When I wrote the earlier post on Obama and Notre Dame, I prefaced it with a disclaimer of sorts: I did not want to wade into the issue of whether or not Obama should have received this honor in the first place. I merely wanted to address the familiar hypocrisy of many (thought by no means all) of those who disapproved. And I thought I provided some apt examples, both in text and comments. But it soon became clear this narrower issue could not be divorced from the larger issue.
The reason I did not wish to wade into this was, quite frankly, because I do not have a consistently worked out view on it. I find myself going back and forth by Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof!
On one hand, it is part of our tradition to honor secular rulers even when they have done some pretty awful things. Examples are legion, and others have referred to Thomas More and Charlemagne. One of my favorite examples is the gushing rhetoric used by Pope Gregory the Great about Emperor Phocas after Phocas seized the throne and murdered his predecessor and his predecessor’s family. Gregory needed the emperor’s help and support in Italy, and was willing to overlook his “flaws”.
On the other hand, our more recent tradition is more inclined to support a strong moral stance against “official” evil acts. This could possibly be one of the benefits of the liberal tradition, and we are deluding ourselves if we no not recognize it as part of the liberal tradition. Any regular reader of this blog knows I am a fan of Elizabeth Anscombe, and my first exposure to her thought was her vehement denunciation of Oxford’s decision to grant an honorary degree to the war criminal Harry Truman. I could see a similar stance being taken against an honor given to Bush or Cheney (Anscombe objected to the mere public recognition; it was nothing to do with a Catholic college).
But going back to the first hand, Obama is not directly implicated in such a grave moral evil. FOCA might rise to the occasion, but there is no FOCA. If we include things like the Mexico City policy and the ESCR, then we are setting the bar at a low level, and by that I mean in a manner that would implicate the vast majority of elected officials for supporting one or other evil act. (I am assuming of course that we adopt a consistent stance here– a big assumption, mind you!).
Switching hands again, perhaps there is some merit in this, for it would induce a much-needed separation between the Catholic world and the secular political world. For if we become partisans, the temptation is to ignore those aspects of the ideology that do not accord well with Catholic teaching. New Deal Catholic Democrats felt justifiably betrayed by the party’s take-over by secular liberals in the 1970s. Pro-life Catholics have been similarly betrayed by the Republican party, in the thrall of laissez-faire liberals, militarists, and nutty culture warriors. So it could be a good signal that Catholics are going to chart out own course in a more united fashion. It would be far better than for Catholics to play the unseemly game of using the crutch of Catholic teaching to support what is effectively a partisan position.
Conclusion? There isn’t one. Deal with it!
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