Leviathan at large:
Carlin, David R. Jr.
in Commonweal, last June 6: plan which would have enhanced the in- Nor does the increase in lay ministers In their working lives, the laity fluence of the church...
...Constitution...
...And well goods...
...But we should keep in mind which holds that the individual re- the central government use the vast pow- that in the course of human history, quesnounces, in the act of becoming a ers potentially available to it to improve tionable theories have more than once member of society, all natural rights and the lives of its citizens...
...respect for the knowledge and expertise or her religion and calling...
...Justice doing things...
...I am not speaking here about moral values I T IS unlikely, despite recent alarmist is no reason to believe this process of such as honesty, but of the more prophecies to the contrary, that the decriminalization - which is little more complicated decision that may in- U.S...
...The central government of may be able to touch us, but only after Douglas must have had extraordinary the fully modernized state is perhaps the having observed the protocols of an eyesight...
...professional information is what seems age from the secretariat which anticiThe key word is seriousness...
...ABIGAIL McCARTHY they possess from their education and the experience of their callings...
...In the last almost said its repeal - of the court's bishops rejected a plan advanced by him twenty-five years half the states have re- longstanding doctrine of privacy...
...But if this doctrine, though false, bring his or her own will into accord with holds chief responsibility for the prosper- has helped to keep us free in a world in society's general will...
...abortion...
...effect and absorb - and yet the synod bute anything more to the .nation Even worse than the lack of respect for can make a beginning...
...We can take courthan resounding "no's...
...ciple of compensation just mentioned, Nonetheless, on the principle that you There is 'something not fully modern, there is nothing illogical about this...
...lier, lawyer-professor (and now federal sodomy legislation is a good thing...
...Little wonder that generations of without being crushed...
...The attitude, he said, was clerias the deacon or lay minister work- sional experience when there is a new cal...
...O'Brien sees it in the fail- Chicago "Declaration of Christian Con- going...
...government...
...Few things are more tion...
...In and some of his academic colleagues - a pealed their anti-sodomy laws, and there Griswold (1965), which declared unconCommonweal: 456 stitutional laws banning the sale and use preserve our tradition of limited govemof contraceptives, Justice Douglas, writ- ment-and inviolable rights - to delineate ing for the majority, discovered the right those rights with every greater specificof privacy in the "penumbra" of the ity...
...that the lay person in the world Noonan, can you communicate with munity (cf...
...the statvolve a choice between several June upholding a Georgia anti-sodomy ute books - will not continue...
...Recalling difficulty can easily be gleaned by listen- The activist, for example, who buys a the faltering start of Vatican 11 and its ing to those who have participated in few shares of stock so that he or she can heartening results, we dare to hope that discussions on the vocation of the laity in confront the corporate board is thought to the synod will yet mark the beginning of recent years...
...Far from it...
...But I have a sufficient preju- world-betterers have tried to get their At first glance it may seem a bit illogidice in favor of the old-fashioned notion hands on it and to strengthen it still cal that American liberals, who have that the people and their legislatures further...
...and due process...
...This is not simply a matter of theoreti- more necessary it becomes - if we are to DAVID R. CARLIN, JR...
...commodity, then we had better hurry and nign exegesis, but they, too, drift in the Now, the more the competence of find a true doctrine of privacy to replace direction of omnicompetence...
...As the no man's land between state and My legal education being imperfect, I individual gradually disappears, we find had long been curious as to where this ourselves bargaining informally: we will penumbra might be located...
...Neither was inclined to ac- bothered by the "almost unconscious ignoring them...
...It simply said that it is not an Georgia decision lies in its revision -- I tration he felt when two different arch- unconstitutional thing...
...in Commonweal, last June 6: plan which would have enhanced the in- Nor does the increase in lay ministers In their working lives, the laity fluence of the church in secular higher and lay professionals help the situation...
...Modem liberal ity, health, safety, and general well- which freedom is a relatively scarce democracies give Rousseau a more be- being of its citizens...
...To the other it was "beyond the Bishops Conference he was often the church than from the church his grasp...
...Thus a govern- served morally and politically valuable liberties, exchanging them instead for the ment originally conceived to have very purposes...
...Other aspects of the the laity serve and act upon the world...
...up to a certain slant of light on winter This compensatory elaboration of inafternoons I can detect a slight penumbra cal evolution...
...been big government's most important ought to be the principal sources of law...
...Totalitarian regimes, espe- Yet the practical factors contributing There may be those who join me in cially those in China and Russia, repre- to the growth of the omnicompetent state rejoicing that a blow has been struck sent a kind of logical development of are just as present in the United States as against the theoretically dubious doctrine Rousseau's Social Contract theory, elsewhere...
...tions and insights to the synod...
...are the fathers of our political church...
...David Byers has side the church than simply de- ops' complete lack of knowledge of remarked that when he was with the oftached from it...
...from Rome (which will no doubt be impontifical committee's failure to go be- This preference was pointed out by the practically late) and thus set consultation yond rhetoric...
...hysterical reaction that followed, you'd duct between consenting adults a crimiIn the 1982 symposium mentioned ear- think the court had declared that anti- nal offense...
...valuable...
...Virginia to be the preference for the outsider and pated with its own questionnaire one Finn sees a lack of seriousness in the the amateur as model of social action...
...principle is the state all-powerful...
...It even becomes necessary, as a kind U.S...
...Supreme Court decision in late than removing dead letters from...
...ing within the community itself, proposal to be made, a new venture to be All these caveats, would make it seem the church will not assist the politi- tried "so that they can conscientiously that there is too much for the synod to do, cal culture to face matters of war, respond...
...To one, he says, it was fice of Domestic Social Development at sults no more from their ignoring a mystery...
...We can also take courage from the ure to recognize that the lay person is cern" which noted "a depreciation" of participants in the lay consultations who church, not simply a messenger from the ordinary social roles through which took the initiative in offering their reflecchurch to the world...
...Nearly every practical de- dividual rights has occurred chiefly on the floor, where the shadow falls...
...Until church lead- cept advice from people actually in- contempt" demonstrated by lay profesers learn - or care to learn - to volved (and with distinction) in secular sionals in the peace and justice ministry affirm the secular lives of the laity, higher education, devoted Catholics for the non-church-professional laity, until they take seriously the idea though they might be...
...But granting the prinwas on sea or land...
...in Initiatives, March-April 1984: As a Catholic involved in electoral politics, I, personally, have found little or no understanding LEVIATHAN AT LARGE among church leadership of the THE COURT & THE RIGHT OF PRIVACY moral dilemmas faced by those in politics and government...
...12 September 1986: 457...
...government expands in the U.S., the the exploded one...
...be more "church" than is the corporate the end of clericalism and the affirmation These laymen and women see a lack of executive who struggles to integrate his of the lay vocation...
...But after permit government to enlarge its sphere years of experimentation I discovered of action if it permits us to enlarge our that if I hold my copy of the Constitution smaller spheres of immunity...
...find themselves less beyond or out- education - because of these archbish- It may worsen it...
...If the conventional doctrine of freedom of the citizen, something that is limited federal powers has grown over a privacy is false, by all means let's get rid realized to the degree the individual can period of 200 years to the point where it of it...
...In Roe v. Wade of compensatory move for the expansion (1973) this right was extended to cover of government, to expand those rights...
...The Catholic Laity Today, is there as church, as much church church leaders who lack a given profes- 1982...
...It is a question, evidently, too much to undo, too much change to abortion, and injustice, nor contri- still awaiting an answer...
...In certain activities (abortion and nifying glass, I have been unable to dis- science, medicine, communications - contraception, for instance) the law simcern any text within this penumbra, let has increased government's capacity for ply cannot touch us...
...In others, the law alone a text referring to privacy...
...It The real long-term importance of the judge) John Noonan expressed the frus- didn't...
...There is really no under- statute will lead to an anti-gay crusade in it should, since no useful social purpose standing of political complexities America...
...To judge from the somewhat is served nowadays by making such conon the part of church leadership...
...Not ernment power by means of due process OK) but with the aid of a light that never Bodin and Rousseau but Coke and Locke and privacy rights...
...For shouldn't kick either a man or a doctrine something just a bit medieval in fact, unless one is prepared to scrap the tradiwhen he/it is down, let me say a word or about the American constitutional tradi- tional American notion of freedom - two on behalf of this now faltering doc- tion...
...How, asks particularly those in the business com...
...This detachment re- higher education...
...Councilman John Erb of Rochester, New York, wrote Of several minds: David R. Carlin, Jr...
...Here, too, it is demanded that of privacy...
...But the United States stands in a dif- supporters in the U.S., have also been the So I get nervous when judges construe ferent theoretical tradition from the one firmest backers of restrictions on govthe Constitution not just liberally (that's terminating in Lenin and Mao...
...Not even as a matter of abstract that is, the more or less Lockean concept trine of privacy...
...most extraordinary instrument ever in- elaborate procedural code...
...Thus we have It's not that I doubt the value of pri- vented for ameliorating the human condi- managed to go to bed with the Leviathan vacy...
...To velopment for the past few centuries in under two heads - privacy and due prodate, however, despite the help of a mag- certain key fields - industry, banking, cess...
...In- of freedom - one has little choice but to One of the safest political gener- stead, individuals and even corporations balance every push for the expansion of alizations made about the last few cen- have rights and liberties that the state is government by an opposing push for the turies is that there has been a world-wide constitutionally incapable of interfering expansion of individual rights to privacy drift in the direction of omnicompetent with...
Vol. 113 • September 1986 • No. 15
