Denver Catholic

4 I OPINION OCTOBER 15, 2014 I DENVER CATHOLIC REGISTER THE CATHOLIC DIFFERENCE GEORGE WEIGEL Two recent speeches by senior Vatican offi cials whose respon- sibilities involve wrestling with world politics suggest that some default positions need a re-set in the Holy See. In both speeches, reference was made to the late Samuel Hun- tington's book, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, the point being to deplore what the offi cials imag- ined as Huntington's eager anticipation of inter-civilizational confl ict. That's attacking a straw man in a very unfortunate way. To reduce Huntington's argument to essentials: 1) The fault lines in world politics after the Cold War are not ideological or economic (communism vs. democracy and the market); the new fault lines are cultural. 2) Nation-states will remain the primary actors in inter- national affairs, but they'll be organized into blocs refl ecting cultural affi nities rather than ideological commitments or competing economic systems. 3) The vast majority of political scientists and international re- lations theorists are unaware of this massive shift in the tectonic plates underlying world politics because they're materialists for whom all that counts is politics (the quest for power) and economics (the quest for wealth). This blindness leaves public offi cials (who often share this materialist bias) terribly vulnera- ble to events whose origins they cannot grasp, or even imagine. 4) Understanding what's afoot in the world thus requires paying attention to realities usually ignored among political scientists, international relations theorists, and politicians, such as the enduring importance of religious conviction in forming cultures, for good or ill. Sam Huntington, a son of WASP America who took great interest in my work on Catholicism's role in the collapse of com- munism, was not predicting inevitable mayhem along the civ- ilizational/cultural fault lines he identifi ed. But he was alerting us, in 1993, to the new facts of life in world politics. And he was urging both theorists and statesmen to recalibrate their thinking in order to manage the tensions that would inevitably arise along those fault lines. Huntington's original 1993 article, and the book that followed in 1996, are still worth reading, not least because The Clash of Civilizations was the fi rst book in gen- erations in which a world-class political scientist took religion seriously as a dynamic, infl uential, and sometimes determining factor in world affairs. Huntington's sensitivity to religion-and-world-politics ought to have commended his analysis to the Vatican for thoughtful consideration and serious discussion. Instead, Hunting- ton-the-straw-man-who-prophesied-endless-civilizational-war is dragged out whenever it's deemed necessary for offi cials of the Holy See to say that "a war between Islam and 'the rest' is not inevitable" (true, if the civil war within Islam is resolved in favor of those Muslims who support religious tolerance and pluralism); or that Christian persecution and dislocation in the Middle East must be handled through the United Nations (ridiculous); or that the path to peace lies through dialogue, not confrontation (true, if there is a dialogue partner who is not given to beheading "the other"). The Huntington proposal is not beyond criticism. But Huntington accurately described the Great Change that would take place in world politics after the wars of late modernity (the two 20th-century world wars and the Cold War); he accurately predicted what was likely to unfold along what he called Islam's "bloody borders" if Islamists and jihadists went unchecked by their own fellow-Muslims; and he accurately identifi ed the fact that religious conviction (or the lack thereof, as in Europe) would play an important role in shaping the 21st-century world. Thirteen years after 9/11, and in light of today's headlines, is Huntington's proposal really so implausible? There is something very odd about a Holy See whose default positions include a ritualized deprecation of the Huntington thesis married to a will-to-believe about the U.N.'s capacity to be something more than an echo chamber. Of all the major players in the world, the Catholic Church should be at the forefront of acknowledging the central role of culture in shaping world politics and the crucial role of religion in shaping culture. One hopes that the reforming pontifi cate of Pope Francis changes, not only Vatican structures, but entrenched bad ideas behind the Leonine Wall. Clash of straw men I've written previously about "The real war on women: a life of poverty." Here's the reality: "The culture asks women to contracept. Then, when they become pregnant, it asks them to abort. If they don't abort and keep the child, many times they are ostracized from their family or violently abused by a partner. They are often left to raise their child completely alone." Now meet someone who, like Catholic Charities, is on the front lines, fi ghting for life. If you saw the 2006 pro-life movie "Bella," you may already be familiar with the work of Jason Scott Jones, a producer of that fi lm and others. He's also the author, with John Zmirak, of the recent book, "The Race to Save Our Century." Jones will be the keynote speaker at the Beacon of Hope Gala on Saturday, Jan. 31, 2015 at Wings Over the Rockies, ben- efi ting Lighthouse and Women's Services of Catholic Charities. We raised $500,000 at the pre- vious gala, which was sold out. I urge you to buy your tickets now through www.ccdenver. org/gala. Money raised will help support a range of wom- en's services, including Light- house Women's Center, which has saved more than 50 lives of babies in its fi rst two years in operation across the street from Planned Parenthood. "If we cannot care for the most vulnerable members of our fam- ily, the child in the womb, then who can we care for?" said Jones by telephone recently. He himself experienced that tragedy. After he and his high-school girlfriend discovered she was pregnant, he entered the Army in order to support them. When he was in basic training in 1989, said Jones, he received a phone call from her telling him that she had been co- erced into having an abortion. Jones went on to become a pro-life activist, working at Ha- waii Right to Life, in politics and for Human Life International. His focus now is using media to change hearts and minds, illu- minating Catholic social teach- ing on the dignity of the human person. "Why Catholic Charities and, to me, pregnancy centers are so important is they are a safe- ty net for the most vulnerable members of our communities, which is mothers and their pre- born children," said Jones, a Catholic convert. Jones met his wife, they mar- ried in 2005 and live in Hawaii. They have seven children. He has an amazing vision for a new culture of life, including a short fi lm, "Crescendo," that will be online this week. Producers with Jones include Pattie Mal- lette (the mother of Justin Bie- ber) and Eduardo Verastegui, the star of "Bella." "My goal with this project was to create a monument to the in- comparable dignity and beau- ty of the human person that would transcend time and cul- ture," said Jones in a statement. Please join us and Jason Jones in the fi ght for life at the Jan. 31 Beacon of Hope Gala. And if you can't attend, please give gener- ously to support our work. Larry Smith is the president and CEO of Catholic Charities of the Denver Archdiocese. Visit us online at www.ccdenver.org or call 303-742-0828 to learn more, volunteer or make a donation. Fight for life with Jason Jones Jan. 31 MORE ONLINE Buy tickets for the Beacon of Hope Gala and learn more about Jason Jones at www. ccdenver.org/gala. OCTOBER 15, 2014 I DENVER CATHOLIC REGISTER LARRY SMITH CALL TO CHARITY but rather the way in which Christians offer their concrete contribution so that, through political life, society will become more just and more consistent with the dignity of the human person. In democratic societies, all proposals are freely discussed and examined. Those who, on the basis of respect for individual conscience, would view the moral duty of Christians to act according to their conscience as something that disqualifi es them from political life, denying the legitimacy of their political involvement following from their convictions about the common good, would be guilty of a form of intolerant secularism. Such a position would seek to deny not only any engagement of Chris- tianity in public or political life, but even the possibility of nat- ural ethics itself. Were this the case, the road would be open to moral anarchy, which would be anything but legitimate plural- ism. The oppression of the weak by the strong would be the obvi- ous consequence. The marginal- ization of Christianity, moreover, would not bode well for the fu- ture of society or for consensus among peoples; indeed, it would threaten the very spiritual and cultural foundations of civiliza- tion.[26] These footnotes have been abbreviated: [23] Cf. Gaudi- um et spes, 76. [24] John Paul II, Message for the 1991 World Day of Peace, 4 (1991) [25] John Paul II, Christifi deles laici, 59. [26] Cf. John Paul II, Address to the Dip- lomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See (Jan. 11, 2002). Next week: "Considerations regarding particular aspects." To read the entire note, visit www. denvercatholicregister.org . Note From Page 2 burden, and is therefore reject- ed" (EV, 12). Pope Francis has also spo- ken against our "throwaway" culture, which assisted-suicide only reinforces by tossing aside those who are sick or suffering, poor, or inconvenient. The Netherlands provides a good example of how dan- gerous this culture is. In the past seven years, deaths from euthanasia have risen 151 per- cent. Many of those have been cancer patients, but doctors have also killed 97 people who were suffering from dementia. In 2013 alone, physicians took the lives of 42 people who were said to have "severe psychiatric problems." This is undoubtedly a war against the weak and the vulnerable. Catholics and all people of good will must actively resist the spread of this "misplaced compassion." You can do so by supporting hospice care, comforting and praying for those who are suffering, and being willing to turn your own suffering into an offering of love for others and for God. In times of suffer- ing, let us keep our eyes fi xed on the suffering love of Jesus Christ for us! Aquila From Page 2 OFFICIAL APPOINTMENTS Rev. Gregory Ames, appointed chaplain for Catholic Charities' Mission Homeless Shelter in Fort Collins, Colo., Guadalupe Homeless Shelter, as well as the Weld County Jail in Greeley, Colo. for a three-year period commencing Oct. 13, 2014 until Oct. 13, 2017. He will be in residence at St. Joseph Parish in Fort Collins.

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