Category Archives: Praying

Snyder vs. Phelps, and the Outrage Continues

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In a previous post I talked about a case that is incredibly polarizing. The news since that post is equally polarizing. The latest court ruling favors Fred Phelps and his church. It’s on hold until the Supreme Court hears the case next term, but Matt’s father Albert has been handed a bill for $16,510 to pay to the defendant, Fred Phelps.

From what I’ve been able to read, this was the order of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. They argue that if you bring a civil suit against someone and lose, you’re responsible for their legal costs. In the abstract that makes sense; it should cut down on frivolous lawsuits and protect defendants from being bankrupted. It should deter someone with financial means to destroy someone who lacks financial means. But I find it puzzling that the 4th Circuit is demanding payment while the case is still on appeal.

Mr. Snyder makes a good case that he cannot afford the legal bill, but it’s unlikely that he’ll actually have to pay it.

  • If he ultimately wins the case he’ll receive damages from Fred Phelps much in excess of this amount.
  • You can click on Matt’s memorial web page and send a donation
  • Bill O’Reilly, who is somebody I’m normally contemptuous of, has promised to pay the bill. It’s rare that I applaud Bill, but I do this time.

I’ll keep you posted.

Snyder vs. Phelps: the Limits of Free Speech?

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The Supreme Court has recently agreed to hear the case of Snyder v. Phelps next year. It’s going to be a lightning rod case when it’s heard next fall, and for me it’s a fascinating examination of free speech, hate speech and the limits of protest. Here are the facts of the case:

Matthew Snyder was a 20 year old marine who died in combat in Iraq in 2006. His body was returned and his funeral was held at St. John’s Catholic Church in Westminster, Maryland. Outside his church Fred Phelps and other members of his Westboro Baptist Church picketed outside the church with signs that claimed Matt’s death was the result of God’s punishment against the United States for permitting (among other things) homosexuality.

Matt’s father, Albert, filed suit in June of 2006 against Fred Phelps (and others). In 2007 a jury awarded Mr. Snyder $10.9 million. Mr. Phelps appealed and in 2008 the verdict was overturned claiming that while Phelps is offensive, his speech is protected by the 1st Amendment. Last week the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case next year.

This raises several interesting issues, though perhaps not the ones you may think. It goes without saying that Fred Phelps and the other protesters are offensive to an incredible degree. He believes that homosexuals, the Catholic Church, Jews, and others are depraved and condemned by God. Because the United States tolerates this, God is expressing his wrath through natural disasters (Hurricane Katrina), terrorist events (9/11), and battle casualties (Iraq and Afghanistan).

And while Phelp’s behavior is offensive, that is not cause for a lawsuit. Simply put, nobody has the right to not be offended; the first amendment protects your right to be offensive. But as we all know, there are limits on free speech. You can’t yell “fire” in a crowded theater unless it really is on fire. Hate speech is not protected (e.g. leaving a noose on a tree branch).

Neither is defamation. Albert Snyder claimed he was defamed because Phelp’s signs said (among other things) Albert “taught him how to support the largest pedophile machine in the history of the entire world, the Roman Catholic monstrosity.” He also claimed invasion of privacy (that Phelps and the other protesters “intruded on seclusion”). The defamation charge was dropped and it went to trial on the charges of intrusion on seclusion and intentional affliction of emotional distress. As I said, the jury found for the plaintiff and awarded damages of almost $11 million.

On appeal it was decided that Phelp’s right to free speech outweighs Snyder’s intrusion on seclusion and intentional affliction of emotional abuse. That is the issue the Supreme Court will take up next year.

It’s a tough case. I’m normally a fundamentalist when it comes to freedom of speech. I don’t think we are protected from hearing things we don’t want to hear and we’re not protected from getting our feelings hurt. What happened to the Snyder family, though, goes way beyond hurt feelings. Having to bury a child (no matter how old) is one of the most painful experiences anyone can imagine. Seeing Fred Phelps and others using Matt’s funeral as a platform to push his agenda of hate is beyond painful.

But does it rise to level of limiting free speech? It’s certainly sinful and horrible, and I suspect that when Fred Phelps dies he’s not going to like the all loving God any more than he likes the rest of us. But I have to admit that part of me thinks we would do better by ignoring Fred and the other hate mongers; in a sense telling him that he has the right to say what he wants, but we have the right not to listen to it.

In any case, one nice thing that came out of this is that President Bush signed into law that prohibits this kind of protest. The Respect for America’s Fallen Heroes Act makes it a crime to protest within 300 feet of the entrance of a national cemetery.

We’ll see how this turns out.

The Justice Chronicles, Volume 2: Rethinking Tzedakah

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In my previous Justice Chronicles post I talked about the ladder of tzedakah. I’ve been thinking about this ladder and wonder if we need to rethink this. I take nothing away from the brilliance of Moses Maimonides, but he wrote nearly 900 years ago and built his ladder on one very specific theme. He believed that giving charity (or doing justice) becomes more altruistic as the receiver is not able to repay, either because they don’t have the means or don’t know the giver.

I still hold to the validity of the highest rung (enabling the recipient to become self reliant), but I’m not so certain of the 7th rung (giving when neither party knows the others identity). In the last few years we’ve read about and seen devastating tragedies with Hurricane Katrina, the Indian Ocean Tsunami, and most recently earthquakes in Haiti and Chile and we Americans have responded generously. Catholic Relief Services has already raised $90,000,000 for Haiti, and it’s all 7th rung tzedakah. None of us who gave know who will benefit, and nobody who benefits will know us.

But at the end of the day, is that a good thing? In the 12th century it was fairly difficult to be anonymous. Most people lived in small villages and didn’t travel much. If you wanted to give to someone without knowing who, and without them knowing you, you needed to search out a middle man. Now it’s much easier, and I think perhaps not as noble. The sheer volume of money that goes to Haiti, Chile, etc. shows how generous Americans are, but it also shows that it’s easy to write a check or call a toll free number and know we are doing good.

But what about tzedakah that needs to happen close to home? Can we be as generous and give while looking at someone in the eye? Several years ago I met a man from St. Eulalia Catholic Church in Winchester, Massachusetts. A few years before that he attended an event where the speaker was Mother Teresa. He was so impressed with her talk that he came up to her and gave her a $50 bill and said: “Give this to the poor.” She gave him the bill back and said: “No, you give this to the poor. Find someone who needs it and give it to him.” As he told me the story he explained that while it was hard to find someone in Winchester, Massachusetts who was poor, he was on a mission. He eventually found someone to give the money to, and it transformed him to actually meet someone who needed what he had.

I don’t normally do New Years’ resolutions, but last year I made one that I still hold to: I will not avoid eye contact with people who stand at intersections and ask for money. You know what I’m talking about: they hold signs that say “Please help. God bless,” or “Will work for food.” Admit it, you’ve hoped that the traffic light would work in your favor and you wouldn’t have the uncomfortable few minutes when you’re only separated by the car window. Most people don’t give them money because “they’ll just use it for booze or drugs.”

Is that true? Maybe it is, but maybe it’s because we don’t want to do level 3 (giving after being asked). Maybe it’s because giving to someone who asks is, on some level, creating a relationship that we don’t want to create. I’ll confess that I keep a $5 bill handy to give to these folks and in return I ask them to pray for me. Nobody has ever refused my request. OK, maybe they don’t have any intention to pray for me, and maybe they’ll just use the money to make themselves worse, but does that make my tzedakah worse or wasteful? If the only good that happened out of this encounter is that two strangers made eye contact, is that a bad thing?

Maybe it advances the cause of tzedakah.

The Proper Role Of Religion (According to Me)

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A few years ago in my literary travels I came across Karen Armstrong. She is British, and was a nun in the 1960s. She left the convent and has done many things, but most importantly (for me) is that she is a terrific writer. I met her when she signed my copy of The Great Transformation: The Beginning of our Religious Traditions. She is creative, inviting, and challenging. I like that.

I recently finished her latest book The Case for God. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but had not thought about blogging about it until I read the epilogue. She states something I’ve felt for a long time, as well as I’ve ever read it expressed:

We have become used to thinking that religion should provide us with information. Is there a God? How did the world come into being? But this is a modern preoccupation. Religion was never supposed to provide answers to questions that lay within the reach of human reason. That was the role of logos [reason]. Religion’s task, closely allied to that of art, was to help us to live creatively, peacefully, and even joyously within realities for which there were no easy explanations and problems that we could not solve: mortality, pain, grief, despair, and outrage at the injustice and cruelty of life. Over the centuries people in all cultures discovered that by pushing their reasoning powers to the limit, stretching language to the end of its tether, and living as selflessly and compassionately as possible, they experienced a transcendence that enabled them to affirm their suffering with serenity and courage. Scientific rationality can tells us why we have cancer; it can even cure us of our disease. But it cannot assuage the terror, disappointment, and sorrow that come with the diagnosis, nor can it help us to die well. That is not within its competence. Religion will not work automatically, however; it requires a great deal of effort and cannot succeed if it is facile, false, idolatrous, or self-indulgent.

Frankly, I couldn’t say it any better. I find great frustration in the ways that religion gets misused these days. We use it manipulate behavior (“Do you think God is pleased with what you are doing?”), justify our actions (“God rejoices when an abortion doctor is murdered”), discriminate (“He looks like a good candidate for the job, but I worry that he doesn’t have a personal relationship with Jesus”), or rewrite history (“If the Bible says the world is only 6,000 years old, I don’t care about anything else: that’s what I believe”).

Too often we use faith and religion not to expand our world and increase compassion, but to exclude people we fear or justify our prejudices. That’s wrong. Our faith should not provide us an excuse to retreat into our fears, but a safe place to explore what scares us.

I pray that my faith makes me a better man; that it makes me more compassionate and understanding; that it makes my life more manageable and less fearful. I pray that my faith makes people of other religions respect and care for me, even if they don’t completely understand what I believe.

And I pray that Karen Armstrong keeps writing.

The Justice Chronicles: Volume I

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The recent events in Haiti have caused me to think a great deal about the role of justice. They suffered a 7.0 magnitude earthquake on January 12th and thousands lost their lives. Countless others survived but are in need of basic services (food, water, shelter, etc.) and that has lead to a very public debate.

Organizations like the Red Cross and Catholic Relief Services have raised millions of dollars. President Obama asked former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush to spearhead a fundraising effort.

This raises lots of questions to me on the nature of justice and charity. In a previous post I spoke of medieval Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonmides (1120-1190) and his teaching on the “ladder of tzedakah.” Tzedakah is normally translated as “charity” but it means much more. In a sense, true tzedakah is not simply a rich person giving something to a poor person; it’s an act of fairness and justice, an act that works to restore all of us to equality.

More than that, the “ladder” part tells us that there are rungs, or levels; not all tzedakah is the same. Maimonmides taught that this ladder had 8 rungs:

1. Giving begrudgingly
2. Giving less that you should, but giving it cheerfully.
3. Giving after being asked
4. Giving before being asked
5. Giving when you do not know the recipient’s identity, but the recipient knows your identity
6. Giving when you know the recipient’s identity, but the recipient doesn’t know your identity
7. Giving when neither party knows the other’s identity
8. Enabling the recipient to become self-reliant

For most people who are giving to the relief in Haiti, it’s really the 7th rung. That’s pretty good particularly given that the people who will benefit from these donations will never have the opportunity to give back, but I wonder if we shouldn’t think more about moving to the 8th rung.

This may be too politically sensitive to discuss directly, so let me get to this at a slant. Going back a century, I think most people are aware of the name Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919). He founded United States Steel (now called USX). In building his empire he earned a phenomenal amount of money and when he retired he gave much of it away. In total, he donated approximately $350,000,000 and was instrumental in the building of over 2500 libraries. Even today the <a href="Carnegie Corporation is continuing Andrew’s vision.

Much of the work they do is 7th rung stuff. The people who fund the charity don’t know the people they help and they don’t know the donors. But when Mr. Carnegie was amassing his fortune, did he need to keep it all himself? Did his workers need to live in poverty and work in poor conditions so those of the next generation would have a library? In 1892 Carnegie broke the union that represented his workers. Had he worked with the union and given everyone a living wage, couldn’t that have been 8th rung tzedakah? Maybe Carnegie wouldn’t have been so famous, and maybe we wouldn’t have as many libraries, but workers in the late 19th and early 20th century might have had less poverty, disease, and shortened lives.

Maybe the earthquake in Haiti gives all the rest of us the opportunity to not only provide food and water, but also the tools to allow their economy to grow. Maybe this is our opportunity to make them better able to survive the next earthquake.

I entitled this “Volume 1” in the hopes that I’ll write about justice/tzedakah on a regular basis.

Here’s a Health Care Idea: Stop Trying to Live to Be 100

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Working for hospice for the past 12 years I’ve had the opportunity to see how we age in this country, and I keep coming back to a disturbing thought: in many ways our health care system is intended to keep people alive forever and in many cases we sacrifice quality of life for quantity of life.

Now, before you start making unkind comparisons between me and Jack Kevorkian let me assure you that I’m not talking about death panels and assisted suicide. I’m also willing to concede that long life sometimes goes hand in hand with good quality of life (my 91 year old father in law who still drives, sits on several boards, and plays bridge every Thursday is a case in point).

I’m also aware that average life expectancy in this country has grown from 46 years in 1900 to 76 years now. Vaccines, clean water, antibiotics and many other avenues of health care have given us this gift.

But we also see improved health care can cause us to live longer, but live sicker and we accept this because we are obsessed with living as long as we can. Look how much we cheer the centenarians that Willard Scott brings us on the Today Show. I love Willard but he shows these people looking good and talks about how everybody loves them. Just once I’d like to see him celebrate someone who has advanced dementia or has been bedridden for the past 5 years. Those centenarians never seem to get on the show.

I’m guessing that this obsession for living to be 100 is rooted in our fear of death. On one level that makes sense and we are often guided by fear more than anything else. But on another level, we need to stop fooling ourselves. The oldest documented person in the world was Jeanne Calment (1875-1997) who lived to be 122. And the death rate for all of us is the same: one per person.

The harsh truth is that no matter what we do, if we eat healthy, eschew alcohol and tobacco, exercise, moderate fat intake, whatever, we’re going to die. We can’t control that. We can, however, control how we live given the finite nature of our lives.

I think we need to rethink our goal. Instead of trying to live forever, or at least as long as we can, we should think about living well for the time we have. That sounds easy, but it’s not what we do. It means we have to acknowledge the point where it’s not working. For my part, here’s what I’ve decided:

  • I’m currently 49. On May 11th I turn 50. I acknowledge that I probably have more yesterdays than tomorrows.
  • If I make it to 80 I will have outlived half of my grandparents. At that point I will have ice cream for breakfast and stop caring what I eat.
  • I hope to retire at an age where we can enjoy our retirement. I don’t know if this is possible but if it is, I will accept the fact that I will have to live on a fixed budget for the rest of my life
  • I hope to travel but will accept that this may not be possible. If I never see Paris or Mongolia before I die, I will live with that fact.
  • I don’t want to spend my last years in a nursing home, but if it happens, I will make the best of it.
  • If the last years of my life are centered on caring for someone at the expense of my fulfillment, I accept that fact with grace and gratitude
  • None of us chooses the disease that takes our life. I pray that it is not ALS (Lou Geherig’s disease) or Alzheimer’s, but I accept that it may be a disease I wouldn’t choose.
  • I accept that at the end of my life I may need someone to do personal care for me. That means when I can no longer bathe or toilet myself, someone else will help me. I pray for the ability to accept this help without shame or embarrassment
  • I don’t want to live to be 100 unless I am reasonably healthy. If I am diagnosed with advanced cancer at age 90 I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in the hospital. If I choose not to undergo chemotherapy or radiation I hope my family can accept this.
  • Finally, I pray for the opportunity to die well: I hope my death will cause those who survive me to to find my death peaceful enough to not fear their own death. I hope my funeral is a joyful one where people can laugh and celebrate my life.

I can only imagine how strange this posts looks for most people, but accept it for what it is.

End of a Month of Celebration

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Almost everyone knows that I love Thanksgiving. I like the fact that while it’s a civil holiday, most people think of it in at least partly religious terms. I like that it doesn’t cause the problems of specifically religious holidays (e.g. Christmas). I also like the idea of taking a time to specifically look at those people and things we are grateful for.

Thanksgiving was fun, but the real celebration was the wedding of my nephew Nathan to Makayla Nadeau. I can safely say that if it weren’t for their wedding there would be no way we’d go to Newport, Rhode Island in November. It goes without saying but it was a magical weekend. I’m Nathan’s godfather and as a priest I gave him his 1st Communion; I was also touched to be asked to participate in part of the wedding ceremony. Rev. Dan Hopkins presided and did all the legal stuff, but I treasure my part in it.

Nancy and I flew into New York City and we were able to spend time with our niece Katie and her boyfriend David. I’ll confess that I like NYC better and Nancy does, but it was great.

We took the train from Penn Station to Providence, RI. It came a month after peak foliage but it was a beautiful ride nonetheless. I love San Diego and will never move but I do miss the East Coast from time to time and it was nice to experience it from sea level.

Nathan and Makayla, Nancy and I wish you as happy a marriage as ours.

Another Health Care Post

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The current Health Care Debate answers one of the critical needs in this country: how to provide protection to everyone (or nearly everyone). But there is another need: how to contain costs and make health care more efficient. We’re hearing more about how to provide health care to some of the 47 million people in this country without health insurance, but very little about how to make the system more efficient. Let me tackle these two separate issues one at a time.

The figure of 47 million without insurance comes from the census department and is from 2008. That translates to 20% of the US population under 65. There is nearly universal coverage for the population over 65 because of Medicare. Most Americans get health insurance from their work, or the work of someone in their household. Unfortunately that excludes people who are under 65 and not working, people who own their own business, and people who are not eligible to receive health insurance from their employers. These people daily live with the awareness that an accident or serious illness can have catastrophic effects. It’s true that if you are uninsured and are injured, the emergency room of any hospital is required to treat you regardless of ability to pay, but that’s a long way away from being cured. According to the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) the hospital is required to treat a life threatening emergency until you are stable or can be transported somewhere else you can be treated. They are not required to treat a serious, but not life threatening, emergency and can “release” you once you are stable even if you life was in danger when you came in.

Now, whenever we liberals talk about expanding health coverage conservatives scream that government run health care would be a disaster. But the funny thing is that since 1966 we’ve had virtually universal, government run health care for those 65 or older. It’s called Medicare. I work with the elderly and to a person they like how Medicare is run. When you turn 65 you are eligible to enroll in Medicare, but not required. You are free to not enroll and find health insurance on your own. Funny that I don’t know anybody who has done that. It’s also funny that we have universal health care for the elderly (who vote in high numbers) but not children (who can’t vote).

But this misses my main point. We are not dealing with is the outrageous cost of health care and how poorly we ration it. Do not be fooled: we currently ration health care but we do it by coverage. If two 40 year old men are diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes (formally called “Adult Onset Diabetes”) and only one of them has health insurance, their lives will become dramatically different. The one with health insurance almost certainly has access to medication (either oral or injectable), counseling to change your lifestyle, and methods to monitor your blood sugar level. The one without has none of this. The one without health insurance is looking at a dramatically shorter lifespan with the added benefits of possible blindness and gangrene in your feet.

The hard, cold reality is this: no matter what we do, we won’t ever be able to have everything we want as we want it as soon as we want it. We as a nation have to decide who will not receive all they want. Currently we ration by ability to pay (either privately or through insurance). I don’t believe this is the best way.

The further hard, cold reality is that no matter what we do, the death rate is still the same: one per person. We are all going to die one day and all the health care in the world isn’t going to stop that. The purpose of health care is not to allow us to live forever, but to allow us to live a good quality of life for as long as is practical. That said, there really does come a point where additional health care dollars are not doing that. For example, if a 95 year old man with terminal prostate cancer wishes to have aggressive chemotherapy treatment it probably doesn’t make sense. The chemo is likely to be unsuccessful, and even if it does stop the cancer, he is likely to be much sicker from the chemo. Even if the chemo is successful and doesn’t lead to additional bad side effects, he is still a 95 year old man who will likely die of something else within the next few years.

Under the current system, if he (or his family) demands aggressive treatment he will likely get it. His primary doctor can refuse to allow the chemotherapy but most doctors will go along with the patient or family if they are insistent enough. Also, if his heart stops beating (for any reason) the local paramedics will try through CPR to get it going again. Essentially there is little in the current system that will tell him it’s time to go. These are resources that are not being used to help people who will. The chemotherapy the 95 year old man receives takes away from the ability to provide preventative medicine for children and the poor. Unfortunately at this time there is nobody who is able to say no to the 95 year old man.

This isn’t about death panels. It is about recognizing that limited health care resources need to be allocated where they will do the most good for the most people. My father in law is 90 years old and is in good health. Recently I overhead a conversation he was having with a few friends. He was explaining that if there was a procedure that he needed and a 30 year old man needed the same procedure, the younger man should get it even if the younger man cannot pay for it. His friends were astonished and basically said that the 90 year old is entitled to whatever he can afford, and if the younger man can’t afford it, well that’s life. Frankly, I hope when I’m 90 I’ll have the same insight as my father in law.

At some point this discussion has to be part of our health care debate.

Memorial Day: Remembering Those Who Have Fallen

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It’s become an annual tradition for me to post on Memorial Day. Since shortly after the Civil War families of those who were killed in war have felt the need to commemorate their sacrifices. Since 1868 it has been a national holiday, now celebrated on the 4th Monday of May. Last year I noted that 4083 of our young men and women have died in Iraq since 2003. The number is now 4300.

That is, in a sense, good news in that only 217 have died in the last year, but that’s of little consolation to their families. The major focus of the war is moving to Afghanistan and I’m having a hard time finding a web page that tracks casualties there.

Regardless, it’s a good day to thank a veteran.

Shock and Outrage Reaches a New High

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This is a story I read in my local paper, the San Diego Union Tribune, and still can’t believe it’s true. In Luzerne County, Pennsylvania two federal judges, Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. and Michael T. Conahan, have plead guilty to accepting money to send juveniles to a privately owned (for profit) juvenile detention center.

You can read the timeline here and you should. Basically they were paid by the operators of the facility to sentence juvenile offenders to long sentences, disproportionate to their offenses.

Perhaps the best synopsis is an editorial from the local newspaper, the Citizen’s Voice:

Luzerne County’s top judges have hurt, betrayed and shamed all of Luzerne County.
For the last six years, Michael T. Conahan and then Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. served as president judges, at the very top of the Luzerne County judiciary.
Instead of assuring the justice we expect when we appear in county court, the two men, through a variety of complex schemes, severely violated the public trust as they secretly raked in $2.6 million for themselves, according to federal prosecutors.
Federal officials say the two defrauded taxpayers, in part by arranging for county money to build a juvenile center from which they would secretly profit. They assured the center would have plenty of paying customers by tearing juveniles from their families and sending them to the facility, at times against the advice of probation officers.
The judges covered up their schemes, filing false documents and lying about their income to the state and to the Internal Revenue Service, federal officials say.
Conahan and Ciavarella entered a plea agreement Friday to two counts each of fraud and agreed to 87-month federal prison terms, disbarment and restitution.
County residents, although angered and disgusted with the news, were not all that surprised. The indictments Monday confirmed the very worst of their fears.
Rumors and speculation about corruption within the county courthouse have been circulating for more than a year, and many area residents say these charges of fraud, even against judges, are not so surprising for Luzerne County.
Still, Judge Chester Muroski, in comments Monday morning, offered hope for an immediate new beginning to the county’s judicial system.
The remaining county judges will “do everything we need to restore pubic confidence in the court,” said Muroski. Fairness and justice without outside influences would be top priorities, he promised.
The courthouse probe will continue and federal officials ask the public for help with information that may aid their investigation.
We urge the remaining county judges and all who will take the bench in the future to remember Conahan’s and Ciavarella’s shameful examples.
Remember, too, they must earn the trust we so badly need from our judges.

The next question, of course, is how we do restitution to those children who were improperly incarcerated. I pray for their healing.