City Parks Serve, Day In And Day

When I Was At Notre Dame Studying Under Joe Evans, Frank O'malley, And Others, There Was A Very Lively Debate About The Distinction Between Natural Law And Revealed Truth. Most Of The Philosophers Of Church And State Expected That What Was Going To Be Advocated As The Law Of The Land Would Be Related To Natural Law. If You Attempted To Draw Lines About Certain General Moral Truths That Were Derivative Of Logic And Reason, They Would Prove To Be Widely Shared, And Therefore Suitable To Be Enacted Into Law On Both The Civic And Religious Sides.

I Think There Has Been An Unfortunate Tendency For A Lot Of Different Groups To Forget That Distinction Between Natural Law And Revealed Truth And To Say: Our Complete Agenda Is To Be Enacted Into Laws Governing The Entire Society. Many Different Religious Groups Claim That Authority, Not Only Catholics. A Lot Of Different Protestant Groups As Well Are Stepping Forward To Say: Here Is Our Agenda, It Is A Moral Agenda, Ergo It Must Be Enacted Into Law. I Think That The Distinction Between Natural Law And More Ultimate Kinds Of Doctrine Is Being Lost.

We Do Not Put Enough Emphasis On Early Childhood Years. We Neglect Children In This Society; As A Society We're Guilty Of Child Neglect. If We Could Eliminate The Vestiges Of Racism, If We Could Develop A More Powerful Agenda For Child Care, Child Development, And A More Powerful Education System, We Could Prevent A Lot Of The Incapacities Which In Turn Tend To Generate Structural Unemployment.

Well, What I Tried To Do Is Simply To Get Out On The Land. And When I Came To Washington, I Think One Of The Mistakes We Made Early On Was Kind Of Having An Ideological Dispute Up In The Congress.

If The Bishops Are Saying That It Is Divine Revelation That Seven Percent Of Unemployment Is Morally Unacceptable And That That Is A Teaching Which Must As A Matter Of Faith Be Accepted By All Catholics, I Respectfully Dissent.