Guest post from JD Flynn

Guest post from JD Flynn December 20, 2014

This is a guest post from my dear friend JD Flynn.  It is the conclusion of our dialogue about the honorary doctorate conferred by our alma mater, Franciscan University of Steubenville, upon Michael Hayden, former head of the CIA.  You can read my initial post here, JD’s first post here, and my response here.  I promised JD that if he wrote his response here, I’d point out that he’s smarter and better looking than me.  He is.

Sam Rocha is a pretty good guy.  Not all the time, but often enough.  Generously, he offered to let me have the last word in our dialogue about Michael Hayden’s honorary doctorate, and he offered to host that last word right here, on his very own blog.  This will be the last thing you read from either of us on this subject, unless Franciscan does something we decide to write about.  Sam, unprompted and unbidden, is letting me have the final say.  I’m moved.  I’m tickled pink.  I’m so moved, in fact, that I’ve decided the best way to respond to him is by letter.  Here it is:

Dear Sam,

On Wednesday of this week, my phone buzzed at 3:42 am.  I thought it must have been already 6, and that my alarm must have already begun sounding.  I rolled over and picked up the phone.  The buzzing was not my alarm.  It was you, sending me a message about an internet petition.  An internet petition, Sam. At 3:42 am.  “I honestly now think you should sign the petition” you wrote.  “I’ve made my case seriously this time.”

Your zeal cracks me up.

I read your post, Sam, and it was good.  Using evidence, you refuted those who have defended Michael Hayden.  And using reason, you debunked those who have defended acts of barbarism.  You made some pretty good pokes at my call for Franciscan to act prophetically.  You wrote a pretty good paper.

On the whole, I agree with you about torture, and about “enhanced interrogation.”  I don’t know where all the lines are.  I’m not familiar enough with just war theory, with physiology, or psychology, or with specific CIA procedures to make great judgments.  But  some things contained in the Senate report make my stomach turn, and raise the alarm bells of my conscience, and I know that if they’re true, they can pretty well be defined as inhuman.

I also agree that most of the defenders of those kinds of practices are basic utilitarian consequentialists.  My Franciscan University education taught me the danger of that kind of thinking–in fact, I know it leads to a dictatorship called relativism.  I notice that Michael Hayden seems to fall into that camp, and so I’m not really persuaded my much of what he’s said.

If I had been paying more attention two years ago, I might have written to Franciscan and asked them to reconsider their invitation to Michael Hayden.  I wasn’t.  I didn’t.  That’s a good lesson for me.  But here we are.

But, still, I’m not planning to sign the petition.  And that probably ticks you off.

So why won’t I sign?

I think we agree that this question is a matter of prudential judgment.  Whatever Franciscan should have done in the past, at this point, the question of the degree is a matter of prudential judgment.  This is an issue on which reasonable people can disagree in good faith, in good conscience, and because no course of action is a moral imperative, it is an issue on which people can disagree without either of them being wrong.  The question is a matter of perspective and judgment.

From my perspective, rescinding the degree might prove to be a mistake for Franciscan.  If this degree is rescinded, I have no doubt, other people will begin to ask that other degrees be rescinded.  Franciscan has honored American churchmen in the past. Will SNAP and its collaborators ask that all their degrees be rescinded?  Would Franciscan have some obligation to do so?  In 1970, Senator Jennings Randolph said some very unkind things about women.  Will someone ask that his degree be rescinded?  Alan Keyes has an honorary degree from the university and, Sam, there are a lot of people who don’t like things that Alan Keyes has done.  Will they be the next ones to start a petition?

You might say, and you might be right, that Michael Hayden’s misdeeds are categorically different from those of anyone else on Franciscan’s list of honorees.   You might be wrong, of course, and neither of us can be sure.  But here’s the point– by rescinding one degree, Franciscan opens the door to having to reconsider every other one, and that could prove to be problematic in a lot of ways.  Once the door was opened, Franciscan would have to be the arbiter of those sinners who deserve to keep their degrees, and those who deserve to lose them.  Quite honestly, that doesn’t sound like a very good position for the university.

Another point is that rescinding the degree feels a little bit like Bonhoeffer’s “cheap grace.”  The Senate report has reminded us that America has a moral problem with the way it conducts itself in certain foreign affairs.  In that case, the vocation of the Church is to call the country on to something better.  Rescinding the degree feels like the easy way out– the university can issue a press release, and move on.  In some ways, I’d rather the degree stand–a reminder of how easily we can look the other way when impassioned by threats to our security, of how often our desire for safety can cloud our moral judgment.  I’d rather the degree stand, and the university look on it as a constant reminder to be advocates for peace, for clear-headed moral thinking, and for the gravity of objective human rights and God-given human dignity.

Sam, you might disagree with me about every single thing I’ve said so far.  I’ve got to tell you, buddy, that’s ok with me.  Because I want to be clear about the most important reason I’m not going to sign the petition.  Here it is:

I am not an expert on this situation.

Sam, we live at a time when everyone believes they have the right to be an expert.  Our parent’s generation, if not our own parents, taught us the importance of “questioning authority and the structures of power.”  And the internet has taught us that anytime we can string words into sentences, our opinions deserve to be aired.  We’re living in a time when anyone with a URL can be an expert.

We need to have more humility than that.  We need to, Sam.

You and I, Sam, can bat around opinions all day long.  It’s sport for us– we’ve done it together since we were 19.  In a matter of minutes, we can learn about an issue, form judgments, and then hold our judgments out as absolute, obvious, and unbeatable truth.  We can be ardent, zealous, passionate and compelling defenders of opinions we don’t even really hold, for no other reason than that there’s nothing good on tv.  We’re good at that, Sam.  The problem is that in another time, people wiser than us called that skill “sophistry.”  It’s easy for me to be a sophist, Sam.  But I’m trying real hard to knock it off.

I’m not calling you a sophist.  You’re right on the moral questions.  Spot on, in fact.  But when it comes to the prudential questions– the questions about what Franciscan should do right now– I am not equipped to judge what the answer really is.  You probably are.  You probably know a lot more than I do.

Here’s what I know.  In 2012, Franciscan University honored a man who seems to have facilitated some very bad things, and who seems to think those bad things were ok because they might have been helpful to our country.

That’s pretty much the limit of my knowledge.  And with that level of knowledge– and that level of ignorance– I can’t presume to tell someone else what they ought to do.

*

Here’s a little story.

I started canon law school in the fall of 2005.  I was 22 years old.  I had just completed a Theology MA at Franciscan, and I’d gotten the idea that I should be a canon lawyer.  So I went down to Catholic U in my Birkenstocks and my JPII t-shirts and signed up for the School of Canon Law.

I didn’t know that canon law school is kind of a serious place.  That most of the students are priests, who’ve been ordained for a while, and they’re sent to study because their bishop thinks a lot of them.  The ones who aren’t priests are religious sisters and brothers who will probably become the superiors of their communities.  And the ones outside of that category are mostly accomplished lawyers, who decide they want to serve the Church for a second career.

I didn’t know that canon law school is no place for 22 year old kids watching Aqua Teen Hunger Force all night and showing up late to class.  So it was a bit of an adjustment for me.  I did pretty well, academically, because my Franciscan education prepared me for higher studies. But the first year, the zeitgeist of the place was a real challenge.

There was a Franciscan in my class, a TOR.  I knew the TORs because they run Steubenville, and so I was really glad this guy was in my class.  He was friendly, and more friendly to me than I deserved, but he was also a serious student.  When a professor had a question, this guy knew the answer.  When there was a Latin quiz, this guy had the flashcards. And when many of us sweated comps and theses, this guy flew right through them.

He was, hands down, one of the brightest men I’ve ever met.  He was also charitable, even to 22 year old goofballs.  And he had exceedingly good judgment.  His comments and questions displayed more insight into the Church’s life and mission than I think I’ll ever achieve.

In short order, this Franciscan earned a doctorate, and then he was invited to join the faculty of the School of Canon Law.  The TORs moved him to the faculty at Franciscan a few years later.  And then, in 2013, my friend Father Sean Sheridan was named the president of the Franciscan University of Steubenville.

*

Sam, I’m not going to sign the petition because I trust Fr. Sean Sheridan.  He is wise, and prudent, and holy.  And, as important, he knows more about this situation than I do.  He knows more about this situation than I have a right to know, even.  Fr. Sean knows that rescinding the degree is an option.  He knows that it could be a good idea, or a bad idea.  He knows the reasons.  And he knows how to make a decision.

I’m not going to sign the petition because I trust the leader God has given Franciscan University.  That might not be enough for you, and that’s ok.  I get that.  But I like St. Francis a lot.  So I’m trying to kill off my hubris.  I’m trying to kill off the sense that I know everything about everything, and that I have some right to hop from outrage to outrage.  I’m trying to develop this thing called serenity.  If Fr. Sheridan wants my opinion, he knows how to call me.  If I need to share something with him, I know how to to write him a letter.  I don’t need to flash my opinion all over town, and I don’t need to publicly pressure someone with more knowledge than me to make a decision just because I think it’s best.

In the (apocryphal) words of St. Francis, I’m trying, in this situation not to be understood, but to understand.  And I trust that the university, its leaders, and the Holy Spirit, Sam, will help me to understand all I need to know.

Thanks, Sam, for letting me have the last word.  It’s mighty decent of you.

Sincerely yours in Christ,

JD


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