By Dr. Anne Hendershott, Professor of Sociology at Franciscan University of Steubenville

At Boston College’s commencement ceremony on Monday, Cardinal Sean O’Malley won’t be in attendance. The leader of the Boston archdiocese announced on May 10 that he would not deliver his traditional graduation benediction at the Catholic school because the college had invited Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny—a supporter of abortion rights in Ireland—to deliver the graduation address and receive an honorary degree.

The cardinal said the invitation has caused “confusion, disappointment and harm” by ignoring the U.S. bishops “who have asked that Catholic institutions not honor government officials or politicians who promote abortion with their laws and policies.”

Read more at The Wall Street Journal.

By Emily Stimpson

What movies such as “Iron Man” and “Spider-Man” say about our culture and about human nature

(An Interview with Dr. Jonathan Sanford, Professor of Philosophy at Franciscan University of Steubenville)

With summer just around the corner, there’s already buzz about what this season’s blockbuster films will be. At the top of the list of sure-fire hits are the superhero movies: “Iron Man 3” hits theaters May 3; “Man of Steel” (Superman) will be released June 14; and “The Wolverine” comes to the big screen July 26. It’s clear Hollywood has found success in showcasing movie heroes who fly. Or scale tall buildings. Or wield mystical hammers. Basically, they fill the screen with super-powered heroes, then watch the money flow in.

Why is that? Why do films like these never fail to attract moviegoers of all ages, sexes and socioeconomic demographics? What explains our culture’s perennial love of superheroes, a love that only has seemed to grow in recent years with the popularity of the latest Batman trilogy, the Iron Man films and even television series such as “Smallville”?

Read more at Our Sunday Visitor.

Sharing faith with the Eucharist

Within the first few weeks of his papacy, Pope Francis won widespread praise for his emphasis on “a poor church” that is “for the poor.” His warm and casual disposition, personal simplicity and tender outreach to “the poorest, the weakest, the least important,” as he expressed it in the homily at his inauguration Mass, may prove to be a defining feature of his papacy.

It is undoubtedly true that Pope Francis’ personal style is distinct from that of his immediate predecessors. How could it not be so? Inevitably each pope has his own personality, context and point of emphasis. But what is equally true is that the content and purpose of Francis’ outreach are in clear continuity with the legacy of the Second Vatican Council and especially Blessed John Paul II and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI; the new pope’s outreach is an embodiment of the new evangelization.

Read more at America.

It remains unclear whether sexual orientation is genetically determined. Even if it is, that doesn’t justify advocacy for same-sex marriage.

A growing laissez-faire libertarian attitude toward social issues among Americans is arguably the most important weapon available to same-sex marriage advocates. Certainly there are LGBT militants with unwavering commitment to the issue, but the vast majority of those who “support” same-sex marriage can hardly be said to support anything. They just have a hard time saying no. They much prefer the sanitary hands off approach—let them live out their sexuality as long as I don’t have to get involved.

Read more at Public Discourse.

The main argument proposed by those seeking to redefine marriage so that same-sex couples can be legally declared married is that homosexual persons are being unjustly denied a fundamental right. Everyone has a fundamental right to marry — the argument goes — but homosexuals are denied this right.

But this argument simply begs the question; it presupposes a particular — and false — answer to the question: What is marriage? A right to marry does not give people the right to compel everyone else to treat an entirely different kind of relationship they might have as if it were marriage.

The airwaves and the opinion columns continue to discuss the terrible December 14 school massacre in Connecticut and have brought us additional stories of senseless multiple murders in places like Oregon and western New York. Much of the discussion is now focusing on renewed calls for more gun control. As I go on to say, there are certainly some serious public policy issues that must be debated. There are, however, other deeper questions that are being raised by a few commentators, but are unlikely to receive much attention in the media generally—even though they represent the crux of the problem.

Within a couple days of the Connecticut massacre, the secular left raised their predictable demand for gun control. While most people would have thought that respect for the dead—even more so because most of them were children—and their families would have inhibited political commentary and clamoring for legislation so soon, the left was not deterred. It seemed to be another situation of not letting a crisis go to waste; it was a prime opportunity to promote an ideological and policy agenda. To its credit, the major organizational opponent of gun control, the National Rifle Association, held its tongue for a week before stepping up to call for armed security guards in all public schools. Even then, it seemed reluctant to get a full-scale debate going that soon after the tragedy by refusing to answer media questions at its press conference.

Read more at Crisis Magazine.

Howard Ball’s lead essay on this issue is clear and helpful. Yet I think the term “Physician Assisted Death” is evasive and euphemistic. Physicians have for centuries helped patients to die—that is, to endure the process that ends in their death. The question is whether physicians should help them kill themselves—and whether the law should allow physicians to do so. Thus I will use the term Physician Assisted Suicide (PAS). This raises a moral question (Is PAS morally right?), and a legal question (Should PAS be against the law?).

Read more at Cato Unbound.

By Dr. Jerry Jo Gilham, Associate Professor of Social Work at Franciscan University of Steubenville.

This article appears in Social Work and Christianity, vol. 39, no. 3 (Fall 2012).

Since the 1980s, the social work profession has experienced a renewed interest in spirituality and religion (Canda & Furman, 1999). The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) Code of Ethics mandates that social workers obtain education about and seek to understand the nature of diversity and oppression with respect to religion (NASW, 2008). Current Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) standards require schools of social work to demonstrate their commitment to diversity throughout their curriculum. Furthermore, graduates must demonstrate competence in engaging diversity and difference in practice (CSWE, 2008).

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By Emily Stimpson.

Father Dan Pattee spent his summer spreading Gospel of Life and witnessing firsthand the devastation of abortion.

Rising at dawn and offering Mass is nothing out of the ordinary for any priest. Walking 30-plus miles after the Mass, across America’s highways and byways with a bunch of college students, however, is a little less ordinary — unless you’re Father Dan Pattee.

In the summer of 2012, Father Pattee, a professor of theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville, teamed up with Crossroads for the second time (the first was in 2007), and walked across America, from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., on a pro-life pilgrimage.

Read more at Our Sunday Visitor.

A biblical theologian and Franciscan University professor discusses the recently-begun Year of Faith.

The new evangelization was never meant to be a short-term project.  That much should have been clear to anyone paying attention to Pope John Paul II in 1983.

That year, while addressing the Latin American Bishops’ Conference in Haiti, the Pope called for the Church universal to embark on a new evangelization of the post-Christian West.  He didn’t, however, simply call for a new evangelization: He also laid out a timeline.

Read more at Franciscan Way.

A chapter discussing U.S. laws regarding child abuse, from the forthcoming Child Abuse, Family Rights, and the Child Protective System: A Critical Analysis from Law, Ethics, and Catholic Social Teaching, edited by Dr. Krason.

Public policy in the United States on child abuse and neglect and the formation of what we now call the child protective system (CPS)—which this article argues has been deeply troublesome—was shaped by a landmark piece of legislation passed by Congress and signed into law by President Richard M. Nixon in 1974 called the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA), or the “Mondale Act” (after its prime sponsor, Senator and later Vice President Walter F. Mondale). The Act made federal funds available to the states for child abuse prevention and research programs on the condition that they passed laws which mandated the following: reporting by certain professionals (such as physicians) of even suspected cases of child abuse and neglect; the setting up of specialized child protective agencies, usually housed within state and corresponding county public social service or child welfare agencies, to deal with abuse and neglect; the granting of complete immunity from criminal prosecution or civil liability for the mandated reporters and CPS investigators regardless of their actions and even if the allegations are grossly erroneous; the insuring of confidentiality of records and proceedings in each case; and the providing for appointment of a guardian ad litem in judicial proceedings for children alleged to have been abused or neglected. Effectively, CAPTA transformed public policy with respect to child abuse and neglect by means of a new federal grant-in-aid program to the states, the way in which public policy in so many different areas from the early twentieth century onward has been reshaped. CAPTA’s mandates encompassed all kinds of known and suspected child maltreatment, including physical abuse, sexual abuse, physical neglect, and psychological and emotional maltreatment. CAPTA never defined these terms, however, and there has not been and is not today any widely accepted definition of them even among professionals working in the field. (As we shall also see, the problem of definition has been a major reason for an ongoing explosion of false abuse/neglect reports.) CAPTA further required the U.S. Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare (later Health and Human Services) to establish a National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect to act as “a clearinghouse for the development of information and dissemination of information about child protective research and programs.” The center, initially headed by noted child abuse expert Douglas J. Besharov (later, as we shall see, he became a major critic of current child abuse/neglect policies), used most of its funding for research and training grants to individuals and for special grants to the states. Although the latter comprised only about 20% of the available funds, it emerged as the most important part of the statute for the future of child abuse/neglect enforcement in the U.S.

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A chapter on the origins of America’s governmental system from Dr. Krason’s 2012 book, The Transformation of the American Democratic Republic.

We hear it said often that the practice of something does not measure up to the theory behind it. This is the case with political orders as with other types of entities, as well as with individual persons.

In Federalist 10, James Madison says that in “a pure democracy…there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention…and as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” With such an utterly unflattering assessment by the main author of the Constitution, one wonders how we might be able to refer to the United States as a democratic republic? Martin Diamond, Winston Mills Fisk, and Herbert Garfinkel, in their book entitled The Democratic Republic, say that the U.S. is “democratic”—in the representative, not pure, sense—because it features majority rule, and is “republican” because it was intended to demonstrate such characteristics as restraint, sobriety, competence, and liberty. There was intended to be majority rule, to be sure, but within the context of preserving minority rights; that is, the minority could not be suppressed or its liberty destroyed. As Diamond, et al. say, our Constitution is “faithful to the spirit and form of democracy…[but] guards against its dangerous propensities.” The latter are not just the tyranny referred to by Madison, but also folly, feebleness, and ineptitude. It seeks to “reconcile the advantages of democracy with the sobering qualities of republicanism,” and “to render a democratic regime compatible with the protection of liberty and the requisites of competent government.” The consent of the governed, then, is at the heart of the American political order, but its force is mitigated by the restraints of representative institutions, the rule of law, and social, cultural, and moral influences. This insures that the majority’s will not only is not abusive, but also that the common good of the political order will be promoted.

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