Election: 'Supremes' key issue

		The Catholic  Difference  George Weigel

A British officer, reflecting ruefully in 1781 on the colonies Britain had just lost, remarked that "these Americans are a curious, original people; they know how to govern themselves, but nobody else can govern them."

Once spoken in the British tradition of good sportsmanship, the officer's observation tells us something important about us, not only about the first generation of citizens of the independent United States.

Why did Americans know how to govern themselves? They had learned the rudiments of democracy in town meetings and on congregational councils; they had formed legislatures, run courts, held elections; they had served on juries and done their time in local militias.

Virtue and democracy

They had made the mechanics of democracy work. But they had something else, something more: they had lived an experience of self-discipline and self-sacrifice.

No one made it in colonial America, economically speaking, without self-discipline and self-sacrifice. Society was also dependent on these virtues, as traditions like communal barn-raisings remind us. Colonial America gave a distinctive form to what Michael Novak would call, 200 years later, the "communitarian individual" - yet, for all its American originality of form, the "communitarian individual" was the product of centuries of Christian European culture, in which men and women learned both their own dignity and their responsibilities to others.

The idea that a people can be self-governing only when they are governed "from within," by the virtues of self-discipline and self-sacrifice, is not something Americans learned first from the Enlightenment; the idea's deepest taproots are in medieval Catholic political thought, which itself drew on the wisdom of the classical world.

That linkage between virtue and democracy is now under assault from what imagines itself to be the ultimate guardian of American liberties: the Supreme Court of the United States.

Supreme Court's new understanding

And that is why the Supremes must be an election issue in 2004.

Arguments about the Supreme Court's rulings on abortion and homosexuality tend to focus on the results - which are, to be sure, bad enough. Yet something else has been going on here. For 40 years now, the Supremes have slowly, steadily advanced a new understanding of the freedom to which the Founders pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor.

The popular troubadour of this new understanding of freedom was Frank Sinatra, who summed up the Supremes' project in one soaring, lilting, witless refrain: "I did it my way."

What Old Blue Eyes took to the top of the pop charts, the Supremes enshrined in constitutional law, in the 1992 decision Casey vs. Planned Parenthood: "At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life."

Write that in any freshman philosophy course, and you'd likely get an F. Write it in a plurality opinion of the Supreme Court, and the next step is the suggestion (also in "Casey") that any linkage between freedom and moral truth is an act of "compulsion" that denies our fellow-citizens the "attributes of personhood."

To take the obvious, and ominous, example: if you believe, on the basis of basic embryology, that the product of human conception is a human being; and if you believe that that scientific fact implies certain moral obligations to that human being; and if you try to persuade others of the legal implications of those truths - well, you're denying the "attributes of personhood" to anyone who disagrees. Or so sayeth Justices Kennedy, O'Connor, and Souter.

False idea of freedom

When the court usurps powers beyond the Framers' imagining and the people are forbidden to settle deeply controverted issues of public policy through their elected representatives, democracy withers, and so do the habits that make democracy possible. When the Supreme Court teaches falsehoods about the nature of freedom, it accelerates the process of democratic decline that its usurpation of power began.

And that is why the Supremes have to be an election issue in 2004. The Supreme Court is not only taking the country in a policy direction most Americans reject. It is doing so in the name of a false idea of freedom: a falsehood that could be fatal to the self-governance of the Republic, because it is fatal to the self-mastery of its citizens.

George Weigel is a senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.

St. Valentine:
Helping seniors find solace during grief

		Grand Mom  Audrey  Mettel Fixmer

No one in this country forgets that Valentine's Day is just around the corner. All of the florists, greeting card, and candy companies are barraging us with their advertising, reminding us that only by buying their products can we prove our love to someone. I began to wonder just how this all came about in the first place.

Having been brought up in Catholic schools, I knew, of course, that a St. Valentine was said to have been responsible for this whole outpouring of love, but I didn't remember anything else about him. So I did what any other modern person does - I searched the Internet.

'From your Valentine'

It was fascinating to learn that the Catholic Church lists three different St. Valentines. The one associated with love matching seems to be the priest who served during the third century in Rome. When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers, he outlawed marriages for young men, his crop of potential soldiers.

Valentine, realizing the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. Of course, he was discovered and Claudius had him put to death.

While in prison, however, he fell in love with the jailer's daughter, a blind girl who visited him during his confinement. Through his strong faith he was able to restore her sight, and before dying sent her a love letter, signing it "From your Valentine," an expression that is still used today.

We can't know how much of these legends are true, of course, but the facts are not important. It is enough to know that there is truth in the essence. The church approves of love and marriage, elevating marriage to a sacrament, and then there's the fact that Christ performed his first public miracle at the marriage feast in Cana.

But something more occurred to me recently: St. Valentine is still at work in the church! And he's working on senior citizens!

Finding love

This Christmas I heard from two friends who last year were widowed and grieving, but this year have celebrated the sacrament of marriage and now have a new lease on life.

Our friend, Jim, a retired Chicago school principal, sent us the program from his wife's funeral last year. We immediately wrote to him expressing our sympathy, and a short time later he showed up on our doorstep for a visit. It was a painful two hours we spent with him as he recalled in detail his wife's prolonged illness and death. His grief was palpable and deep. He talked about the possibility of joining a monastery, which didn't surprise us, since he has always been a devout Catholic and a Daily Masser.

When we received a Christmas card from him this year, out fell his wedding picture. He married someone from church, of course.

I also heard from my friend Anne in Milwaukee, who has remarried. She participated in a special church function for single Catholics after the death of her Chuck. There she noticed Tony, a recent widower sitting off by himself, so she went over and introduced herself and urged him to join the festivities. That was two years ago. They were married last spring.

True love

Last week's news tops everything. Our friend, John, who was widowed in June, is planning to remarry on Valentine's Day this year. John is a faithful Daily Masser, who met his fiancée at (where else?) daily Mass.

Faustine was a long-time acquaintance and friend of his wife, who when she knew she was dying asked John if he would remarry after her death. He didn't think so, but she told him she thought it was the best thing for him and even suggested he consider Faustine. Amazing? Yet, when you consider how loving someone means wishing for his happiness, it is not such a strange request.

Sacred mission

I suppose one could argue that finding a spouse in church is not surprising if that's where you hang out every day. If these guys hung out in bars, they might have found themselves matched up with someone quite different. I, however, firmly believe it's more than that.

I believe that those who turn to God for solace in their grief will get direct results, if not another loving spouse, at least the warmth and comfort of a loving community. And now that I know more about St. Valentine, I like to believe that he is working overtime in the church even today.

Isn't it good to know that when life deals us the worst blow, the loss of a spouse, St. Valentine is there in church still going about with his sacred mission of matchmaking.

"Grandmom" likes hearing from other senior citizens who enjoy aging at P.O. Box 216, Fort Atkinson, WI 53538.