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Kmiec as Ambassador to the Holy See?

Michael Winters sends up the trial ballon:

Ambassador to the Holy See is not like most ambassadorships. ... The job has never gone to a career diplomat but is usually awarded to a prominent Catholic political ally. ...

Obama deserves his own person at the post and, in the event, there is a perfect candidate: Professor Douglas Kmiec. He is a lifelong pro-life legal scholar who served as head of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Departments of both Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He was Dean of the Catholic University Law School and now teaches law at Pepperdine. His published works evidence a find legal mind and thorough familiarity with the natural law tradition that has been the dominant lens for Catholic social thought. Kmiec would be well known to prominent American churchmen in the Eternal City and a jewel in the crown of the intellectual milieu that surrounds the Holy See.

Despite his Republican credentials, Kmiec endorsed Barack Obama this year and penned a thoughtful book, “Can a Catholic Support Him?” The question is ridiculous to most ears and, in the event, most Catholics did support him. But for some extremists on the right, there was a firm conviction that no Catholic could vote for Obama. A Dominican priest even denied Kmiec communion at a Mass in May. (The priest was later reprimanded by Cardinal Mahoney.) Longtime associates of Professor Kmiec denounced him, often in ways that lacked all charity, suggesting bad logic or bad motives or both. There is no better way to answer those who argued that no Catholic could vote for Obama in good conscience than to see the man who wrote the book (literally!)defending the proposition that Catholics can and should vote for Obama being received in the Sala Clementina by Pope Benedict XVI!

I take it that, as a general rule, one should not choose ambassadors whose appointment will insult the country to which they are credentialed. One would not expect Obama to appoint a known anti-Zionist as ambassador to Israel, for example. Yet, while Winters and other pro-Obama US Catholics might delight in tweaking the Holy father by appointing Kmiec as ambassador to the Vatican, it would be tantamount to sending Norman Finkelstein to Israel.

Doug Kmiec chose to turn his back on a life time of support for conservative and, in particular, pro-life causes to endorse Barack Obama. This despite the fact that Obama ran on the most pro-abortion rights platform in memory and despite Obama’s repeated promises to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which would invalidate almost all federal and state restrictions on abortion and, many believe, go so far as to invalidate freedom of conscience laws that allow health acre providers to opt out of providing abortion services when it would offend their religious beliefs.

Since the election, Kmiec has further angered pro-life Catholics by, among other things, his recent love letter of praise for Edward Kennedy. Kmiec claims that Ted Kennedy has “built up” the culture of life, citing various left-liberal statutes that are purportedly pro-family. Kmiec’s argument, of course, is specious. On key issues like abortion and embryonic stem cell research, Ted Kennedy’s political track record has been consistently inconsistent with Church teachings. Indeed, defiant is not an inappropriate characterization of Kennedy’s position vis-a-vis the Church on these issues. Kmiec’s paean to Kennedy thus tells us a lot about just how far off the reservation Kmiec has now wandered. His main role in public life now seems to be giving cover to pro-abortion rights Democrats.

The Vatican has made clear that a Kmiec appointment would be most unwelcome:

An official from the Vatican’s Secretary of State department has reacted to the recent suggestion that Pepperdine professor Douglas Kmiec should become the U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican by saying, “it will never happen.” ...

The official noted that prominent American Catholics at the Vatican -such as Cardinal James Francis Stafford or Archbishop Raymond Burke- look at Kmiec as a “traitor,” and “their opinion will certainly count heavily.” ...

“Those who [Michael Winter’s] article refers so disrespectfully as ‘extremists on the right,’ or ‘the far right political fringe,’ are the serious, loyal Catholics [the Vatican] precisely takes into account, because they are the ones who are there when the Church needs them,” the official also explained.

As two “serious, loyal” Catholics explained during the campaign:

“Throughout this campaign, I fear that Doug Kmiec has wandered ever farther through Lewis Carroll’s looking glass, into a world in which the White Queen teaches herself ‘impossible things before breakfast’—impossible things, like the manifest absurdity that Barack Obama, NARAL’s poster child, is, in fact, the real pro-life candidate,” said George Weigel. “If and when a President Obama and a Democratic Congress (led by a self-professed ‘ardent Catholic’) begin dismantling every legal achievement of the pro-life movement over the past three decades, it will be interesting indeed to see what Professor Kmiec has to say. As for Archbishop Chaput, he is a model bishop, and the Church in America should pray for two hundred more bishops with his insight and his courage,” Weigel continued.

Austin Ruse, president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, also weighed in: “Doug Kmiec is not just arguing with Archbishop Chaput but with at least 100 other bishops who have spoken out strongly against a Kmiec-like position. We have never seen so many bishops willing to risk an IRS audit to speak out against the idea that other issues are proportionate to abortion or the absurd notion that Obama is anti-abortion. The first thing Obama will do is sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which will overturn every tiny but meaningful restriction on abortion that has ever passed the Congress and the States. This includes things like waiting periods for adolescents and laws against taking a minor across state lines for an abortion. Kmiec’s position that Obama is anti-abortion is tragically wrong on its face.

Obama may have won the vote of a majority of America’s cafeteria Catholics. Even so, to appoint Doug Kmiec as ambassador to the Holy See would be an insult to both the Vatican and to “serious, loyal” Catholics everywhere.

Update: Henry Farrell offers a thoughtful critique of this post and, BTW, makes a couple of very kind remarks about yours truly in response to some critics.

Turning to the merits, Henry writes:

Kmiec’s support for Barack Obama clearly falls within the limits that the Catholic church has suggested are allowable (Kmiec continues to state his opposition to abortion, while suggesting that the question of whether Obama or McCain would have been the best person to lower abortion rates was a matter of prudential judgment, and that he personally plumped for Obama as the better prudential bet).

It is certainly true that Catholc doctrine permits one to vote for a pro-abortion rights candidate. Useful guidance on that question was provided by Oregon Archbishop Vlazny’s 2004 statement on the reception of communion by pro-choice candidates and those who vote for them:

"Should Catholics who choose to vote for pro-choice politicians refrain from reception of the Holy Communion? If they vote for them precisely because they are pro-choice, I believe they too should refrain from the reception of Holy Communion because they are not in communion with the Church on a serious matter. But if they are voting for that particular politician because, in their judgment, other candidates fail significantly in some matters of great importance, for example, war and peace, human rights and economic justice, then there is no evident stance of opposition to Church teaching and reception of Holy Communion seems both appropriate and beneficial."

This has always struck me as a perfectly plausible application of the principle of double effect.

Henry is quite right that Kmiec has made clear that he supports Obama despite the latter’s abortion position, grouding his support on peace and other social justice concerns.

In my view, however, there is a difference between simply voting for a pro-choice candidate and being a highly public supporter of that candidate. Kmiec went so far as to write a book trying to persuade pro-life Catholics that it was okay to vote for Obama. In doing so, I believe he gave Obama significant political cover. Kmiec’s high profile position allows Obama to make an argument by appeal to authority to people who aren’t as informed on these issues or have failed to make a close study of the relevant doctrines as has Kmiec.

In addition, I believe Kmiec’s interpretation of Obama’s position was fundamentally incorrect.  I remain convinced that Obama ran on the most pro-abortion rights platform in memory and despite Obama’s repeated promises to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which would invalidate almost all federal and state restrictions on abortion and, many believe, go so far as to invalidate freedom of conscience laws that allow health acre providers to opt out of providing abortion services when it would offend their religious beliefs. In the face of those positions, the double effect argument becomes even more tenuous. It would take a great weight of social justice concerns to balance out Obama’s positions on abortion.

I thus remain of the view that Kmiec at best came dangerously close to the line between what is allowable under the principle of double effect and what amounts to formal coperation with material evil.

Kmiec is a Catholic in perfectly good standing, no better or worse in the eyes of the church than those who adopt a more conservative position on these issues (to the best of my knowledge, the general class of ‘cafeteria Catholic’ has yet to be properly defined under canon law ). In principle, the appointment of Kmiec should be no more or less insulting to either the Vatican (as a state governed by the Catholic church) or to the Pope (as head of the Catholic church) than the appointment of any other Catholic. Very obviously, Kmiec’s appointment might be construed as an insult to a particular (and quite powerful) conservative faction within Catholicism – but in the absence of a formal church statement to the contrary, that faction’s opinion of Kmiec’s position is no more binding than any other opinion within Catholicism’s internal debate on these issues.

Now there certainly is a prudential issue – to the extent that the Pope is (as he likely is) highly sympathetic to the conservative faction, Kmiec’s appointment might not be politically well-judged. But that’s an entirely different question to that of whether Kmiec’s appointment would be an insult to the church, which is what I understand Steve’s position to be.

Insult is a strong word. Certainly, appointment of Kmiec or someone else of his ilk would not amount to, say, the diplomatic insult the king of the Ammonites gave King David by shaving off one half of the beards of each of the envoys King David had sent to his court. It’s not even in the league with Sarkozy’s appointment of a married gay man as French ambassador to the Vatican, which was pretty clearly intended to be rejected from the outset so that Sarkozy could score political points at home.

Instead, if one wants a historical precedent, the case of Cardinal Prince Gustave von Hohenlohe-Schillingfurst comes to mind. German Chancellor Otto von Bismark sought to appoint Cardinal Hohenlohe as Germany’s ambassador to the Holy See despite knowing that Hohenlohe and, even more so, other prominent members of his family were closely associated with Bismark’s kulturkampf policies and opposition to the First Vatical Council. Pope Pius IX chose to regard this as a serious diplomatic insult on Bismark’s part, since Hohenlohe’s views on the key theological issues of the day were known to be uncongenial (at best) to the Pope.

Back when he was Cardinal Ratzinger, Pope Benedict wrote that:

In the face of fundamental and inalienable ethical demands, Christians must recognize that what is at stake is the essence of the moral law, which concerns the integral good of the human person. This is the case with laws concerning abortion and euthanasia (not to be confused with the decision to forgo extraordinary treatments, which is morally legitimate). Such laws must defend the basic right to life from conception to natural death.

He also wrote that:

Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.

It is this statement, by the way, which I believe most clearly calls into question the double effect justification Kmiec and his ilk used to justify their support for Obama. The immorality of the Iraq War weighs a lot less in the balance than does the immorality of abortion.

The conflict between Kmiec’s high profile advocacy of Obama and the stated views of Pope Benedict thus remind me a lot of the case of Cardinal Hohenlohe. If not an insult to the Holy See, at the very least a Kmiec nomination likely would be insultingly uncongenial to the Holy Father himself.

Accordingly, I’m inclined to endorse the words commenter mpowell put in my mouth:

If the Vatican has already made it clear that Kmiec’s appointment would be quite unwelcome, wouldn’t it really be an insult to appoint him? I understand that you’re trying to hold the Church to a standard of regarding all Catholic’s in good standing in the same light, but I am not really sure why you think this standard is appropriate. First of all, I think it is very reasonable for the Church to distinguish between members who are doing a good job of advancing the stated goals of the Church versus members who are not doing such a good job, but are still acting in good faith and have not done anything to ruin their standing in the Church. Secondly, if the Church decides that Kmiec’s prudential judgment is not very good, couldn’t they reach this conclusion pretty easily? I am not convinced that on the terms Bainbridge defines he isn’t right.

In sum, the gist of my argument is that offering up someone whose high profile views are known to be uncongenial to one’s host is a form of diplomatic insult. I am prepared, however, to adopt as a substitute the words “imprudent” and “impudent.”

Update: Washington Monthly blogger Steven Benen opines:

To Bainbridge, voting for Obama seems to be a deal-breaker.

Did Benen even bother to read--let alone try to understand--the argument? Nowhere did I say that voting for Obama is a deal breaker. Obviously, Obama is going to appoint someone who supported him.

The question is whether this specific Obama supporter ought to be chosen. The point has been that Kmiec presents a unique combination of facts that I find problematic.

All I can say, is that the Washington Monthly has gone way down hill since Kevin Drum left. Although I rarely agreed with Drum, at least he was willing to have an intellectually honest discussion. benen is just shoddy.