“Though the Mountains Be Shaken”: Toward a Countercultural and Liberative Ecclesial Ethic for Appalachia (1)

August 17, 2007 By Iafrate Michael

Part One – Introduction

“Though the mountains be shaken
and the hills be removed,
yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken
nor my covenant of peace be removed,”
says the LORD, who has compassion on you.
“O afflicted city, lashed by storms and not comforted,
I will build you with stones of turquoise,
your foundations with sapphires.
I will make your battlements of rubies,
your gates of sparkling jewels,
and all your walls of precious stones.
All your sons will be taught by the LORD,
and great will be your children’s peace.

“See, it is I who created the blacksmith
who fans the coals into flame
and forges a weapon fit for its work.
And it is I who have created the destroyer to work havoc;
no weapon forged against you will prevail,
and you will refute every tongue that accuses you.
This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD,
and this is their vindication from me,”
declares the LORD.

(Isaiah 54: 10-13, 16-17, NIV)

About two years ago I was living in a “tri-state” area of my home state of West Virginia, an area that provided easy access to the neighboring states of Pennsylvania and Maryland. In this tri-state area, if one wanted to drive from Morgantown, West Virginia to Wheeling, West Virginia via the interstate, the road would take you through the southwest corner of Pennsylvania and back into West Virginia about sixty miles later. As I would make this trip often to visit family and friends, I knew the road well, and during one of my regular trips I was stunned to see that the familiar “Welcome to Wild and Wonderful West Virginia” sign at the state line had been replaced by another sign. Although the sign itself was more attractive and bore a beautiful image of rolling mountains dressed in the colors of autumn, the new text on the sign was troubling: “West Virginia: Open for Business.” West Virginia’s governor Joe Manchin had just unveiled a new set of state welcome signs, and with it a new openness regarding his political and economic ideals.

This anecdote serves as but one illustrative example of the ongoing reality of exploitation and oppression in Appalachia, especially under the current phase of savage capitalism and corporate globalization. The anecdote serves also as an entry point into a reflection on the possibility of a renewed ecclesial ethic of resistance that can emerge when the Roman Catholic Church’s thirty-year-old tradition of praxis-centered Appalachian contextual social teaching is brought into fruitful dialogue with two more recent phenomenon: 1) the insights of the “new ecclesiology,” a style of theologizing that focuses radically on the practices of the Church as the center of political life through the embodiment of a distinctive Christian social ethic, and 2) the experience of the radical “antiglobalization” movements of the 1990s and into the present.

“The United States is the site of multiple worlds, worlds contrasting and contradictory,” wrote a North American theologian in one of many collections of theology that brought Latin American liberation theology into dialogue with North American theology.[1] Smashing through easy categories of “Third World” and “First World,” these various dialogues brought to the Church an awareness of the complexity of socio-political and economic issues, especially the presence of oppressed sectors of society within the “First World” itself, for example women and people of color. The region of the United States known as Appalachia was one of many of the marginalized groups that were identified as part of “America’s Third World.” [2]

The Catholic Church in Appalachia has a rich history of social teaching that began to be developed over thirty years ago as part of these new liberationist reflections on North American reality. Much of this theology and social teaching was a result of the collaboration of the Appalachian bishops and lay social justice groups such as the Catholic Committee of Appalachia. Beginning with its inaugural pastoral letter This Land is Home to Me,[3] Appalachian theology and social teaching has provided a useful liberative method for the Church’s ongoing reflection on the social realities of the region and has inspired countless ministries and movements for social and economic justice.

Twenty years later, a second pastoral letter was issued, At Home in the Web of Life,[4] that continued the hermeneutical circle of contextual reflection to include insights in light of a new economic and political situation. The pattern shown in these two documents, and the ecclesial praxis that has flowed from them, encourages the circle to continue in order to discern the “signs of the times” in the region and how the Word and Spirit are speaking to God’s people in the present and calling them to deeper divine life in community.

This essay represents the beginning of my own contribution to this ongoing reflection on the Church[5] in the region called Appalachia, with particular focus on sketching an approach or method to doing theological ethics in this context. I write as one who identifies as Appalachian, having grown up from the age of two in West Virginia and who was raised within a parish and diocese that were strongly shaped by the vision of the first Appalachian pastoral letter. I will not attempt to start from scratch or attempt to articulate a “new” method for ethical reflection on the Appalachian reality. Rather, this reflection will be rooted in the documents’ praxis-centered model of theology, one of six models identified and described in Stephen Bevans’ framework of models of contextual theology.[6] After providing a general overview of this praxis-oriented method as it appears and functions in these pastoral letters, I will attempt to bring the documents into dialogue with another distinct method, the “countercultural” method[7] as it appears in the “new ecclesiology” as well as in theologies that draw from the experience of radical, countercultural social and political movements.

Why this dialogue? While the liberationist/praxis model of reflection has produced an outstanding and very radical body of social theology for Appalachia, Stephen Bevans notes that it is not necessary, nor is it desirable, for theological reflection to remain within one model only. In fact, in order to have a more complete understanding of the situation and of possible modes of pastoral and political action, several methods can and should be used in conjunction with one another: “[I]t is my contention that no one model can be used exclusively and an exclusive use will distort the theological enterprise.”[8] This essay will attempt to show that the stance of the countercultural theologians, while similar to the praxis-oriented theologians, can contribute new insights for a more radical ecclesial ethic for the region of Appalachia.

The “countercultural” model, as described by Bevans, bears some similarities to the praxis model in that its central concern is the lived practice of the Christian faith. The differences between the two models are many, but for the purposes of this paper we will focus on the difference between how each model understands “political action” as well as their attitudes toward structures of power such as the state and the Church. My own reading of the Appalachian pastorals will focus on their view of the usefulness of existing structures such as the state in working toward the common good[9] of both the local and global communities. While the first pastoral letter, This Land is Home to Me, strongly condemned structural sin and the institutional violence of modern capitalism, the tone of the letter is yet an optimistic one, speaking of “the birth of utopias,” and imagining a Church that calls the business and political worlds to become their best selves and collaborates with them in listening to the voice of the poor and helping them to make a choice in favor of justice and of the God of Life. I will note a shift of emphasis in the second pastoral letter which makes only a very brief mention of the state’s role in facilitating the common good, spending much more time discussing the notion of alternative social and economic experiments that foster sustainable communities. Of special note is the short section on those alternative structures developed and/or supported by the Church itself.

Next, following Catholic theologian William T. Cavanaugh who critiques the long held assumption in Catholic social thought that the state is the primary facilitator the common good, I hope to show, with additional help from Appalachian studies and the insights of recent social movements, that the problems with this assumption can be seen in increasingly vivid detail in the economic planning practices of Appalachian politicians and the increasingly devastating “imperial” reality of the War on Terror. This examination will then place us in the position to consider that—in light of these critiques of the state, and drawing from the insights of the “new ecclesiologies” that focus on the practices of the Church as embodying a distinct social ethic—continued efforts to articulate and put into practice a theology for Appalachia should continue to place its focus on the Church itself as a political entity in its own right, an alternative social space that serves as a witness to the world of another way of “doing politics” and of fostering true, life-giving community. The result will suggest an approach to a contextual theological ethic of resistance for Appalachia that draws from the best insights of liberationist and “ecclesiocentric” countercultural ethical approaches, offering a method centered on the possibility of radical ecclesial praxis on a local level which, rather than causing the Church to withdraw into a sectarian ecclesial mode, threatens the existing social order through these ecclesial practices themselves.

Next: Part Two – The Beginnings of “Appalachian Liberation Theology”

______________________________

[1] Mar Peter-Raoul, “South Bronx to South Africa: Prayer, Praxis, Song,” in Yearning to Breathe Free: Liberation Theologies in the U.S., ed. Mar Peter-Raoul, Linda Rennie Forcey, and Robert Fredrick Hunter, Jr. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1990), 19.
[2] Ibid., 21.
[3] Catholic Bishops of Appalachia, This Land is Home to Me: A Pastoral Letter on Powerlessness in Appalachia (Techny, IL: Society of the Divine Word, 1975/2000).
[4] Catholic Bishops of Appalachia, At Home in the Web of Life: A Pastoral Message on Sustainable Communities in Appalachia (Webster Springs, WV: Catholic Committee of Appalachia, 1995).
[5] My use of the word “Church” in this essay will vary. As this essay concerns the tradition of Roman Catholic social teaching and the concrete practices of the Church in a particular context, in many instances the word “Church” will refer to the Roman Catholic Church. As will become clear later in the essay, however, my engagement with various forms of the “new ecclesiology” includes dialogue with several theologians of other ecclesial traditions, and thus “Church” in other parts of this essay will refer to the Church as a reality that is larger than the visible, institutional form of the Roman Catholic Church.
[6] Stephen B. Bevans, Models of Contextual Theology, Revised and expanded ed. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2002) The models described in the original edition of Bevans’ book were the translation, anthropological, praxis, synthetic, and transcendental models. The “countercultural” model was added in the revised and expanded edition of the book.
[7] Bevans, Models of Contextual Theology, 117–37.
[8] Ibid., 32.
[9] The concept of the “common good” is central to Catholic social teaching and liberationist ethical approaches, but the precise meaning and helpfulness of the term is debated. We will not attempt to address these debates here, but will assume that the concept is of central importance. For the debates about the meaning of the common good, see the collection Patrick Miller and Dennis McCann, eds., In Search of the Common Good, Theology for the Twenty-First Century (London: T. & T. Clark, 2005); and John A. Coleman, “The Future of Catholic Social Thought,” in Modern Catholic Social Teaching: Commentaries & Interpretations, ed. Kenneth Himes (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2005), 522–44.

For the Repose of All Their Souls

August 15, 2007 By Radical Catholic Mom

For all the Yazidi people slaughtered by Al-Quaida, we pray to the Lord. Iraq is bearing the brunt of terrorism right now. The Iraqis are the sacrificial lambs, so to speak. Let us pray for the violence to end.

On Inter-Religious Dialogue IV-2: What It Is Not

August 13, 2007 By Henry Karlson

There is considerable confusion by Christians (and non-Christians) as to what inter-religious dialogue is and what it is not. From this misunderstanding, many people are hostile to it. When one goes through the criticisms launched against it, the ones who are hostile towards it rarely have explored how inter-religious dialogue is conducted, what its goals are, and more specifically, what inter-religious dialogue avoids. Their presentations of it are contrary to what inter-religious dialogue actually tries to achieve. Inter-religious dialogue desires to have people come to know and appreciate people of other faiths, and to better and more accurately understand what these faiths actually teach. Through this, it certainly hopes they will get along with one another better and will be able to work together for the betterment of society, but this can only be done after they have grown to know and understand each other better.

When we encounter people of a different faith, there are many things which we can and should do. One thing we should not do, however, is to fear them just because they are different from us. Much hostility in the world, much religious persecution, has come from such fear. Romans once disliked Christians because we were different from them, and they sspread all kinds of odd, false stories about Christianity which perpetuated the disdain Romans felt for Christians. Historically, this has not happened with Christians alone. Most religions have had similar stories and gossip spread about them. There is no better way to counterbalance this than by dialogue, where ignorance can be removed, and unfounded prejudices can be eliminated. Thus, inter-religious dialogue is important, because it can help provide ways for people to get to know each other better and to realize that they are not as different from one another as they might at first have thought. From dialogue, we should be able to realize that we can exist together in peace. While inter-religious dialogue should not be seen merely as a tool for peace building in the world, nonetheless, we must recognize that inter-religious dialogue helps in pursuing such a laudable and worthwhile goal. Once you know others better, it is easier to trust them and work with them for the common good. “We wish finally to express our support for all the laudable, worthy initiatives that can safeguard and increase peace in our troubled world. We call upon all good men, all who are just, honest and true of heart. We ask them to help build a dam within their nations against blind violence which can only destroy and sow seeds of ruin and sorrow. So, too, in international life, that they might bring men to mutual understanding, combing efforts that would further social progress, overcome hunger of body and ignorance of the mind, and advance those who are less endowed with the goods of this earth, yet rich in energy and desire” John Paul I, Radio Message Urbi et Orbi, Rome, 8-27-1978 in Interreligious Dialogue: The Official Teachings of the Catholic Church (1963 – 1995). ed. Francesco Gioia (Boston: Pauline Books & Media, 1997), 211.

Many non-Christians are weary to engage inter-religious dialogue with Christians because they believe Christians involved in it are dishonest and want to use inter-religious dialogue as a tool for evangelization. Many Christians, on the other hand, do not want to be involved in inter-religious dialogue because they believe it means they would have to stop the proclamation of their faith. Both of these positions, however, come from a misunderstanding of the goals and limitations of inter-religious dialogue. While we have already looked at what inter-religious dialogue is, we still need to look at the limits of such dialogue, and the best way to do this is to understand what exactly inter-religious dialogue is not.

Probably two of the greatest mistaken beliefs many have about inter-religious dialogue are to believe that it either promotes indifferentism or that its goal is to unite all religious traditions into one supra-religious entity. Both of these, however, are far from the truth. While dialogue promotes respect of the various religious traditions of the world, this respect does not mean one has to think all religions are equal. Indeed, in inter-religious dialogue you want to meet people who are faithful to their religious tradition, and this fidelity, of course, would not be had if they did not have reasons as to why they believe and follow their own religious traditions instead of any other. “This does not mean that in entering into dialogue the partners should lay aside their respective religious convictions. The opposite is true: the sincerity of interreligious dialogue requires that each enters into it with the integrity of his or her own faith.” Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and the Congregation for Evangelization of Peoples, Dialogue and Proclamation (Vatican: 5-19-1991), par. 48. Through dialogue, people learn to respect and understand each other. This does not mean they come to some universal agreement. If this is to be seen as a mark of indifferentism, then it would also be indifferentism for people within a religious tradition to respect each other when they hold different beliefs. For example, Augustinians, Thomists, Bonaventurians, and Scotists disagree on many theological points, yet, in spite of those differences, they can and do respect each other. No one views this to mean they are relativists. This is exactly the kind of respect one is expected to have for people who hold to different religious faiths. One appreciates them, but one also learns about them to sees what differentiates these faiths from one’s own religion. By understanding and respecting the differences, syncretism is avoided; it is only when differences are not appreciated that syncretism can emerge. Moreover, it also shows why those engaged in inter-religious dialogue must not be seen as repudiating their own religious faith. Clearly, they can only engage inter-religious dialogue as a representative (official or unofficial) of one religious belief if they actually believe it. You don’t partake of inter-religious dialogue “in the role of a believer.” If you do, you would not only be misrepresenting yourself, but, because you do not believe the religion in question, you would more likely than not misrepresent it during the dialogue. This would be quite unfair to all involved in the discussion.

Similarly, inter-religious dialogue must never be called ecumenism. Sadly many people do so, and it is because they do no know what ecumenism actually is, nor do they really know what inter-religious dialogue is about. First and foremost, ecumenism is intra-religious; for Christians, it only happens with other Christians; its goal is to find a way to achieve Christian unity, fulfilling the desire that Jesus showed in his prayer to the Father before his death. “Ecumenism is directed precisely to making the partial communion existing between Christians grow towards full communion in truth and charity” John Paul II, Ut Unum Sint (Vatican: 5-25-1995), par. 14. Some might think that the term could be used for inter-religious dialogues in an analogous sense. But this, too, is not right, because, as has been said, inter-religious dialogue does not seek to eliminate the barriers between religions. It seeks, instead, to eliminate the confusion and misunderstanding that people have about the different religious faiths, allowing them to peacefully interact with each other. Those involved in it see, as much as anyone else, the kinds of problems which would occur if people tried to unite the religions of the world together as one supra-religious entity: it would create a religious mess and would satisfy no one.

Just as inter-religious dialogue should not lead to syncretism, it also should not lead to proselytism. In the dialogue, one does not go in seeking to convert the other, but to know them, to understand them. Because of this, inter-religious dialogue is not to be seen as debate; one does not go in with the desire to prove all other religions are wrong and yours alone is right. This does not mean one is not to offer difficult questions: when you learn about a religious belief or tradition which is confusing to you, you ask about it, even if it is clearly a difficult issue to address. Tough questions are welcome as long as they are aimed for better appreciation and understanding of the other faith; indeed, such questions when asked of us can help us affirm our own faith, because they might lead us to delve deeper into our faith on issues we have not done before. Clearly, however, the questions must not have any underpinning of superiority to them: that is, they must not be asked to show why “my religion has better answers to this question than yours.” While one might believe it, how will they really know this to be so, if they do not know how the other religion would answer the question? And if you think you know the answer before it is given, do you really want an answer?

It must also be said that interest in inter-religious dialogue and its proper, respectful engagement, does not mean one should not at other times be interested in propagating one’s faith. The two issues are different. Because most of us live in a pluralistic society where we interact with members of different religious faiths on a daily basis, most of us should be involved in such dialogue at some level. Yet this does not mean we will then lose sight of our own faith; if we believe it to be the truth, and if we believe its teachings would be beneficial to others, then we should also be interested in proclaiming it to them. Of course, this should not happen in the middle of inter-religious dialogue. At other times, at other places, if we do so respectfully to those around us, we can and should work for the propagation of our faith. How this is to be done is beyond the scope of our current discussion, but, clearly, there are good and bad ways to propagate one’s faith. Yet, the ability to proclaim one’s religious beliefs is a right which must be held to and affirmed by every nation. Some people might think that interest in inter-religious dialogue and a desire to propagate one’s faith can not go together. If you want to proclaim your religious faith, can you really be open to the other? However, this is not so. Indeed, “Interreligious dialogue […] is promoted, not hindered, when there is free proclamation” Francis Cardinal Arinze, Meeting Other Believers (Huntington, Indiana: OurSundayVistor, 1997). One who proclaims their faith to others, if they want to be heard and listened to, will do so with sensitivity and understanding, that is, they will appreciate where others are coming from, and will work to build up those truths the others possess as a part of their evangelization. How can they do this if they do not know what others believe? Moreover, the one who wants to proclaim their faith takes that faith seriously; they would be the kind of person to talk to if one wants to learn what their faith teaches. This means they would be a great participant in inter-religious dialogues as long as they understand the limits of the dialogue and understand it is not a place where the participants try to convert one another.

Possibly another great mistake people have about inter-religious dialogue is that they think it must be a dialogue on philosophical or doctrinal issues. While certainly these are important, inter-religious dialogue must not be seen merely as a symposium of philosophers or theologians. There is far more to a religion than this. “Religions are much more than doctrines. Within one religion there may even be a pluralism of doctrines. To pin down a religion to a certain definite doctrinal set is to kill the religion” Raimon Panikkar, The Intra-Religious Dialogue (New York: Paulist Press, 1999), 65. We can find many other ways to approach and appreciate religions than by having a dialogue exclusively on their doctrinal beliefs. A religion is more than a selection of ideas but a lived experience; it manifests itself in many ways. Thus, for a religion, its rituals, stories, histories, myths, and holiness codes are just as important, and sometimes more important, than its doctrinal content. There are many ways believers can appreciate these; religious experts will understand them differently from the ordinary believer. Therefore, while religious experts certainly are important in inter-religious dialogue, it is clear that inter-religious dialogue is not a dialogue solely for such “experts.” Rather, it is open to anyone who believes and can share their beliefs with others, and who are interested, in return to learn about the beliefs of others.

Likewise, we must not think inter-religious dialogue is about the study of religion or for engaging in comparative religion. The problem here is that the discipline of religious studies tends to objectify religion and comparative religion takes these objectifications further, and uses objectified categories as a hermeneutical tool which then reads all religious traditions through a secondary lens. While religious studies and comparative religions are useful scholarly pursuits, they can hinder the goals of inter-religious dialogue because in such dialogue the point is to give the primacy of interpretation to members of the religious faiths being represented in the dialogue. A scholarly overlay used to read into the results of the dialogue would work against this. One would no longer be listening to the other; instead you would already be assuming what the other believes. But, this is not to say, in the dialogue, there will be no comparative work going on. When it is done, it must be free-flowing, and based upon what it is said, and not a-priori categorization.

Finally, something must be said about peace building. Clearly, dialogue can help us realize that most people desire peace. “From the acceptance of the fact of religiously pluralistic societies, the followers of the various religions have to learn to work together to promote peace. Peace has no religious frontiers. There is no separate Christian peace, Muslim peace, Hindu peace, or Buddhist peace. Religions have no choice but to work together to promote peace” Francis Cardinal Arinze, Religions For Peace (New York: Doubleday, 2002), 57. Moreover, through the practice of inter-religious dialogue, many factors which hinder peace can be overcome. “To build peace and maintain it, the cooperation of all is required. Believers in the various religions have to be helped to overcome misunderstandings, stereotypes, caricatures, and other prejudices, inherited or acquired” ibid., 57.However, while this is true, we must not think inter-religious dialogue is solely a tool for peace building. To do so is to abuse the dialogue. First and foremost it is to be used as way of getting people to better understand and appreciate each other and their religious traditions. If this is ignored, and people dialogue with members of other religions, trying to create peace without trying to get to know the people they want peace with, the peace will be without a proper foundation and will fall like a house of cards. You just do not dialogue with others, treating them as tools for an end. You must first realize they are subjects in their own right and it is through this that true peace building flows as slowly begin to do more than know them and how they think, but trust them as well.

To summarize, inter-religious dialogue is not:

1) Religious indifference
2) Syncretism
3) Ecumenism
4) A repudiation of one’s own faith
5) Proselytism
6) Replacement for proclamation
7) Debate
8) Merely a symposium of philosophical ideas or theological doctrines
9) Merely for experts
10) Merely a study of religion or comparative religion
11) Merely a tool for peace building

Asociación Madres de Plaza de Mayo…The Mothers of the Disappeared

August 3, 2007 By Policraticus

The “Dirty War” of Argentina, which lasted from 1976-1983, was nearly a decade of violence carried out against Argentine citizens by presidents Jorge Rafael Videla, Roberto Eduardo Violaand, Leopoldo Galtieri and their successive military government. The government sought to obliterate all “leftist” resistance and influence within Argentine society. It is widely believed that up to 30,000 Argentine citizens and refugees from Chile and Uruguay disappeared during the Dirty War. They were arrested, tortured and killed, most of them being trade unionists and students.

Seeing a neo-liberal and capitalist ally in the Argentine regimes, the U.S. was supportive of these military governments despite having knowledge of the systematic arrests and killings of civilians. Then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wished to remain friendly and supportive of Argentina in the late 1970’s on account of Videla’s anti-communist leanings. Kissenger apparently felt that having a Cold War ally was more important than objecting to the wide-spread human rights violations being committed in Argentina by far-right organizations (read: death squads) such as the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance. One cannot forget that Republican administrations of the second half of the twentieth century especially have had a penchant for supporting violent and oppressive regimes out of politico-economic interests (e.g., Pinochet, Batista and Abdullah). The Argentine government was given the impression that Washington was supportive of its actions despite the protest of the U.S. embassy in Argentina. Under Jimmy Carter, the U.S. backed off from its support of Argentina, but Ronald Reagan reversed this trend when he sought Argentine assistance in training Contras for guerrilla warfare in Nicaragua. The Ford and Reagan administrations turned a blind eye to the injustices and murders in Argentina, perceiving a greater good in bolstering neo-liberal (i.e., democratic capitalist) interests in Latin America and subverting a burgeoning Marxism in various Latin American countries. In 2002, the U.S. State Department declassified more than 4,600 documents pertaining to the Dirty War and U.S. involvement with, and support of, the Argentine regimes. The U.S. chose several times to ally itself out of economic interest with some of the most violent and cruel regimes of Latin America rather than standing up for the human rights of the innocent civilians. Economics preceding ethics. Adam Smith’s theory of moral sentiments and J.S. Mill’s utilitarianism trumping Aquinas’ virtue ethics and Kant’s moral formalism.

But cutting through the politics for a moment, what about the families of the disappeared? What about the mothers who mourn their children, having never said good-bye? From 1977 to 2006, the mothers of Argentina’s disappeared stood in solidarity as the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, protesting the violations of human rights and the subsequent cover-up by the Argentine governments. Their sons, brothers and husbands were tortured and killed without any warning, without any explanation and without any burial. 30,000 people vanished in less than eight years.

Every Thursday afternoon these mothers dressed in black and wore white scarves (symbolizing peace), and marched around Plaza de Mayo in downtown Buenos Aires. One of the founders of the group, Azucena Villaflor, was arrested in late 1977 and taken to a concentration camp. She was never seen again until her remains were found in 2005 by the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team. It was determined that Villaflor was tortured, drugged and dropped from a plane (vuelos de la muerte) over the ocean to fall to her death. Villaflor’s remains were found with those of Sr. Léonie Duquet, a Catholic nun who supported the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo and had disappeared in 1977. She, too, was dropped out of plane, plummeting to her death.

A rather moving tribute to the Mothers of the Plazo de Mayo occurred at U2’s concert in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1998. This was the first time I had ever heard of the Mothers of the Plazo de Mayo, having relied on popular news services in the U.S. that report stories that only have U.S. interests in mind. Bono, the lead singer of U2, had a number of the mothers join him on stage where they each said the name of their disappeared son, brother or husband. They stood with him through U2’s performance of “One” and “Mothers of the Disappeared,” the latter of which he wrote back in 1987 specifically for the Mothers of the Plazo de Mayo. Here are the two songs performed in Santiago, Chile that featured images of the Mothers of the Plazo de Mayo in protest. Mothers whose sons and daughters will killed by both the Chilean and Argentine governments were on stage for Santiago show. The concert was televised on Chilean television for even Pinochet himself to see.

Whenever I hear of America’s benevolence in liberating Iraq from its dictator, I cannot help but think what a farce this benevolence is. We toppled a violent regime in Iraq that we didn’t see eye-to-eye with…we supported, funded and militarized dozens of violent regimes that were advantageous to us in terms of economic and foreign interests. That’s not benevolence, that’s greed. In the words of Thomas Jefferson, who was perhaps the most sober-minded of the U.S. founding fathers: “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.” Those who truly love America–the true patriots–are not those that boast of her glory or dominance, but those who recognize her sins and seek to transform her. Love for one’s country is not coextensive with love for the current public policy of one’s country. To quote another brilliant man: “We must open our eyes!” Pope Benedict XVI is absolutely right.

Vox Nova at the Movies: Bobby

August 2, 2007 By Morning's Minion

Bobby is an average movie about the (mostly fictional) lives of a diverse group of people at the Ambassador hotel in Los Angeles on that June day in 1968 when Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. But when the movie portrays the assassination, something amazing happens. As we see Kennedy dying, with all the chaos and heartbreak surrounding the scene, we hear a voice-over of some of Kennedy’s most inspiring rhetoric. He speaks of the futility of violence, the fact that violence only breeds more violence, and that too often we honor swagger, bluster, and force. For what has violence ever accomplished, he asks, what has it ever created? These words resonate today as they did during the dark days of 1968. Watch the whole thing. It’s deeply moving. I cry each time I hear it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87lTkzAb7PA

Response to Alexham, Again

July 26, 2007 By Morning's Minion

Here is the crux of the problem: Alexham states:

“The Democratic Party has also repeatedly demonstrated a hostility to any and all forms of orthodox Christianity. The notion that both political parties are morally bankrupt, and therefore it is acceptable to vote for a democratic candidate who holds public-policy views in direct contravention of virtually all of the Catholic Church’s core “Culture of Life” teaching is patently absurd.”

To claim that the Republican party is any better than its Democratic alternative when it comes to embracing the kind of personalist ethic that sees every human being as made in the image of likeness of God is patently absurd. Yes, the Democratic party is somewhat inspired by post-Enlightenment views that downgrades the very idea of objective truth. But on the other hand, the Republican party derives sustenance from those very similar philosophical roots: individualism, utilitarianism, nationalism. And while it is true the Democrats are not often receptive to “orthodox Christianity”, the Republicans instead are misled by errant Christianity, which leads to notions of American exceptionalism and militarism, and the merging of Christianity into a false civic religion. And, by the way, I do not consider evangelical fundamentalism to be “orthodox Christianity”. So while Democrats downgrade and the value of the person and use consequentialist arguments to support abortion and ESCR, so do Republicans downgrade the value of the person and use consequentialist arguments to support torture and a “violence-first” ethic. So, no, Catholics are not at home in either party. The best we can do is make prudential judgments from a policy perspective. What you cannot do is tell your fellow Catholics they are bound to support any one party– all historical attempts to to this failed dismally.

Which brings me to the next point. You accuse me of attempting to make the Iraq war a “non-negotiable” issue. If you believe that, you profoundly misunderstand my position. Supporting the Iraq war is not intrinsically evil, and therefore not “non-negotiable”. But the mistake that you and others seem to make is to stop there. But you can’t stop there. Intrinsically evil simply means evil in its object, without recourse to intent or circumstance. But circumstances can still make a particular act evil. For example, although the death penalty is not intrinsically evil, many (most?) circumstances under which the death penalty is carried out are indeed evil. Facts and circumstances matter, and facts and circumstances do weigh into proportionate calculations and prudential judgments. If you believe the good effects of the Iraqi occupation (and you highlight that word as if there is something amiss– let’s call a spade a spade) outweigh the evil, that’s your own judgment. Fine, but it’s not mine. You might even think that the benefits of bombing Iran outweigh the costs, though I would dispute this vehemently.

You say there is never room for prudential judgment, but you are engaging in prudential judgment. By voting for a Republican, how do you affect the abortion rate? You are assuming that: (i) the Republican would nominate anti-abortion judges: (ii) these judges would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade; (iii) this would have a material affect on abortion rates. In all three steps, you are entering the area of probability and uncertainty, and forming your own judgments about relative likelihoods.

You touched briefly on supporting traditional marriage, and gave the example of the differential treatment of married and single people in the tax code. Is this the best you can do? Possibly the most family-friendly piece of legislation in recent memory was the Family and Medical Leave Act, which was vetoed by Bush I and only passed by Clinton. And what about the refusal to countenance universal health care, even meager expansions in children’s health care? What about other family friendly policies such as raising the minimum wage, cutting taxes at the low rather than the high end, maternity leave, greater vacation time, subsidized childcare: where do the Republicans stand on all of these issues. Family values? Republicans know how to talk about it, but talk is cheap.

As for crediting Clinton with the reduction in abortion during his two terms, you link to an article demolishing a straw man argument that I never uttered: that abortion rates increased under Bush. It’s very peculiar that every time I make this argument, somebody always counters with this one. See the post I wrote, which uses statistics from the Guttmacher Institute, which your source article seems to see as more reliable. [By the way, I see article you link to emanates from the National Right to Life Committee— I’m still trying to understand why they think having a government negotiate with drug companies, as happens in practically every single payer system, is something to be opposed right up there with abortion and euthanasia by the pro-life movement]

I showed in an earlier post that there is indeed a statistical association between poverty and abortion rates and ratios. In fact, the abortion rate among women living below the federal poverty level is more than four times that of women above 300% of the poverty level. And when asked to give reasons for abortion, three-quarters of women say that cannot afford a child. At the same time, black women are almost four times as likely as white women to have an abortion, and Hispanic women are two and a half life times as likely. The abortion rate rate fell by around 0.3 percentage points a year under Reagan and Bush I, 0.5 percentage points a year under Clinton, and 0.1 percentage points a year under Bush II (data only to 2003). The data for the abortion ratio are even more stark: here, the decline under Clinton is double that of the overall Republican average. Simple statistical techniques show the relationship to poverty.

As for the quoted article by Archbishop Myers, the fundamental flaw is when he says that “pro-life” candidate “would have to be a supporter of objective evils of a gravity and magnitude beyond that of 1.3 million yearly abortions plus the killing that would take place if public funds were made available for embryo-destructive research.” This would only be true if there is a direct link between this public official and the 1.3 million deaths, and that by voting for this opponent, this carnage would end. This is fallacious so many different levels. It is not an “on-off” switch between abortion and no abortion. More technically, the proximity is limited.

One final note: none of this should be read as suggesting I am happy with the current situation in the Democratic party. I favor strong and outspoken opposition to the position on abortion.

Chris Hedges at Adbusters

July 26, 2007 By Iafrate Michael

I have not gotten around to reading Chris Hedges’ most recent book American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America (Free Press, 2007). I think maybe I’m afraid his new book will be less-than-inspiring, following the whole slew of books about the Christian Right that essentially assert that religion is inherently violent, and thus, the Christian Right is the worst manifestation of this fact. (Some books about the Christian Right buck this trend and are quite good, like Mark Lewis Taylor’s Religion, Politics and the Christian Right: Post-9/11 Powers and American Empire.) But considering my love for his two other books, his now classic War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning and his catechism question-and-answer format What Every Person Should Know About War, perhaps my fears are unfounded.

His recent article, “The Death Mask of War,” in the culture-jamming periodical Adbusters certainly has me ready to give his new book another chance. Against the apologists for the tactics of the U.S. military who claim that the military “doesn’t willfully target civilians” (have they not heard of “free fire zones?”), the award-winning war journalist (and former seminary student) Hedges tells another chilling side of the story.

An excerpt:

At one point the unit was surrounded by an angry crowd protesting the occupation. Mejia and his squad opened fire on an Iraqi holding a grenade, riddling the man’s body with bullets. Mejia checked his clip afterwards and determined that he fired 11 rounds into the young man. Units, he said, nonchalantly opened fire in crowded neighborhoods with heavy M-240 Bravo machine guns, AT-4 launchers and Mark 19s, a machine gun that spits out grenades.“The frustration that resulted from our inability to get back at those who were attacking us,” Mejia writes, “led to tactics that seemed designed simply to punish the local population that was supporting them.”

He watched soldiers from his unit abuse the corpses of Iraqi dead. Mejia related how, in one incident, soldiers laughed as an Iraqi corpse fell from the back of a truck.

“Take a picture of me and this m*****f****r,” one of the soldiers who had been in Mejia’s squad in third platoon said, putting his arm around the corpse.

The shroud fell away from the body revealing a young man wearing only his pants. There was a bullet hole in his chest.

“Damn, they really f****d you up, didn’t they!?” the soldier laughed.

[…]

We make our heroes out of clay. We laud their gallant deeds and give them uniforms with colored ribbons on their chest for the acts of violence they committed or endured. They are our false repositories of glory and honor, of power, of self-righteousness, of patriotism and self-worship, all that we want to believe about ourselves. They are our plaster saints of war, the icons we cheer to defend us and make us and our nation great. They are the props of our civic religion, our love of power and force, our belief in our right as a chosen nation to wield this force against the weak and rule. This is our nation’s idolatry of itself. And this idolatry has corrupted religious institutions, not only here but in most nations, making it impossible for us to separate the will of God from the will of the state.

Prophets are not those who speak of piety and duty from pulpits – few people in pulpits have much worth listening to – but it is the battered wrecks of men and women who return from Iraq and speak the halting words we do not want to hear, words that we must listen to and heed to know ourselves. They tell us war is a soulless void. They have seen and tasted how war plunges us to barbarity, perversion, pain and an unchecked orgy of death. And it is their testimonies alone that have the redemptive power to save us from ourselves.

“But Americans don’t do this sort of thing willingly.” Yeah, and “we do not torture” either, right?

Quote of the Week

July 24, 2007 By voxnovablog

It moves one’s heart to think:
Nine months before I was born
there was a woman who loved me deeply.
She did not know what I was going to be like,
but she loved me because she carried me in her womb.
And when she gave me birth,
she took me in her arms,
because her love was not just beginning–
she conceived it along with me.

A mother loves–
and that is why abortion is so abhorrent:
a mother who aborts is unfaithful to the love
that she should have
(like God in eternity)
before her child is born.

Archbishop Oscar Romero

Archbishop Romero, The Violence of Love. trans. James R. Brockman SJ (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988), 85

More Reasons for Gun Control

July 19, 2007 By voxnovablog

Somewhat surprisingly, my recent post defending gun control proved to be one of the most controversial. I must therefore be a masochist, as I have a burning desire to revisit this topic!! Then again, I remain convinced that I am right 🙂

Last time, I showed that gun-related deaths (both suicide and homicide) were staggeringly high in the United States. This time, I would like to get a little more rigorous, by looking at cross-country patterns of gun deaths and gun ownership across a sample of OECD countries (the sample is limited by data availability– the data source can be found here). It has been well known for quite some time that there is a clear association between gun deaths and gun ownership rates, going back to an influential study by Martin Killias. Here are what the picture look like:

The pattern is clear. Of course, this is a simple bivariate relationship. Might gun deaths be related to a bevy of socio-economic factors that might have little to do with gun ownership per se? To test this, I decided to run some simple regressions for the sample of 19 countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK (technically England and Wales), and the US. To match the gun data availability, these data are also taken from the early 1990s.

Here are the data I choose:

(1) The log of GDP per capita, measuring living standards

(2) Ethnolinguistic fractionalization, measuring the ethnic and racial divisions in society

(3) Age dependency ratio, or the relative young and old population

(4) Urbanization

(5) Gini coefficient, measuring inequality

The idea being tested is that violent gun deaths could reflect wealth, social divisions, the presence of a lot of young people in the population, urbanization rates, and inequality. Of course, let’s not forget gun ownership! Here is the result:

Gun deaths = 9.7 GDP per capita + 1.63 ethnolinguistic fractionalization + 7.51 age dependency -0.01 urbanization + 0.05 Gini + 0.19 Guns***

The three stars (***) signals statistical significance at the 1 percent level. What does this mean? It means that controlling for the availability of guns, none of the other stuff affects gun deaths in a statistically significant manner. The results are similar when breaking it down between homicide and suicide, with only one difference: for suicides, the age dependency ratio is also significant at the 5 percent level. (This shows, I think, that suicide is relatively more prevalent among the young.) It is also worth noting that these countries are all similar to a certain extent, as they are the richest countries in the world. The results merely show that living standards, for example, do not affect the differences in gun deaths across this narrow sample of countries. The results could be quite different if we included some of the more violent countries in the world. But, based on this limited data availability, I think we can conclude that what causes gun deaths is the availability of guns. Occam’s razor triumphs.

There is one more thing I would like to do. It is quite possible that the availability of guns acts not only on its own, but through its affect on some of the other socio-economic variables. For example, if ethnic divisions affect violence in society, the availability of guns may enhance this level of violence. Statistically speaking, this means adding non-linear terms to the regression, interacting gun availability with some of the other variables. I found that such a result can be found for both ethnolinguistic fractionalization and the Gini coefficient:

Gun deaths = 1.48 – 6.95 Ethnolinguistic fractionalization* + 0.08 Guns** + 0.44 (Guns x Ethnolinguistic fractionalization)**

Gun deaths = 2.25 -0.08 Gini – 0.16 Guns + 0.02 (Guns x Gini)***

(Again, *** means significant at the 1 percent and 5 percent significance levels, respectively).

This tells us that the presence of guns feeds on the underlying tensions brought on by ethnic, racial, and class divisions in society. Once again, the results differ little for homicides or suicides (the Gini coeffient, though, matters far more for murder than suicide).

Guns matter. Notice that I look only at deaths caused by guns, either homicide or suicide. An interesting point to note, following the research of David Hemenway (from Harvard’s School of Public Health) is that the US is actually not that exceptionally violent, at least among other high-income, industrialized nations like the ones in the present study. Crimes like assault, car theft, burglary, robbery, and sexual incidents are not particularly high by OECD standards. What differs about the US is “lethal violence”. So while guns don’t induce people to commit crimes, they make crimes lethal. This matters for both homicide and suicide.

So, can people still hold onto an antiquated notion about the “right to bear arms” and not admit that this is very much a culture of life issue in the US?

Best Socio-Political Movies

July 13, 2007 By Policraticus

I really enjoy movies with social and political themes. Sometimes its nice to take a break from reading political and economic works in order to sit down and enjoy a film that provides a glimpse at socio-political conditions across history and around the world.

Here are my favorite social and political movies. Please feel free to list some of your own favorites in the comment box.

Welcome to Sarajevo (1997) – Based on the book, Natasha’s Story by Michael Nicholson, this British film is about British and American journalists in Sarajevo during the longest siege in the history of modern war (1992-1996). A very moving film that is based on a true story, it includes real journalistic footage of the siege, documenting the reluctance of the U.N., Britain, the U.S. and the main stream media to aid the people of Sarajevo. I first watched this movie while reading George Weigel’s biography of Pope John Paul II. The film put images to much of what Weigel described of Wojtyla’s experience in Nazi and Soviet occupied Poland.

Four Days in September (1997) – This Brazilian film (it’s almost entirely in Portuguese) chronicles the September 1969 kidnap of the American Ambassador to Brazil by the “8th October movement.” It’s based on Brazilian politician and journalist Fernando Gabeira’s 1979 book, O que é isso, companheiro?, which chronicles the resistance to the Military Dictatorship in Brazil. This film really drove home to me how important individual liberty is and the constant threat that government can pose to it.

Proof of Life (2000) – A striking look at the ransom trade in Latin America and the business of Kidnap and Ransom Insurance and Expatriate Insurance. While the film is a bit sensationalized and fictitious, I like the ideas and realities it presents: the impotence of certain States, the drug trade in Latin America, the difference between violent and non-violent revolution, and the for-profit insurance corporations that can either help or exploit clients.

The Scarlet and the Black (1983) – Based on the true story as told in J.P. Gallagher’s book, The Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican, this film is about Fr. Hugh O’Flaherty’s efforts to save the lives of Jews, Italian resistance families and Allied prisoners of war from the Nazi’s, who occupied Rome from 1943-1945. Fr. O’Flaherty is played by the illustrious Gregory Peck.

Fidel (2000) – I knew relatively little about Fidel Castro aside from the American propaganda that I had been fed from my high school history texts. This film, which is generally accurate, chronicles the life of Castro. This film is very enlightening, and it shows how violent revolution–even against unjust governments–is disastrous for the people both during and after its action. Castro is initially portrayed as an idealistic and socially conscious law student who turns to violence in an effort to overthrow the corrupt and CIA-sponsored dictator, Fulgencio Batista. But placing his entire faith in the revolution, he did whatever was necessary–including imprisoning and killing rebels–to keep the spirit of revolution alive in Cuba. A very balanced, very sober look.

Sicko (2007) – Yes, Michael Moore’s new documentary is that good. The facts check-out, the partisanship is put aside (Moore goes after Hillary Clinton more than any other politician) and the passion is contagious. If you haven’t seen this film, please put aside any hang-ups you have from Moore’s previous efforts and give this one a chance.

A Few Good Men (1992) – There are a lot of great law movies out there, but this one remains my favorite. Tom Cruise is extraordinary in this film about a murder trial within the military justice system. This film is an adaptation from a play of the same name originally presented at the University of Virgina. Every time I stumble upon it while watching television, I find myself forced to watch it, no matter at which point the movie happens to be.

Spy Game (2001) – Brad Pitt and Robert Redford star as CIA operatives whose sentimental, yet conflicted professional relationship is sustained through their outfits in 1960’s Vietnam, 1970’s West Berlin, 1980’s Beirut and 1991 China. Pitt’s character is imprisoned in China and set to be executed. Though the CIA has knowledge of this, it attempts to distance itself from him in order to avoid a public relations and foreign policy disaster. Redford’s character works from within the CIA and attempts to work around both the Agency and the U.S. government to free Pitt’s character. Very thrilling.

Crash (2004) – A 36-hour period in Los Angeles where the lives of 15 individuals of different ethnic, socio-economic and occupational backgrounds are thrown together into a convoluted interpersonal web, challenging each to shatter their xenophobic categories. Quite enlightening and thought-provoking.