From a National Review Online interview by Kathryn Jean Lopez with Robert P. George about The Manhattan Declaration:
• "...no power on earth ... will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence." (Nov. 24, 2009)
• Europe and the Manhattan Declaration (Nov. 25, 2009)
LOPEZ: Is this declaration comparable to the “end of democracy” debate of the late Nineties?Read the entire interview.
GEORGE: The “End of Democracy” debate was focused on the consequences for political legitimacy of the judicial usurpation of democratic authority. That remains an important constitutional issue, but it is not a central focus of the Manhattan Declaration.
LOPEZ: When will it be time for civil disobedience? When will people know? How should they express it?
GEORGE: We believe in law and the rule of law. We recognize an obligation to comply with laws, whether we like them or not. That obligation is defeasible, however. Gravely unjust laws, and especially laws that seek to compel people to do things that are unjust, do not bind in conscience. Certainly, one must never perform a gravely unjust act, even when “following orders” or compelled by law. Christians believe — and they are far from alone in this — that one must be prepared to pay a price, sometimes a very high price indeed, for refusing to do what one’s conscience tells one is wrong. Socrates, as presented by his disciple Plato, stunned his interlocutors by saying that if one is faced with the options of doing a wrong or suffering one, it is better to suffer a wrong. That’s the teaching of Christianity, too. So if legislation is enacted that compels obstetricians and gynecologists to participate in abortions or refer for them, Christians and other pro-life men and women who practice in those fields of medicine will find themselves faced with the options of doing what they judge in conscience to be gravely unjust or abandoning their careers. Their obligation will be to abandon their careers. By the same token, if legislation is enacted to compel Catholic hospitals and clinics, for example, to provide abortion services or refer for abortions, those institutions could face the options of doing what the Church teaches is profoundly wrong or going out of business. Their obligation will be to go out of business. Of course, this would be a tragedy, especially since these institutions do such wonderful work in providing health care to the poor. But the legal imposition will leave them no choice.
• "...no power on earth ... will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence." (Nov. 24, 2009)
• Europe and the Manhattan Declaration (Nov. 25, 2009)
One has to sign the Declaration -- and, of course, I did as fast as I could. Privileged to to be able to -- with my own Archbishop Kurtz and with Cardinal Rigali.
However, I am sure I do not agree with George Weigel's Whig hermeneutic of continuity. Weigel is, I think, fighting a rearguard action to save the modern secular liberal state (or, at the very least, its US incarnation) for "Christendom".
George is a brilliant guy -- I mean it; I love his writing -- but that dog won't hunt.
The US state -- and the global culture it has spawned -- is profoundly anti-Catholic (most specifically, in its First Amendment). The First Amendment is about conferring individual and assembly rights, not about recognizing corporate religious (not to mention, Catholic) inculturation in public life. Until European and (especially) US Catholics realize that the Whig/Enlightenment secular state is not Caesar, they will not be able to come to grips with Anti-Christ.
"Faithful citizenship" is not the order of this day.
God bless the US bishops for their courage and their resolve to do the best they can in the absence of effective US Catholic lay leadership.
Posted by: Robert Miller | Tuesday, December 01, 2009 at 06:13 PM
Read Dinesh D'Souza's "The Enemy At Home." He nailed how the cultural left has eviscerated traditional morality with disastrous consequences both home and abroad. (Of course, JPII and Benedict saw the same ideological poverty in Europe much earlier and commented widely.)
Political polemics aside, the extreme cultural liberalism that we associate with modern politics in America and export as "freedom" has alienated our orthodox friends, and especially Muslims. He identifies their real animus towards the US (generally) as the anti-traditional stance of the cultural left, and I personally feel there should be coalition building among people of faith to counter this anti-religious bullying.
This is a wonderful step in the right direction. God bless and protect our Catholic Bishops.
Posted by: Drjs | Wednesday, December 02, 2009 at 12:10 PM