Month: October 2004

Of Crises Past

Regarding this morning’s post, What Bill Clinton Hath Wrought?, a reader writes:

In all fairness to Clinton and Gore, Gore wasn’t the first presidential candidate to put self-interest before the good of the nation. Aaron Burr had that dubious distinction in the presidential election of 1800. But it is notable that it was exactly two hundred years before another man decided to plunge the country into a constitutional crisis rather than graciously concede defeat for the greater good of his country.

Small correction: Burr was the candidate for vice president, not president; so I guess it is fair to say that Gore was the first legitimate presidential candidate to plunge the country into constitutional crisis. Although, come to think of it, wasn’t there some controversy surrounding Hayes’ election in the nineteenth century? Maybe every hundred years, give or take, we’re simply burdened with public figures who cannot put the good of their country before the temptations of power.

She also provides two very helpful links:

ONE TO A DISCUSSION OF THE ELECTION OF 1800

AND ONE TO A DISCUSSION OF RUTHERFORD B. HAYES

Read ’em! They’re good!

I should perhaps explain the nature of the thesis I was proposing, though. It wasn’t that Al Gore was the first presidential candidate to plunge the nation into a constitutional crisis or that Bill Clinton was the first such candidate to put self-interest ahead of the good of the nation.

Unfortunately, American history is tumultuous enough and populated with enough rogues that neither of these men were first of their kinds.

Previous presidential (and, as the reader points out, even vice-presidential) candidates, including some very famous ones, have put naked ambition and self-interest ahead of the country, both in ways that led to previous constitutional crises and other grave disasters for the country.

My thesis is therefore rather more restricted. It is that, (1) after a period in which several presidents and presidential candidates displayed the statesmanship to put the good of the party and the country ahead of personal ambition, we now have entered a period in which once again the nation is being harmed by naked ambition and self-interest being put ahead of the common good, and (2) Bill Clinton may have played a key role in the historical genesis of this era.

In other words, we’ve regressed.

What Bill Clinton Hath Wrought?

AndorianYesterday the San Diego Union-Tribune published a very worthwhile editorial by Joseph Perkins on the impact that Al Gore’s decision to contest the 2000 presidential election had on the country, how it created the situation we are in now, and how it may do long-term damage to American democracy.

It’s a fascinating read.

READ THE EDITORIAL.

Now I’d like to carry his analysis one step farther.

Perkins traces the potential crisis in American democracy to Al Gore’s refusal to put his own personal interest in winning ahead of the good of the nation. That created a crisis where none should have existed and put the nation through a tremendous convulsion that, despite the interposition of 9/11, has left the nation in an extraordinarily divided and partisan state.

Fair enough.

But can the chain be traced back further than Gore? Is there a reason why he, at that moment in history, decided to throw the nation into a constitutional crisis? Was it simply his own volition or can it be traced to other causes?

It seems to me that a case can be made that the reason he did so may be that he had just spent four years under the political tutelage of Bill Clinton.

Now, I am not one to try to blame every evil under the sun on Bill Clinton. As evil as Clinton was, I am not seething with rage against him. To me he has become a joke–a self-parody–who occasionally turns up in the news and who I greet with little more than indifference.

But it strikes me that Clinton may have been a significant influence on Gore that either explicitly advised Gore to contest the election or who implicitly set the example that Gore followed in doing so.

As evidence for this, I would point to a moment that occurred during the impeachment brouhaha. As later reported by one of the participants, there was a meeting between Clinton, James Carville, and George Stephanopolous. This meeting took place at a moment when it was clear that the chief executive of the United States had lied under oath in a court of law. The fact that he had lied in order to cover his sexual misdeeds was a fact that members of his party would use to distract the public (“It’s all about sex!”) from the fact that the chief executive of the nation–a man sworn to uphold the laws of the land–had just violated one of the most sacred of those laws by offering false evidence to the judiciary.

At this particularly dark moment in the history of the Clinton presidency, George Stephanopolous was overcome with the magnitude of the problem, the fact that the president could well be impeached by the House and possibly even convicted in the Senate, which would result not only in the humiliation of Clinton himself but also in putting the nation through a horrible national crisis.

Moved by these considerations, he wondered aloud whether Clinton might ought to do the statemanlike thing and consider resigning, for his own good and the good of the nation.

This would not have been an unprecidented thing. When faced with impeachment President Nixon had mustered the statesmanship to resign and cut short the Watergate crisis that was tearing the country apart. Other presidents, such as Lyndon Johnson, had crises come upon them late enough in their terms that they decided not to run for re-election for the good of themselves, their party, and the nation. They willing let go the reigns of power for the greater good.

George Stephanopolous suggested that Clinton consider doing the same.

Clinton and Carville looked at him as if he had just transformed into an Andorian.

It was inconceivable to them that anyone would voluntarily give up power. They had been schooled in a political philosophy that involved winning at all costs. Power was something to be relinquished only when it was pried from one’s cold, dead fingers. (This incident also served to them as proof that Stephanopolous was weak and didn’t “get it.”)

And so Clinton didn’t resign.

And the opposing party fell into the “It’s all about sex!” trap and didn’t keep the public’s attention adequately focused on the fact that the chief executive had lied under oath.

And he wasn’t convicted in the Senate.

And the nation went through a huge, polarizing crisis.

This crisis set the stage for the bitterness of the 2000 election. It left both the Democrats and the Republicans out for blood, both seeking vengeance and payback for what had happened with the Clinton fiasco. This is indisputably one of the ways what happened in 2000 can be traced to Clinton.

But perhaps there is another way.

Perhaps that “win at any costs” mentality that shaped Clinton’s political outlook was something that he transferred to Gore. Perhaps he counseled Gore to contest the Florida results. Perhaps he had just mentored Gore long enough that Gore did it on his own. Gore was never an especially strong and decisive man, and whether by counsel or example, perhaps it was the influence of Clinton that pushed him over the edge in the decision to contest the 2000 Florida results.

From that, one domino after another fell, until we now end up with a still bitterly-divided nation, with countless lawyers lined up on both sides. If the vote is close come Tuesday, we may not have just one Florida, but six or seven, throwing the nation again into a Constitutional crisis and doing further grave and lasting harm to American society.

Bill Clinton is not the cause of every evil under the sun.

But he just may have been the cause of this one.

That, historians may determine, may be a key part of the Clinton legacy.

More On The Balestrieri Affair

Responding to my post on How To Make Amends, a reader writes:

Once again, you’ve accepted the claims of Frs. DiNoia and Cole where they contradict Mr. Balestrieri, and not addressed the conflicts between the statements of Fr. DiNoia and Fr. Cole regarding the delegation to reply to Mr. Balestrieri, nor the harm done to the reputation of Mr. Balestrieri by unnamed sources within in the Vatican according to CNS, nor how the CDF decided to help this American student with his homework with a carefully crafted letter in less than 10 days of his visit there.

It would appear that you do not understand the nature of the post on which you are commenting.

This post recommends a fundamental change in strategy on Mr. Balestrieri’s part. Following his receipt of Fr. Cole’s letter, he engaged in a pattern of behavior guaranteed to tick off the Vatican and severely damage his canonical complaint’s prospects of success. Following this turn of events, I decided to

(1) point out this fact in a vivid manner so that it would have the twin effects of

(a) forcefully making the point for Mr. Balestrieri’s benefit and

(b) forcefully warning the public of the problems just created for Mr. Balestrieri’s case and then to

(2) recommend a course of action that stood the best chance of getting his case back on track.

(1) was the point of How To Tick Off the Vatican and (2) was the purpose of How To Make Amends. That is the nature of the post on which you are commenting: It is not meant to provide continuing analysis of the debacle. It is meant to point to the most promising way out of the debacle.

The approach I recommended means not continuing the tit-for-tat, “he said/she said” game that Mr. Balestrieri was playing. There comes a point that, no matter how strongly one believes that one has been wronged, prudence dictates that one turn the other cheek and not continue to alienate those who you need not to alienate. Mr. Balestieri has done incalculable damage to his canonical case and to his career by the approach he took. I tried to point to a way he could staunch the bleeding and try to salvage both of these.

The approach I was recommending meant precisely not continuing to analyze who said what when and thus the post does not include the kind of analysis that you seem to expect it to.

The “application” of the letter as you put it to the case of not a libelous leap by Mr. Balestrieri as you suggest here.

I have not suggested that Mr. Balestrieri has committed libel. What I have said is that in his News Release No. 2 he grossly misrepresented what the Vatican did. That is unquestionable, as can be demonstrated by looking only at material he has placed on his own web site, not relying on anything Fr.s DiNoia and Cole have said elsewhere. See How To Tick Off The Vatican and Tunc et Nunc.

Rather, the substance of letter itself makes it clear it applies to the case of John Kerry and any Catholic politician who advocates an abortion right in defiance of Church teaching. The letter speaks for itself without any “spin”.

No, this is precisely the problem. The letter does not make it clear that it applies to the case of John Kerry. No matter how much I want it to do so, it does not. No matter how much you want it to do so, it does not. No matter how much Mr. Balestrieri wants it to do so, it does not. Kerry is not mentioned in the letter, and Fr. Cole appears to be addressing two situations that are not clearly and unambiguously a match for Sen. Kerry’s horrendous and ambiguous statements regarding abortion.

“Well by all means use it, no restrictions whatsoever.” Permission was given to make Fr. Cole’s 9/11 letter public. The “confusion” as you put it in your mock apology commenced with the CNS interview of Fr. DiNoia.

Two points:

1) “No restrictions whatsoever” doesn’t mean that one is free to represent the reply as something it is not. Permission to publish an informal reply from an individual theologian at the Dominican House of Studies does not entail permission to represent this reply as “formal,” “official,” “binding,” “decisive,” and from “the Vatican.”

2) Your above remark also appears to involve the same misunderstanding of the post How To Make Amends. What I wrote was not a “mock apology” but a serious proposal for the kind of things Mr. Balestrieri could say to try to get out of the mess he got himself into.

Finally, Jimmy, where do you stand?

I want to see pro-abort Catholic politicians slapped with severe canonical sanctions.

Do you dispute the Fr. Cole’s letter communicates the teaching of the Church?

No, I don’t dispute it. I would say that the final brief treatment of the civil right to abortion that the letter provides that does not make it fully clear what kind of support for this right Fr. Cole has in mind. He appears to be thinking of supporting such a right simpliciter–i.e., thinking that the existence of a civil right to abortion is of itself a good thing as opposed to something required by extrinsic circumstances per Evangelium Vitae 73.

Do you dispute that “if I obstinately deny by teaching and preaching, or doubt that abortion is not intrinsically evil, I commit the mortal sin of heresy”?

I don’t deny that the obstinate post-baptismal doubt or denial of the truth that abortion is intrinsically evil is a heresy.

I don’t think Mr. Balestrieri was “unfair” to Frs. DiNoia or Cole.

I have confidence that this is your opinion.

However, the facts say otherwise. He grossly misrepresented the letter from Fr. Cole.

I think somewhere Frances Kissling must be delighted that Catholics see fit to mock Marc Balestrieri in this week before the election.

I suspect that she doesn’t even know my blog exists.

I’m also not going to write off the use of irony as a way of making a point. Jesus was rather big on it.

Sometimes irony is even the kinder way to explain what a person has done compared to offering a blunt and flatly analytical dissection of it.

Can Devout Non-Catholics Be As Devout As Devout Catholics?

A reader writes:

My wife is going through RCIA right now, and she asked me a question tonight that I thought I’d pick your brain on. Here’s the gist of it:

The Catholic Church teaches that although there is no salvation outside of the Church, the Church acknowledges that it does not know where the boundaries of the invisible Church are (i.e., visible v. invisible Church). That having been said, does the Catholic Church believe that a devout Baptist can lead as devout of a Christian life as a devout Catholic (lots of “devouts” in there I know)?

This was my tentative answer (based on everything I’ve read):

I think what the Church would say is that it is much harder to live a devout Christian life outside of Church; not because Catholics are naturally more holy than protestants, but because we have access to all of the sacraments, the teaching of the Church, etc. I also analogized the situation to two people each building a house. One has all of the possible tools he could ever need or want to complete the job, and the other one has enough to get it done but may have to work a little harder to finish the task. Of course, for some Catholics (like Kerry) having access to these “tools” is meaningless because he is unwilling to use them.

I am not sure that is the “right” answer, but it strikes me as correct based on all that I’ve read thus far.

Thoughts?

It seems to me that the answer you gave is essentially correct, though I would add some nuances depending on what one means by “devout.”

First, though, I’d issue a caution about contrasting the “visible Church” with the “invisible Church.” This language is not used in ecclesiastical documents. The way Vatican II presents the matter, there is one Church, in which Catholics who are in a state of grace are “fully incorporated” and with which non-Catholic Christians are “associated” (which may be a synonym for “partially incorporated”).

Now, on to the question of devotion:

1) If one takes a subjective definition of “devout,” by which it would mean “sincere” or “fervent in practice,” then it would seem that non-Catholic Christians can be just as sincere and fervent in their practice of religion as Catholics. Catholics do not have an intrinsic subjective advantage in terms of sincerity or fervor.

They do, however, have an extrinsic advantage–as you point out–in that they have means of grace available to them that can foster greater fervor. These include not only the sacraments but also sacramentals, Catholic art, etc.

Yet these extrinsic advantages can be overcome by other extrinsic factors. The pitiful preaching and catechesis that has existed in many Catholic churches for the last forty years is an extrinsic factor that mitigates against fervor, and the fervor of many Catholics has been depressed by this compared to the fervor of those in many Evangelical and Fundamentalist churches.

2) Historically the word “devout” may be taken in another, more objectivist sense–i.e., religious practice that makes an objective connection with God. This might be taken as something Paul has in mind when he says that “it is good to be zealous in a good thing always” (Gal. 4:18). If the term “devout” is taken in this sense (i.e., devotion that objectively makes a connection with God rather than simply being subjectively fervent without this connection necessarily being made) then the Catholic has more of an advantage.

The chief reason is the sacraments. They guarantee a connection with God as long as we do not put a barrier in the way. Therefore, our own subjective fervor is not required for the connection to take place. The subjective fervor of Catholics may be no different than the subjective fervor of non-Catholic Christians, but the fact that Catholics operate in an environment in which they have greater access to sacraments through which God has promised to make a connection with us means that they have a greater advantage in terms of devotion that makes an objective connection to God.

Even this advantage can be neutralized, however. If a Catholic fails to take advantage of the sacraments, this advantage vanishes. Worse, if he commits sacrilege with the sacraments (e.g., by taking Communion when in a state of mortal sin) then he has sinned against God in an objectively greater way than someone without access to the sacraments.

Thus, while there are advantages to being Catholic in terms of devotion, they are not a guarantee of subjective or objective devotion. As always, God is no respecter of men. Of whom more is given, more is required.

Now, perhaps you can answer this question for me: How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

Please answer the question in terms of an objective measure (pounds, ricks, cords, etc.). The answer “As much wood as a woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood” is a cop out.

Much obliged!