originals into hundreds of languages, they draw on 20 centuries of thinking and practical experience, and they address not only constitutional workings of the world’s largest organization, but also its historical development, political system, practical procedures, and its priorities for the future.

This textual complexity was unavoidable, even necessary--but the results have been troubling.  Even 50 years later, no interpretation enjoys consensus.  Some Catholics view Vatican II calling for revolutionary change, while others see it affirming tradition.  Some find warrant for wide experimenting in liturgy, but others find a call to preserve Latin.  Some see justification for every for new moral teachings, but others find only permission to employ new wording for the old teachings.  Some see a historical watershed, others detect a call for continuity.

In most of these debates, all sides have invoked the Council’s texts to prove their case.  But this has not led to consensus, for the Council’s documents are so vast they provide--like the Bible itself--fuel for almost any position.

Personally, I have long believed that we cannot fully understand the work of Vatican II by focusing solely on the documents themselves. And Scalia’s death has forced me to clarify why.

Let’s began with an analogy: Vatican II is to its 16 documents as the Constitutional Convention is to the Constitution. 

In both cases, the texts we need to interpret are the products of a deliberative body--they were both “composed by committee” and then voted on.  Scalia argued that, once the members of the Constitutional Convention had committed their intentions to paper, our interpretation must be limited to what the text says.  Whether we agree or not, it is a reasonable position--and it has proven influential.  Even liberal justices have said of Scalia’s impact, “We are all textualists now.”

But this analogy limps, because the two cases are not exactly alike.  Here is the difference: for 50 years, Catholics have not quit talking (and debating) about “Vatican II”--meaning Vatican Council II.  But what is the last time you heard any one debate about the Constitutional Convention?  You see, Americans have always focused on the document, not the event that produced it.  But Catholics have always focused on the event, even if they never read the documents.

There are two reasons for this.  One is common sense: the Council was the biggest meeting in history: 2000 men gathering for four years in the glare of constant global publicity.  The second reason is more complicated, and has to do with how authority works in the Catholic Church.

The Roman Catholic Church is a hierarchical structure, with fairly centralized authority under the pope and Bishops.  But for Catholics, this authority is not supposed to be blind or arbitrary, for we believe that it enjoys the inspiring guidance of the Holy Spirit.  Thus, the Church’s authority always depends on the greater authority behind it: the will of God.

Now the highest ranking office is the pope, but even the pope’s authority is not as great as a general council, where the pope presides over the world’s bishops and they act together.  There have only been 21 such councils in Catholicism’s 20 centuries. By definition they are extraordinary events—events where, Catholics believe, the Spirit’s guidance is especially powerful.

For Catholics, what is sacred about Vatican II is not the documents themselves, but rather the Spirit’s presence, guiding the Church at that precise moment in history. In other words, it is in Vatican II as an event that we expect to find the Spirit working.  And this event was much greater than the documents it produced.  It began the moment Pope John XXIII conceived the idea of the Council within weeks of his election in 1958.  It continued through several years of preparations before the Council convened in October 1962.  It includes what John said about his intentions for the Council in speeches, interviews, and letters.  It includes the work of many commissions, the hundreds of speeches by the Council Fathers, the decision after John’s death to elect Paul VI, the working relationship between John and Paul, and Paul’s own statements during and after the council.

In short, we cannot interpret Vatican II’s meaning by looking only at its official texts.  To discern the divine guidance of the Spirit--to discover the sacred truth of the Council expressing the will of God--we must consider the entire event. Such consideration, far from complicating our interpretations, can actually clarify and simplify. 

For example, John XXIII more than once (including his speech opening the Council) called Vatican II “A New Pentecost” or even “A Second Pentecost.” Moreover, when John died and Paul VI was elected, he opened the Council’s next session (in October 1963) by quoting John about “The New Pentecost”! Since Pentecost marked the birth of the Church, John (and Paul) clearly intended Vatican II to bring about the rebirth of the Church.

 This was a lofty, historic, even heroic expectation--and no interpretation of Vatican II can leave it out. John’s vision, clearly grasped and embraced by his successor, must frame every interpretation of every text the Council produced.

 If the Catholic Church has not been “Reborn” in the last 50 years, then either we have failed to achieve the Council’s purpose, or we have never really understood (or accepted) it.

In sum, Antonin Scalia’s “textualism” is a plausible theory for interpreting the U.S. Constitution, for that document grounds our national unity even though we may not believe the Founding Fathers were divinely inspired.  But when Catholics interpret Vatican II, we affirm that the Council Fathers were divinely inspired, and so all their work--and not just the Texts they produced--demand our attention.

Thus we may say “Long Live the Constitution!” (meaning the text) but we also say “Long Live Vatican II” (meaning the event). In secular terms, we must honor not just the Council’s “legislation” but also its “legislative history.” After all, America is a nation of laws, but Catholics worship the God of history.

   © Bernard F. Swain PhD 2015