The Anything-but-Silent Scream

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum (pictured above with his lovely daughter - the one clutching "Religious Cult Abby" of American Girl Dolls fame - and son - the one barely disguising his disappointment after yet another unsuccessful Harry Potter audition) has made some pretty persuasive arguments in his public career. None as persuasive (well, maybe this one) though, as this week's gem, in which he claims that a 'culture of abortion' is responsible for income shortfalls in Medicare and Social Security.

His argument goes something like this - stop me if you think it's too charitable. Part of the problem with the Social Security shortfall is that there aren't enough payers-in to cover the payers-out, so Social Security payouts have to rely on the 2.3 trillion dollar trust fund in order to cover the difference. A long-term version of this problem will eventually exhaust the trust fund, leading either to increased pay-ins (taxes) or reduced payouts (benefits). On Santorum's argument, the legalization of abortion in the U.S. has disrupted demographic trends in such a way that, had abortion remained illegal, there would presently be enough (or, somewhere nearer enough) payers-in to cover the retirement of the Baby Boom generation. Now, since 1973, over 45 million fetuses have been aborted legally in the US. Suppose conservatively (or, liberally, I don't know) that making abortions illegal would've bought, say, 30 million (plus their children...) tax payers out of the woodwork - and no other costs. Then, presumably, there'd be enough payers-in to cover the payers-out, since the number of payers-out is (theoretically) fixed. And if we can cover the shortfall of payers-in, Social Security is saved.

Okay, Senator, not bad. Given the value of Social Security and Medicare (assumed by a Republican?!), the fact that any event that makes it less likely that those programs will persist is a prima facie reason in favor of illegalizing or protecting against that event. Legalized abortion is such an event, and now we've got on our hands a prima facie reason to illegalize abortion. Santorum FTW!

But, naturally, this argument is stupid - at least for those with ideological commitments like Santorum's. The argument doesn't work without the assumption that damage to Social Security generates a prima facie reason against some event, or in favor of eliminating it. But then, imagine any event that reduces the number of payers-in to Social Security, and you've got a prima facie reason against it or in favor of eliminating it. Disability from manual labor? Unemployment? Retirement? Death? The decision to have fewer than two children? All of these events reduce the number of payers-in to Social Security, and so, on Santorum's view, there's at least one prima facie reason each in favor of ending these events. But, Republicans aren't in favor of reducing unemployment or monitoring workplaces in order to reduce disability, and they'll never get Democrats to go along with their "Two Pregnancy Minimum" bill. So, since the prima facie reasons against abortion doesn't generate a motivation to shift our position on (most of) these laws in order to 'save' Social Security, why would this reason against abortion motivate us more?

(Please, Senator, please: run for President.)

Tut Buße, das Himmelreich ist nahe herbeigekommen

It was a year ago—liturgically speaking, if not calendrically so—that I was in Vienna, attending the Maundy Thursday service at the Stephansdom. Cardinal Schönborn—who is reputed to be papabile—presided. Now the Roman Church in Austria is reeling from an abuse crisis, and only yesterday Schönborn presided at a "Day of Repentance" service in an attempt to acknowledge the Church's complicity in shielding abusers. This would be rather passé for us Americans, except that more allegation-makers (er, 'allegators'?) have stepped forward with details about a pedophile priest in the archdiocese of Milwaukee.

The thing everyone prefers to argue about, of course, is the root cause of this scandal. In more liberal quarters the tendency is to blame, besides an insular and hierarchical culture that encourages unswerving loyalty, the mandatory celibacy required for all (Western-rite) priests. More conservative commentators, such as the charming Bill Donohue, have put all the blame on homosexuals. (Did you catch the Catholic League's quarter-page advertisement on the editorial page of the NY Times this week?)

Of course, the best way to go about this scientifically would be to split Catholic priests into two groups, identical save for the fact that one group also has married priests, and the other group has no queers—not even, or rather, especially not, the closeted ones. Give both groups twenty years, and tally the number of abuse cases.

What would be the result? Well, I don't know. I'm resigned that there will always be pedophiles; even the most disgusting abuse of trust can be explained by the fact that people are sinners, all of them. But what gets my figurative goat is that the Church hierarchy, either by design or by neglect, failed to stop the bad priests. How, exactly, are Church leaders working to alter the system in which abuse could not only occur, but recur? If the Romans are to maintain any credibility as the visible Body of Christ on earth, they've got some reforms to enact.