He should also be told that the EAA or constitutional rights of religious speech also guarantee Catholic students in public schools the right to wear crosses or rosary necklaces in school, to make a pro-Catholic or pro-Catholic-values presentation in a class paper or presentation, and to meet after school as a group of Catholic students, say, to plan a mission project for the needy. It would not be at all surprising if those freedoms mattered to serious Catholic families who, for financial or other reasons, use public rather than Catholic schools. Tom Berg University of St. Thomas (Minnesota)
_____ From: Newsom Michael [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thu 11/3/2005 5:19 PM To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: RE: FYI: An Interesting "See You at the Pole" Case The real question is whether it is likely that at some point theological differences will rupture the interest-convergence, no matter how powerful the forces that produced the convergence might be. I can offer up an anecdote. A fellow parishioner of mine, a lawyer with a fine mind, a deep commitment to his faith, politically conservative, and a person whom I genuinely like, recently had a discussion one day after Mass about the Equal Access Act. His argument in favor of Church support of the EAA was that some religion was better than no religion. This is the "political, legal, and cultural" line to which Tom refers. I then asked him if he would hold to that view even if he thought that the religion that school children were being exposed to, thanks to EAA, were somehow antithetical to the Catholic faith. (Recall that we have had a series of emails on the question, and I find it interesting that several Jewish members of this list remain unpersuaded that their children just have to grin and bear the exhortations of evangelical Protestant classmates.) He said No, and that he wanted to think about the matter, clearly calling into question his easy "political, legal, and cultural" assumption. I strongly suspect that theology will trump the assumption because my counterargument stunned him. This is only one story, and it may not represent very much. But I do think that it fairly calls into question any easy distinction between the "political, legal, and cultural" on the one hand, and the theological on the other. And if this were not enough, I think that the list members who defend the "right" of evangelical Protestant schoolchildren to proselytize, however politely, make MY point that evangelical Protestants have no intention of abandoning their effort, now 500 years old - more or less, to convert non-evangelical Protestants, including those with whom they may be allied on "political, legal, and cultural" matters. We need to take into account all of the forces at play. _____ From: Berg, Thomas C. [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, November 03, 2005 5:31 PM To: 'Law & Religion issues for Law Academics' Subject: RE: FYI: An Interesting "See You at the Pole" Case On the normative question whether traditionalist Catholics ought to refrain from making common cause with evangelicals over "culture wars" political and legal issues, I'll stay out of that question on list. On the empirical question whether they are likely to continue to do so, I would just say that there are powerful factors driving the two together that are more than just a happenstance convergence on particular issues. I would emphasize that there can be and is convergence on political, legal, and cultural matters without there necessarily being any convergence on matters such as liturgy, church polity (episcopal vs. congregational), papal leadership, etc. On the political and legal matters, the underlying convergence comes largely on the powerful issue of how secular the government should be; these groups both resist the idea of a highly secular government (which in our present situation also correlates, though not perfectly, with the idea of a relatively secular public square). Whatever one thinks normatively about that question, I don't see its importance going away. Tom Berg University of St. Thomas (Minnesota) -----Original Message----- From: Newsom Michael [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2005 4:45 PM To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics Subject: RE: FYI: An Interesting "See You at the Pole" Case Tom and I read the tea leaves somewhat differently. I am not sure that the critical divide is intradenominational conflict between liberals and traditionalists. For that to be true one has to pretend that the previous 500 years or so have left little to no imprint on the attitudes of Catholics and Protestants towards each other. I don't know what has happened since 1970 to cause such collective amnesia. Tom discounts the possibility that all that we may be witnessing is an interest-convergence between conservatives in various religious traditions which, by its own force is not enough to wipe out 500 years of history. There is still some denominational integrity left in America. The great danger, one that Herberg noted 50 years ago, is that that integrity may be in trouble, especially for Catholics and Jews. The real issue is whether conservative Catholics and Jews will recover their senses and defend the integrity of their religious traditions. Is it more important to be Catholic, or is it more important to be a [white] conservative? The answer to this question is not apparent, although I think that Tom believes that it is. _____
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