I have just finished reading John Grisham's book The Innocent Man. This true story raises troubling questions about the justice system in the United States. A similar story in Canada raises the same kind of questions about whether the current system actually serves to search for the truth in certain criminal cases.
In his book Grisham tells the story of the murder and rape of a young woman in a small town. He describes the police investigation and how that investigation came to focus on one man, Ron Williamson. Grisham also describes how Williamson's life had devolved from a promising and popular young athlete to someone who everyone in town knew as a "troublemaker." Williamson's decline seems to have been connected to his mental health issues. The police focused on Williamson as a suspect in the murder mainly because he was known as a troublemaker. They disregarded information that might point to another person as a more likely suspect and they used jailhouse informants to build a circumstantial case against Williamson. Not surprisingly Williamson soon found himself on death row where his mental health deteriorated even further. Grisham next describes the long process of appeals and hearings finally leading to Williamson's exoneration. The book does not do a lot of "preaching" about the lessons to be drawn from the story but the story is disturbing in many ways. Quite recently the media have reported on another case in the USA where a young man who the investigators found "weird" in some way was exonerated nine years after being found guilty of the murder of a woman near his home.
Such disturbing stories do not just happen in the USA. On October 3, 1984 (about two years after the murder of Debbie Carter in the previous paragraph) a young girl was kidnapped and murdered in Queensville, Ontario. Almost immediately the attention of the police focused on Guy Paul Morin, a neighbor. Again, police disregarded evidence that pointed to Morin's innocence and built a circumstantial case relying heavily on the evidence of jailhouse informants and the opinion of detectives that Morin's responses during an initial interview were indicative of an awareness of guilt. Finally, DNA testing not available at the time of the initial investigation, proved that Morin was not the monster that police and prosecutors had proclaimed him to be. Exoneration followed and Morin received a cash settlement and an apology for all his troubles. Interestingly Morin also had mental health issues. A police detective chillingly observed at one point that Morin fit "the profile" of the killer better than any other possible suspect.
What the two stories have in common is that the suspect in each case was "different" in some way (in both cases mental health issues were involved). Detectives in each case made a judgement early on that this was the guilty party and built their cases to fit that preconceived idea by disregarding facts that did not point to the guilt of the accused and emphasizing unreliable facts (the jailhouse testimony) that serve their purpose. What this seems to point to is that the prosecution at some point stopped looking for the truth (which is where justice comes from, I think) and instead substituted a search for convictions and victory. I know that the theory is probably that truth comes from the conflict in the courtroom between prosecution and defense; but it seems to me that a police detective or a prosecutor has to have some concern for truth. The measure of their success should not be simply in their rate of convictions.
Another point that is troubling here is the near infallibility accorded to forensic "experts" in these trials. We have television shows like CSI that describe in near mythological terms the ability of forensic experts to solve a complex case. Similarly the show Criminal Minds describes the fantastic ability of behavioral scientists to create criminal profiles to solve other complex cases. However, in both the Williamson case and the Morin case the "expert" evidence supplied was weak and was made to look more important than it actually was. The expert evidence, which should have aided the search for truth instead helped to obtain false convictions.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Environmentalism as religion
An Australian newspaper reports on a suggested "environmentally friendly" policy regarding births and the reaction of Cardinal Pell to this suggestion:
CATHOLIC Archbishop of Sydney George Pell has criticised the Australian Medical Association for publishing a letter in its journal advocating a tax on children.
Speaking in Seoul, Cardinal Pell criticised a recent letter in the Medical Journal of Australia in which obstetrician and associate professor of medicine Barry NJ Walters called for the baby bonus to be replaced with a $5000 "baby levy" for every family having more than two children, followed by an annual carbon tax of up to $800 a child.
"I am not sure what is more extraordinary, that an obstetrician could hold such a view or that a leading medical journal could publish such a view, but either way, this is a striking illustration of where a minority neo-pagan, anti-human mentality, wants to take us," Cardinal Pell said.
Dr Walters, who was unavailable for comment yesterday, wrote that "showering financial booty on new mothers" rewarded "greenhouse-unfriendly behaviour" and that Australia deserved no more population concessions than India or China. Each child born should be offset by planting 4ha of trees, he said.
But Cardinal Pell, in Seoul to accept a $120,000 prize for his anti-abortion work, said extreme environmental proposals should cause alarm.
The suggestion by the professor that families with children should be subjected to a carbon tax is an example of a policy that is ultimately anti-life even though environmentalists claim to be the defenders of life. The reality is that in most parts of the industrialized world the birth rate has already declined to the point where local populations will shrink rapidly in the coming years. When we think of the future of the next generation we do want to ensure that the physical environment can sustain a satisfactory quality of life (so I'm not saying that I'm against protecting the environment). At the same time, we also want to see a future where citizens of the next generation (if the current generation is willing to give birth to them) has all of the dignity proper to the children of God and are not seen as simple "carbon footprints." Connected with the above suggestion of a "baby levy" for new children I have also recently read a suggestion that people should be able to get "carbon credits" for having themselves neutered. This is another example (I think) of the short sighted thinking and misplaced priorities that enforce the call that Cardinal Pell makes for a healthy scepticism toward the current trends in environmentalism.
CATHOLIC Archbishop of Sydney George Pell has criticised the Australian Medical Association for publishing a letter in its journal advocating a tax on children.
Speaking in Seoul, Cardinal Pell criticised a recent letter in the Medical Journal of Australia in which obstetrician and associate professor of medicine Barry NJ Walters called for the baby bonus to be replaced with a $5000 "baby levy" for every family having more than two children, followed by an annual carbon tax of up to $800 a child.
"I am not sure what is more extraordinary, that an obstetrician could hold such a view or that a leading medical journal could publish such a view, but either way, this is a striking illustration of where a minority neo-pagan, anti-human mentality, wants to take us," Cardinal Pell said.
Dr Walters, who was unavailable for comment yesterday, wrote that "showering financial booty on new mothers" rewarded "greenhouse-unfriendly behaviour" and that Australia deserved no more population concessions than India or China. Each child born should be offset by planting 4ha of trees, he said.
But Cardinal Pell, in Seoul to accept a $120,000 prize for his anti-abortion work, said extreme environmental proposals should cause alarm.
The suggestion by the professor that families with children should be subjected to a carbon tax is an example of a policy that is ultimately anti-life even though environmentalists claim to be the defenders of life. The reality is that in most parts of the industrialized world the birth rate has already declined to the point where local populations will shrink rapidly in the coming years. When we think of the future of the next generation we do want to ensure that the physical environment can sustain a satisfactory quality of life (so I'm not saying that I'm against protecting the environment). At the same time, we also want to see a future where citizens of the next generation (if the current generation is willing to give birth to them) has all of the dignity proper to the children of God and are not seen as simple "carbon footprints." Connected with the above suggestion of a "baby levy" for new children I have also recently read a suggestion that people should be able to get "carbon credits" for having themselves neutered. This is another example (I think) of the short sighted thinking and misplaced priorities that enforce the call that Cardinal Pell makes for a healthy scepticism toward the current trends in environmentalism.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Pregnant Teens
One of the interesting things in the past few weeks has been the media reaction to the announced pregnancy of 16 year old teen star Jamie Lyn Spears (sister of Britney). Major media outlets breathlessly reported the story and experts gave sombre advise about how to talk to your own teens about the news. First, its important to note that teen pregnancy, although rates have been decreasing for some time, is not a rare event. One stat that I found suggests that in the year 2002 more than 250,000 teens between 15 and 17 years of age became pregnant in the USA.
People drew all kinds of lessons from this news story. Some suggested that the poor girl somehow was the victim of a lack of access to birth control (not a likely possibility given the status of the family). Some stories suggested that the pregnant girl could also have been a victim of a mother who was exploiting the girl's earning potential without regard to the wishes of the girl in question. This is a plausible explanation. It seems that some child stars become the primary wage earners of their family with a parent earning money from the child by acting in the role of manager. This probably puts a lot of pressure on the child and could result in the situation where the child could seem to be exploited to maintain the economic status of the family. So, as with any particular case its impossible to know what lessons to draw from this story. I don't think that Jamie Lyn is some kind of a victim (of lack of access or of other circumstances). It seems possible that she could have chosen pregnancy as a way to deal with pressures inside of her family. Her mother deserves some of the responsibility although its obviously not possible for a parent to completely control the actions of a teen child. The father of the unborn child obviously deserves some of the responsibility as well.
I support the teaching of the Church that sex belongs in the context of a loving relationship normally found only in the context of marriage. This means that abstinence should be the main theme in classes taught to teenagers in Catholic schools. At the same time if there were teens in my own family I would also add a talk about the need to be responsible regarding choices about sexual activity. I know that this sounds like a contradiction of Catholic morality but it seems to me that considering the implications of unplanned pregnancy a more pragmatic approach would be appropriate.
People drew all kinds of lessons from this news story. Some suggested that the poor girl somehow was the victim of a lack of access to birth control (not a likely possibility given the status of the family). Some stories suggested that the pregnant girl could also have been a victim of a mother who was exploiting the girl's earning potential without regard to the wishes of the girl in question. This is a plausible explanation. It seems that some child stars become the primary wage earners of their family with a parent earning money from the child by acting in the role of manager. This probably puts a lot of pressure on the child and could result in the situation where the child could seem to be exploited to maintain the economic status of the family. So, as with any particular case its impossible to know what lessons to draw from this story. I don't think that Jamie Lyn is some kind of a victim (of lack of access or of other circumstances). It seems possible that she could have chosen pregnancy as a way to deal with pressures inside of her family. Her mother deserves some of the responsibility although its obviously not possible for a parent to completely control the actions of a teen child. The father of the unborn child obviously deserves some of the responsibility as well.
I support the teaching of the Church that sex belongs in the context of a loving relationship normally found only in the context of marriage. This means that abstinence should be the main theme in classes taught to teenagers in Catholic schools. At the same time if there were teens in my own family I would also add a talk about the need to be responsible regarding choices about sexual activity. I know that this sounds like a contradiction of Catholic morality but it seems to me that considering the implications of unplanned pregnancy a more pragmatic approach would be appropriate.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Culture Wars?
I have just finished reading a book by Bernard Goldberg titled 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (it was in the bargain bin at the bookstore). The book is basically an attack on those people (mostly liberals in this case) who do not share the political viewpoints of the author. I have read a similar book by Rush Limbaugh and another from a liberal viewpoint by Al Franken. The purpose of each of these books is to ridicule and attack people who are political opponents. To a certain extent such a way of thinking is understandable. I recall a story told of the long time rivalry between Winston Churchill and Lady Astor (When Lady Astor said that if she was married to Churchill she would put poison in his tea Churchill's retort was that if he were married to Astor he would drink the poison). However, because of the intensity of these attacks I think that these books point to a malaise in American politics (and to a lesser extent in Canadian politics) that seems to be carrying over to "politics" within the Catholic Church in the USA.
The reason that denigrating attacks on political opponents is damaging to the political process is simply because such attacks make any kind of political compromise less and less likely. The people who were attacked in such a way are not likely to want to cooperate in any way with the attackers and nobody is likely to want to be seen as "soft" on the political opposition. This is damaging to the political process because the basic mechanism of democracy is compromise. In a "pure" democracy citizens would discuss a question of what ought to be done until some kind of a consensus was reached. Citizens might not get exactly what they wanted but would still get something that they could agree on. If this consensus was not possible, only then would the majority rule theory be applied. This suggests that the ability to seek consensus - to compromise - is key to the democratic process. Now, I am not an expert on American politics but it seems to me that what we are seeing is increasing polarization between "liberals" and "conservatives." It seems to me that this polarization is making it increasingly unlikely that the American government will be able to deal with the important issues facing the nation in the future.
When I read religious blogs by Catholic "liberals" or "conservatives" I think that I see a similar polarization. Here the damage is not to a process but rather to the very idea of what it means to be a Church. Jesus prayed "that they may be one," and Paul over and over again urged unity in the Church. Anything therefore that damages the unity of the Church would seem to be a bad thing. The Church is like a family in the way that just as you do not choose who is in your family so you do not choose who is sitting next to you in Church. At the same time in both the family and the Church our faith requires us to accept everyone (maybe especially those we might not agree with).
However, it is true that there are some times when compromise is not possible. The issue of abortion for example, polarized as it is between the issue of respect for life and women's rights, does not seem to readily allow for compromise. Here is where there are no easy answers. Jesus did not send people away. Think for example of the story of the rich young man. The young man clearly wants to follow Jesus and Jesus gives him the invitation with one challenge - to sell what he has and give it to the poor. The young man went away because he was rich and unable to respond to the challenge. The point is that Jesus did not directly send the man away - and neither should we do so with people who dissent from the church. The Church (and those in the Church) does not need to act as a "gatekeeper" to the sacraments. What the Church needs to do is to faithfully proclaim the challenge of living a life that is faithful to the call of Jesus.
The reason that denigrating attacks on political opponents is damaging to the political process is simply because such attacks make any kind of political compromise less and less likely. The people who were attacked in such a way are not likely to want to cooperate in any way with the attackers and nobody is likely to want to be seen as "soft" on the political opposition. This is damaging to the political process because the basic mechanism of democracy is compromise. In a "pure" democracy citizens would discuss a question of what ought to be done until some kind of a consensus was reached. Citizens might not get exactly what they wanted but would still get something that they could agree on. If this consensus was not possible, only then would the majority rule theory be applied. This suggests that the ability to seek consensus - to compromise - is key to the democratic process. Now, I am not an expert on American politics but it seems to me that what we are seeing is increasing polarization between "liberals" and "conservatives." It seems to me that this polarization is making it increasingly unlikely that the American government will be able to deal with the important issues facing the nation in the future.
When I read religious blogs by Catholic "liberals" or "conservatives" I think that I see a similar polarization. Here the damage is not to a process but rather to the very idea of what it means to be a Church. Jesus prayed "that they may be one," and Paul over and over again urged unity in the Church. Anything therefore that damages the unity of the Church would seem to be a bad thing. The Church is like a family in the way that just as you do not choose who is in your family so you do not choose who is sitting next to you in Church. At the same time in both the family and the Church our faith requires us to accept everyone (maybe especially those we might not agree with).
However, it is true that there are some times when compromise is not possible. The issue of abortion for example, polarized as it is between the issue of respect for life and women's rights, does not seem to readily allow for compromise. Here is where there are no easy answers. Jesus did not send people away. Think for example of the story of the rich young man. The young man clearly wants to follow Jesus and Jesus gives him the invitation with one challenge - to sell what he has and give it to the poor. The young man went away because he was rich and unable to respond to the challenge. The point is that Jesus did not directly send the man away - and neither should we do so with people who dissent from the church. The Church (and those in the Church) does not need to act as a "gatekeeper" to the sacraments. What the Church needs to do is to faithfully proclaim the challenge of living a life that is faithful to the call of Jesus.
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Spiritual Healing
Our next RCIA topic is reconciliation. As preparation for the topic we are asked to reflect on a past experience of healing. Well, I readily admit to being a sinner in need of forgiveness but I'm pretty sure that I don't want to publicly share my sins with the rest of the group (and I hope the rest of the group feels the same way). I can share my experience of seeing healing and forgiveness in other people though.
Alcoholics Anonymous with its twelve steps is a program that has enabled people who have been stuck in a pattern of sin to leave their sin behind and embrace a new way of life. Some years ago J. Keith Miller in his book A Hunger For Healing: the Twelve Steps as a Classic Model for Christian Spiritual Growth provided valuable insights into the potential of the twelve steps as a model for spiritual healing. In his book Miller give his Twelve Steps of Sinners Anonymous:
Alcoholics Anonymous with its twelve steps is a program that has enabled people who have been stuck in a pattern of sin to leave their sin behind and embrace a new way of life. Some years ago J. Keith Miller in his book A Hunger For Healing: the Twelve Steps as a Classic Model for Christian Spiritual Growth provided valuable insights into the potential of the twelve steps as a model for spiritual healing. In his book Miller give his Twelve Steps of Sinners Anonymous:
- We admitted we were powerless over our Sin - that our lives had become unmanageable.
- Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
- Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.
- Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
- Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
- We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
- Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
- Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
- Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
- Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
- Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out.
- Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
These twelve steps provide a good snapshot of the process of spiritual repentance and reconciliation. I note that it recognizes the importance of Divine grace in steps two, three, five, six, and seven. I also note the importance of "confessing" to another person (step five).
I know many people who have struggled with alcoholism. I think of one friend who struggled with booze since his teen years. We often drank together and I recognize that I easily could have fallen into the same pattern that he did. The point is that he did go to AA meetings for some time and remains friends with his sponsor - but he has not stopped drinking. I do know of another person who went through the same pattern. At some point though she entered AA and has been working her twelve steps since then. This has left her free to become a different person. As far as I know she has not had another drink. She was raised in the Anglican church and felt drawn back to church. She is now a candidate in RCIA for entrance to the Catholic church at Easter. In her career life she has become a caregiver for challenged people. She is the adoptive guardian of a 40 something lady who was left mentally handicapped by a drug overdose. She devotes her spare time to coaching in the special Olympic movement. I have to say that working the twelve steps has been an occasion of considerable spiritual healing for this person.
Advent
We are finally beginning the season of Advent. I say finally because at least three of the houses on my block have had their Christmas lights shining for the past week or so. Also, it seems that many of the stores in this city put up their Christmas decorations as soon as Halloween was over. I know that this makes me seem like the old guy that I am but I remember (with some fondness) the season of Advent when I was much younger. In our house we kept a traditional Advent. The Christmas tree did not go up until Christmas eve. The tree was kept up until Epiphany. Throughout Advent my mother (God rest her soul) spent an incredible amount of time cleaning the house and baking for Christmas. Frequently this extra work (there was already enough work for her since she had eight children and helped with some farm work) exhausted her so much that she slept through Christmas morning. Advent is intended to be a time when we look forward to the coming of Christ and prepare ourselves for this great event.
What has caused the change? I'm not actually sure. As far as the lights go I think that being this far north some people put their lights on early simply as a protest against the ever increasing hours of darkness at this time of the year. Another obvious explanation is that we actually live in a post-Christian culture where the spiritual meanings attached to the liturgical and calendar year have been lost and replaced by commercialism. I think that what remains is for individual Christians to try to retain the real meaning of the time of Advent and try to "wait" to celebrate Christmas until the feast itself. For my part I will miss (another sign of my age again) even the celebrations of a fifteen or twenty years ago when our whole family could still gather at the farm and the nieces and nephews would open gifts with their eyes wide with excitement and amazement.
What has caused the change? I'm not actually sure. As far as the lights go I think that being this far north some people put their lights on early simply as a protest against the ever increasing hours of darkness at this time of the year. Another obvious explanation is that we actually live in a post-Christian culture where the spiritual meanings attached to the liturgical and calendar year have been lost and replaced by commercialism. I think that what remains is for individual Christians to try to retain the real meaning of the time of Advent and try to "wait" to celebrate Christmas until the feast itself. For my part I will miss (another sign of my age again) even the celebrations of a fifteen or twenty years ago when our whole family could still gather at the farm and the nieces and nephews would open gifts with their eyes wide with excitement and amazement.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Politics and Religion
"So, can someone who is Catholic vote for the Liberal Party of Canada anymore"? I was asked this question recently by a neighbor while we were having supper. The truth is that the nature of liberalism has changed considerably in the past number of years. In the past lots of people related to the themes of liberalism found in the "New Deal" of Franklin Roosevelt. It seemed proper to stand up for the poor and to try and find ways to help improve their lives. But it seems to me that other themes have come to dominate liberal agendas. Abortion is one issue that seems to identify liberals now. Gay marriage is another issue that liberals seem to have adopted. So the question asked is a good one. If the Liberal party consistently adopts positions that are contrary to Catholic social teaching does it follow that a Catholic voter should refuse to vote for a Liberal candidate? This issue has drawn a great deal of attention in the US where the support of the Democratic party for abortion has led many conservative Catholics to suggest that voting Democrat should be unthinkable. Recently the Boston Globe quoted the archbishop of Boston on this issue:
Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley of Boston, saying the Democratic Party has been persistently hostile to opponents of abortion rights, asserted yesterday that the support of many Catholics for Democratic candidates "borders on scandal."..."I think the Democratic Party, which has been in many parts of the country traditionally the party which Catholics have supported, has been extremely insensitive to the church's position, on the gospel of life in particular, and on other moral issues," O'Malley said.
A complicating factor here is the nature of democracy. Is the role of the elected representative to follow the "party line" in his voting or is it to follow the wishes of constituents (as nearly as they can be perceived) in voting. It seems to me that the American system tends to more closely follow the second option while more emphasis is placed in Canada on following the party line. This aspect of democracy is what leads some politicians to claim that they are personally opposed to abortion but their votes reflect the wishes of their constituency. Besides, how much influence can one legislator have?
Another issue to consider here is the existence of other important issues besides abortion. So, for example, if candidate A was opposed to abortion but was in favor of using nuclear weapons to deal with the problems in Iran (an American issue, I know) it might be possible to vote for candidate B, even though they favor abortion, because they oppose the nuclear option for Iran.
Generally, then, it should be difficult for a Catholic to vote for a Liberal because of the party policies that are contrary to Catholic social teaching. It might be possible to do so, however, to avoid some kind of greater evil.
Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley of Boston, saying the Democratic Party has been persistently hostile to opponents of abortion rights, asserted yesterday that the support of many Catholics for Democratic candidates "borders on scandal."..."I think the Democratic Party, which has been in many parts of the country traditionally the party which Catholics have supported, has been extremely insensitive to the church's position, on the gospel of life in particular, and on other moral issues," O'Malley said.
A complicating factor here is the nature of democracy. Is the role of the elected representative to follow the "party line" in his voting or is it to follow the wishes of constituents (as nearly as they can be perceived) in voting. It seems to me that the American system tends to more closely follow the second option while more emphasis is placed in Canada on following the party line. This aspect of democracy is what leads some politicians to claim that they are personally opposed to abortion but their votes reflect the wishes of their constituency. Besides, how much influence can one legislator have?
Another issue to consider here is the existence of other important issues besides abortion. So, for example, if candidate A was opposed to abortion but was in favor of using nuclear weapons to deal with the problems in Iran (an American issue, I know) it might be possible to vote for candidate B, even though they favor abortion, because they oppose the nuclear option for Iran.
Generally, then, it should be difficult for a Catholic to vote for a Liberal because of the party policies that are contrary to Catholic social teaching. It might be possible to do so, however, to avoid some kind of greater evil.
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