Leadership: Is the microphone on?
The recent turmoil surrounding the recent passage of healthcare legislation by the United States Congress is providing ample opportunity to look at the absence of Orthodox leadership. As a reminder, this blog’s purpose is not political. To the extent this legislation reflects Caesar’s affairs, it is generally best for the Church to remain silent.
Sadly, though, this legislation is not purely about political matters, for it has provisions for using taxes gathered from individuals, including Christians, to pay for elective abortions in all or part (c.f., here and here). Despite the scandalously equivocal language used by the Ecumenical Patriarch in discussing abortion (c.f., here, here, here, and here), the Church’s teaching cannot be misunderstood. As a best example, consider St. Basil the Great (AD 330-379), who says absolutely nothing new: “Women also who administer drugs to cause abortion, as well as those who take poisons to destroy unborn children, are murderesses” (Letter 188). Children in the womb are human beings, and their willful destruction is murder. So what about all those who will now find themselves accessories to the crime through the new legal requirement to fund abortion?
In the face of this legislation, this question, and the evil that is elective abortion, the silence from our Orthodox leaders is deafening. Goarch.org? Oca.org? Antiochian.org? ROCOR? The Serbian Church in America? SCOBA? Nothing. We are justified in wailing with grief over more than 250,000 dead in Haiti, yet over 1.2 million elective abortions are performed each year in the United States alone. All is now set to begin funding them with tax dollars, and no official word of protest or exhortation is to be found.
Worse, at least one professor at Holy Cross Seminary is reportedly elated at the passing of this legislation, and I am nearly certain he has company among the faculty at St. Vladimir’s. Is it any wonder, then, that our parishes have so many individuals – often lifelong Orthodox Christians – who think abortion is no big deal? Is it any wonder that many of our parish clergy are indifferent to (if not supportive of) abortion? If the shepherds won’t wield their staves to drive away wolves wearing power suits and lab coats, aided by the Internal Revenue Service, who will? If they won’t, who can reasonably be expected to?
To those bishops (especially those whom I have overlooked) and my brethren who are speaking against the wanton destruction of these little ones by means of tax subsidies in the name of health care, I thank you and pray that your efforts would yield much fruit by strengthening and encouraging the Orthodox faithful to stand firm. To the others, the bigger lambs need someone to feed them (Jn 21:14-19), and the littlest ones need someone to speak in their defense. Who will do it?
[Edited 3/23/10, 4:20pm EDT, to fix a sentence.]
Fr. Andrew S. Damick:
March 23rd, 2010 at 12:31 pm
Fr. Basil, with much love and respect, methinks it’s fairly easy to find all sorts of statements about abortion on the websites you mention. Here are Google searches on all of them for the word abortion, ranked by number of pages: Goarch.org (340 pages), Antiochian.org (101 pages), Oca.org (98 pages), Serborth.org (34 pages), Russianorthodoxchurch.ws (ROCOR (5 pages), Scoba.us (5 pages).
Abortion is an ongoing, long-term concern that has been addressed in our various jurisdictions on many occasions, and, indeed, there is typically an annual outpouring of address on the issue every January at the anniversary of Roe V. Wade. Please be careful not to fall into the “Where is the outrage?!” / “Why the silence?!” trap without doing a bit more research.
Fr. Peter Preble:
March 23rd, 2010 at 1:01 pm
It seems the bishops cannot find their voice when there is no money involved. Why do they remain silent on these issues? Immigration reform is next in line. We should have a position on this one and we should have been out in front but sadly we are silent. They need to wake up!
Scott Cantrell:
March 23rd, 2010 at 3:52 pm
Fr Danick,
Just because it was mentioned before does not mean there is no need to mention it again, especially given that this law effectively requires us all to participate. This is not just another day for a sermon or general guidance. I would say the occasion called for a fresh word or two.
Fr Basil Biberdorf:
March 23rd, 2010 at 3:53 pm
Fr Andrew,
I absolutely agree that our leaders have spoken about abortion in the past. However, at a time of specific challenge on a critical issue — and one that would not only be tolerated but expanded at public expense — silence was the only response. Frankly, we can march on the Mall every single year, but, if faced with specific action, we do and say nothing, it’s just lip service.
For further consideration, I’ll point out this article:
http://www.goarch.org/news/whitehouse-03-09-2010
Scott Cantrell:
March 23rd, 2010 at 3:54 pm
Excuse me – I misspelled your name!
Mark Austin:
March 23rd, 2010 at 4:17 pm
Fr. Preble,
Is there an Orthodox position on immigration or writings of the fathers on that issue? I agree it will be a huge issue very soon, but I am at a total loss as to what Orthodoxy says about the matter.
Fr. Peter Preble:
March 23rd, 2010 at 5:55 pm
Mark,
The Orthodox do not only speak when the Fathers do.
My Archdiocese is almost totaly made up of imigrants so of course we should have a position on this issue. This is a big moral issue and the church needs to speak on it.
Fr. Andrew S. Damick:
March 23rd, 2010 at 5:58 pm
There was (and remains) a lot of debate about whether the bill that was passed (which I am decidedly not a fan of) supports abortion or not. Given this debate, in order for our hierarchs to lend an opinion on the law, they would first need to define its contents. Do you think that that’s within their purview? Should they be making a judgment on the content of legal technicalities of a 2000+ page document?
Just because something is a massive political debate does not mean that our bishops should be taking sides in it. Do they need to become political bloggers in order to satisfy this (quite frankly, addictive) “Why the silence?!” impulse? Do we need to record every sermon and pastoral conversation and make public every episcopal letter so that we can scrutinize their every word and make sure that they’re commenting on the hot topics of the day frequently enough for our news-hungry tastes?
If I’m not mistaken, there have been a lot of statements about abortion made by our leaders throughout the whole year-long debate on this new law. There certainly was a lot of hullabaloo, for instance, about the Manhattan Declaration in November, which directly addressed the topic of abortion. That our bishops are not offering up-to-the-minute commentary on political wrangling in Washington is not evidence of a lack of leadership.
This is silly, Father.
Harry Coin:
March 23rd, 2010 at 11:27 pm
Of some interest, most of the biggest donors, supporters and apologists for the present church leadership are active members of the party that pushed this bill into law.
I didn’t hear much from the Catholic bishops either. Not nothing, but not much.
Fr Basil Biberdorf:
March 24th, 2010 at 9:09 am
Fr Andrew,
As I carefully read your most recent post, it appears your argument has four points: two major, one minor, and one spurious. These are:
I. Bishops should not weigh in on matters that are not within their competence.
A. There is a question of whether the bill supports publicly funded abortion or not, which is a legal matter not within that competence.
II. Bishops should not partake in massive political debates.
III. (Spurious) Bishops need not bow to a 24/7 sound bite culture.
That hierarchs (and Church bureaucracy overall) should stay out of politics generally was stated in the opening paragraph. Some politics touches issues we consider inviolable, though. (Would the hypothetical enactment of a Chinese-style one child policy as part of a federal housing policy be a political matter that does not concern us?)
As for competence, they must try to gain an understanding just like every other citizen of a free state. Claiming naivete and ignorance is a sorry response to Christ’s words: “Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves” (Mt 10:16). If legislators with an interest in promoting death are going to try to enact legislation with evil provisions using procedural chicanery in order to obscure the details, we will just have to adapt.
In this case, it’s not as though there aren’t several sources to help us make an Orthodox assessment. The National Right to Life Committee, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and numerous others were working continuously on these matters. We can reach our own conclusions while using (and confirming) their research to speed us along.
Since you mention it, the Manhattan Declaration states: “We must be willing to defend, even at risk and cost to ourselves and our institutions, the lives of our brothers and sisters at every stage of development and in every condition” [italics mine].
It’s really easy for bishops to sign on to documents that state principles without requiring particular action. It’s likewise fairly easy to go to Washington, DC, and speak to a welcoming crowd. Can either be considered a real risk to ourselves? In what way does either go beyond “talking the talk” in order to achieve “walking the walk”?
This was a specific test, and our leaders took a pass.
Fr. Andrew S. Damick:
March 24th, 2010 at 10:50 am
Fr. Basil,
Thanks for your response. You seem to have engaged in a bit of eisegesis in order to make it, though. I did not make the statements of principle you say I did, though I can see how one might choose to read them that way. I choose my words pretty carefully, however, and I specifically did not say the things you say I did.
For whatever record there may be, I think it is good for bishops to weigh in on political matters when there are good reasons for doing so. I do not think that they should be in the business of telling us what a particular bill contains and what it does not, especially when the legislators themselves do not agree on it.
I also did not say that bishops should be uninformed about politics or the law.
This was a specific test, and our leaders took a pass.
If the test was to see whether they are Republicans or Democrats, yes, I suppose they did take a pass. It seems that your preference is that they make a partisan alignment, because there was not in this bill a clear doctrinal/moral issue at stake that everyone could agree on. That is, the bill did not specifically state (for instance) that Federal money should be used for abortions. Some interpret it to mean yes, while some interpret it to mean no. If the professional legislators can’t agree on that, why should clergy who largely don’t have law degrees be making definitional statements on it? They will look like utter fools.
In any event, my actual point was the one that seems to have been ignored: What proof is there that our bishops have been “silent” on this or any other issue? That there hasn’t been a post on an official institutional website in the past week about it? In that case, you’ve been “silent” yourself, Father, and so have I.
You’ve got some serious sampling error going on there.
Fr Basil Biberdorf:
March 24th, 2010 at 1:55 pm
Fr Andrew,
You say, “I specifically did not say the things you say I did.” I apologize if I misunderstood something. My summary points are below, with your statement that led to each one shown.
The points I summarized were:
I. Bishops should not weigh in on matters that are not within their competence. [Basis: "in order for our hierarchs to lend an opinion on the law, they would first need to define its contents. Do you think that that’s within their purview? Should they be making a judgment on the content of legal technicalities of a 2000+ page document?"]
A. There is a question of whether the bill supports publicly funded abortion or not, which is a legal matter not within that competence. [Basis: "There was (and remains) a lot of debate about whether the bill that was passed ... supports abortion or not."]
II. Bishops should not partake in massive political debates. [Basis: "Just because something is a massive political debate does not mean that our bishops should be taking sides in it." Perhaps I should have said, "should not in general partake." Oh wait. I did, right in the opening paragraph.]
III. (Spurious) Bishops need not bow to a 24/7 sound bite culture. [Basis: the entire second paragraph, to which I make no response other than to say you're arguing with something I didn't say.]
The accusation of eisegesis (i.e., reading one’s own biases into another’s statements) is, to my mind, misplaced. If there is a legitimate misunderstanding, please clarify.
Further, you make the claim that “If the test was to see whether they are Republicans or Democrats, yes [they did].” I have assiduously avoided political commentary on any topic but abortion. If you want to equate that issue with a party affiliation, do so, but please don’t assert that I believe such an equivalency is valid.
The bishops haven’t been silent on abortion in the past. Apart from any local statements, I’m not aware that they’ve said a word about federal funding of abortion under the guise of healthcare IN THE CURRENT SITUATION.
There is no doubt that funding of abortion was included with this new law. Otherwise, why issue that executive order when they could’ve easily trotted out the provisions that would have excluded abortion funding? Further, take a look at
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2010/03/23/a-final-faq-on-healthcare-and-abortion
http://www.nrlc.org/AHC/NRLCToHouseOnHealthBill.pdf
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/03/now-naral-displeased-with-obam.html
and
http://www.reproductiveaccess.org/getting_started/faq.htm .
Fr John Fenton:
March 24th, 2010 at 2:17 pm
Fr Andrew,
I’m not sure I understanding what you’re writing. You state that the bishops “should be in the business of telling us what a particular bill contains and what it does not, especially when the legislators themselves do not agree on it.” However, what Fr Basil recommends, I believe, is that the Orthodox bishops, or SCOBA, issue a statement that addresses one or two pertinent issues in the bill. That requires an interpretation of the bill. However, all bills passed by all legislative braches require a greater or lesser degree of interpretation in order to for lawmakers to make an intelligent decision, and for the public to hold those lawmakers accountable. All that’s ask, then, is that the bishops do the same thing. To do this, of course, they will need to engage compentent legal counsel, as I’m sure the USCCB have done.
Secondly, the USCCB statement does not take on the entire bill and, in fact, commends various parts of it. Whether one agrees or disagrees with their assesment, one can see that their concerns are limited and that, in their view, those concerns justify opposing the bill until those concerns are addressed. I think that’s well within the rights of bishops as both US citizens and Orthodoxy moral leaders.
As for proof that the bishops have been silent: I’ve not seen a news release from SCOBA or any local synod of bishops. This suggests to me that (a) the bishops agree with the bill, (b) the bishops haven’t considered the bill and the ramifications of certain portions, or (c) the bishops don’t discuss such items. Yet I have in the past received letters, and seen news releases, concerning other political items, particularly concerning the Middle East and Turkey’s admittance into NATO. Hence, (c) is not the case.
Finally, where else except the bishops should one look for guidance concerning various important moral issues? Should we leave such guidance up to the various Protestant and Catholic commentators? Should I tell my questioning parishioners, “The Orthodox Church does not involve itself in politics” (see the paragraph above)? Is there another option I’m not seeing that, perhaps, you employ?
Fraternally & Respectfully – Fr John
Fr. Andrew S. Damick:
March 24th, 2010 at 2:30 pm
Fr. John:
The option that I employ is the one I have been mentioning all along: Pay attention, because many of our bishops have been speaking again and again and again on these major moral issues. To say that they’ve been “silent” is just incorrect and betrays an attention span comparable to the cable news cycle.